I'm sorry for not updating for almost three months. It's a typical case of real life getting in the way. I hope to have some more time to write now though, so I won't have to keep you waiting for such a long time anymore. Actually, I'm going to try something new here; I'm giving myself a deadline for the next chapter. I'll post it no later than November 30. Until then, enjoy chapter three.

(A quick recap: Miranda has returned from (New?) Mexico, but she's hiding something from Lizzie and Gordo. On a trip to the mall, she's just confessed to them that her father has lost his job…)

After Miranda had dropped this bombshell, neither Lizzie nor Gordo knew what to say. Her father's losing his job certainly put some of her strange behavior in the past days in perspective. Gordo felt especially guilty about criticizing Miranda for keeping her money in her pocket and about starting an argument with her. Lizzie realized that her taking Miranda to the mall was probably the worst thing she could have done in this situation. And so they both just stared at their feet, unaware of how tears were welling in Miranda's eyes. Miranda turned around, ready to run away, away from here, to run as far as she could.

"Miranda, wait!" Lizzie yelled. "I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

Miranda slowly turned around. "You don't have to be sorry. It's not like it's your fault."

She paused and Gordo took this opportunity to make his apology. "I'm the one to blame here. I shouldn't have been so harsh just now. I'm really, really sorry. If there's anything I can do…"

Miranda sighed. "Gordo, I'm not blaming you either. It's just all this turmoil. My life is turned completely upside down; every certainty that I ever had is now on the line. I can't count on anything anymore…"

She was now crying all over again. The people at the mall were starting to stare at her. Miranda looked around and tried to cover her face with her hands. "Let's get out of here. I wanna go home."

The three of them quickly walked out. They passed the payphone where, under normal circumstances, they would have called Mrs. Sanchez to pick them up again. When Miranda saw Lizzie hesitate a little, she said: "I'd rather walk today."

"Of course, of course," Gordo said, "there's no need to waste money on gasoline."

"I doubt if that would make all the difference, but thanks anyway Gordo," Miranda said, trying to smile trough her tears.

And so the three friends were walking down the street together, underneath the cloudy skies, with Miranda in the middle at a bit faster pace, forcing Lizzie and Gordo to run one or two steps every now and than.

Lizzie put her arm around Miranda. "You know I'll always be there for you Miranda, no matter what."

"So will I," Gordo added as he put his hand on Miranda's shoulder.

"Thanks, you guys. That means a lot to me."

"At least your mother's still got her job," Gordo said in an effort to comfort her, but he achieved the opposite effect. Miranda was sobbing even louder now.

"That's just it," she tried to say through her sobs, "she doesn't have a job anymore. She quit it just three months ago."

"O my God," Lizzie cried out.

"I didn't know…" Gordo stammered, realizing that he seemed to be saying all the wrong things today.

"That's not even the worst part," Miranda continued. "The worst part is that she quit for me. She did it all for me. It's all my fault!"

"You shouldn't blame yourself," Gordo said, trying to comfort her again. "You couldn't have known that this would happen."

"But it is my fault. She stopped working so she could take care of Stevie and me. I practically made her quit when I… when I needed her help. I mean, who needs her mother to stay at home with her when she's almost an adult?"

Gordo disagreed. "Miranda, you're only fifteen."

"Yeah, and besides, there's nothing wrong with needing some help from your parents from time to time," Lizzie said. "Look at me; my mother is a stay-at-home mom and I come running for help from her all the time."

"Maybe you're right," Miranda sighed. "If only we had known what would happen, then my mother would have never given up her work."

"But the fact is: you didn't know, you all just did what you thought was best at the time and there's nothing wrong with that," Gordo stated resolutely.

"Yeah, you couldn't have known that your father would lose his job," Lizzie agreed. "I have a hard time believing it myself. How could those *** at Sanders Inc. let him off? He had been working there for how long, ten years?"

"Fifteen, can you believe it? It was just about time for his fifteenth anniversary when Mr. Sanders himself called him into his office. My dad was expecting a little celebration or even a bonus. When he heard the news, he was gutted."

"It's a disgrace!" Gordo said. "In what kind of world do we live when this is how big companies thank you for years and years of loyal service? And from what I remember, your father was always working very hard; he's got such a good work ethic."

"They told him," and Miranda hesitated for a moment, "that he was being fired for illicit absence."

"Illicit absence? But why?" Lizzie reacted in surprise. Mr. Sanchez didn't strike her as the kind of man who would just not show up at work. She soon realized though that Miranda's father was not the only one who had been away for a while. After all, Miranda herself missed the last month of middle school and she didn't even go to Rome with them, even though she had been so excited about the trip when they heard about it for the first time. She had never given a very clear explanation for her sudden disappearance; except that she was "sick" or that they were "visiting family in Mexico". Lizzie had become more and more suspicious about these so-called 'reasons' – more than ever after Miranda had reacted so evasive the other day when she had blabbed about staying in New Mexico – but Lizzie wasn't sure how to bring it up. She didn't want to create another scene, especially since Miranda seemed to be going trough such a tough time already, but now looked like the right moment to bring it up.

Lizzie turned her head to face Miranda directly. "Your father's absence, does it have something to do with you going MIA over two months ago?"

Miranda abruptly stopped walking and looked at Lizzie with a scared expression on her face. She opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, but she swallowed her words and looked down instead.

"Well… yeah, in a way… you see, um…" Miranda stammered. "We had to go to Mexico to take care of… someone."

"Don't you mean New Mexico?" Gordo corrected, who was standing a few steps farther down the road.

"OK, New Mexico then," Miranda snarled. "What difference does it make anyway?"

"Nothing, it's just that you're being so secretive about it!" Gordo said, heading for a confrontation.

"I'm not being secretive!" Miranda lied.

"It's OK, it's ok," Lizzie said, trying to soothe the situation. When she saw that neither of them really wanted to argue with each other, she started walking again and said: "So you and your family were in… um, over there to take care of somebody. You mean like a relative who's sick? You told us you were there to visit your family."

"Yeah," Miranda said, "I guess you could say it like that."

"That relative must have been pretty important then, for your father to risk his job for it," Lizzie said, "or doing really bad, right?"

"She was," Miranda answered, slowly nodding her head. "She was doing pretty badly. I don't know what she would have done without my dad having been there to support her."

"I like how close your family is," Gordo remarked as they turned into the Sanchez's street. "To sacrifice so much for his… um… what was it, your dad's sister or aunt or…?"

"O, eh… it's… eh…"

"Miranda, chica! Lizzie, Gordo!" Mr. Sanchez called from the lawn in the front yard, which he was mowing.

"Daddy!" Miranda exclaimed, visibly relieved.

After she had given her father a hug and he had welcomed both of her friends, he soon noticed that his daughter had been crying.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "Your eyes look so red…"

"She just told us everything," Gordo answered for her.

"Everything?" Mr. Sanchez said.

"About how you lost your job," Miranda quickly filled in.

Her father frowned and said: "Yeah, some people just don't understand that you have to let your family come first. Over fifteen years of my life I've given them. And for what?"

After the four of them had agreed that life wasn't fair, Miranda went inside, followed by Lizzie and Gordo. It wasn't entirely clear whether Miranda really wanted them to tag along, but their conversation was far from over as far as Lizzie and Gordo were concerned. They went up to Miranda's room, greeting her sister Stevie on their way up. It had been a while since Lizzie had last been at Miranda's and actually, her room looked a bit different now, the most noticeable change being a home-trainer that was placed directly in front of her TV.

'It seems like she's become quite an athlete,' Lizzie thought, 'although you wouldn't say that when you look at her.'

Mrs. Sanchez soon followed the three friends with a tray with three Diet Cokes. When she had left and they were enjoying their drinks, the atmosphere became less tense and Gordo dared to bring up the sensitive topic again.

"So how's your father dealing with the whole situation? From what I've just seen, he's having a hard time."

"Yeah, it isn't easy for him to accept the way things are now," Miranda sighed, while she sat down on her bed and pulled up her knees. "I guess he's always seen himself as the provider of the family, someone who always takes care of his wife and children, but now, because he had to take care of his family by going away, he can't provide for us financially anymore. It's as if he thinks he's nothing but a failure now."

"And how does that make you feel?" asked Gordo, who had shifted into shrink-mode like he had seen his parents do so many times.

"I don't know… I guess I feel kinda guilty about the whole thing," Miranda said in a small voice, "and worried, worried about what's gonna happen now. I mean: all that I used to be sure of is now up in the air. Like, what if my parents can't find a new job soon. They told me that they had saved a little money, but how long will it take until that's gone? And then what are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go? Will we have to sell the house? And…" and she paused before she continued, "does that mean that we need to move out of Hillridge?"

"Leave Hillridge?!" Lizzie reacted distressed; she had not even realized it might come to that.

"Maybe," Miranda answered, "but my parents say that won't happen anytime soon. But even then, there's so much more to worry about. You know the Bristol-Hillman Music Conservatory, that exclusive music school I always dreamt of going to after we finish high school. It turns out that the tuition is really high, so that's probably out of the picture now. I don't know where the hell I'm supposed to go after high school, 'cause we can't afford any kind of college now. So there's my future, gone up in smoke. It's just making me sick…"

Gordo and Lizzie listened to her breathlessly. As Miranda was talking, she didn't look directly at Lizzie or Gordo. In fact, it looked as if she was talking into her pillow, but at least she was talking now.

"I can't even go see a doctor when I need to," Miranda continued, "after my dad was fired we lost our health insurance. So if we need help, we're just totally on our own, 'cause we're poor people now and apparently, nobody gives a damn about you anymore when you're poor. What if I'm sick… or worse: what if mom or dad gets sick, or Stevie… O, what have I done?"

After that, her sobs kept her from saying more.

Lizzie's heart broke over seeing her best friend in so much pain. She sat down on the bed next to Miranda and pulled an arm around her. Gordo tried to comfort her with words by saying: "You've done nothing wrong Miranda. If you want to blame anyone for this, blame society. It's a big disgrace that good health care has become some kind of privilege, only for people with money!" but his words came out more angrily than he had intended and Miranda only started crying even louder.

Miranda leaned against Lizzie's shoulder, but this caused Lizzie to lose her balance and the drink she was still holding in her right hand was now up in midair. A small gasp escaped from her lips and when she got up again, she took the damage. Her coke had spilt all over her shirt and she noticed now how the sugar had turned it into one sticky mess.

Miranda started up in surprise, her sobs turning into half laughs, as Lizzie's familiar clumsiness broke the tension a little.

'At least something good has come from it,' Lizzie thought as she watched Miranda lighten up a bit.

Miranda now joined Gordo, who was trying to mop up most of the lemonade from the floor with Kleenexes from the box that Miranda had used to dry her tears only moments ago.

"My mom probably knows how to get the stain out, so maybe you wanna go downstairs," Miranda suggested.

"Why do these things always happen to me?" Lizzie asked herself out loud as she threw her hands in the air while she was leaving the room.

She hasted herself down the stairs, but before she entered the Sanchez's kitchen, she halted, because she could hear the voices of two people in the middle of an emotional discussion.

"That's all we've got left?!" Lizzie heard Mr. Sanchez call out. "How are we supposed to pay our mortgage, food, clothes…?"

"I'm sure everything is going to be all right, Edward," his wife tried to soothe.

"And what about Miranda?" Mr. Sanchez continued. "She's about to start high school. She'll need a small fortune's worth of school supplies. And we already have this huge pile of bills for her that we will never be able to pay."

"Edward honey, soon you will find a job and then I'll find one too and…"

"But what if we don't?!" he interrupted. "Soon, we've won't have any money left and then our creditors will be banging on our door."

Mr. Sanchez paused and, as she kept listening breathlessly, Lizzie could see through a small crack in the door how he turned to Miranda's mom and put his hand on her shoulder as he continued in the gravest tone:

"Daniela, I think we need to sell the house."

When she heard this, Lizzie was in total shock.

Apparently, so was Miranda's mother, because she had started to cry and her husband was trying to comfort her in his arms, while whispering something to her in Spanish. Lizzie now found tears running down her own cheeks as well, but somehow she managed to keep her sobs down, so that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Sanchez could hear her.

They were continuing their conversation in Spanish now and Lizzie didn't understand a word of it, except "Stevie", "Mexico", a lot of "Miranda"s and the occasional "Edward" and "Daniela".

After a while they all seemed to have calmed down somewhat and Miranda's parents gradually shifted back to English.

"You know we need the money to get Miranda the help she needs," Mr. Sanchez said.

"Don't you think she's doing a lot better since we've returned from 'that place' in New Mexico?"

"Sorry Danie', but I think you only see what you want to see. I know when I ask her how she's doing, she smiles and tells me she's alright, but her eyes are telling a different story. She's hiding it from us. I can see it; I can just feel it."

"But before we left 'that place', the 'people' there said that she was finally making some progress…"

"She was starting to, yeah," Mr. Sanchez interrupted, "but when she opened up to them at last, we were forced to leave. If only I hadn't lost that stupid job…"

"Edward, honey, don't blame this on yourself again. You only did what was best for your family and I love you for that," Daniela said, placing her hand on his upper arm.

"I know, I know…" Edward answered, shaking his head. "I just wished that we had some help to deal with the whole situation. I feel like we're in way over our heads. You know she's exercising all the time. I see her sweaty face every time she's been out. Should we keep her in? And even if we do, she's still got that home-trainer in her own room." He paused for a moment to think, than continued resolutely: "I'm taking it out of her room tonight."

"O Eddy, are you sure? You know that's gonna be another fight. I don't know if she can take anymore. I don't know if I can take anymore. We're already fighting at the dinner table every single evening, because…"

CLANG!

She was interrupted by a big bang coming from the hallway. Lizzie had been listening closely from behind the door, but she inadvertently knocked over a fruit bowl.

'Two times in a row? I must really be in top form today,' she thought. She quickly put everything back together, still hoping that nobody had heard her, but Mr. Sanchez was already standing in the doorway.

"Oh, um, hi… Sorry for knocking over your fruit bowl, Mr. Sanchez. I was just on my way downstairs and, well…" Lizzie lied.

Mr. Sanchez frowned. 'Uh-oh, he knows it; he knows that I'm lying and that I've been eavesdropping all this time,' Lizzie worried.

"That's OK. It could have happened to all of us," Miranda's father answered.

'Phew…' A sigh of relief went through Lizzie's body.

Lizzie asked Miranda's mother's help with the stain on her shirt and, indeed, she knew exactly what to do. Apparently her shirt had to soak in some special detergent for a while ("the Sanchez family secret") and then be put into the washing machine. Lizzie was offered one of Miranda's old shirts. ("I think you still had the same size at that time.") Lizzie politely accepted it and put it on in the scullery. The old black T-shirt with flames on the front that Miranda used to wear fitted Lizzie indeed. Well, almost…

After thanking Mrs. Sanchez again, Lizzie went back up to Miranda's room. Once there, she found Miranda sitting with her feet stretched out on her bed as if it were a sofa. Gordo had seated himself on a chair next to her, his face serious, professionally serious almost. If he had been taking notes, the picture of a psychiatrist's session would have been complete.

Most of what else was said during that afternoon went past Lizzie. She couldn't focus on the conversation at hand; her mind kept wondering off to what she had heard downstairs earlier. Her intuition had been right, something was wrong with Miranda. And according to her parents, she needed help. No, apparently she had already had help. In New Mexico? And she was 'finally making progress'? Lizzie tried to figure everything out in her head with what little information she had. When she left to go home not much later, she wondered whether it had something to do with their possible moving out of Hillridge. As she walked through the front yard, she could almost see the for sale sign standing there, with a big red 'sold' sign on it and Miranda stepping into the Sanchez's car, never to return. The mere thought of it nearly gave Lizzie a nervous breakdown – and she wasn't even moving herself. Let alone how it had to feel for Miranda… But wait, Miranda's parents hadn't told her yet; this couldn't be the cause of everything, but what was? She still couldn't quite put her finger on it. Couldn't… or wouldn't perhaps. Maybe she just wouldn't admit to herself that she had already seen this all. They had been down this road before. Deep down, Lizzie knew.

(posted on November 12, 2008)