Part Eight

Donna felt the house was empty. It had been empty for ages, but it was now that she really saw how empty it was. Shaun had moved out weeks ago, and she was now finishing up with her packing. It wasn't like Donna couldn't keep the house; she simply had no interest in spending any more of her life in the house. It was not a home. It never really seemed like a home, now that Donna thought of it. It had always seemed temporary; fleeting; wasteful even.

The kids were with Shaun that night, so it was just Donna. She packed up what was left to put into boxes and then took a small container of ice cream out of the freezer that she'd been saving for after she was done with packing. She had a terrible habit of being a stress eater, though she wasn't stressed out about the divorce or the move.

She was scared about why she wasn't stressed out about these things. Why couldn't she just be normal for once and be worried about normal things? She wished that she knew why she was so strange and not like the other mothers at Marissa and Caleb's school. She wished her life was different, that she loved Shaun and that Shaun loved her, and none of the events of late had happened. But, that was never going to change, so what was the point. She ripped her ring off of her finger and held it in her hands, not knowing what to do with it.

When Donna finally threw the ring to the ground, stepping away from it like she had of her marriage, she brought her hands up to her face and started to sob. But before she could close her eyes, a faint line across her left palm caught her eye. "What?" she asked herself. "When did I cut myself?"

Her tears were suddenly forgotten and she began to examine her hand. She took herself into the bathroom and started to look at her hand in earnest. It was a strange line, perfectly straight across her palm, healed without pucker, without flaw, but she'd never noticed it before. All the other lines on her hands were like a peninsula, but this was a precise line, perhaps made with a laser even.

She walked out of the bathroom and out into her bedroom once more. She still stared at her hand, and when she got close to where the ring fell on the ground, the line faded. With a gasp, Donna bent down and picked up the ring, at which point, the line disappeared completely. She dropped the ring and backed away, while still examining her hand and the line reappeared. What did this mean?

In shock, she sat back on her bed and stared at the hand and at the ring on the floor. Deciding that it was her eyes playing tricks on her, she repeated the routine several more times before coming to the conclusion that this was not a trick by her mind. There was some strange force behind this.

That night, while Donna slept, she dreamt of a man with thick, dark brown hair and brown eyes and freckles. She knew this man, and she knew that he would know what this line on her hand meant.

The following morning, Donna made it her mission to track down Emily Collins. Emily Collins would know how to find this man. Emily Collins had to be the key to everything.