Ginny awakens with the first light of day. The dream slips away as she opens her eyes. His touch slides away, leaving her skin cold.
She looks around the room that is so familiar. The orange walls, hung with Chudley Cannons posters.
His room.
But he will never be in it again.
She pulls on her long, scarlet dressing gown, and tiptoes out. No one in her family has realized that she sleeps in his room from time to time. That her nightmares have returned. And she is in no hurry for them to find out.
No sound is coming from the kitchen. It is completely empty. She remembers all the mornings when she would walk in to find her mother in front of the stove, frying eggs as pancakes flipped themselves.
"Mom," she calls," I'm making breakfast, would you like anything?"
She pictures her mother, laying in her bed. Her once plump face now gaunt and worn. Clinging to a picture of her husband, sobbing her heart out. The sound of her sobs is haunting to Ginny.
"No, thank you, Ginny, dear," comes the weak, weary reply.
She returns to the kitchen, flips on the stove, and gets out eggs and milk.
She reaches for a plate. It falls out of her grasp and drops to the floor, shattering.
Staring at the broken pieces on the tile, Ginny drops to her knees and sobs.