"You don't have to go if you don't want to." Samantha said as she helped her daughter into her jacket.

"You said it would make me feel better," Cecilia put on her hat, "I want to feel better."

Cecilia was getting ready for her first appointment with Monica Jules, the therapist Lisa Harris recommended to Sam. Sam was wary about it at first, thinking it would bring up memories that Cecilia had already forgotten. But Martin assured her that it would be okay. "She is just trying to help Cecilia move on." He had reminded her the night before.

"Okay, I'm ready." Cecilia opened the front door and Sam turned on the alarm system-you can never be too careful. The two headed out to the car, hoping that things would just get better.

"Hi, Cecilia, my name is Monica." The middle-aged woman with wisps of gray hair mixed in with her black bun.

"Hi!" Cecilia held on to her mother's hand.

"We've never, uh, done this before. Well, Cecilia hasn't." Sam said.

"I didn't expect her to have." Monica smiled kindly at them. "Samantha, I'd like to talk with you first. Cecilia can wait out in the waiting room, there is a supervisor and some toys for her to play with."

"Okay," Sam took Cecilia out and came back in.

"Please, have a seat." Monica said and sat down in a burgundy chair and gestured toward a sapphire couch where Sam sat down. "What did you want me to talk to Cecilia about?"

"We, she and I, went through a sort of, uh, traumatic event. I work in the FBI missing persons unit, so does her father. But we were kidnapped a few weeks ago and I was shot."

"Was Cecilia injured?"

"The man, the kidnapper, pushed her down and she scraped her arm pretty bad."

"What about you? Where were you shot?"

"My side, I had to stay in the hospital for a while. Cecilia visited me there. When I was there she stayed with her dad and some friends."

"Are you married?"

"No, but Martin and I, her father, we're engaged. He was gone for the past five years."

"Gone?"

"He was transferred to Denver and couldn't contact us. He didn't even know about Cecilia until a few months ago."

"How is Cecilia reacting to him?"

"They really love each other a lot; it's almost as if he's always been here."

"That's good. Well, I think I'm ready to talk to Cecilia. You can wait out in the waiting room and I'll talk to you when we are done."

"Okay, great. Thanks." Samantha let herself out and went to get Cecilia.

After about a half an hour of getting to know each other, Monica finally asked Cecilia how she was feeling.

"Scared," Cecilia looked down at her hands, suddenly reserved and shy.

"Sacred of what?"

"Mommy going back to the hospital, or dad going to the hospital, I don't like hospitals. And the bad man coming back."

"Did the bad man hurt you?" Monica knew she was talking about the kidnapper.

"He hurt my mom, but he hurt mommy more."

"Do you have bad dreams, Cecilia?"

"Sort of."

"What do you dream about, good or bad?"

"One time I had a dream I had a little brother, that was two nights ago. And last night I had another dream of the bad man. He came back to get us."

"Did you tell your parents about the dream?"

"No," Cecilia said sadly

"Do you know why you didn't?"

"I didn't want them to be sad." Cecilia examined the light pink nail polish on her finger nails and started picking at the paint.

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? What's going on in your life? Good things."

"My cousin Bonnie invited me to her birthday party. She's going to be six; she's a year older than me. She has a sister named Eva, who's ten."

"Did you get her a present yet?"

"Yea, my mom and I bought her a purple bear with a purple stone necklace. Purple is her birthstone." In her head, Monica guessed by purple she meant Amethyst. Amethyst was the birthstone for the month of February, and that was the month they were in.

"My birthstone is green, because I was born in May. I think it's called Emerald. I wish I was born in February too, and then I could be purple. I don't really like green."

"So your birthday is coming up?"

"Yea, I don't know what I'm going to do for it. It's kind of far away." The conversation went on like that for a while. Cecilia didn't bring up the "bad man" and Monica didn't want to upset her. Monica asked Cecilia to bring Samantha in.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Sam asked as soon as she walked into the room

"She'll be fine. I think she'll need to come back a few more times, but nothing permanent. However, she does feel guilty about what happened."

"Guilty?" Sam sat down in the chair.

"She said if she hadn't of wanted to come home from school it might have not happened."

"It wasn't her fault, I told her that."

"I know you did, I just think maybe you should tell her again."

Samantha nodded and they continued discussing Cecilia and made another appointment for next week.

"I'm a failure!" Samantha said tearfully as she begun washing dishes.

"Sam, you're not a failure." Martin replied as comforting as he could.

"Yes, I am! I'm a horrible mother. I send my daughter to a preschool all day while I'm at work when I should be spending more time with her."

"A lot of parents do that."

"Did yours?"

"No, but, uh, I know people whose did."

"Yeah, the parents of people who we've interviewed in prisons!" Sam nearly dropped a plate.

"You are being too hard on yourself. You spend a lot of time with Cecilia, and she loves you. She hardly even knows me. Besides, going to preschool doesn't mean she'll wind up in the slammer."

"You are not helping."

"Sam," He turned her around and made sure she put down anything breakable or sharp, "She's a good kid. You're raising her right. She might end up going to the Peace Corps when she's eighteen. Either there or Harvard."

"Now you are just showing off." She said and finally smiled.