Mimi returned with clothes for Elisha just as Mark finished heating some water. Mimi took the bowl of water and a washcloth from Mark. "You two go in the other room," she ordered. "I'll let you back in when I have her cleaned up. Maybe I can figure out what happened to her."

Mark and Roger left the room as Mimi turned to the girl unconscious on the couch. She wet the washcloth and gently began to wipe the dirt from Ellie's face. Her hand brushed skin that was very warm. She definitely has a fever. Ellie stirred slightly, and coughed pathetically. Mimi frowned. This girl did not sound good. Could she have AIDS too? She wondered.She couldn't possibly be more than 18 years old, if she was even that. If she does have HIV, I wonder how she got it, Mimi thought. She moved to take Ellie's shirt off, both so she could clean her and put on the new clothes and so she could check for the tell-tale track marks of a heroin junkie. If she was a junkie, they could take her to a rehab place and move on with their lives relatively free of guilt.

What Mimi discovered under those long and worn-thin sleeves puzzled her immensely. The flesh was scarred, that was obvious. But not from drug usage, or at least those were unlike any track marks Mimi had every seen. Thin scars, dozens of them and in varying degrees of healing, marched parallel to each other up both Ellie's arms. On her left wrist, a two inch long, ragged edged cut still seeped a little blood. Immediately Mimi's concern for this girl and curiosity were spiked. Failed suicide attempt? Mimi thought. But no, there are too many marks and they aren't bad enough… No one is stupid enough to think that those cuts could kill them. What then? Abuse? As Mimi puzzled this over in her head, she stopped the bleeding from the one cut and finished cleansing and dressing Ellie, who had done naught but moan a few times during the whole process and was still sleeping, albeit fitfully.

Mimi finished up and tucked the blankets back around the girl, and went to get Mark and Roger. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell Roger what she had discovered about this Elisha person. Anyone with a slit wrist was likely to make him think of April, and the last thing Mimi wanted to do was cause Roger pain when things has been going so well for them. But the girl obviously needed help. I'll tell Mark, Mimi decided. And he can decide if he wants to enlighten Roger on their troubled little house guest.