Chapter 26

I woke up in a window-less room, wondering how long I'd been here. I slept in a twin bed next to a metal night stand with pictures. I pulled down my comforter. It had flowers on it. Did I like flowers? I couldn't remember.

I straightened and picked up one of the pictures in a silver frame. A woman sat at a piano next to a girl with blond hair. An older man with graying hair stood beside the piano. He was smiling. He looked familiar. Did I know him? Should I know him?

The girl wore an over-sized sweatshirt. She looked happy. Real happy. I glanced at my baggy nightgown and felt a tightness on my back. I squeezed my back muscles, relaxed, and

Holy crap.

I had wings. Did I have wings yesterday? The day before?

How was I going to know that? I wasn't even sure who I was.

I rose, flapped my wings, and knocked over a lamp on a dresser a bed-length away from me. Thinking I could save it before the lamp crashed on the hardwood, I stumbled over a white sneaker and bumped my head on the dresser, knocking down two more pictures.

I picked them up with myself and saw the same family. The girl looked older, but she still smiled. This time she held a dog, a brown and black bloodhound. Was that her mother with her? She looked happy as well. And very familiar.

The mirror fixed above the dresser caught my eye. As did the person staring back at me.

I was her. The girl in the picture. Same white skin. Same blond hair.

"Maxie?"

Maxie?

The door opened and the woman from the picture materialized like she'd just jumped out of the photo and into the doorway.

"Oh, Maxie!" She smushed me into a hug, taking care not to touch my wings. "Oh, thank goodness, baby. Thank goodness, you're awake. We didn't think… never mind, how are you feeling?"

She smoothed my face and ran fingers through my hair as I stuttered, "Uh… okay, I guess."

Mom person sat me down on the bed. "You took such a bad fall. The doctors thought you'd be out of it for a long time. Much longer than this. But they were right! They told us to bring you home and see if sleeping in your own bed would stir up memories and well… here you are, Maxie." Her smile seemed bigger than my pillow.

"Is… is that my name? Maxie?"

A frown tugged at her smile. "Yes, of course dear. Maxie. Maxie Walker." Her hand shot to my forehead, pressed on it in several places.

"And you're… are you my mother?"

She arched back and stared at me with eyes as wide as the mirror above the dresser. "Oh, Maxie," she gasped and swallowed hard. "That fall must've been harder than… I told your father we should've never taken our vacation at the Grand Canyon. 'Too much temptation,' I told him. You… you just weren't ready to fly yet."

I glanced at the white streaks in my wings, fluttered twice as I stared at them. The flapping felt natural. I couldn't fly with them?

As if sensing my thoughts, the lady I guessed was my mother stroked my left wing and said, "We've been trying to help you as best we can for years. Your body weight doesn't want to hold up under them." She turned to me, perplexed. "You don't remember anything?"

My eyes drifted to the mirror as though it may answer her question. After several minutes, I returned my gaze to this mom person I couldn't remember. I racked my brain, not seeming to know much of anything.

But I did know this much.

I did not like being called Maxie.