March 2012

Lena touched her forehead. Why did it feel like she was made of lead, and why was she so exhausted? She blinked as the steady beep of the heart monitor slowly registered, her eyes widening when she saw the gray pulse cuff on her finger. She followed the thin, clear tube in her arm, connected to a bag of saline hung on a metal stand. The white tile floor looked cold and sterile in the overhead lights, a contrast to the inviting mint green walls, hung with generic flower paintings in plain wooden frames.

“You’re finally awake,” someone said, sounding endlessly relieved. “They said it should have happened a week ago…”

Lena ducked back when she noticed Miranda, smiling softly at her from a plain chair pulled close to the bed. She thought she saw something else behind that smile, but she was too dizzy to tell for sure.

“W-What do you mean?” her throat was so dry. She tried to push herself upright, wondering how she’d gotten so weak. “What am I doing here?”

Miranda’s fading smile fell away, and she went to a small table by the far wall, filling a plastic cup from a matching pink pitcher.

“They said you wouldn’t remember anything,” she came back and sat down, tapping a button on the floor that propped up the bed. She let out a breath. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you any of this…”

Lena took the cup and sipped on it, waiting for her head to stop spinning.

“The last thing I remember is coming back from shopping,” she said, the fear plain in her voice. “How did I get here? What happened?”

Miranda hesitated, then swallowed hard.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat something like this,” she said. “S-So I’ll just say it; your family’s gone, Lena.”

Lena froze, staring blankly at her.

“W-What?” she shook her head. “N-No…no, that can’t be!”

Miranda stared sullenly back at her; no smirk to show it was just another of her bad jokes, no sign that her father or siblings had ever been there. She didn’t fight the tears, letting them run freely down her cheeks. Some of the last people who truly cared for her, gone, just like that.

“I-I’m sorry, Lena,” Miranda’s voice broke, and she hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry!”

It wasn’t until later that Lena learned she’d spent three months in a coma, fighting a slow poison that had no known effective treatment; no doctor had thought she’d survive, at least without serious side effects. It took weeks to remember what had happened, and she wondered how she had never suspected anything.

Kyle’s, Zach’s and Brianna’s tenth birthday had been a few days away, and Kara had surprised them by planning a party, the first for any of them since she’d moved in. She’d ordered Michael to keep the triplets busy while she and Lena went for supplies, insisting they try the new diner on Main Street when they finished.

The headache had come first, and by the time they’d gotten home, Lena had barely been conscious. She couldn’t catch her breath, and her uneven heartbeat had echoed in her ears. She vaguely remembered Kara saying she’d send Michael out to help, since he’d been coming up on his first year in a junior nursing program. 

Then she was being dragged, hearing what she’d thought had been distant explosions. The first officer who’d spoken with her at the hospital had said the house had burst into flames when it started raining, and there’d been a trail of olive oil from the car to the front door. Whoever had planned the attack, they’d meant for her to die as well.

But there was only one thing she’d really wanted to know, the one thing no one had been willing to tell her. It had been weeks before she’d found an article about the fire, when she’d learned her family hadn’t burned to death like she had thought. Her father, having finished his last business trip early, had been lying in the doorway between the garage and kitchen, Michael and the triplets huddled on the couch in the living room. All five had been shot in the head, but the only gun on the scene had been locked in the safe in her father’s office, and the only fingerprints on it had been his. Kara had been found unconscious in the daffodils, bleeding heavily from a nasty cut on the side of her head. She’d claimed to have been knocked out when checking the gate in their back fence and devastated when she’d found out what had happened. 

That hadn’t stopped her from claiming the life insurance as soon as she could, and Lena never got the chance to say a final goodbye to her family’s graves.