• A woman and a little girl walk hand in hand along a stone path which cuts its way through the rocky terrain. Mist curls around their bare feet and the only shapes visible are obscure trees, or at least they may be trees. The whole land has a dark and mysterious feel to it. The small child seems to be about six, or eight. She is dressed in a plain t-shirt and shorts. Her dirt brown hair is cut too short, giving her a rough, unfinished, look. Anyone who saw her might have thought "What a cute girl," and promptly forgotten her. For, she was nothing special, just another dirty urchin one might see running around a small town. The woman by her side is an entirely different story. No matter where she treads she turns heads. She has soft waves of auburn hair and ample curves in all of the right places. The woman is lovely to behold and constantly has to fight off the attentions of deluded hopefuls.
    However, to the particularly observant, there is a decided emptiness behind her azure eyes. These sharp-eyed individuals might try to communicate this shortcoming to those around them but they were usually written off as jealous.
    The urchin smiles and laughs as the pair walks on, down the path. She points things out to the woman and works tirelessly to amuse her partner who feigns a decidedly distracted interest. Finally the child catches on to the woman's mood and focuses in on her.
    "Is something wrong?" she asks her muddy water eyes clouded over with sweet concern. She has finally caught the woman's attention.
    "No dear, I suppose I'm just distracted," says the woman kindly, smiling in her guilt at ignoring the child for so long. The child stops walking and scrutinizes her with an unblinking interest. The woman realizes this look makes her feel uncomfortable and she avoids the child's eyes as she grabs her hand to pull her along.
    "Don't lie to me," says the child "I know when you're lying." The disappointed tone surprises the woman. Had she been this sharp as a kid?
    "What's wrong?" the child pushes "I think I have a right to know," she says stubbornly. The pinched look on the child's face almost makes the woman laugh, she knows that face well. She also knows there's no deterring the child when that face appears so she searches for the right words. Ones even a child can understand.
    "In life, choices must be made, hard choices we sometimes don't want to make," the woman begins. Her companion's face lights up.
    "Mommy said that to me once," she interrupts bursting with the pleasure of a discovered memory. The woman pauses, mulling over the girl's words, was what she said true? The girl's chatter penetrates the woman's thoughts and she resurfaces.
    "Mommy said that everyone has to make choices in their lives," says the girl proudly, in a moment her face falls "That's why she had to go." The child looks close to tears, the woman pats her awkwardly on the head; she has not been called on to comfort others in a long while. With the resilience of a reed the child bounces back. All seems to be forgotten, bad memories and concern for the woman's strange mood. She is secretly relieved at the girl's short attention span. The pair walks in silence through the mist for a time. No matter how far they walk the landscape does not appear to change. They stroll along the same stone path past the same vague tree shapes. This is disconcerting to the woman.
    "Can I ask you some questions?" inquires girl suddenly, breaking the oppressive silence. The woman nods.
    "What is your job?"
    "I-," the woman falters and then puts on her best hollow smile "I go to fancy parties and events with men, it's very fun," she finishes with a wink hoping this will be enough to fool the little girl who can see straight through her.
    "Sounds just like Mommy," exclaims the girl with a wide smile and a giggle.
    "Yes," thinks the woman. Impossibly the white lie slipped past the girl unnoticed.
    "Do you have a boyfriend?" asks the girl.
    "Not right now. I've had some but all of them were the wrong men."
    "How can they be wrong men?" the girl asks, her nose wrinkling with confusion. The woman is tired from walking and she was never good with children. It is too hard for her to keep up talking euphemistically.
    "They were bad men, they hurt and used me. So I dumped them," she says with thinly veiled irritation.
    "Oh," trails off the girl. She understands the tone and does not push the topic further. Suddenly the woman veers off the stone path. A sense of desperate urgency takes her and she breaks into a run. The child runs after her, barely keeping up. The woman reaches a tree shape and sees, leaning against it, is a shovel.
    "Sit in front next to that tree and don't move," she orders the girl. The girl obeys her but instead of sitting she lies down on her stomach and props her chin on her hands. The woman pushes her beautiful hair behind her ears and begins to dig. The work is difficult but her anxiety spurs her on.
    "What did you want to be when you grew up?" asks the girl, bored with the sitting she wants to talk. Her eyes never leave the woman's harried form.
    "I wanted to own a flower shop," the woman answers without looking up.
    "What was your favorite flower?"
    "Lilac, or hydrangea," the woman says darkly, raising her icy eyes to the child's. This silences her.
    Hours later the woman looks drastically different from before. Dark circles hug her eyes, and her once voluminous hair hangs limp and dead at her sides. She seems aged thirty years. The child had sat patiently waiting for her to finish and now stands up. Without looking her in the eyes the woman leads the girl to the mouth of the gaping hole she had dug and points inside. Obediently the girl climbs in and stands, looking up blankly at the woman. The woman finds she has a hydrangea in her hand and understands immediately. She throws it down to the girl who tucks it behind her ear and looks up once more.
    "Why?" she asks quietly.
    "Because sometimes we have to make choices," responds the woman as she begins to shovel dirt back into the hole; around her is the sickening scent of lilac.