At night when darkness settles around her like a blanket, and the kids are nestled in their beds. When her husband is asleep and re-runs of Law and Order generate a constant stream of chatter to fill the silence. She sits alone in a room that has never felt like home. A throw with woven images of Bethel from a lifetime ago covering her legs and a laptop keyboard never far from her fingers. She fights hopelessness with every key stroke. Answers emails with vision blurred by tears. She clenches her teeth against the rising tide of anger that fills her chest. Swallows down the resentment. Not just of today or last year. But of years wasted.
Out the window the sky is filled with small blinking stars. Without thinking she starts to say the old childhood rhyme..."star light, star bright..." and then she remembers that most of the stars she can see burned out thousands of years before. And that wishes don't come true anyway.
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