A sudden knock drew his attention. He opened the warehouse door, and a girl about Sarah's age entered, her hair blown out and styled, her hands dug in her coat pockets. Sarah noticed her plentiful makeup.

"Hey, what's up?" Ethan said.

Sarah winced. Those words.

She listened to them talk. She heard the girl say it was unfair, the way people were blaming him.

"I know, right?" Ethan said. "I didn't do anything. It was her fault. The whole thing is out of control."

The girl took off her coat and asked if it was all right to eat something from the shelves. Ethan grabbed two boxes of crackers. He also pulled down a vodka bottle.

"Can't lose with booze," he said.

Sarah felt suddenly weak, as if she'd been kicked in the knees. Her final thought as she'd sunk into death was that Ethan would be sorry, that his inner torture would somehow equal hers. But hurting ourselves to inflict pain on others is just another cry to be loved. And that cry, Sarah now realized, seeing Ethan grab two paper cups, had been as unheard as the feelings she once declared for him in a parking lot.

Her death was as insignificant as her life.

She looked pleadingly at Dor.

"Why did you bring me here?" she said.

The walls seemed to melt and the setting changed. They were now at the shelter where Sarah worked on Sat.u.r.days. Homeless men lined up for breakfast.

An older woman was scooping oatmeal. A man in a blue cap stepped forward.

"Where's Sarah?" he asked.

"She's not here today," the woman said.

"Sarah puts in extra bananas."

"OK. Here's some extra bananas."

"I like that girl. She's quiet, but I like her."

"We haven't heard from her in a couple of weeks."

"I hope she's all right."

"Me, too."

"I'll be praying for her then."

Sarah blinked. She didn't think anyone there knew her name. She certainly didn't think they'd miss her if she weren't around. I like that girl. She's quiet, but I like her.

Sarah watched the man sit alongside other homeless clients. Despite their awful circ.u.mstances, they were going on with life, getting through it as best they could. Sarah wondered how she could have ignored this every Sat.u.r.day while being so dazzled by a boy. The man who liked bananas thought more about her than Ethan did.

The shame welled up inside her.

She turned to Dor.

She swallowed hard.

"Where's my mom?" she whispered.

Once more, the scene changed. It was daytime, and snow was piled against the curbs.

Sarah, Dor, and Victor were in the parking lot of a car dealership. A salesman emerged from the office, wearing a winter parka and holding a clipboard. He walked right through them and approached the pa.s.senger side of a gray van.

Lorraine sat inside.

"It's freezing," the man said through the window, his breath condensing in smoke. "You sure you don't want to come in?"

Lorraine shook her head and quickly signed the papers. Sarah moved toward her cautiously.

"Mom?" she whispered.

The salesman took the paperwork. Lorraine watched him go. She squeezed her lips tightly as tears slid down her cheeks. Sarah remembered all the times she had cried just that way in her mother's arms, over teasing in school, over the divorce. Her mother, crazy as she sometimes was, had always had time for her, always stroked her hair and told her things would be all right.

Now Sarah was helpless to do the same.

She saw another man approach the car, folding papers into an envelope. Her Uncle Mark, from North Carolina. He got into the driver's seat.

"Well, that's it," he said. "Sorry you even had to come, but they wouldn't take it if you didn't sign."

Lorraine exhaled weakly. "I never want to see that car again."

"Yeah," he said.

They watched silently as the salesman drove the blue Ford toward the rear of the lot.

"Let's get going," Mark said.

"Wait."

Lorraine kept her eyes locked on the car, until it disappeared around a corner. Then she broke down, sobbing.

"I should have been there, Mark."

"It's not your fault-"

"I'm her mother!"

"It's not your fault."

"Why would she do this? Why didn't I know?"

He tried awkwardly to hug her across the front seat, their winter coats scratching against each other.

Sarah gripped her elbows. She felt sick inside. She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict. She saw her mother squeeze the envelope to her chest, clinging to the receipt for a car Sarah had used to kill herself, because it was the last thing she had of her daughter.

Dor stepped in front of Sarah. He softly repeated the question Lorraine had asked.

"Why?"

Why?

Why take her own life? Why die in a garage? Why cause this pain to anyone she loved?

Sarah wanted to explain it all, the humiliation of Ethan's rejection, the shameful feeling caused by his friends, the shock of seeing your secrets exposed through a computer screen, your future shattering so completely in front of you that dying with a lungful of poison seems like a relief.

She wanted to blame him, to blame her whole rotten existence. But seeing Ethan, seeing her mother, seeing the world after the world she had known, somehow took her to the very bottom, the end of self-delusion, and the truth enveloped her like a coc.o.o.n, and all she said was, "I was so lonely."

And Father Time said, "You were never alone."

With that, he put his hand over Sarah's eyes.

What she saw, suddenly, was a cave, and a bearded man with his face in his palms. His eyes were squeezed shut.

"That's you?" she whispered.

"Away from the one I love."

"For how long?"

"As long as time itself."

She saw him rise to the cave wall and carve a symbol. Three wavy lines.

"What's that?"

"Her hair."

"Why are you drawing it?"

"To remember."

"She died?"

"I wanted to perish, too."

"You really loved her?"

"I would have given my life."

"Would you have taken it?"

"No, child," he said.

"That is not ours to do."

Dor realized, in uttering those words, that he may have been kept alive all these millenniums just for this moment. Living without love was something he knew more about than any soul on Earth. The more Sarah spoke of loneliness, the clearer it became why he was there.

"I made such a fool of myself," she lamented.

"Love does not make you a fool."

"He didn't love me back."

"That does not make you a fool, either."

"Just tell me ..." Her voice cracked. "When does it stop hurting?"

"Sometimes never."

Sarah saw the bearded Dor alone in the cave.

"How did you survive?" she asked. "All that time with your wife not with you?"

"She was always with me," he said.

Dor removed his hand from Sarah's eyes. They watched the van drive down the snowy street.

"You had many more years," he said.

"I didn't want them."

"But they wanted you. Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future."

"What's that?"

"Hope."

The shame welled up inside her, and once again, she wept. She missed her mother more than ever.

"I'm so sorry," Sarah gasped, tears pouring down her cheeks. "It just felt like ... the end."

"Ends are for yesterdays, not tomorrows."

Dor waved a hand, and the street dissolved into sand. The skies turned a midnight purple, filled with countless stars.

"There is more for you to do in this life, Sarah Lemon."

"Really?" she whispered.

"Do you want to see?"

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.