Shadows moved with the rustling leaves in the early autumn breeze as I walked up to a door I’d only visited one time before. Years past, with a boisterous and lively redhead beside me. It had been Christmas time then, and we were visiting her father at her childhood home.

I shifted from one foot and then the other, twirling the over-sized rock on my left ring finger I’d only accepted a few days prior and still hadn’t become accustomed to. Finally building the courage, I pushed the panel to ring for someone on the inside.

My eyes darted around, still used to the life of a dirty kid, targeted by authorities instead of what I’d become, corporate scum. Not quite as slimy but, even I’d admit that I’d sold out.

A woman’s voice answered, her name on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite remember. It was Sally or Martha, either way she made the most delicious pancakes I’d ever eaten. Gorged myself that day.

“It’s Eliza Milner. I’m here to see-”

“Liz, of course,” the woman said, her voice full of cheer. “I remember you. I’ll buzz you in.”

Great, she remembered me, I thought. Now I get to play the dodge around the first name game for a while and hope she brings it up.

The woman led me through the great house. It was just as impressive as the first time I’d visited. Rich leather smells and old books filled my nose. Taxidermies from previous generations of Williams hung on the walls and placed in sometimes odd places.

A black bear, standing on his hind legs, motioned me through a glass sliding door and toward my final destination.

The patio covered in large sheets of glass was nearly the size of the one-bedroom house Cale and I owned. I walked along broken paths of ferns, orchids, plants with dazzling colors I couldn’t begin to name until finding the reason for my visit.

A woman with vivid copper hair beamed at me, her lips parted in the smile so large I could see her back teeth. On her lap, a long-haired white kitten toyed with a charm dangling from her bracelet.

My heart nearly burst from my chest at the sight of her opened eyes and tears flooded my own. Because she was awake, but still not completely there. She was Viv in body and nothing more.

The smile wasn’t just for me; it was always there. Like a child seeing the world for the first time, because in essence, that’s exactly what was happening.

“Hey, Viv,” I said, kneeling in front of her, my voice cracking more than a little.

“Hey, Viv,” she said back, the smile on her face creating little cracks around her eyes.

I swallowed something that formed in my throat and tried to put on my best face for her. “You got a kitten? What’s his name?”

“Name,” she parroted back to me and stroked the kitten’s fur.

Holy shit, this is harder than I thought it’d be. I sniffed and brushed away something stuck in my eye. “Mind if I sit for a while?”

“Sit. While,” she said, so I did.

I told her all about everything that happened. How we fought for her. About Salvo’s video, then played it; looking for any sign of her old self. The way her eyes would widen just a bit when she saw him. Her reaction to praising her. I even showed her the image of the senator, with his lips around half of Salvo’s exposed dick, figuring if anything would get a rise, it’d be his ragged pubes and dick stem.

But there wasn’t anything besides the robotic voice that parroted a few words here and there.

When I ran out of things to say and the shadows grew a little deeper through the glass walls, I said my goodbyes and kissed her forehead.

Her lips, still spread wide, mimicked my words of parting before there was a flicker of something in her dark brown eyes. Something that gave me hope. “Send picture,” she said, and drifted back to whatever Neverland she lived in now.

“You got it, bitch,” I said and wiped my face. “I’ll have him pose for a deluxe spread, just for you.”

I could have sworn I saw that flicker again inside her, but couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was good enough to leave me feeling positive again. I left her alone as she stroked her purring ball of fluff in her lap, feeling right with the world, until a kitten’s dying scream pierced the air.

My feet took me out of the house faster than I knew possible. Yes, she’d come back to us, eventually. But who would she be?