Mandy gazed down at her pink high tops, seeking reassurance in the perfection of the bows that she had tied by herself that morning.
She looked up. A rush of sensations overwhelmed her -- bobbing balloons, sunshine glinting off the silver Ferris wheel, the bready sweetness of funnel cakes. Earlier, it had seemed exciting but now, distant from her Mother and brother, it made her dizzy.
Mandy’s breath caught as she turned to look behind her. In the distance, small but unmistakable, she saw her Mother and brother, Jake. Her vision blurred, and they seemed to flow farther and farther away from her.
Her hand was still suspended in mid-air – she pulled it down. It hung there from when she’d let go of the stranger’s coat -- the one that had looked like her Mother’s. Mandy had followed the coat down the field looking for the puppies that her brother had mentioned before he had run off into the crowd. The one that now surrounded her.
Thin and slight, the sound of her name found her. “I am here,” she yelled. “I am here.” Just like the Who people in Whoville. She heard pounding feet. A hug of familiar warmth surrounded her. “Don’t ever do that again. Don’t let go of my hand,” her Mom said.
This felt just like that, thought Mandy, that same panic. She looked at the small hand, blue veins prominent as it lay on the blanket beside her. Her Mother’s hand on the blanket. Mandy focused – putting her hand over her Mother’s. Seeing the picture, feeling the light warmth that still blessed the hand, the blood just barely flowing through it. Deliberately, Mandy created the new memory. A memory to hold when the hand was no longer there.
