before things broke.

She was beautiful, once.

But that was before.

Before, she would play in the river with her daughter. At winter, it would snow, but nothing would freeze over. She wondered how, and her daughter would laugh and say, it’s because I asked for this.

Daddy left them a long time ago. He left for work and she said, I’ll see you later, honey. He just said, yeah. Yeah, sure.

He didn’t come back.

That was December. It’s May, now, and she still misses him but her daughter doesn’t. April says he was mean to her, she didn’t really know him, he never really cared. Why should she care if he’s gone? He was no good to you, Mommy, he really wasn’t, she says.

She remembers those times as the good times, though, and nothing April says will change that.

She remembers how she’d get snowflakes in her hair. She was healthy to go outside back then. April says it doesn’t matter, it never snows in May anyway.

She remembers she had long, wavy hair before sickness took it away. It’d glow in the light; and it’d glow in the dark, too. She didn’t know how, and she didn’t ask.

But that was before.

Now, she sits in her bed, and April reads things to her. The readings sound like homework and textbooks and essays, but she’s too tired to notice these things. Re-runs of movies play, and she’s aware that she liked them, once. Now, she hears voices talking and people moving and things happening, but she doesn’t know what. She’s too tired to care what, and it’s the worst kind of tired.

The doctor says she’s not getting better. He says there’s a better chance of raindrops falling down in cubes instead of spheres.

The river freezes in December. She asks April why it froze this year, and April says, I didn’t ask for it to stay warm.

She asks, why?

April says, I was asking for raindrops to be square shaped. I was asking for you to get better.

She hopes it’s enough.