When my dad went to sleep, I think the rest of the world went with him. Spring was ending, and summer was only a shadow of its predecessor; warm, but no longer vibrant. After dad went to sleep, colors faded, becoming blurred and indistinct. And every night as the sun set, it died a little, losing a mote of its essence that would never be regained.

I spent a lot of time in the hospital where he slept because I had nowhere else to go. I had a home, but it was empty, so it didn't feel much like home any longer. It was a place full of memory and unwanted feelings, a house steeped in seas of unrealized possibility. My mother's presence was there, though I had no memory of her. Her absence filled the walls and beams of the house like a colony of tidy insects. They left no physical traces of their work, but I could feel them burrowing ever deeper. Absent, my mother had managed to insinuate herself into every aspect of my life. She left us soon after I was born, but we would never be free of her.

In the hospital there was a nurse who always wore a pink ribbon pin. She was friendly and never asked how old I was. I liked her for this because at barely seventeen, I probably wasn't supposed to be staying at my house alone and using my dad’s account numbers to keep the lights on. I didn't see a problem with it, but I could imagine how a more officious authority might react to a girl whose only parent was in a coma. It would mean trouble I didn't need.

"Are you all right in there?" Pink Ribbon Pin ducked her head in the door.

"I'm fine. I’ll be going soon." I glanced up, forcing a smile. She returned it and was gone.

I looked back at my dad, tall and thin and pale. People say we look alike, but people say that about fathers and daughters whether or not there's a real resemblance. We’re all human, so it's possible to pick out features in common, no matter who you're comparing. My mother was Japanese, so that's how I look, but I'm not beautiful like she was.

I took her picture from my purse and held it in my lap. I carry her everywhere. I can’t say why. With only the one photograph, memorized years ago, I can't resist looking now and again. She looks like someone in a magazine, airbrushed and bathed in just the right light; too perfect to be real. Her black hair is long and sleek, framing eyes that could be gateways into the night. She stands with the assurance of someone who could do Atlas’ job with half the effort and none of the griping. My dad is behind her, cradling her distended belly and grinning like he can't believe his luck. He may be the real reason I keep the photo. This is the only picture I have from before she left. It is the only proof I have that he was not always awkward and sad and seemingly lost.

So I keep watching and waiting for him to wake up and be that way again. I put the picture back in the inside flap of my purse and spare a glance for the myriad machines that monitor him. He is normal, they say, all clear and dreaming.

Yawning, I know I need to go home and get some sleep. I was exhausted day after day because I couldn't do just that. Ever since dad slipped away, I’ve been having two recurring nightmares. In one, I find myself wandering underground in caverns we visited once when I was a child. It’s dark and if I turn, all I can see are red eyes in the black. In the other, I’m sitting before my vanity and see my reflection blacken and twist like newly born ashes, until it transforms into a huge, grasping thing that is fighting to force its way free.

I shook my head. If nightmares could frighten me while I was awake, I really did have a problem. Stepping into the small bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face, trying to knead some life into my cheeks. The drive to the house wasn't terribly far, but it was enough to fall asleep at the wheel if I wasn't careful. I blinked, surprised. For an instant I had seen my mother gazing out of the mirror, eyes depthless and cold, face perfect as if it had been carved and sanded rather than born.

Then it was only me.

"I must be going crazy," I murmured to myself. Why had she left? It was the largest question of my life, but now it was all moot. She was gone; my dad wouldn’t wake up; and I needed sleep so desperately I didn't care what demons waited for me there. Coming back into the room, I stopped short. A man was rifling through my purse.

"Hey! That's mine!"

Undisturbed at being caught in the act of invading my privacy, the man slowly straightened, deliberately turning to face me. Not tall but very sturdy, his hair was a ponytail of burnished bronze; his whole body a nearly uniform, tawny shade that made me think of a person dipped in liquid metal. He was holding my mother's picture, gazing at it with a strange, pensive expression.

"Your mother was…an unusual woman--one of a kind. I did not always agree with Acton, but it was easy to understand why he felt for her the way he did."

What? Who? Confusion blossomed on my face, overwhelming my previous alarm. Then it struck me. My dad had a brother, Milton. I had met him only a handful of times, the last when I was eight or nine. Memories flooded back.

"Ah, so you do know me." He regarded me in an unsettling way that caused spiders to dance on my skin. Even his eyes were an unnaturally golden hue. They had to be contacts. Yes, I remembered, but only flashes. Eccentric and unpredictable is how my dad once described him.

"Please," he said, "return to your seat. We have a few things to discuss before we are away."

"I was already leaving," I said, snatching both the picture and my purse out of his unresisting grasp. He seemed aristocratically amused as I spun on my heel and strode to the door leading to the hospital corridor, only to find it locked. I turned back to him. "What's going on?"

"Calm, calm, calm, little dragon," and the awful thing was that his voice really did soothe me. My heartbeat slowed. "There is nothing to run from." He took a step closer. "We are going to chat, you and I, and then we are going to go away from here."

"I'm going home," I said, trickles of fear climbing my spine. "Not with you."

"You cannot be alone," said Milton. "You are only a child yet, in a large and dangerous world. Do you think your father never made arrangements for you if anything were to happen to him?"

"Not with you!” Of course, it did make sense if Milton was my only living relative, but how could dad have entrusted me to him? They never even spoke! “I don’t know you.”

"That is regrettable. It is also easily remedied. I am only sorry it has taken me so long to come for you. You cannot stay in your house by yourself any longer. That is not acceptable."

"I'm an adult," I said, reaching behind myself to try the door again, but the knob was fixed fast. How did he do that? "I can take care of myself."

"That may be," said those golden, gleaming eyes, "but we all need help now and again. It will not do to have you alone. It will not do at all."

"Why…” I began to speak but cut off abruptly at the sight of what he was holding.

It was a flower, orange as a ripe flame, with nine soft petals raised in the shape of a thin wine glass. When I looked between the petals at the radiant point of their center, I may as well have tried to stare at a miniature sun. It hurt, but I could not look away. Somewhere at the back of my mind I noticed its smell, like roses laced with lightning.

"Now then," he said, "there is no need for disagreement." He handed me the flower, and I rearranged my things so I could receive it. The photograph was put away in the purse hung on my shoulder. I cupped the blossom in both hands like it was a small and precious animal.

"That's better." He patted me kindly. "Off we go."

Then we were moving, passing out of the hospital with not a word to anyone. I wondered that they did not see the blossom, for the light was so bright it summoned tears to trail down my cheeks. I held it closer to my chest when we navigated a crowd, intending to protect it if someone thought to take it for themselves. But no one looked, and no one tried. Soon we were on a parking deck and he was leading me to an unremarkable truck.

"Where are we going?"

"Home,” he said simply. As the vehicle pulled out onto the road under the open sky, it seemed to move both faster and slower than was possible. It was as if the wheels spun but the truck stood still as the landscapes of a whole country passed us by in spasms of color and chaotic motion.

Eventually, the blossom closed. I could think clearly again, but by then it was too late. I had already forgotten.