Erin never asks. Erin is Lady’s best mate, and she doesn’t ask funny questions. Eryn sings and reads scary stories, collects stones and plays the violin. Erin does lots of things and Lady does not. Lady doesn’t need to do a lot of things, because daydreaming is free and easy and Lady is in charge of what happens.
Erin says the same about the world.
Lady isn’t always early, but she’s early today. Sometimes, the man outside the building opens his van for her and she sits alone in front of the ancient car heater. He never asks funny questions. The man is old and lonely and maybe he can’t see very well anymore, but he doesn’t ask. The heater whispers and clicks.
She doesn’t know his name.
Lady is tired. Elizabeth and Mark were shouting again last night. It was loud downstairs but it was louder upstairs, and the music and light couldn’t drown it out. Thomas started crying at midnight. He was alone and cold and stained and Lady tried to help, but Thomas can only reach and hold with his small hands. But he was happy to see her and Lady was warm. She was happy.
Erin’s room was dark and the door was heavy. Lady liked to think that Erin was waiting for her, but Erin’s door stood proud - too proud - and she couldn't get in. She tried once, twice, three times, but the door did not open and Erin did not come. Lady sat outside and dreamt instead - of sunshine and laughter, and Erin’s door that opened to fields and not to a suffocating darkness that Elizabeth and Mark and Thomas never seemed to pass. It didn’t really matter, because she was happy and nobody asked, and she wouldn't remember in the morning anyway.
But still, she is tired.
She has been tired for the past few days.
The sky is grey and the house is shaking. Lady is early but she is not here first. It was like this yesterday - the men who came in and moved the furniture into the back of the white van. Lady wasn’t allowed to touch it anyway, but now she can never touch it, and that’s annoying for a few minutes before she forgets. Elizabeth and Mark and Thomas pass by like every day, but they look sad and worn. Still, they don’t ask, and Lady is happy. They go out and they leave in their bright blue car with labels hanging out the back and Lady wishes she can go too to the fields but they're just like all the others.
They don’t come back.
Erin is behind her. She reaches out like she does every day, and her touch is cold and stiff. But today, she asks “are you OK, Lady?”
And Lady goes to her food bowl and it’s empty like it was yesterday.