It had just begun to rain when Cherry stepped out into the street. She felt a sense of dread rise up in her, like a bad dream. The ones where you’re late to school even though you haven’t been inside one for thirty years. She’d just been with her daughter, Caroline, a few hours ago. They’d promised to meet here, at the little grocery store on Seville Ave., if they got separated. A place called Romano’s.

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Young moms streamed into the store, gripping their strollers and ducking their heads down to escape the drizzle under awnings that lined the street. Frenzied cabs and delivery trucks splashed by, their brakes squeaking at the corner before trudging along through the dark puddles and out into the angry mist.

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Cherry waited patiently. She knew Caroline would show up soon enough. She would walk up, huddling under an umbrella, smiling at the fun of the whole thing, scurrying about in a soggy downtown Seattle. This was their first trip together since Caroline had gone off to college, and Cherry hoped they could make it a tradition. Mothers and daughters exploring the funky, quaint crannies of the country. Something you’d hear your that your friend and their daughter did, but you were doing it. 

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After this, she thought, they would grab a bite to eat at the café down the street, maybe stop in a shop to make fun of the quirky knick-knacks some artist had made - little wind chimes and birdhouses and soaps that no one ever really bought. How did they stay in business? Maybe all the businesses they ever saw in each little town were brand new, the old ones having shriveled up just hours before they’d arrived. A sad, silly cycle of dead and dying ideas.

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She waited for twenty minutes before heading into the grocery store to stay dry for a bit and look around. She’d always heard from people that you should visit a grocery store wherever you go. It gives you a real sense of how people live there, what it’s like in the day-to-day, they said. She never really bought that. Everyone goes grocery shopping the same way, no matter what city you’re in. 

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There were several lobsters sitting almost perfectly still in their mini-aquarium, their whiskers twitching and swaying ever so slightly in the too-blue water. Cherry watched in amazement as a Japanese man quickly sliced fresh tuna into strips, laid them across a bed of neatly folded rice and delicately garnished the top in a thin layer of avocado. 

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She thought about buying a bag of chips, but when she searched her purse, she discovered that her wallet was gone. In fact, she didn’t have anything in her tattered purple bag except a woolen scarf, a box of matches and — much to her surprise - a crusty metal spoon.

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“How in the hell did that get in there?” she said to herself, glancing over shoulder. 

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A man in a bright red hat looked over at her from behind another aisle. He was tall and mean-looking, but his voice rang out in a warm, friendly way. 

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“You all right there, lady?” he asked, leaning over but keeping his distance. 

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“Oh, yes, yep, I’m fine, thank you. Just misplaced something, I think.”

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The man in the red hat nodded down at the bag of chips now scrunched under Cherry’s armpit. She was still digging, thoroughly scraping the insides of her purse for any sign of her wallet. So strange, she thought, she had it just a few minutes ago when they landed. She used her credit card to buy a tube of toothpaste because she hadn’t remembered to pack it. But then where was the toothpaste? This, too, surprised Cherry. She wasn’t the type to forget things. 

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“Here, let me get that for you. I know how it is,” he said, blinking slowly and nodding his head. “Sometimes you find your wallet or your keys sittin’ next to the toilet or somethin’ weird like that. Happens to me all the time.” 

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Cherry let out a little breathy laugh and tilted her head to acknowledge the man. 

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“Ah, yeah, well I appreciate that,” she said. “But that’s fine, my daughter will be here soon. We’re on vacation, here for a few days from Dallas. She’ll know where to find my money.”

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“All right, ma’am, if you’re sure. Hope you find ya daughter, and hey, try to stay dry out there. It’s gonna be a long, wet weekend.” 

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“Oh, lord, we’ll try! Thank you, thank you.” And with that, she waddled back out into the gray afternoon. 

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Since Caroline still hadn’t made it to Romano’s, Cherry decided to go back to the hotel to see if her wallet was in her room somewhere. Maybe it was sitting there on the dresser, or maybe it was next to the toilet like the man had said. 

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With no money and no Caroline to guide her, she headed up the last street she could remember, toward the Mayflower Park hotel. She ducked in between buildings and tried her best to slide under the sprawling canopies of Western Hemlocks. 

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The streets were empty, with the exception of a few coffee shops, their doors open to the sidewalk. As she passed them, her nose filled with the rich, sharp odor of freshly roasted coffee and baked bread. Young people worked on laptops, whispered excitedly behind the glow of their phones or read silently, alone. She was soaked. 

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Her dress, once crisp and bright, now hung around her knees and stuck heavily to her sides, like a soggy blanket. She needed to sit, just for a bit, to dry off her clothes and regroup. She must be only a mile or two from the hotel by now, she thought. Just a little longer, and she’d get all this wallet mess straightened out. What a waste of a vacation morning, she thought.

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She went inside the shop, a place called Milstead & Co., and found a table near the window. She draped her purse over the side of the thin, metal chair, wiped the water from her face and took a deep breath, looking around the room. 

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As the patrons tapped away on keyboards and the espresso machine whirred behind the counter, Cherry felt a strange sensation. She’d been here before. The painting above the bathroom door — an orange horse with blue eyes on a bone white canvas — she recognized it. The people’s faces were different, but the room felt familiar. That was impossible, she thought. She’d never been to Seattle before, let alone in this exact coffee shop. It must have been deja vu, no question. She’d seen this place in a dream, and now, here she was subconsciously feeling linked to it. 

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A young blonde girl approached her. She was impossibly thin and frail, and her elbows formed sharp points behind her as she walked through the tables and chairs and up to Cherry’s table. 

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“Hey, Miss Cherry, how ya’ doin?” 

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How did this woman know her name?

“I’m- I”m sorry. Do I know  you, young lady?” 

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“Yep, yep, we do know each other, that’s all good, though! Look, Miss Cherry, like we talked about, it’s fine for you to come here, but unfortunately we need you to purchase something from the shop if you’re gonna stay. Company policy, I know it’s lame.”

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“What is your name, can you please tell me that? I’m just a little confused, and I don’t—”

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“That’s okay, Miss Cherry, we’ll get it all sorted out.” The girl’s smile stretched across her face violently, as if he was straining as hard as she could to pin it across her skull. “How about this? We’ll let you hang out here a little longer, till the rain settles down. Do you need some water or anything? Is there someone I can call for you?”

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This wasn’t right. Everything began to spin, slowly, dreamily around her. The little blonde girl’s face was slipping away and coming back, forming copies, multiplying. Different versions of the same person, wearing different clothes, saying different things. The girl was saying something to her, mouthing something with wide, scared eyes, but Cherry couldn’t hear her. She felt the room becoming smaller, darker. 

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Cherry woke up to several people standing over her. A different woman fanned Cherry’s face, and patted a cold towel on her forehead. It felt like she’d been asleep for several hours. 

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“Miss Cherry,” the blonde girl’s voice echoed out from somewhere across the room. 

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“What happened? What is this place?” Cherry said, blinking her eyes furiously and patting the ground. 

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“You fainted, Miss Cherry. I’ve called the paramedics. They should be here any minute. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll get you some help, Miss Cherry.”

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“I don’t need help! I don’t know you people. I’ve never been here. I’m just passing through. I’m on vacation. Caroline, my daughter, she’s here and she’s lost, too.”

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The blonde girl held out her hand, attempting to help Cherry stand up, but she slapped it away. She scowled at the girl and shuffled away from the circle of people crouched around her. 

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“Don’t touch me! I’m fine. I’m leaving. This place isn’t right, you know. Something is foul here, something is rotting and I can smell it.”

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Cherry scurried to her feet, holding her head in pain. She grabbed her purse and stumbled out of the coffee shop into the street. It was still raining, but not as hard as before. The late afternoon sun began to set through the soggy trees and down onto the sidewalk in sharp, abstract shapes. Ground clouds, that’s what she used to call them, when she took Caroline through the park. That was their game, guessing the ground clouds.

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Caroline. Where was she? Something terrible has happened to her, she thought. What if she’s fallen into the street and been hit by a dump truck or kidnapped by a gang in an alleyway? What if she was as lost as Cherry was? If she couldn’t find her way in this city, how would she survive out there in the wider world? 

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Cherry felt a thrashing wave of guilt rise up in her. She was a terrible mother. Maybe even worse than her own mother, who had never felt joy a day in her life. A person who, Cherry remembered, stayed in the same old house with the same old furniture, until it sat empty without her. Cherry hated the idea that she was in the same category as that woman: bad mothers. She had tried so incredibly hard to be different with her own daughter. Even before Caroline could walk, she held her and sang to her softly and told her about all the adventures they’d go on together, the places they’d see, the laughs they’d have, the trouble they’d get into. Together. 

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That moment felt like another lifetime ago, like it was a different person holding that baby, and now Cherry could just see it through a foggy glass wall. The harder she tried to look, the foggier the glass became, her breath coating its surface into obscurity. She needed to see her daughter’s face, what color her hair was, to hear how she told a story, to hold her little hand again. But she couldn’t. It was gone. 

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Evening fell all around her, draping across the buildings, colliding with the orange glow of busy windows. A light, misty breeze sang through the corridors of downtown, newly rinsed from the day’s showers. Restaurants and bars came to life, their patrons wandering in and out of doors, up stairs and down sidewalks. 

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A green flag whipped and swayed from an old building just ahead. There, emblazoned across its royal, chiseled edifice: Mayflower Park Hotel. She had made it, finally. Cherry scurried up the steps and into the lobby in search of a manager or a concierge. It had been a day of restless, endless wandering. She needed a place to sit, to reorganize herself, and find Caroline. The Mayflower Park Hotel was a beautiful old historic building, with grand, golden halls, pearl white marble floors and stately romanesque columns. 

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As she made her way through the lobby, a man in a long, black jacket and a chin-strap hat approached her. 

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“Hey Miss Cherry, I’m afraid we can’t do this again.” He held out a hand, straight and strong, as if to stop her in her tracks. 

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“What are you doing? I’m a guest here, you- stop that. I need to speak to your concierge about getting back into my room.”

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“I know, Miss Cherry, I know,” the man said, looking over his shoulder at the front desk. He signaled to a woman wearing a tight blue blazer, nodding his head toward Cherry. The woman nodded back, and picked up the phone. “Look, Miss Cherry, I know you’re confused, but let’s not have a scene like we did last time, okay? We’re gonna have to call the authorities if you start screamin’ and shoutin’ again. Let’s just do this the easy way tonight, yeah?” He still held his hand out and began to slowly walk her backward, toward the main entrance.

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“My daughter! Have you seen my daughter?? She’s lost and she’s probably in trouble. I just need to get in my room, to get my wallet. I need to find her, can’t you just let me do what I need to do to find my daughter. Is that so terrible?”

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The man put his hand on Cherry’s shoulder. 

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“I understand, and I wish I could help you with that, Miss Cherry, but you need to leave. Now.” 

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“What is wrong with you people? Can’t you see a person in agony? Can’t you be a human for once and help me find my Caroline? Have you ever lost something, huh? Have you ever been lost?”

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Cherry got down on her knees, her palms sprawled flat across the cool marble floor. Her voice began to crack. She pulled on her hair as hard as she could, and screamed as loud as she could, hurling an echo through the busy lobby. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Guests looked up from their cocktails, began filming with their phones. Bellboys ushered worried couples into elevators and front desk workers reassured lines at check-in. Her scream was piercing, blasting every corner of the room. A sweeping, screeching howl.

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“Where are you Caroline? Where is my baby? I don’t know what I did to deserve this. I’m a good person, I’ve never hurt anyone, and now everyone in this city wants me to just disappear, as if I was here, but I was never here at all.”

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Tears streamed down Cherry’s face as she curled into a ball on the floor. Two police officers entered the lobby and helped Cherry to her feet. They escorted her out into the street and into their squad car. 

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As they drove through the downtown streets, droves of nighttime wanderers stared at her from the sidewalk, from within their dimly lit establishments. Faces flashed across the car window, bent and blurred, a carousel of people she’d never seen and would never see again. For a moment, she thought she saw a flash of Caroline’s face in the swaying crowd, but in an instant, it was gone. She was gone. 

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The police officers led Cherry out of the back of the car and onto a sidewalk. They were under an overpass now, and the officers walked on either side of her as they made their way deeper into the recessed shadows. Cherry was beginning to wonder what they were going to do to her? Why weren’t they going to a police station? Why weren’t they asking her questions or reading her rights? 

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“Where are we going?” she asked them. 

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“Bringing you back home, Miss Cherry,” the younger female officer said. 

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“Home? I don’t live down here. I’m from Dallas, well I lived there for most of my life before Ned got a job in Birmingham, so we took Caroline down there before she started high school.”

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“Here you go, Miss Cherry,” the older man said. “We got you back to where you’ll be comfortable tonight. It’s gonna rain tomorrow again, so make sure you bundle up in there tight, tonight, all right?” 

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“What do you—” she began to ask, but stopped, as the two officers walked back up the sidewalk and got in their car. They drove off quietly into the night, back toward the lights and the faces of downtown. 

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She was alone now, among a sea of tents and grocery carts and strewn up tarps all around her. There were people gathered around fire barrels, and curled into little balls along the interstate column. The wind whipped through the tent village, coming in hard across her face. She held herself tight, trying to keep warm, her damp dress flapping against her thighs. 

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There was no one to help her find her way, no one to help her at all.