The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

We all had our birthdays on Easter, all nine of us, or at least, that’s when we celebrated them. Mama didn’t have time to remember our real birthdays. Or our real names.

“Sadness can become cruelty.

Fear comes with the dark when you’re lying still, waiting for the knock on the door. And fear is not always reasonable.

And then I think maybe I don’t want to know what has happened, because knowing, I think, is going to hurt.

Helena laughs, and in a world where death is a shadow at the edge of every light, I discover that I have to smile.

Death really isn’t so terrible, I think. It’s losing the chance to live that’s sad.

Bad paper. It’s hard to get good paper now. Everyone thinks bullets are more necessary.

I didn’t know I was living in days that I could never get back.” I wish I could give them to him. Wrapped in paper and tied with a ribbon. “We’re always living days we can never get back,” I say. “So we make new ones. That’s all.”