Lincoln was packing up after the youth symphony fall concert when it started.
"Come on, it's time to go home, don't dawdle," said her mom, standing by the stage door, her keys clutched impatiently in one hand.
Lincoln wanted to dawdle on purpose, but decided to be sensible and packed up with a semblance of efficiency.
Then her dad came in with Juliet and said, "What's taking so long? Come on Lincoln, we have things to do."
And Lincoln, who had only just then finished packing up, followed her family out into the hot sunshine and winced as the concrete burned her soles through her thin dress shoes.
The car was farther than she'd expected. Don't complain, don't make a sound. She couldn't wait to get home and plunge her feet into cold water. In the car, she exercised her thigh muscles by holding her feet a few centimeters above the floor.
"Where are you going?" asked her dad when she went to put her cello in her room. Lincoln was no good at reading signals, but even she could tell he was pissed off.
"I'm just going to put my cello away and get changed," she said quickly.
"Get on with it," he grumbled.
So no cold bath for her feet, then.
After she'd changed from the plastic dress into some shorts and a tank, she went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and found all three of them sitting at the table. As one, they turned their heads toward her when she entered. She filled her glass and sat down in the sole remaining chair. The room was permeated with a general sense of unease.
The argument started suddenly, as if they'd already been talking for a while and things had been escalating. Maybe her parents had been talking during the concert. For the first few minutes Lincoln was having trouble figuring out what it was all about. Then she realized she'd done something wrong, again, and what it was exactly became irrelevant, because all she was trying to do was stop the argument.
Juliet was sitting there as if none of this mattered to her. Look at me! Lincoln wanted to scream. Help me! But she was in the deep end alone this time, both her parents against her, and something deep inside her rose, something that she'd been pushing down for years, and it bubbled out of her lips. She froze, horrified, and time seemed to stand still as her dad stood up, towering over her -- she was suddenly much smaller -- and raising his arm...
She sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, the darkness pulsing and closing in around her, her heart racing, and opened her mouth in a silent scream, an agonized plea for help.
