Mostly, she listened, and she thought she was doing better. But sometimes, as she sat alone in her small apartment, the reality of the situation would bear down hard and she would begin to cry again, not stopping for hours. During one of her darkest periods, she’d even considered suicide, though no one-not the counselor, not her family-knew that. It was then that she’d realized she had to leave Baltimore; she needed a place to start over. She needed a place where the memories wouldn’t be so painful, somewhere she’d never lived before.

Now, walking the streets of New Bern, Sarah was doing her best to move on. It was still a struggle at times, but not nearly as bad as it once had been. Her parents were supportive in their own way-her father said nothing whatsoever about it; her mother clipped out magazine articles that touted the latest medical developments-but her brother, Brian, before he headed off for his first year at the University of North Carolina, had been a life-saver. Like most adolescents, he was sometimes distant and withdrawn, but he was a truly empathetic listener. Whenever she’d needed to talk, he’d been there for her, and she missed him now that he was gone. They’d always been close; as his older sister, she’d helped to change his diapers and had fed him whenever her mother let her. Later, when he was going to school, she’d helped him with his homework, and it was while working with him that she’d realized she wanted to become a teacher.

That was one decision she’d never regretted. She loved teaching; she loved working with children. Whenever she walked into a new classroom and saw thirty small faces looking up at her expectantly, she knew she had chosen the right career. In the beginning, like most young teachers, she’d been an idealist, someone who assumed that every child would respond to her if she tried hard enough. Sadly, since then, she had learned that wasn’t possible. Some children, for whatever reason, closed themselves off to anything she did, no matter how hard she worked.