We'd had a fight again. Which ended in the same way it always did. I got cross and hurt, and Charley just sat there, staring into space. This time it was about trying to get her out of the house. Earlier on it had been about brushing her hair. Before that it had been about getting her out of bed.

Charley waited until we came to a red; I'll give her that much. But as I rolled up to the intersection she popped her seatbelt and that was that. The dry San Diego heat rolled into the S.U.V. creating such a severe a temperature difference that I felt it dehydrating my skin in an instant. I hollered after her, of course. What self respecting mom wouldn't? But there were three lanes of traffic between me and her by then, and an impatient line of station wagons behind were already trying their best to push me over the faded yellow line.

Swearing under my breath, I let my foot off the brake and floored the gas. The sudden lurch forward was enough to slam the door for me. I was too damn mad for the radio so I killed it and drove in silence for a couple more miles before pulling over to think about what the hell I was supposed to do next. By then the aircon had won its battle against the cactus dry air that Charley had voluntarily subjected herself to. I Pulled into an A&W carpark, wondering if I should just wait until she passed by and see if she'd cooled her temper enough to let me drive her the rest of the way back home.

Cooled off? Who was I kidding? It was over a hundred degrees out there. I kept the engine running just to keep the chiller flowing. Hey, it might be bad news for the polar bears but they'd do the same if they could drive. Anyway I was too mad with Charley to worry about the ozone layer. And I was way too tired of so many pointless fights. It just wasn't fair any more.

I needed a beer. Ice cold Miller would do nicely. Don't worry, it wasn't a craving for the booze, I guess. It was just the idea of it. The notion of relaxing with a frosted bottle and a bit of ‘me' time. I've heard it said that soccer moms only ever think about sex and chocolate. Well, maybe they're half right, but in this heat I'd take a well cooled bottle of lite beer over a mushy Hershey bar any day of the week. There was a Mobil a little ways up, complete with Fresh-&-Easy en suite, but I forced myself to put the shop and its chiller cabinet of brown glass bottles out of my mind. Best to play it safe and stay sober if Charley was going to be back on the scene any time soon.

I let out a breath and checked my makeup briefly before letting the engine stop and stepping out into the blast oven that was Rancho Bernardo with an easterly wind. It was enough to make anyone cranky, I guess. In fact I remember watching something about it on sixty minutes one time. Something about the desert wind and the L.A. murder rate? I forget.

I walked slow, squinting even through the thick D&Gs as the sweat broke out at my temples. I can't believe people ever settled here. I mean, what were they thinking? Without irrigation, this place would just be a bowl of dust. Without aircon? Thankfully, stepping into A&W was just like diving into a pool. The air smelled so fresh you'd swear you were on an alpine glacier. Sure the décor was that same shitty brown and orange, and there were ketchup smears on every chipped plastic table, but it was cooler than a mountain glade in that little burger bar, and for that I was grateful.

A girl even younger than Charley brought me a pitcher with ice and water. "Just the one cup?" She asked.

"Thanks." I said, before: "Erm – my daugher's on her way. Can I get a spare?"

"Sure." She smiled, showing silver tram tracks. "I'm Louise. If I can get you anything, just let me know." She was pretty. Her face was fresh, and framed with mousy hair that had had all the life ironed out of it several terms ago. She carried herself well. Such a contrast to Charley. I watched her go and wondered where it had all gone so wrong. Why couldn't my little girl be working tables in an ordinary little intersection restaurant? What was so bad about fetching somebody a jug of water and smiling that it was so far beneath her? Or beyond her, even?

I thought long and hard about that. Hell, when was the last time I saw her do anything for anyone? Come to that, when was the last time I even saw her fix anyone with a smile?

I counted six blocks of ice as I tipped the water into my glass. They bashed against the smooth walls for a moment and settled, casting little sparkles on the orange plastic table.

I wasn't aware of the sirens at first. They had come from so far away, and were already part of the furniture by the time the bright red trucks came into view on the far carriageway. A middle aged guy looked up from his paper, frowning and squinting out the window. "Looks like a pile up on this side."

I looked out but saw nothing.

"How can you tell?" I asked. But by now he and the serving girl were at the door. She turned to me before the heavy glass swung open. "Nobody is coming down on our side, and the Northbound traffic has pulled up to a stand still."

It was obvious when she said it. All the traffic bound for LA which would have normally been a right-to-left blur on the opposite carriageway was now bumper to bumper, the only movement being from the three fire trucks and now the pair of ambulances which picked their way through the car sharing lane.

On the side closest to us, however, there was empty freeway. I wasn't exactly dressed for a hike, but I picked my way over the bone dry grass spikes and sandy earth up to the kerb and looked left. Nothing.

Except – Was that smoke? I watched a moment longer until I was sure. A column of storm black smoke rose into the arid air.

Charley! The sudden thought made me wrap my mouth with my left hand. Surely she hadn't been caught up in any of that? She was walking down from that way, but she couldn't have been hit, could she?

I felt panic rise inside me like boiling milk. Either way I had to know. Even if she wasn't involved I wanted to scoop her up and keep her away from the danger. I wanted to get her home. Safe. Mothers' instinct if you like. Either way the end result was that I found myself back on the freeway and heading up the wrong way, back to where I'd come from; where I'd last seen my daughter's furious face dissolve behind a blur of Mac trucks and GM bumpers.

* * *

Six weeks later and I was pretty tired of listening to Doctor Ball's pinched Canadian tones. "She's ah, making progress." He said, in his usual Kermit like tones. "Really, I think you should see if she's ready to go home today."

I looked across the room to where Charley sat alone at a Formica table. Arms by her side and a collection of foolscap sheets and crayons still untouched in front of her. "How do you mean ready?"

He pulled the collar on his cheap shirt and wrinkled his nose in that annoying way. "Well." He intoned, nasally. "She's definitely not a threat to herself or others. Communication isn't exactly optimum but she's otherwise perfectly fine."

"Perfectly fine?" I whirled so fast I nearly parted company with my earrings. "She hasn't spoken a word since the accident. She's completely locked inside her own head. What do you expect me to do with her, Doctor Ball? Take her home and use her as a hat stand?"

He fiddled with the shirt collar again. It was obviously a Wallmart special, or something equally shabby. As a specialist of neurological trauma you'd expect him to take more pride in his appearance. Why in hell was I supposed to entrust my daughter's brain to a man who couldn't even pick himself a shirt that fit? Exactly what sort of message was it sending out to turn up for a five figure consultancy in a five dollar shirt?

"Mrs Knox, I'm sorry but it's not a case of just fixing her. What she saw-"

"I know what she saw, dammit. I was there!"

And I was. The Orinoco had jack-knifed before hitting a Greyhound and sending it right into the path of a Texaco delivery truck. The Greyhound had sixty passengers in all and by the time the news crew had got there it was obvious that less than half a dozen had escaped with their lives. Even more than the actual scene, I remembered the television picture: the way the eye-in-the-sky had framed the scene for me to watch at the inquest:

Me, at the bottom of the screen, running from the Cherokee towards the scene of twisted metal and screaming victims, full pelt in Armani and heels, to where Charley stood on empty tarmac; framed in the viewfinder just ten feet from the smoke and the fire; watching the chaos and tragedy impassively. The way she used to watch the sea on a stormy day.

At the inquest people said she'd been standing right in the middle of the freeway even before the crash. There was no camera footage, but a few dozen independent eye witness statements generally tend to carry more weight than a hysterical mother who's still clinging to the hope that her little girl wouldn't do such a thing. In my heart I'm still sure that all those people are only remembering the way it looked on TV, and that really Charley had heard the crash behind her, and that she had gone back to see if she could help. But I guess we'll never know.

"Mrs Knox." Doctor Ball tried again. "This is a hospital. We treat as best we can and then we move on. Your daughter's needs are complex and very real, but they cannot be met here. She needs care, and time. There are places which specialise in exactly that sort of thing. Our priorities here tend to be a bit more..." He fished for the right word. "Immediate."

Bad word. I gestured furiously to where Charley sat staring at the edge of the table like a corpse. "You don't call that immediate?" I demanded. "She needs help! Real Help! I pay health insurance. I'm a paying customer! So why can't she just stay until you make her better?"

He didn't answer. Not for a while. He'd already made it half way to the door before he finally said something about it not being in my cover. Or something like that. Which was bullshit. Our cover was platinum and he knew it.

"So you're just gonna dump her?" I called after him. "Is that it?" The prospect terrified me. All they saw was a traumatised teenager. They didn't see my daughter. They didn't realise just how long she'd struggled before the crash. How she'd been heading for this moment for so many years. How hard I'd tried to help her fit in. How far she'd slipped beyond my ability to cope. How rage and fury had become her only way of interacting with the world. I needed help. I was finally ready to admit that I couldn't fix this all by myself. And now that I was asking, they were just showing me the door.

* * *

"You understand that this procedure is not guaranteed to bring immediate results?" Doctor Wisnewski spoke to me, but kept his gaze squarely on Charley. His manner was sympathetic. Understanding. "Your fee will be set by the number of sessions you attend. Not by what we can achieve."

"I appreciate that." I said. "But it's been three years. Next year will be her twenty first birthday. And I just-"

I'd promised myself that I wouldn't cry. I dabbed my eyes and left charcoal Maybelline streaks on the white tissue. The doctor checked his watch for something to do while I composed myself. I couldn't tell who made it, but it looked expensive. Even his shoes had to be worth a few hundred. He rubbed at his chin with neatly presented fingernails and spoke again.

"The rules being what they are... and in the light of current trends in medicine, I am not even officially allowed to claim this is a treatment. Do you understand, Mrs Knox." Now he looked at me squarely. "I am somewhat... outside conventional science. They're trying their best to make sure I don't prove them all wrong."

"But why?"

"Drugs. I imagine." He said with a wry smile. "My therapies do not involve pumping subjects full of expensive patented medical treatments. No wonder they do what they can to discredit me!"

"Okay." I sighed. I didn't care about his paranoia. I didn't care about the prejudices of so called conventional scientists. I just wanted my daughter back, and Doctor Wisnewski's three-thousand-dollar-sessions might just work. "When can you start?"

* * *

"...Now, Charley. I'm going to count backwards very slowly in time with your breathing, and when I do, you're going to sink deeper and deeper into that safe, dark place. Is that okay? Just think of the whole world as a great big pillow and feel yourself sinking into it. Can you do that for me?"

Charley didn't answer, of course. She hadn't said a word in three years. Doctor Wisnewski's words were rhythmic and soothing, and it was all I could do to prevent myself breathing in time with his hypnotic words as well.

"Three... Two... completely at rest now. And... One..." He held the silence for a very long time, during which the only movement in the whole world was the steady rise and fall of Charley's shoulders.

"Charley, I want you to take your mind back in time. Don't worry about disturbing any unpleasant memories you may have because I want you to go back further than that. Charley, I want you to travel back through your memories, through the tapestry of feelings and moments to the last time you felt at peace. Does that sound okay?"

Again. Nothing.

"And when you've found that peaceful place I want you to look at your surroundings. Think about the ground at your feet. And think about where you are. What does it smell like? What can you hear?"

"I'm on a swing."

It was the first time she'd spoken in more than a thousand days! Her voice sounded strange. Dry, I guess. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes and a sob escaped me before I had the chance to check it. I found my feet and went to cross the room, to take her in my arms and tell her I'd heard her. But the doctor had his hand out, silently blocking my way. Fighting back the urge to scream at him, I turned around and found the seat again.

"It's a hot day and I'm on the swing. I started school today." Her eyes are open, she looks around the room but it's like she's looking at other things. "I've met all the other girls and boys. And there was someone else too."

"The teacher?"

"No, silly. Miss Penskew is okay though. I'm talking about Drummer."

"A drummer?"

"No. That's his name." She laughed. It was fresh, honest laughter. The type you don't normally hear from teenagers. The type you never hear from Charley.

"Why did you mention him, Charley?"

"Because he's important."

"In what way?"

Her response isn't immediate. "He says I can't tell you."

"What does he look like?"

"I don't know. He always looks kind of... wrong."

Doctor Wisnewski kept his tone measured and even. But his brow wrinkled slightly. "Wrong?"

"You know when you look at a photo and somebody's moved? Kind of fuzzy?"

"I see."

Charley's tone changed to a whisper. Her face broke into a sly grin. "I don't think he even has a face." She said. "I don't think he needs one."

I saw Doctor Wisnewski underline something on his pad and turn back a couple of pages.

"Charley," He said, blankly. "When I spoke to you a short while ago I asked you to concentrate on a time when you were most recently at peace. This is a very deep memory. Very far back in time. Are there no happy days beyond this one for you?"

"This was my last day on my own."

"I see." The Doctor said. Although the look on his face seemed pretty darn clueless. "And why is that?"

"Because now I belong to Drummer."

"Belong? That's a very strong –" Charley moved so quick I hardly even saw it happen. In the blink of an eye she'd jumped up from her couch and zipped over to Doctor Wisnewski's chair. Somehow she had taken hold of his silver pen and was holding it like a blade against the loose skin under his neck. Her face was twisted; cruel. Her voice, when it came, was definitely not my daughter's.

"Stronger than you think, doc. Now back off!"

I could see the terror in his eyes. The veins on the side of his face were on end, and his mouth hung open, gulping in air while his jaw flapped about with half spoken words. He brought his hand up to defend himself, but Charley had already dropped the pen. Her hands hung limply at her side and her face had the same blank expression it had worn since the accident.

"Charley?" I had her in my arms. "Charley, I heard you! You were talking! Can you hear me?"

I brushed the hair out of her eyes and moved my face so I could see her properly. "Charley, honey. It's me. It's mom. Can you hear me? Can you tell me about the swings?"

But there was nothing. No flicker of recognition. No response. I may as well have been talking to a tailor's dummy.

The tears caught up with me and the sobbing took over my body for a while. I moved her down to the floor where we both sat together. "You were so close. You were so close." I kept saying over and over, while I held her close and rocked her back and forth.

Doctor Wisnewski had gotten to his feet and produced two glasses of bourbon from some guilty hidey hole. I hated the stuff but took it anyway.

"We nearly had her." I told him. I wasn't sure if I was grateful or angry. Mostly I was just sad.

"She nearly had me." He said. I shot him an angry look, prepared to take him on, but I could see he was smiling. He hadn't meant to accuse her of anything.

"So what do we do now?" I asked, still cradling Charley's disinterested head in the crook of my left arm while I took a sip of the obnoxious liquid with my right.

"I'm going to need to enlist the help of a friend." The Doctor stared at his glass, turning it to watch the light playing on the faceted cuts along its walls.

"Another Psychiatrist?" I sighed. This would be the fifteenth psychiatric specialist so far.

"No. He's the master of a distinctly different discipline."

"Oh?" Charley had fallen asleep in my arms. She was snoring slightly as her breathing deepened, and her body gradually became heavier as she let go.

"Indeed." Doctor Wisnewski drained his glass in a single gulp. "Mrs Knox, the gentleman in question is a most learned Catholic Minister. Don't be alarmed, but I believe his speciality is what the popular press would call exorcism."

I lost my grip on the glass as the room started spinning.