Clara Kate was on a beach, she was thirteen years old and prancing around in her new bathing suit. It had been a birthday present from Aunt Esther. Clara Kate loved the pink frills. The two piece cut made her feel big and grown up. And maybe a little uncomfortable with the amount of skin showing (but she never wanted to tell anyone lest they think she was a prude).They had been vacationing on the Caribbean for a month when it happened. Clara Kate decided she wanted to swim out to the sand bar about half a mile off shore. She was paddling as fast as she could, when all of a sudden the sky grew dark and the wind nipped the waves. Clara Kate could feel the waves swell around her. She panic. She could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper into the water.

Clara Kate startled and woke up. That vacation had been a good one. It was the first time she had been happen, since the death of her parents. Aunt Esther had been good to her, but Clara Kate never felt like she fit in. She did not connect with her old maiden aunt the way she and her mother had connected. Also, she did not make friends easily. Clara Kate was awkward and shy. Most people believed that she was being stuck up, but Clara Kate was just afraid. She was afraid that if she loved something, it would disappear, just the way her parents had. Clara Kate could not figure out why this memory had formed. She had tried for many years to suppress it. But She had fallen asleep at her desk and it had come to her mind and haunted her like a ghost. For many years the fateful Caribbean trip, Clara Kate had been scared to get into the bath. Putting her head underwater was torture.

But it was 11:30 at night and she had just begun her shift, she should not think of such things. Clara Kate had patients look after. A young woman walked by her office door. Her name was a season, like Summer or Autumn maybe. Clara Kate found it strange that she refused to leave Linda’s bedside. Linda’s husband was on the way, but this girl with the name of a season would not leave. Clara Kate had never seen a stranger so interested in the life of another. This girl must have a story. Clara Kate knew she was too shy to ever ask, but she knew it was a story she needed to hear. As much as Clara Kate hated the clinic sometimes. She was happy to get a chance to talk to people. It helped her to remember there were actually good people out there. Clara Kate knew she would say the wrong thing. She was shy and awkward around strangers, but she so badly wanted to meet this woman.