Charlotte's situation wasn't all that unique.  She still felt like a child, just aged in
a way that only sudden death can do.  Her Aunt Rachel was around, clinging to her arm keeping the young woman young, but it was time to grow up and leave the city.  The day had come.

    "You'll be back in the summer, right?  We'll go shopping and to the movies and eat lunch on a patio."

    "Of course," Charlotte said.  Through the window she could see the early nightfall set in, the orange glow of the streetlights and in it the two sides of town – the practical, salt-stained day with cars rushing by, and then the night's rough girls in jackets with grimy necks and cuffs, each one of them someone's daughter.  No one came to Oshawa; they only stayed and never left.

    "It used to be real nice here," Rachel said.  "Back before they put in that five-lane mess that ate up all my front flowerbeds.  There used to be people I knew in all these houses.  I used to know them all."

    And that was the way of the city, with the old ones remembering what no longer was.  It was probably like that everywhere, when people spent their whole lives in one place.  Charlotte didn't want that to be her, telling sad stories on the steps of St. George's Church, or at the bakery that was nothing like the bakery from the old days. 

    "My dad worked in the mountains one summer when he was young.  He told me years ago."

    "Did he?" Rachel looked up.  "I guess he did.  I forgot about that."  It was funny how selective Rachel's memory was, and she always quickly changed the subject as though talking would make the long gone tears return.  "There are bad people out there, Charlotte.  Bad people who call themselves good.  You remember that.  People are people and you meet all kinds.  They try to hide who they are, but you'll figure it out in the end.  The truth always comes out."

    Charlotte knew, but it was still time to leave.  There always came a time.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~