Friend, brother, teacher; her ante continued to rise and Edward contemplated the particles specks of dust in the air between himself and the door while he reached out to open it. His voice was still quiet, but irony twisted it, "This is a strangely serious conversation to have at an amusement park."

She was two months old.

How would she feel in forty years?

When she was the person right over a hundred?

Would her naive, cheerful force be present still? Would it have gathered the jade of lives passing through her fingers like ants and sands? Would he want to see the holes it would leave in her, no matter what stayed and what didn't?

Edward steered them both out of the ship and in the direction of where the most noise--both of people and machines--was coming from beyond their spot in the garage.