Annie was one of three children in her family. Her father rented an apartment in Boston for his family. He was a renowned psychologist and anthropologist, studying the familial bonds of tribes in rural parts of Africa and Asia. He traveled for much of Annie’s childhood, leaving Annie and her two siblings alone with her mother. Her mother, a part-time therapist and full-time good-doer, doted over her children when they were babies. But as they grew older, she became less capable of handling them. She chose to ignore their problems, determined that her husband, who was rarely home, would handle them.

(Don’t describe it, show it!)

Annie was six-years old when her mother first showed signs of the illness that would torment Annie until she left home at sixteen. Like her parents, Annie never forgot a moment. She described her memory in this way: “My brain classifies all my moments in rows of buckets. When I want a memory, I look for the right bucket, and once I find it, I can tip it over and spill out its memories.” She never shared her ability’s downside. Her brain stored her memories as more sinister than when she experienced them, and the memories did not stay in her brain’s buckets; they flowed over at night and during stressful moments. As she grew older, she lived more and more in her dark memories, filling new buckets with exceedingly darker versions of her original memories.

Annie and her younger brother David walked on the arm of their burgundy flower-print couch, practicing the balance-beam routines they had seen on television. David was doing a particularly complicated one-foot spin at the end of the arm when he lost his balance and fell. His head bounced off a gray-painted metal steam ridged with pipes. Annie screamed and ran to her mother. When her mother saw David, she froze and said, “Don’t you worry, Annie, your father will handle this. Blood is his department.” Her mother stood staring at David’s bloody head, shaking her head.

Her father hadn’t been home in months, and Annie pulled at her mother’s shirt until it ripped, but her mother didn’t budge; instead, staring at the blood and shaking her head “no.” For years, Annie relived this memory, attempting to understand what her mother was thinking. Annie decided to follow her parents and study psychology to understand what her mother was thinking when she witnessed and ignored bad moments. While her mother watched, Annie ran to Mrs. Tinderly, an elderly neighbor, who drove David and Annie to the hospital to have his head stitched together.

Annie was never relieved when her father returned home.

Jones (our sleepy narrator) wore thick brown glasses, with no frame along the bottom. He spiked his black hair and no matter how much he shaved, the beginnings of a mustache always appeared on his upper lip. His chin was short, and under his chin went up at a sharp angle to hic neck. His ears looked oversized, but when you looked closer, the ear was of a normal size, except for the earlobe, which flapped at his slightest movement.