There was a silence in the elevator. A kind of unnerving, empty silence that led Aimee to recall the night Abba's life supposedly slipped away. Twelve years ago. Aimee remembered. It seemed like forever since she last thought about it in such detail.

She was never involved in the car accident, fortunately. At the time, she was cleaning up Scrabble pieces on the living room rug in Aunt Suzanne's house. She lived in Lille; a place northeast of Lorient, where AIM is located. Little Aimee, Suzanne, Benjamin and Abba had been playing Scrabble upon that rug, before Abba and Ben went out for groceries. Half an hour later, the house phone rang. Suzanne answered the telephone with knitting needles in her right hand. She did not know how to knit; they were used for when she played rock band with Aimee. Suzanne was rushing her to pack away the Scrabble pieces so that they could start the game. She would be the pretend drummer on the arms of the couches, or any solid objects that she could find in their living room, and Aimee would sing. She had a lot of talent for a five-year old.

Over the phone, the police informed Suzanne that her sister and brother-in-law were being rushed to the hospital nearby. All they knew was that the car had swerved off-road and tumbled until it landed on its bonnet.

Suzanne dropped her knitting needles and hung the phone back on the wall at once. She looked at Aimee and picked her up, and she let the Scrabble pieces fall to the carpet.

Aimee thought that her aunt was being playful and she did not resist, only laughed, "Where are we going?"

Suzanne buckled her into her car, and then got in at the front seat, turning the key frantically before even closing her door. The smile on Aimee's face quickly faded when she heard Suzanne's panicky voice. Aimee was amateur in speaking French, so everyone spoke English with her, but she understood that time.

"Ils vont bien se passer, ils vont bien se passer!" her aunt repeated to herself.

'They are going to be okay, they are going to be okay.'

The car engine roared. Suzanne finally shut her door and buckled her seatbelt. She glimpsed back at Aimee with eyes red and wet.

"Who, Aunt Suzanne?" whispered Aimee.

Suzanne rapidly turned forward and reversed the car. Then she spoke solely again.

"Ils vont bien se passer..."

Aimee sat pouting in the backseat. But she looked innocent, with big, chocolate eyes, and her long hair framing her face. She was subjected to her aunt's mumbling until they reached the hospital. She observed the building that the car window separated her from as the car itself came to a halt.

"The hospital?" she asked, puzzled. "Aunt Suzanne, what happened? Is anyone hurt?"

Suzanne paused for a second, she was distraught. In reply, she nodded, crazily, and then removed herself from the car. She pulled her niece's door open.

Aimee was already unbuckled. She jumped out of the car and ran towards the hospital, unwilling to wait for her aunt. She pushed through the double doors, she knew.

"Mommy," she said, and then looked at the lady at the counter. "Where's my mommy?!" she cried desperately, with tears running down her cheeks.

"You need to be more specif-"

"Abba and Benjamin Whitaker," Suzanne interrupted, slightly out of breath from trying to catch up to Aimee.

The lady scanned through her files on the computer screen for their names. Aimee glanced to her left and spotted them being rolled into separate rooms on separate stretchers. She ran up the hallway and heard one of the surgeons say something about Benjamin Whitaker.

"Daddy?!"

One of the surgeons turned around and held her at her shoulders. He said to her, "Your daddy needs to rest, Sweetie," and then he was gone, vanishing into the room where Benjamin would be operated on, shutting the door behind them.

Aimee stepped back, trying not to cry anymore, and failing. She turned around, in her slippers; she knew her mom was in the very room that she faced. The door to her ward was open slightly because the nurses had not bothered to secure it. She nudged it slowly, nervously, until she saw her mom in full view. Aimee rushed to her side while the nurses connected a mouthpiece from her oxygen supply to her face. To her bruised and blood splotched face. And in that moment, Aimee saw glass in Abba's left cheek.

"Aaaah! Mommy?!"

"Mommy is going to be okay, but you need go to the waiting room now, oui?" one nurse said to Aimee. "And we will make her all better."

"No," she shook her head, tears bubbling on her eyelashes. "No!"

She did not want to leave her side - she would not have, if only it was up to her. Suzanne stalked into the ward.

"I will take her," she said in French. "Just help my sister, please?"

The nurse nodded with a hard expression, before Suzanne grabbed Aimee's arms and carried her out into the waiting room. They sat down on the bench. Aimee behaved. She was unsettled, and furious with her aunt, but she behaved. Much later, a nurse called them in. They stood up energetically, concurrently, and hurried through the door.

"Mom?"

"Abba?"

They chorused, pulling chairs up to either side of her bed.

They sat down, and held Abba's icy hands. She was just then flowing into consciousness. Her hand felt like a cold, tall glass of lemonade, like the ones that Aunt Suzanne poured. Aimee caught glimpse of her hollow and terrified eyes and the trembling hands that held her sister's left. Aimee's eyes returned to where those fragments of glass in Abba's face had been - now removed - and she reached out her right arm to touch the cuts, but Suzanne grabbed her arm before she could, so quickly and strongly that she gasped in fright. Neither of them noticed how Abba's eyes were widening, and then they heard her voice.

"S-Suzanne?" she murmured, eyeballing them.

Her own voice was foreign to her; the mouthpiece gave it a shelled sound. She slowly captured her surroundings. And she was drowsy, but she totally freaked.

"Am I in hospital?" she asked, unnerved.

Aimee beamed saying, "Don't worry, Mommy, the nurse said that she'll fix you."

Suzanne grasped her sister's left hand. Abba tried to sit up, but moved so quickly that she only hurt herself more. Leisurely, she lay back down, wincing until her head was upon her pillow. She took her daughter's hand in hers, squeezed it at the knuckles.

"Aimee," she exhaled, and then inhaled. Her breaths were wheezy, a display of how unhealthy she had become. "If they cannot make me better, you will stay with Suzanne. And you will be even sweeter to her than you normally are, okay?"

Aimee's smile disappeared, and she had no words to reply.

Her sister's grasp constricted, "Don't talk like that!" she bellowed.

"I promised you that you would be her godmother, but you have to promise me that you will be a brilliant one!"

Suzanne kissed her hand and said, "Je t'aime."

And that was what Abba heard last, before she took her final, wheezing breath.

Aimee glared blurry-eyed at the body that shared the elevator with her. She was heating up. Her tears could almost evaporate on her cheeks.

"Can I ask you something?" she queried without stutter.

"If you must," said Abba, hardly noticing the tears.

"Why'd you two abandon me?"

Abba's face softened and she appeared nearly human, but she said nothing.

"Answer me!" shouted Aimee. "Where did you get the idea that forsaking your daughter was okay? Do you know how long I cried over you and Dad? And Aunt Suzanne, did you ever think about her? She never got the custody over me that you'd promised her! The social workers came to the house and dragged me away like I was a stray dog!"

Aimee's fists clenched and her teeth pressed together, she stood present, but her mind was somewhere else. Abba could not find the words needed to explain her actions. She apologised once. It was not enough. She neared her daughter, gradually placed her hand onto her shoulder.

"No, don't touch me!" she burst, swinging out of her grasp.

The doors opened and Benjamin was standing there, as anticipated. He and Aimee shared one glance before she sprinted passed him. She had no idea where she was going, other than away from there.