Megan stared at the angry woman with worried eyes, as though afraid Rachel might reach out and hit her. Then she blinked and seemed to be trying to think. For a second they held out hope that somehow they’d gotten through to her, reached out to the part of her that still knew who she really was.
Megan grasped the hem of her dress with both hands and insisted, “Meggy bi’ guwl!” flipping the dress up to expose her Winnie the Pooh pull-ups. She twisted back and forth with her dress pulled up to her chest, then began chewing absent-mindedly at the hem, wiggling her bare toes together, eyes tracing the ceiling.
Brian and Rachel knew they had lost an important ally. Megan was gone, there was no doubt about that anymore. All that was left was Meggy, a silly potty-using, thumb-sucking little toddler with an exhibitionist streak. What was worse, they had no idea how Megan had ended up this way or how to avoid a similar fate themselves.
While Meggy skipped back over to her pile of toys Rachel and Brian settled on the floor where they’d been standing. “She’s gone,” Rachel lamented.
“Do you think that could happen to us?”
“Of course it could,” Rachel snapped, angry. “Look at what’s already happened!”
“So what do we…”