Free A Year Without Autumn by Liz Kessler

something serious has happened to you,” she says. At last.
    “I know. Something really bad has happened. I just don’t know what it is.”
    “I think you’ve got amnesia. You know, we’ve talked to lots of doctors this year, and they’ve told us about all the different coping mechanisms. Maybe this is yours.”
    I bite away the tears that I can feel welling up and burning the back of my eyes. “Autumn, what happened with the car?” I ask. “Maybe if you tell me, it’ll bring a memory back.”
    Autumn leans back down on the railing, staring at the river as it trickles and bubbles obliviously along below us. She turns back to me. “You promise you don’t remember?” she asks again.
    “I promise. Tell me what happened.”
    “It was one of the worst weeks,” she begins, then laughs. A dry, cracked laugh with no humor in it. “Although there’ve been plenty to choose from. On the Monday, Mom got the letter from the gallery saying she’d been fired.”
    “Why?”
    “She’d been taking too many days off to go to the hospital. She spent virtually the whole of the first six months in there. They were pretty understanding at first, but then they said they couldn’t afford to keep paying her wages and pay another person to come in and cover her job, too. So they thanked her for all her years of work, gave her another six months’ pay, and told her they were letting her go.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Just like that. She built that place from nothing.”
    “I know.” Autumn’s parents were very proud of their story. Mrs. Leonard was brought in to run a tiny, struggling art gallery, and she built it into a major exhibition center, selling famous works from around the world — including Autumn’s dad’s. “What about your dad’s work?”
    “That was Tuesday’s news. His next exhibition got canceled. At least that one wasn’t a surprise. He hadn’t painted a thing all year, so how could he hand over twenty new works? We all knew it wasn’t going to happen.”
    “I don’t know what to say,” I murmur, feeling helpless, useless.
    “And then on Wednesday, we sold the car and the fancy condo here. Three days; one big demolition job on our lives.”
    I lean forward on my elbows and cover my face with my hands.
Where was I when all this happened? Why can’t I remember?
    “It was only last month that we decided to get this condo. I didn’t want to come back. Dad probably doesn’t care one way or another
where
we are as long as there’s a bar nearby. But Mom — she thought it would be good for us.”
    “Do you think she was right?” I ask.
    Autumn does that dry laugh again. “Look at us, Jen. My best friend has developed amnesia, Mom’s shut away in her bedroom, and Dad’s done his invisibility act as usual. How good does that sound to you?”
    Invisible.
That word again. It’s how I feel. As though that’s what I’ve been for a year. The world has passed me by, and somehow I wasn’t there. I don’t like it.
    “Autumn, let’s move on,” I say. I need to keep moving. I need to stop myself from staying still and focusing on what’s going on. Keep moving, and don’t think too much.
    As we get closer to our place, I notice that the families who were here earlier have left. We walk over the last bit of rough path to the bushes. Yesterday you had to pick your way across them, virtually climbing over branches to get to our spot, but now the water is so shallow, there’s enough shore to walk around.
    I rummage through the pebbles, looking for a flat one. I find one and hand it to Autumn.
    She smiles sadly. “I’d forgotten about skipping stones,” she says. She goes over to the water’s edge and throws it perfectly across the river. It bounces five times.
    I pick one up and throw it across the water. It trips over the surface once before flumping into the lake with a plop.
    “You’re still the stone-skipping champion of the world,” I say.
    Autumn smiles again. This time it almost