A young scientist working in her lab. White coat slightly stained, with her name messily embroidered on the breast pocket. Vials and tubes filled with liquids and gases of all colors are scattered throughout the huge room.

  Age 4. Why does only mummy tuck me in at night?

She wipes off the thin layer of perspiration on her temple with her shirt, and continues to work. She glances at her bed. It hasn’t been slept in in weeks. She can’t sleep. Too much work to be done.

  Age 5. I want to be just like my mummy when I grow up.

There’s a quick knock on the door, waking the scientist from her thoughts. She opens the door, and grabs the mail. All bills, one letter. From her father. She throws it away.

  Age 6. Why does mummy always seem to be so sad?

The low fizzing of the liquids and the soft smell of the chemicals pulls her into her desperate sleep.

  Age 7. Why is daddy always so sick?

She crumples into her broken swivel chair and falls into a light sleep, but only for a few seconds. Can’t sleep, she thought to herself, rubbing her sore back, too much to be done. 

  Age 8. Daddy tucked me in today. He said mummy had tripped and hurt herself.

It’s early in the morning, but the young scientist sees this as a reason to work harder. Every minute matters. She had an idea, and she had to go by it.

  Age 9. Daddy hugged and kissed me all night until I fell asleep. His breath smelled bad, though, like his friends always do when they come over for poker.

A way to bring back the dead. She had an idea for how to do it. She could save whoever she wanted. Though, it certainly wouldn’t be her father.

  Age 10. My mum came into my room last night with a black eye and a bloody lip. She briefly apologized, and rushed out to bed. She must have fallen again. Dad comes in to tuck me in. He stayed all night, and smelled awful, like the whisky mum keeps in the cellar.

It was a simple formula, but a hard one. She had been awake for 48 hours, living on only black coffee and oatmeal out of a can. She had huge bags under her eyes, and splotches of red on her pale cheeks. Her brown hair was knotted in the back and her clothes smelled like chemicals and rubber.

  Age 11. Dad came into my room last night. I was awake, reading a book for school. His eyes were red and his clothes were wrinkled. I heard my mum crying in bed, her voice hoarse and painful. My father smiled at me, turned off the lights, and came into my bed.
  Age 11. I woke up with pain everywhere, and a large bruise on my inner thigh.
  Age 11. Dad didn’t go to work today. He didn’t come home for dinner. I heard him storm into the house in the early morning, shouting to noone.
  Age 11. I learn to lock my door.
  Age 11. My dad learns how to pick a lock.
  Age 11. I spend all my savings on a nice, new lock.

Her plan was simple. Tell no one. Keep it a secret. Use what she had on her mother, then hide the formula. Keep it in a safe at the bottom of the closet. Bury it into the backyard, or something. Make sure the horrible people never got the second chance they don’t deserve.
 
  Age 12. Daddy and I are closer than ever. I wish we weren’t.

A buzzer quickly goes off, pulling her head out of the clouds. Her oatmeal is ready. She eats it slowly, finishing about half of it before putting the rest in a small, grey refrigerator. A single magnet, holding up a family picture, adorns the refirgerator door. Her father was cut out.

  Age 13. I got a little science kit for my birthday.  It’s got vials and tubes and bad smelling chemicals. I decide to make a way to bring back my almost dead goldfish, Goldie. It doesn’t work, though it does make him look cool with the colorful liquid swirling around his fish bowl.
  Age 13. Turns out fish don’t like chemicals. RIP Goldie.

There’s nothing left to do but wait. Maybe take a little nap, wait for the results of the tests. So she shuts her eyes, sits in her bed for the first time in days, and falls into a light sleep.

  Age 15. Last night, there was screaming outside. I went into my sister’s room in the front of the house to see if she was okay. She’s looking out the window, watching the screamers. It was mum and dad. They shouted at each other for an hour, until dad gave her a swift punch in the nose, hopped in the car, and drove away. I heard the bell on the bar door ringing from my bedroom.

A loud ringing comes from a machine next to a stack of papers. The formula. Her life’s work. She gets up, turned a few knobs on the machine, and goes back to bed.

  Age 16. Dad finally came home after seven weeks of being AWOL. He had grown a small beard and gotten a nasty scar by his right ear. He and my mother didn’t look at eachother. He hugged my little sister, who still had faith in him, and tried to hug me. I walked into my room, shut the door, and didn’t come out until he had left.

A car honks outside, waking her up. Damn neighbors, she moans, rubbing her weary eyes. Might as well check up on the tests. She spins some vials, turns some knobs, presses some buttons. She looks out the window. It’s snowing hard.

  Age 17. The snow covers the ground, high and hard. It’s a nice color white, with little footprints scattered along the front lawn from the neighboring kids. A nice peaceful moment. I play in the snow for hours with Mum and my sister, but Dad doesn’t come out to join us. He’s too sick from last night.

She looks at the clock on the wall, forgetting it’s broken. I’m a scientist and I can’t even get my own damn clock to work, she thinks to herself. She looks at her microwave. 8:34. It’s time to finish up the tests. They should be done now. Maybe twenty more minutes,

  Age 18. Off to the college of my dreams. My mum drives me there, with the boxes my dad helped me pack, from across the room.

Now, to test the formula. A dead rat, her old pet to be honest, was to be injected with it.

  Age 19. Came home for Christmas, so I get to spend three days and two nights with my family. My sister seems all grown up now. She’s grown up like bamboo. My dad’s grown wider. Dinner is phenomenal. Sure, the food was good, but the people were better.
  Age 19. It’s time to go back. I kiss my mum goodbye, hug my sister, against her wishes. I look my dad in the eye, blink away the tears and hug him, the first time I’ve touched him in years.

She takes the needle, and lets out a soft sigh for her old pal. She slowly slides it through his bone, releases the liquid into the marrow, and pulls out the needle.

  Age 20. College is amazing, but I need a break. So, for the summer, I head home. I knock on the front door, waiting for my mum’s surprised face when she sees me at the window. No answer. I call my sister’s cell. She picks up after two rings.
  Age 20. I head to the hospital, probably breaking all the laws of man, nature, and traffic on the way there.
  Age 20. Floor 3, room number 332. I go in to see my mother, asleep, her breathing labored. Her larynx is broken, her fifth cervical vertebrae fractured, and her face badly wounded. She was punched down the stairs. My dad is not in the room. My dad is not in the hospital. My dad does not care.

The rat shivers as the harsh chemicals runs through his blood, creating the artificial skin, bringing him back from bones to rat. His eyes open up slowly, tail moving less than an inch to the side. He slowly gets up, moves to the door to the cage, and collapses into a deep sleep. He’s alive, but hardly. Just like me.

  Age 21. My mother’s funeral was last week. My dad didn’t show up until the end. He smelled like he used to when I was a kid, when he used to come to my room at night. I sit on the other side of the row from him.
  Age 21. I guess, according to Millay, that I am no longer a child.
  Age 21. I guess, according to logic, that I am now alone.

A big suitcase in hand, she walks to the nearby graveyard, where her mother was buried. She stared at the marker, remembering the ceremony almost ten years ago.

  Age 29. I wonder where my dad is at this moment. At some bar? Almost definitely. At a brothel? Very likely. He always favored a cathouse above the family house. He got remarried three years after my mother died to a young lady in the city. Was he beating her up like he used to do to us? Was she regretting her mistake? I pulled out the big needle from my suitcase, and went into the tiny crypt. It only had room for the casket. My mother always said she had felt like she was living her whole life in a box six feet under. If she had to spend eternity in a box, it wouldn’t be with the bugs and dirt. I pulled out the casket, opened it up and silently looked at the remains of my mother.
  She had lived a hell. Why would I bring her back into it?

She packed her bag and closed up the casket in the crypt, leaving a single teardrop on her mother’s bones. She walked home, all the vials still full. The bag was set down, the vials pulled out and all destroyed. The liquid incinerated, the formula burnt.
She finished the oatmeal left in her fridge, and at last, fell into a very deep sleep.