1990: At thirty, Sarah Jennings jumps out of a window on the thirty-second floor of the Brown Institute for the Mentally Ill and dies. For three seconds, she is in midair and rejoices. This. Yes.

1989: On her birthday, someone brings her a mobile. Three little origami cranes swinging high on invisible threads. She lies in her bed. She barely breathes. She watches the cranes swing back and forth, swaying in the breeze from the window.

1988: She can't really see anything from her window, but they shrug and let her sit there. She watches the pigeons flutter and scatter. She has been trying to get them to eat out of her hand, but they do not. Lately her eyes look sad and deep when she stares at the sky. She looks peaceful and quiet, but will not let men into her room.

1987: Sarah Jennings checks herself into the Brown Institute for the Mentally Ill. When she is put into a room with bars on the windows, she politely and carefully refuses to go in. She smiles, says No. They move her to an old converted office. It is cramped, they say. She shrugs, watches pigeons gather on the sill, says it will be fine.

1985: This morning she examines her breasts in the mirror, looking for lumps, and finds a small, crescent-shaped scar. She jumps, tight as a thread about to snap, vague colors coming back to her. Remembers shapes of light falling onto a familiar floor (where had she seen that before?), her cheek pressed hard against its rough, scratchy carpet. Voices in the background. Fire in her body.

1983: She does not want to go to counseling. Has to pause, a moment here, a moment there, during the day, washed by bits and scraps of haphazard memories. Memories of large hands, rough hands, rough voice, memories of trembling. Memories of fleeing into the air. She thinks she is going crazy.

1982: It is dark, and in the middle of the night she wakes, suddenly aware of the warm, heavy presence of her lover behind her. She is tense, filled with fear, and for a moment she wants to reach for something, anything hard or sharp by the side of the bed, and-- She gets up from the bed quietly and trembling without waking him, has a glass of water until she calms down. He lies, still asleep, a stripe of moonlight across his bare, vulnerable thigh. It must have been a nightmare.

1981: Dreams a dream she has not had for years, but suddenly remembers in all clarity. She is running, running, and she cannot fly. She cannot fly. She wakes up gasping, the sheets twisted around her neck, noose-like.

1980: She visit's a friend's housewarming party. It is not a good friend of hers; she knows no one else there. So she walks around the house. Her friend has bought cobalt blue water classes, cobalt kitchen counters. And in the bathroom, cobalt tiles and shower curtain, and little cobalt towels.
     In an upstairs room, more quiet, a lone sunflower sits in a cobalt vase. She goes up to it, touches it, wonders isn't this supposed to have seeds somewhere? but sees none. Leans forward to smell it. She can't remember where she's smelled that smell before. Backs away: it's almost frightening.

1978: She turns eighteen and her father dies a few days before her birthday. It's a windy April day. She's not the only one here on this hillside, but no one is crying. She has told consoling friends that she never knew him really anyways. Sarah Jennings, cold and tired, wishes she could go home. There is no grief, just a small hollow biting pain somewhere inside. She does not know what it is; she does not choose to think of it.

1975: In high school, she is not popular. If she had close friends the aunts would let her stay out late with them, but she has none. Nevertheless, she does not like to go to sleep early, she calls herself a "night owl." She does not dream of flying often, anymore. She attributes this to growing older, but she misses her dream.

1973: She is thirteen and her mother dies. Her aunts come over, hold her too tightly. When she gasps at the pain, they pull up her dress and find the bruises. She is taken away from the big man. She goes to live with the aunts.

1972: Sometimes she can't sleep. sometimes the big man comes into her room. Sometimes not. So she can't sleep, wondering. She lies staring up at the moonlight coming in from her window,sheets pulled tight up to her chin, imagines the beams as a staircase, imagines climbing them. Waits for her dream to buoy her up them, feather-like.

1971: She discovers a hollow place inside her. She fills it with memories like these: the vicious hiss of a belt slipped fast through belt loops; fiery streaming pain across her legs and back; the angry rip of a zipper opening. The almost-bursting feeling of knowing no one will come, if she calls.

1970: Her mother leaves the room for some groceries, the door slams. Nothing ever so frightening of that loud slam, the slow way the big man looks up from his paper. At her.

1969: It is the summer, they have gone to Arizona for a week. Sunflower fields flow up to the back of their hotel. Fascinated, she shakes and shakes a thick, bristly stalk until the heavy head plumps down, broken, on the earth beside her. She picks at the thousands of seeds, marvels.
     A shadow falls over her. She doesn't wait for the sound of the belt hissing through his belt loops: she is off and running through the bright field. She spreads her arms, running and gasping through the thick perfume of the sunflowers, expecting to feel that familiar lift at any moment, to escape like in her dream. But she doesn't. No, she doesn't.

1968: She can hardly remember a time when the man was not there; when she did not implicitly understand the subtle, fragile politics flowing around her in this house. The exact, careful way to smile.

1967: Sarah Jennings dreams of flying for the first time. She is seven. It is her favorite dream. A dream without bars. Yes, she thinks, This way out.