“I’ll show you to your room, then we can have dinner and maybe watch a movie if you’d like that?” my mother asks, leading the way out of the living room.

I nod. “That sounds really nice.” The others remain behind, offering smiles of encouragement. I follow her upstairs, and memories of living here start to filter through my mind. I stop at the second door in the upstairs hallway, my emotions bubbling up. Strong emotions I don’t usually feel. “This is my room?” I say excitedly, peering inside. My excitement quickly dissipates. Everything is different. My pink comforter is gone, along with my bookcase full of books, my unicorn posters, and all of my stuffed animals, which used to sit on my bed.

Now everything is yellow, and there aren’t any books or stuffed animals. There’s a dollhouse and a tiny table in front of the window with little dolls sitting on the chairs, drinking imaginary tea. I hate dolls and their creepy eyes. What are they doing in my room and what have they done with my teddy bear?

“No, honey, this is Lizzie’s room now.” My mother takes my hand and leads me away from the door. “You’ll be staying in Zac’s room when you visit. He cleaned it up and painted it just for you, and Daddy and I helped decorate it with things we thought you would like. And it has its own bathroom.”

“B-but I w-want my room. Th-that’s my room,” I stammer, choking back tears and trying to pull my hand from hers. The need to be in my own room is overwhelming, almost crippling. I need something that’s mine here. I want to be home, in my own bed, with my own things. I don’t want any more new things. Mom stops walking and smiles sympathetically at me.

“Holly, I know this is very hard for you,” she says slowly and with mild frustration in her voice. “It is for us, too. We’re all doing the best we can. You’ll love your new bedroom, it’s very grown up. You don’t want a little girl’s room anymore. Come see, okay?”

But I do. I want the little girl’s room. I want to be the little girl again and have my life back.

Reluctantly, I allow her to lead me to the other end of the hall to Zac’s room. Or to what used to be my brother’s room and is now mine for visits. She finally lets go of my hand as I enter. New paint, pretty colored throw rugs over the polished hardwood floor, a dark purple comforter and matching drapes—and presto!—new bedroom for the lost daughter. A huge flat-screen television is mounted on the wall across from the bed, and beautiful watercolor paintings of butterflies and flowers hang on the other walls. On the nightstand is one of those iPad things that Zac taught me how to use during one of his visits. This one is bigger than the one I have at my apartment, so I assume it’s a newer model. In one corner is a chair next to a small table that has a stack of paperback books waiting to be read. I smile, knowing they were put there by Anna. She promised to buy me new books after she and Zac caught me reading my old childhood storybooks at Merryfield. I don’t think they understood that I wasn’t reading them because I had no other books. I read them because their familiarity always makes me feel grounded when nothing else does. They’re still my anchor.

“It’s beautiful…thank you,” I finally say as politely as I can, remembering my new social etiquette. And the room is pretty and so incredibly luxurious. After years of sleeping on an old bean bag chair without a blanket or a pillow, with a cold concrete floor under me, this room is amazing. My small bedroom at my tiny apartment in Merryfield is nice, but nothing compared to this.

“I knew you would love it,” my mother gushes.

I step farther into the room and set my suitcase on the floor in front of the bed. “I do. It’s perfect.”

It’s not perfect, though. And it’s not that I’m not grateful that they’ve made this beautiful bedroom for me. It’s just not my room. There’s nothing of me here, no sign that Holly Daniels grew up here. No photographs, no favorite toys from childhood sitting in the corner. No scratches in the paint or scuffs on the floor from me growing up in this room. It’s clean and sterile.

Unlike me.

Maybe a part of me was hoping my childhood toys would be in this room. Or at least some of them. I thought for sure my favorite teddy bear that I slept with every night would be waiting here for me. Or maybe one of my favorite posters framed and hung on the wall. Something that said, “This is your home. You grew up here, for a little while, and we remember.”