“This was a very dark time for me. I kept seeing all these children that had been separated from their mother. They seemed to be coming through the door with the songs ushering them in. I saw the songs shadowed by these children, and it appeared to me as this hotel with this choir ushering themselves in and out through doorless entrances.” (A Piano booklet)

Only now is she ready to admit some things about herself.

She was burnt out. A husk. Drinking anything to drown the flames – wine, men, blood. She drank it all in until she lost her spark. Almost brave, almost pregnant. Almost in love.

It doesn’t matter that this isn’t about Tori – that she was the perfect, precious, pristine, pre-natal-vitamin-taking willing vessel. Of course she wasn’t a playboy mommy.

The point is, she might as well have been, because she still feels the same blame. She could have just as well been a showgirl. She doesn’t know why she can’t hold the spark.

It doesn’t matter how many hosanna’s you sing; god sometimes just don’t come through.

She doesn’t know that it’s just protein deficiency, that Duncan can give her a shot in the leg ever day and she will be right as rain, that her spark returns in the future. She’s crying over church bells. She does not know about the protein yet, so she is making up another fairytale.

Anything.