"I think Mack found a girlfriend," Jessica conspired with Zac. "He talks of nothing else but his new friend Hope."
   Zac chuckled and switched the phone from one hand to the other as he opened the refrigerator and put ice in his glass. "That's my little bro," he commented happily.
   Jess rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, you gotta see this girl Zac. She's… she's…"
   "Hopefully human," Zac supplied rolling his eyes. He pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder and poured some tea.
   Smiling to himself, he left a little bit of tea still in the bottom of the pitcher as he kicked the door shut and took a sip.
   "Funny, Zac," Jess replied dryly. "No, she's just… she's weird."
   Zac laughed. "Well, you would be an authority on that, Jess."
   "Don't go there," she warned half-heartedly. "I'm serious about this. This girl is like seriously depressed almost all of the time. She's almost always just… blah."
   "Jess… Hope left her doll here. Could you take it to her house? Mack says she won't sleep without it tonight," Mrs. Hanson said from the doorway to the den.
   Sighing, Jess stood up. "See ya, Zac. Here's mom."
   "Thank you, dear," Mrs. Hanson told her as Jessica grabbed the doll and handed off the phone.
   "Yeah, yeah," she grumbled.
   She could hear her mother and brother laughing and joking about something. Most likely her, she knew and accepted that. She did that about him anyway as well.
   Stuffing her feet in her shoes at the door, she straightened her clothes and checked her hair in the foyer's mirror. This was purely reflex. It wasn't that she was vain, she was just used to it. You never knew when someone was going to stick a camera in your face, or some freakazoid was gonna try and sell pictures of them.
   Sticking her tongue out at her reflection she opened the front door and stepped out. Casting a quick glance around, she determined that it was safe, and shut the door behind her.
   It was a nice evening actually. The humidity went down like the temperature had. It was getting hotter and hotter lately. Which was a blessed relief from the cold winter.
   Jess wandered down the street, her feet shuffling slightly. She walked with purpose, she always did. It was just… she was never in a hurry with her purposes.
   When she did reach her destination she felt a moment's worth of panic as she pressed a button with her index finger.
   The door swung open and a short man gave her a quizzical look. "Can I help you?" he asked slowly.
   Clearing her throat Jess held up the baby doll. "Hope left this at our house today, and Mack said she wouldn't sleep without it tonight."
   The man stood there for a moment. "There's no Hope that lives here…"
   Jess bit her lip. "Are you sure?"
   Just hearing her say those words made her cringe and the man smiled slightly at the question. "I'm pretty sure."
   She shook her head. "No, I mean. I've walked Mack over here so that he could play with Hope. I know she lives here."
   "Ohhh. You must mean Melanie," the guy replied as he opened the screen door. "I'm Austin, her older brother."
   Jess took a step back. "Melanie?"
   Austin nodded. "Yeah. Melanie. Short little girl, brown curly hair, brown eyes, and she giggles nonstop sometimes. But usually a very serious tyke…"
   "That does sound like her," Jess replied hesitantly.
   He motioned towards the doll and Jess handed it to him. Deftly, he flipped out the back of the dress and showed a scrawled name on the back. 'Melanie' stared back at her and Jess blinked. "Odd. All I ever here Mack call her is Hope. Is it her middle name?"
   Austin smiled weakly. "Nah, and don't feel so worried about it. I was always called Worth as a kid. And that's not my middle name."
   Smiling back just as weakly, Jess waved good bye and headed back to her house. The idea of going by a completely different name was bizarre.
   As she walked into her house, she headed upstairs and Mack was putting away the last of his toys before bath time. "Mack," she said as she knelt down. "Why do you call Melanie Hope?
   Mack looked up from his Lord of the Ring's figurines and then back down so he could finish cleaning up. "Because she never goes by Melanie. Her mama calls her Hopeless, and I thought that was mean. So I call her Hope instead."
   "She calls her Hopeless?" Jess asked in shock.
   Mack nodded as he put the lid on a plastic tub full of his toys. "She calls her older brother Worthless." He looked around, then looked up at his sister. "Why does she call them that?"
   Jess swallowed hard. "I don't know," she told him as she hugged him tightly. "I don't know. But I do know we should call Hope by her real name."
   Mack nodded again and pressed his nose against his sister's, then giggled when she tickled him.