Lacy Wood lived a short life. She was born at 10:35 am on the 28th of February, 1997 at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. Due to a complication in the operating room during her c-section, Lacy would never know her mother. Heartbroken, her father took her home to their two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath home on the Upper West Side where her nursery had been expectantly painted blue thanks to a misguided ultrasound technician. Blue would eventually become her favorite color and the color of her elementary school backpack. She was the first student in her kindergarten class to learn to tie her shoes, but the last in her third grade class to master cursive writing.

In middle and high school she excelled at math because her mind retained formulas and numbers like a sponge, all the while taking remedial history classes because the historical dates just wouldn’t stick. For her 16th birthday, her father made plans to take her on an extravagant tour of France, but when his company suddenly went bankrupt the same day as their flight, her dream trip took a permanent bench.

Three weeks later, Lacy was alone in her bedroom writing an English paper on The Scarlet Letter when the aneurysm that had been growing in her brain like a secret, sadistic party balloon suddenly burst. She was dead before her father made it home with their Chinese take-out.