Subj: Collinwood 2001 Year One Part Eleven
Date: 4/8/01 3:59:59 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

"Aunt Nora, how could you say such a thing. Have you forgotten all about Meredith? Poor, dear Merry?" Liz moved closer to the bed littered with romance novels and crumpled tissues that lay near a decorative box of odds and ends. "Merry is my sister. Remember? She was in that dreadful car accident so very long ago. And we almost lost her altogether, but as fate would have it we've only lost part of her."

Liz's voice took on a distant and hollow sound as she said this last part. She wasn't really speaking to her aunt anymore. She was saying the words as if by route for to speak them genuinely would be too painful to reiterate again. To relive that awful time when her older sister, Meredith Collins had nearly died in that ghastly car mishap. She had been returning home after some unpleasantness in nearby Bangor. She had just broken her engagement to her young gentlemen because she had discovered that he was two timing her, and she strongly suspected he was only marrying her for her money anyway. A witness of the events concerning Meredith's accident told the police that the heiress to the Collins fortune's car has inexplicable filled up with a sickly green cloud of vaporous smoke right before the automobile went hurtling off the side of the road and crashed into a tree.

Meredith Collins had been rushed to the hospital and for the next forty-eight hours it had been a touch-and-go situation. They were sure she was going to die, but she managed to pull through. She was paralyzed having lost the use of her legs and she had sustained a crippling blow to her head as well. She also suffered an unusual form of occassional amnesia whereby one didn't know from one minute to the next whether or not Merry knew who she was or who anyone else was. So they had had to put her in a nursing facility. The family had been against the idea, but they soon discovered that Meredith's needs far exceeded their combined abilities to give her the constant and proper care she would now require for the rest of her life.

Aunt Nora chuckled inappropriately to Liz's way of thinking. "No, no, no, dear Lizzie."

Liz hated it when her aunt called her Lizzie. It reminded her of Lizzie Borden and she cringed visibly whenever she heard her name vulgarized that way.

Nora continued. "I know all about our dear Merry. How could I forgot? No, dear, I am talking about your OTHER sister. Miss Winters, or should I say Miss Collins? I don't know, since the mother never did marry into the family properly. I'm not sure what the proper form of naming is when such a thing occurs. Does the bastard child receive their mother's last name or the father's? Oh, it's all so confusing, isn't it dear?"

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.