A Book Begins...

With inspiration all around me, I wrote for the better part of last weekend, knowing that I have earnestly (finally) started writing my next book. The characters and plot will be presented through brief scenes that sometimes will and sometimes will not tie together.

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I am very excited. That's a good sign.
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Back When

“Mom, what was I like?” I braced myself on her kitchen counter.

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“You were tough,” she said. “You wouldn’t take no for an answer. And your brother had such a hard time. You didn’t help me.”
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"But Mom, I was only five."

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She paused for a moment, weighed this. “That’s true,” she said.

Angelina

The daycare door has glass of both sides of it and every time, the therapist stands there waiting until the child sees her. Every time their eyes run to one another before that wide smile and little feet reach the woman and she is scooped up, laughing. They are jubilant. They walk to the room between rooms where once or twice each week others pass through while they play and while they play they talk about bad things that should not have happened. She is only four, no, she is finally five—a birthday party with her foster family the week after Christmas. . She asks the therapist why she did not come. She answers she was away, tells her next year she will try.

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For Christmas the therapist gave her a magic wand to shoo the monsters away, although she has to say ‘Go way Monsters!’ out loud for it to work, and the therapist taught her a song to use in the long moments, when she is kidnapped again, this time by the truth that her mother has left her, will not be returning, that the bedtime game her uncle and aunt taught her was oddly not right, when her mind and body intersect at the stillpoint where she is really alone.

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There is really no one, not in the way it should be for her. She will turn fourteen in bewilderment, probably open wide at the wrong times for the wrong reasons, the wrong people. There is no way around that. The therapist and the child swing their hands together and walk back to her classroom. The therapist helps her put words to it, washes her in love. It’s not enough, She has the wand and the song, she needs them, and of course the love counts. But she is only five. A week ago she was only four, and now she is only five..

Catherine
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I told Catherine she sounded heartless and she laughed.
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“I’ve been told that before,” she said.
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I stopped trusting her then and there but it was much longer before I stopped loving her. And when I did stop loving her, I rearranged the furniture so the love that had been a rattan rocker was replaced by a light weight folding chair, just in case she decided to stop by and stop laughing.

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How It Ends

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It wasn’t normal for Paul to answer first, but it was right because he was better braced, more able.
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“Matthew called”, the woman said. “He has a gun, at the Motel 6. He told me to tell you he’s sorry, that he loves you.”

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In January they stood freezing in the parking lot for 90 minutes, until the slow gait of the Police Chief told them. “He’s gone,” he said.

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And with that, a mother and father, imperfect and frightened for the better part of 18 years, stopped answering their phone and canceled all holidays. They revised their memories and forfeited their capital.

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And on the afternoon when the headlights finally blinded them, compromised by wind and rain on Route 16, they were ready.