Between Heaven and Hell

Between Heaven & Hell Part 4

2009-11-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

The room wasn’t fancy, in fact he’d seen nicer rooms at the Y than this rolling flop house. Everything vinyl or plastic in shades of gray. Josiah took off his sneaks and lay back, throwing one thin arm over his eyes as he sought to sleep, get away from the voices in his head and the memories.

But sleep never came for Josiah, there was no respite from the voices in his head. Tension thrummed through his body and he knew he’d have to find a release and soon before he lost control. Mayor Jenkins was the last time he’d done that thing that always brought him release. Since winning American Star Josiah had fought to keep his urges under control. He was a celebrity now and well, you know, he couldn’t go around meting out divine punishment willy nilly because all eyes were on him now

But he only hunted predators, those that preyed on the weaker and the smaller. In some ways Josiah Smith felt this was his holiest of missions. His real calling. God knows the music wasn’t his calling.

In the back of his mind Josiah knew that the music he made was meaningless, inconsequential. His singing and guitar playing was no better or worst than that of a million other singer songwriters out there relentlessly plugging away in the bar scene. Just as he’d been during those long years between leaving Mississippi for Los Angeles and winning American Star.

His problem was the same problem of those million others playing the bar scene. They all sounded the same, with their songs of angst and heartbreak and irony. Josiah was painfully aware that the production staff at 7 Entertainment, owners and producers of the show, had forced his musical direction into that most calculated to sell the most records. They’d cared nothing for his own thoughts on the process, the sound he wanted, the image he wanted to project. It had been as cut and dried as turning out sausages or toilet seats.

As a result Josiah was both proud and ashamed of his first CD self titled “Josiah” The CD was filled with pop music, angry white boy music in the vein of every emo band of the last ten years. Now the production values were first rate. 7 Entertainment spared no expense or talent in the recording. The problem was it just wasn’t who he was.

At first management had put the full force of the powerful 7 Entertainment publicity machine behind him. Josiah had done an endless tour of morning shows, entertainment interviews and guest spots. Premieres, happenings. Hell, Josiah had walked the red carpet in a designer suit for the first time in his life. His posters were everywhere. One night the head of 7 Entertainment took him out on the town, turning the powerful sports car they rode in a parking space just so Josiah could gaze rapt at his own self. 7 Entertainment had taken out a huge billboard overlooking Sunset Strip in LA, a huge Josiah holding his Fender guitar over his head in triumph. That night had been even more exciting that the night he won the show. The label gave him his own expensive sports car as a bonus for going multi platinum. He only wished his Momma could have seen his victory.

Josiah‘s mind kept turning back to Mississippi, and his Momma. He loved her, he hated her. He loved nothing about Mississippi. Josiah only held hate for that hellish place he’d grown up in. The social class and monetary distinctions of Mississippi couldn’t have been more divisive and stringent that those of Calcutta or Victorian England. Because his mother was a woman from a good family that had lowered herself to marry someone from the wrong side of the tracks and to then return as she was seemed to be an unforgivable sin in Chattawah.

He’d suffered through the years because his poor Momma couldn’t seem to pull herself together after being abandoned by her Naval Aviator husband. She would only creep from the trailer to get her Tabs and Parliaments or to check on their welfare payments.

It wasn’t like there weren’t others in the community on government assistance, because there were, plenty actually. By the time Josiah started school he knew who in his class was and wasn’t because of the lunches, the free lunches. At least by the time Josiah started public school it didn’t matter so much if Momma was having a spell. He’d get to school in time enough to have breakfast followed by a hearty lunch. Soon enough the lunch ladies caught onto the fact that sometimes Josiah didn’t get much to eat at home and before long he’d started stopping by the cafeteria before getting on the dusty school bus for home. The ladies had packed up enough leftovers in a brown paper bag for him to have for dinner during those times when Momma locked herself into the bedroom with gin, candy and novels.

The reason that others in the town whispered behind lace curtains what a shame it all was about him and his Momma was because of who her family had been. Momma’s granddaddy had once been the richest man in town, richer than Mayor Jenkins. He’d owned a textile factory and other businesses but during the depression he’d lost everything, the factories, the businesses, everything from the farm that their trailer set upon. Even as he’d lost it all and was reduced to farming he still had the respect of the community and the family lived modestly for many years, like everyone else but still traced their lineage back generations. His grandmother was still a member of the Junior League and the Eastern Star. They still held prominent social positions in town.

When his momma, Lillian Smith, returned to town and didn’t settle into the Junior League or even attempt a job working at the five and dime or as a secretary somewhere but moved the dilapidated trailer on the property. Besides throwing aside all social niceties and traditions of her family Lillian had also committed the unpardonable sin of signing her mother into the Mississippi Lunatic Asylum. Her mother had slipped into early dementia but instead of move into the big farmhouse to care for her mother, his Momma had chosen to plead poverty and dump her in the state facility instead.

One of the worst aspects of life in a small southern town was not only did everyone know your business, everyone chose to add colorfully to it, false or true. Whispers went around saying Josiah’s daddy had never married his mother and that made him a bastard. People wouldn’t let their kids near Josiah. When he encountered a child in town their parents would draw them away as if Josiah was contaminated or contagious.

Going to school hadn’t stopped it either. None of the kids in the class would have much to do with him. His teacher was kind but she was the only one. Others would taunt him about his mother and how poor they were. Josiah clearly remembered that first Christmas at school, sitting at his desk wondering how to tell Teacher that he had no present to give for the class gift exchange. His teacher had stopped by his desk, bent down and slipped a small package into his hand with a whispered, “Don’t tell anyone. I knew you haven’t had a chance to buy a gift for the exchange and I happen to haven an extra!” He’d felt hopeful, grateful, ashamed and humiliated all at the same time.

In the hell that his school years were the teachers he had all seemed to conspire to make sure he had extra help. They enlisted the lunch ladies and some of the organizations in town too. Every year he was in school Josiah knew he could count on being called into the office on the last day of school before Christmas break and being handed a paper bag with his name on it. The bag always held a new set of dress up clothes, right down to socks and underwear and shoes in his sizes. There were a few toys and candies as well as a certificate for food at the local Piggly Wiggly. Every Thanksgiving brought a full turkey dinner with all the fixings from the Kiwanis club and every new school year clothes and supplies through a local church. Christmas was the big haul, not only did several local churches give them food but the Lions club, social services and churches gave him presents and clothes. Listening to his classmate brag about what they’d gotten for their Christmas gifts was one of the few times Josiah felt on equal footing with them. Many of the things they bragged of receiving were also part and parcel of his gifts.

Easter brought more food and candy from the civic organizations. There was always a glistening ham and all the side dishes. Momma made an effort to bestir herself and try to act more normal during holidays. Sometimes she even cleaned the trailer spotless instead of the slovenly half assed condition it was usually in. She fixed her hair, she put on a clean house dress and hummed in the kitchen while fixing their feast.

The problem with Josiah’s school years and his Momma and her spells was summer vacation. Summer, no school, just him and Momma. With no school or daily routines Josiah did what he wanted, as long as he didn’t bother Momma when she was watching her stories he was free to do as he liked. It wasn’t unusual for Josiah to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and sleep in well past noon. There was always something to explore or do. The Dark Man showed him a lot those long summers.

Sometimes Josiah hadn’t wanted to do what the Dark Man kept insisting, like the time he’d wanted Josiah to kill baby animals in the woods, smash nests and scatter the peeping baby birds. Josiah would scream at the Dark Man, scream that he didn’t want to play any longer. And just like that, the Dark Man would disappear from his life, for a month, for a week, but eventually he returned.

Summer was a dangerous time for many reasons. It’s the season that copperheads and rattlers would seek shelter from the searing sun in places you were likely to run across without thinking. Many times down by the creek Josiah saw alligators slithering just below the surface of the sun warmed water.

It was a cruel time of the year, turning the air outside into an barely breathable sticky mass of heat. Even the tall canopy of loblolly pines in the deep woods could not hold back the heat. In that heat not only did the poisonous snakes come out but it seemed to bring out every buzzing creepy crawling bug under the sun. Swarms of mosquitoes and flies made life miserable in the back woods of Mississippi. No matter what Josiah tried he still ended up with bug bites over most of the surface of his body. He tried asking his Momma for some insect repellant but she’d just turned from her soap opera, grunted and handed him an ancient gummed up bottle of Avon bath oil. It seemed to attract more bugs than it drove off.

But the bugs and varmints were not the only problems Josiah had with the pervasive heat. The trailer they lived in had no air conditioning beyond a small wheezing window unit in his Momma’s room. On nights when she wasn’t having a spell Josiah would sleep on a made up pallet on the floor of her room. He’d learned to put his bed down near the foot of her bed and not next to the bed because Momma had a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to pee and not watching out for him. Josiah suffered bruises a number of times before he learned it was safer to squeeze between the foot of the bed and the bureau.

During the day Momma refused to run that ac and she would not listen to his pleas to move it to the living room instead. Once Momma was up and had donned a fresh house dress she’s shut off her bedroom to try and preserve the last of the cool air after turning off the unit. That’s another reason why Josiah stayed outside as much as possible. It was boiling inside of the trailer. Once the sun got up and over head the metal of the trailer seemed to magnify and trap the heat.

On those boiling hot days his Momma sat in a webbed lawn chair she’d got at Goodwill outside the door, just under the beginning of the trees and watch her beloved soap operas in the shade. Every day Momma would tote their small tv outside, run an extension cord and watch hours of her stories with a lit Parliament in one hand and a can of Tab in the other.

But if it was raining, and it tended to rain a lot in the summers of Mississippi, both Josiah would be stuck in the living room, sweating, laying around the furniture, drinking soft drinks and putting pots under the worst of the roof leaks. It was a miserable damp way to spend a day.

When Josiah was around eight he signed up for a library card and on those days when the sun shone too hot or the rain turned the world into a steamy sauna he would spend hours in the library. He’d find a book to check out, curl up in one of the many niches of the library and read until the head librarian forced him to go home. Not only was the library cool in the heat of summer, it was clean, smelling of fresh wax and polish. It was quiet and the Dark Man dared not intrude there. But Josiah rapidly learned that to spend more than a three hour stretch there risked the librarians asking him about his Momma and if she knew he was there so often for such long periods of time.

But the biggest danger that summer held was not the heat, not the insects or the snakes, it was Momma herself. It seemed like the more the temperature gauge nailed to the electrical pole outside the trailer climbed, the more likely it was that something would set Momma off on one of her spells.

Her spells in the summer were way worse than any other time. Momma would not only lock herself into her bedroom and stop feeding him, she would crank up her air conditioner and not let Josiah sleep in the room with her. As bad as the heat was on those nights it was nothing compared to what happened when Momma stopped buying food or fixing it.

Summer was always the hungry time for Josiah. He learned quickly how to do for himself when Momma was locked in her bedroom but sometimes he’d get down to saltines, tap water and ketchup before Momma would come to herself and remember he needed food. He didn’t dare go into town and try to cage food off anyone because of what had happened the last time he’d been caught. But he learned to shoplift, just little things, a can of tuna, a pack of cheese, in those times. He’d search behind the sofa cushions for enough change to buy bread and shoplift whatever else he needed. He didn’t know if he never got caught because he was clever and good at lifting the cans or because the men that ran the Piggly Wiggly, the A&P and Winn Dixie seemed to feel sorry for him.

Every summer he would beg his Momma to allow him to go to summer school, just knowing that the summer school kids were getting a full breakfast and lunch. But every year Momma said no. So he learned to take what he needed, a skill that would benefit him immensely when he hitchhiked out to Los Angeles. It kept him from starving many a day.

And it wasn’t just the Piggly Wiggly or Winn Dixie that Josiah stole from either. Sometimes he’d sneak over to nearby farms and swipe a tomato or two. Or go into a rustling corn field by the light of the moon to steal a few ears.

Laying back on his bed in the bus Josiah had to smile, remembering those delicious open air meals he’d enjoyed, purloined hot dogs cooked over an outdoor bonfire with a side order of roasted corn, roasted right in the corn shuck. Nothing he’d eaten since tasted as good as that. He’d been constantly hungry as a boy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Full darkness fell like a black cloak eased down from on high over the flat plains of Kansas. Josiah stepped outside of the bus and sniffed eagerly, taking in the scents of corn dogs and cotton candy. Foods that he didn’t get much of a chance to eat as a kid. Momma never let him hang around the fair when it came to town.

Multicolored lights played over the midway, lighting up the night like a fantastical imaginary kingdom. Josiah laughed, almost as if he were a boy again, letting the lights play over his face. But as soon as he did a mighty squeal like a thousand hogs in rut went out. His fan base, shiny eyed with flaccid porcine faces, stood just beyond the barricades, making their presence known to him immediately. He ducked back inside the bus, sudden anger flaring that they’d intruded upon him yet again. The Dark Man whispered to him that he should take care of them, flay the lot of them, leave a trail of bloody corpses across the midway. At the same time a calmer voice spoke in his head, soothing and angelic, urging him to be nice to them. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing and they meant well, the voice urged.

If the Dark Man was party to all the blackness in his soul then just as surely the Angel urged Josiah to do what was right. He sighed, giving in to the Angel and trudged back outside, going to the barricade to sign autographs, pose for photographs and receive the gifts of the crowd. There were the usual nuts out there, the ones that followed him from place to place, seeming to have no life other than to trek around the hinterlands of the United States for Josiah’s endless tour of State Fairs and bars. He always wondered how they could afford it all, especially when he looked at the itemized statements from his accountant. The amount of dough it took to run the tour day to day seemed impossibly astronomical sometimes. How did they afford it?

The kids tagging along with their fat mommas made Josiah the saddest. Tiny sad faces peering out at him like hostages to insanity. What type of mother drug their kid to see a rock singer in a bar in the middle of the night? He’d seen kids standing on the bar at venues so they could see, kept up to all hours of the day and night, looking confused, bedraggled and unkempt while the mother shrieked and screamed for his attention.

The worst were the fans, their mothers. They reminded Josiah of his own mother. Corpulent and sweaty. Granted they didn’t run around clad in thin cotton house dresses but most of them weighted well over two hundred pounds, middle aged and jowly. Josiah just did not get it. Why were they all so fixated on him? On rock and roll? He tried to do nothing that encouraged them but he also tried not to piss them off. They’d driven his freshman CD up to platinum sales. Still, it would have been nice to look out over the audience some time and see age appropriate fans, not a see of lardy ladies dressed like their were nineteen again.

Josiah was disturbed to note a rotund mother with three small children smashed against the fencing. The mother stopped in her attention getting tactics to smack the youngest child and shake him hard for crying like that. The crowd surged forward and Josiah could see that the kids were becoming even more frightened so he called out harshly for the crowd to back off, stop mashing the children.

By the time Josiah and one of the security guards made it back to the bus he was exhausted and oh so done, over it all. He wished he could abandon his bus and fly back to his condo in LA. At least he’d scored enough bread from the first tour to buy a decent place to live, no more squatted in abandoned buildings or cheap apartments.

Joe, the burly security guard that traveled with the band asked Josiah, “Hey, what do you want me to do with this load of crap?”

Josiah could see the large stack of things Joe toted, scrapbooks filled with endless photos of himself along with poorly written poetry being the most given item. What use for those things would he ever have? Josiah sighed in frustration and said, “Wait till the fans leave for the stage and toss the whole lot of them in the nearest trash bin.”

Joe nodded, he asked but he knew the drill. Scrapbooks went into the trash along with fan t-shirts and jewelry and other odd bits. Teddy bears and toys were handed over to the local promoter with the instructions that they were to be given to the children’s ward at the local hospital.

The rest of the band reluctantly awoke, in various stages of hangovers and went out to do the sound check. More fan screams met their departing the bus for the stage area. Josiah stayed behind on the bus. He didn’t want to encourage his fans any more than he already had. He sat at his usual seat on the bus and listened to the noise of the midway, the grinding of machine motors powering the Tilt o whirl and the Roller coaster, the musical notes of the calliope, the come on of the carnival barkers and he wished he could be out there, looking at the lights, eating a corn dog. Something normal. Whoever had said be careful what you wish for was absolutely correct.

By the time Josiah and his band hit the stage the crowd surrounding the stage had grown to completely engulf the area. There were heads as far as the eyes could see. As he strapped on his guitar he could see the usual assortment of his most vocal fans pressed up right against the stage. And, Dear God, they were wearing their freakish beaver hats, hats that looked like a disemboweled beaver on their heads. At some point during the “American Star” competition some of his fans had named themselves ‘Josiah’s Eager Beavers’. Now they showed up at each and every show wearing those stupid hats, sometimes with fake beaver teeth. Sometimes they held up obscene signs at the concerts, not caring that the other fans didn’t seem to like it, or that there were children in the crowd.

As Josiah strode forward, to the edge of the stage to greet the crowd the voices in his head raged again. The Dark Man demanded he step on their fingers that were eagerly gripping the stage edge or that he spit in their faces. The Angel counseled grace, grace and gentleness as the band launched into their first song.

The vibe from the crowd was good and Josiah and the band plowed through their nightly repertory of songs like the only world that existed was right there on the stage. Sometimes when the music was right, everything clicked together like a well oiled machine. That feeling was what Josiah lived for, that feeling of ultimate bliss where nothing else existed. That was Josiah’s drug, no alcohol, no narcotic could come close. This is why he did it.

The problem was that when it was good, that good, it took Josiah and some of his band mates a long time to come down from it. Adrenaline pumping, energy shooting arcs throughout your central nervous system, raring to go again. On those nights coming down wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Josiah could fully understand why great classic rock bands made trashing hotel rooms an art form back in the sixties and seventies when most towns rolled up their sidewalks at six pm. There was nothing open after the gig and all this excess energy to burn off. Which lead to drinking, drugs and groupie banging.

Most of the guys in the band slipped out to the late night carnival, knowing that they could ride the bumper cars and roller coasters mostly unaccosted by the fans. He knew that his bassist Alex would get drunk on the cheap beer and maybe demand a blow job or two from what ever lurking fans there were nearby.

Instead of heading back to his room on the bus, Josiah made the snap decision to swipe Mo’s jacket and hat. With the much bigger man’s long jacket and fedora it wasn’t likely that any of the lurking Beavers would know who he was.

‘Let them find you and then just mete out exactly what those cunts deserve..” the Dark Man whispered as Josiah bounded down the metal steps of the bus. Josiah shook his head, it wouldn’t do to follow what the Dark Man said and end up in prison even if he also knew that the pressure inside was getting too intense. He’d have to do something soon to shut it down for awhile.
For a long time no one approached Josiah. He was able to get a corn dog and candy apple without anyone recognizing him as tonight’s headliner. He rode various rides, even taking a turn under the brightly lit canopy of the bumper cars. No one suspected. It was the most fun he’d had since those long ago days playing in the forests of Mississippi. He whooped and yelled as the roller coaster cut magic manic circles through the chilly air, laughing like a child.

It was only when Josiah made his way over to a deserted set of portajohns that someone intruded on his evening. He had just barely entered the farthest portable toilet, lowered his pants and started to take a dump with the door popped open and one of his more vocal fans entered, closing the door behind her. It was just the two of them in this tiny fetid box of a rest room. “Lady, what are you doing?” Josiah growled menacingly as the Dark Man put evil thoughts in his head.

She jumped up and down, the floor shaking and rattling, from all that blubber bouncing up and down. “It’s you! It’s YOU! IT’S YOU!!”

But the Angel whispered calmly, lovingly in the back of his mind, “Peace, she just wants a few moments of your time.”

The Dark Man shouted over top of the Angel’s words, “Kill the bitch!”

Josiah tried to remain calm in being interrupted at this most intimate of moments, “Look, please, please, wait outside and I’ll talk to you, sign anything you want.. Alright?” he wheedled in his charming of voices.

Her spandex leggings and home made t-shirt proclaiming all her love for Josiah strained to the limit as she shouted anew, “It’s You!”

He stared in horrified fascination at her mountainous belly and straining breasts the size of cantaloupes. Her hair was a mess and she wore no makeup on her mottled skin. Middle aged sag head to toe with a moon like face.

Suddenly Josiah remembered seeing this lady earlier in the day, seeing three small children, aged perhaps nine, seven and five or under, being pressed up against the barricade as this woman shouted out at him. He could not help but ask, “Where are your children?”

She squealed again and replied, “They’re sleeping in the van.” and with that this mystery woman reached for his exposed crotch.

Josiah jumped backwards rapidly, avoiding her touch and what happened next occurred as crazy feelings surged over him. It was the culmination of months of being stalked by freaks and weirdoes without any outlet to deal with these pressures. He whipped around behind this nameless Beaver, grabbed her with one hard muscle laden arm while he wiped his bare hand over his still dirty ass. Forcing her towards the gaping hole of the portable bathroom towards the stench of a million pieces of shit floating in gallons of strangers piss he wiped his shit laden hand over her mouth and nose.

He whispered into her ear, not in his usual soft voice, or the voice of authority he sang with, but with a voice that sounded like it was from the pit of hell. “Is this what you wanted? To be up my ass? How do you like the way my shit smells? Stinks, doesn’t it?”

She may have outweighed him by a good one hundred pounds or more but his insane rage gave Josiah the strength of a mad man. As she started to weep and struggle Josiah held her even more tightly, clamping one large hand over her mouth and nose, forcing her ever closer to the stench filled hole. A loud buzzing of a million angry voices swarmed through his mind and Josiah felt the woman start to retch but he held her fast, not allowing her to take a breath or puke. She shook fiercely until suddenly going slack from inhaling her own vomit. His glee grew as she neared death. By the time Josiah lowered her body over the toilet seat she was already dead.

He stood straighter and smiled. All the tension that had been pulsing through his body was gone, just like that. A new lightness was there and he sighed contentedly. Josiah left the portalet, taking a paper towel to wipe down any handle he might have touched. He took the time to jerry rig the door to the occupied position. He walked out into the fields and wiped the excrement from his hands on the grass before heading back to the bus.

Killing the bitch had birthed a new type of excitement in the marrow of his bones, akin to how some people described their orgasms or reaching the summit of a tall mountain. That hag would be missed by no one and her children better off in foster care than being drug everywhere like dogs.

Back at the hotel watching the midnight local news there had been a report of the mysterious abandonment of three young children in a van once the fair closed and the parking lot emptied. Police were asking anyone with information on who the children were and where they were from to come forward and reported the three had been placed together in an emergency foster care family. Josiah smiled, yes, yes, he’d done the right thing and rescued those kids from their evil neglectful grasping cunt mother.

Between Heaven & Hell Part 3

2009-11-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

Part 2

2009-11-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Scary looking men had hissed from dark shadows and somewhere in the distance someone moaned and someone else shrieked. Rubber wheels squeaked and nurses attired all in white like ghosts silently padded up and down the halls. People sat still with dead eyes like zombies on the nearby benches. A very frightening place, with one exception.

He’d gotten a glimpse of the kids that made it their home. Josiah had spied a parched grassy square just outside of the glass paned doors opening out to the back of the massive building. There, beneath the Gothic arched overhangs of the immense granite building there’d been a playground enclosed with a rusting sagging chain length fence.

He’d not known at the time that the playground wasn’t much, a dilapidated swing set, a bent slide and a deflated tether ball at the end of a rope. Josiah had only seen playgrounds and hordes of playing children on television. Momma kept him at her side as much as she could, complaining copiously when he’d befriended the sharecroppers boy down the dirt track from their trailer. She’d walloped Josiah with an electrical cord and ranted loudly about the evils of race mixing, calling his new friend a ‘neeg-grah’ and ‘pick-a-ninny’, both words Josiah had never heard before. After that whipped Josiah learned to keep his companionship at playtime with The Dark Man.

But the sight of all those children playing tether ball, running, laughing, playing on the battered old seesaw and swings had thrilled Josiah to no end. And from the depths of his loneliness he dared give voice to his desires for friends. He turned to his Momma and begged, “Momma, please, please, can I go play wit’ those kids?”

His mother paused in her task of clumsily applying her new tube of lipstick before a cracked mirror in the lobby and turned to him, puzzled, “Whatever for, sugah?”

Josiah didn’t know exactly what was wrong with his question, with what he wanted but he could feel his mother’s disapproval already. He muttered out, “Because I want to..” looking miserable at the scuffed too big tennis shoes his Momma bought at the Salvation Army store.

“Iffen you wanted te go hop off the top of the Empire State Buildin’ do you think I oughta let you?” Momma had queried, a deep frown forming on the puffy surface of her moon shaped face.

He couldn’t speak, looking from his second hand shoes to the kids still capering about joyously just outside the doors.

Momma stood up straight, and placed her fisted hands on her hips before thundering, “You think I’ma gonna let you ass-so-cee-ate with a loada crack pot offspring and mental dee-feck-tiffs you gotta another thing comin’! You know why they put those kids ina here? They bad! They bad little kids nobody ever wanted. You wanna be like them? They evil rubs off on you, like cooties and the next thin’ you knows I’ll havta sign you in here for the rest of your LIFE! You wanna live here?”

People were starting to stare now. The snooty looking lady at the reception desk paused, telephone receiver forgotten in her hand, while still others visibly drew back from Josiah and his Momma. “No, Momma, No!” he whispered forcefully, silent tears sliding down his cheeks.

Caught in his long ago memories Josiah muttered, “No Momma, No!”

The elderly bus driver Mo turned around and gruffly barked, “What? What?? Do you need something Mr. Smith?” before snapping back forward, eyes to the road.

For one long moment Josiah Smith stared at the back of the bus driver, taking in the grizzled grey hair sheared Marine short. The more Josiah looked the more fixated he became with the pulsing vein on the side of Mo’s neck. Oh how easy it would be to reach over with an iron grip and squeeze, squeeze all the life of out Mo, watch as his face purpled and horror entered his dying eyes at the knowledge that this smiling genial younger man was robbing him of his very life.

“Do it, do it now. The bus will go out of control and kill all of them..” came from inside Josiah, whispers from The Dark Man. Equally quick came the calming voice calling, “This man only wants to help you. Don’t end his life, you’re better than that Josiah.”

Josiah sighed, giving in to his angel and he muttered, “No Mo.. Nothings wrong.. I was just napping and having a weird dream.. That’s all.”

Mo looked at him like he was insane before turning back to the road and lighting up another Marlboro, hacking a big nasty smokers cough. The cough of a lifetime sucking down filtered cigs.

It seemed like much of Josiah’s life had been spent in a haze of cigarette smoke that was not his own. Sometimes, like now, the smell became overwhelming, reminding him of the years he spent in that stinking cramped mobile home with his grotesque mother. He remembered how it had permeated all of his clothing and books. Sometimes the kids at school had teased him, called him the Marlboro Man. He bet they were all sorry now, sorry they’d been so mean to him through the years now that he was a tv star and musical artist. How many of them had purchased his freshman CD after he won the American Star competition and bragged that they went to school with him? How many pretended to strangers to be best buds with him? Fuckin’ Marlboro Man.

One of the later episodes of “American Star” had been filmed in his home town of Chattawah, Mississippi. Cheering crowds with signs greeted him and for one small instant Josiah knew something of what the Beatles must have felt when they first deplaned in New York city for their first American Tour. No one called him any of the names they’d have for him through the years, no shouts of Freak, no gibes about his mother being fatter than Elvis, no reminders of his years being tormented by the town bullies. For once he was the returning prodigal son arriving in triumph. Josiah didn’t know if he should laugh or rale at these freaking hypocrites. Instead he’d simply smiled and waved for the crowds and the cameras of “American Star”

Even Josie Tutwiler, the prom queen who’d laughed in his face the one time he’d dared to speak to her, was gushing about how great he was. The moronic cretins on the football squad were filmed telling all of America that Josiah Smith was their best friend and the pride of Chattawah, a favorite son.

The mayor presented him with a key to this shit hole burg before giving a speech expressing civic pride in Josiah. The same mayor who’d called him a ‘snot nosed punk’ back when he was working at the local barbeque juke joint bussing tables. Another hypocrite.

That night as the mayor slept Josiah had done a very bad thing. But he’d done it so skillfully that the local cops and coroner ruled that the mayor had died of cardiac arrest in the night.

It wasn’t the first time Josiah had given in to the voice of The Dark Man in his mind and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But he had to admit the little episode had been vastly satisfying, powerful even. Certainly he’d felt powerful when he’d been astride the mayor’s prone body as the older heavier man had been bucking like a sunfish on a lure. As Josiah pressed the feather pillow over the other man’s face he’d felt like God. It was the ultimate high he felt when suddenly the large man stopped fighting and went utterly limp.

Afterward he’d lifted a beer from the fridge of his victim and he’d savored his payback. Josiah sat across the room from the bed in a floral sprigged wingback chair, drinking in not just the beer but all that he’d done that night.

He never could sleep after gigs and sometimes this was the perfect nightcap. As Josiah slipped out of the back door he could feel tiredness starting to overtake him. He’d sleep well for the first time in months tonight. Evading his handlers and keepers for a final visit with an old enemy was the tricky part.

Josiah chuckled at the look of surprise on the mayor’s face when he’d tickled the other man awake with a feather under his nose before proceeding to kill him. The man’s last words had been a surprised, “You!” Laughing Josiah had lowered his handsome face even closer to Mayor Jenkins and said, “Surprised? Payback is a big dirty bitch.”

The truth was that during his late high school years when Josiah had been bussing tables Mayor Jenkins had made The Squeal his regular stop. Jenkins been sleeping with one of the waitresses, smutty and middle aged Bernice, since before he’d placed his long suffering wife Millie in a rest home. Jenkins would show up at The Squeal and hang around man handling the waitresses, pinching butts and lording it over everyone there that he was the richest guy in town and the mayor. Josiah had been on the receiving end of Mayor Jenkin’s jokes and rants too many times as the only son of the town’s poorest oddballs. Many, many times Josiah had dreamed of what it would be like to choke the life out of Mayor Jenkins.

A methodic search of the late mayor’s home had only turned up some ancient porn and worthless mementos of a life lived in this tiny burg. It was one of the few times Josiah took no souvenir of his kill. He laughed at the thought of the silly looking Playboys from the 1960s he’d found in the mayor’s closet.

Mo turned back again and said to Josiah, “You oughtta try to hit the rack for awhile. You’re in for a long drive today.”

Nodding his agreement Josiah got up and made his way back to the small private bedroom in the very back of the bus. His privileged status as the headliner earned him his own tiny room instead of a single bunk with only a curtain separating him from the drummers farts and the snores of the others.

Another Year, Another Nano - Between Heaven & Hell

2009-11-01T16:49:00.001-08:00

The road unwound like a silver grey ribbon in front of the tour bus. Mile after mile of flat landscape, towns that looked almost abandoned, like prosperity had never graced these parts. Houses, churches, stores with the patina of poverty slid by in a haze of sameness. The customized bus flew through this depressing landscape like an ocean liner parting the fetid waters of a blighted and polluted sea.

Inside the bus there was no real distractions from the road. A number of young men with long hair and unkempt appearances played a raucous game of cards over beer and chips. Of their number only one sat alone near a bus window and stared morosely at the world outside.

That lone man sighed and closed his eyes, leaning further back remembering that not too long ago he headlined in good-sized arenas. None of this county fair bar scene crap. Sometimes it seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d won the competition and started this endless round of recording music and then touring to promote the music.

Anyone looking through the window of the bus would have noticed immediately that Josiah Smith was handsome, attractive in a very middle American corn-fed every man way. His jaw line was rugged and shaggy dark brown hair exploded in a shoulder length cascade of waves and the occasional ringlet. A masculine face with a cherubic cloud of hair. Josiah was average height, average build and his brown eyes looked like those of a million others Through the years he’d carefully cultivated his every man appearance, seeking to hide what was within him. The daily internal struggles at great odds with his harmless countenance.

To his adoring fans Josiah was like a God. He could do no wrong and at every stop on the tour he was greeted by a die hard cadre of the most fanatical. Too bad most of them were fat old hags that not even his ever horny drummer wouldn’t tool even when stoned out of his gourd.

But Josiah knew he wasn’t a God. If anything Josiah knew he was a demon, or had a demon and an angel constantly grappling for control of his mind. On days like today, quiet days rolling down the road to the next gig on this never ending tour, his thoughts took him places he didn’t want to go, down into Hell.

The card players hooted as someone made a big bet and someone else challenged during the daily poker game. Every day it was the same, drinking, eating, poker playing degenerating into teasing and laughter. The noise of it all grated on Josiah’s brain. He never participated in the game and on days like today he could imagine gleefully slitting the throats of the players, imagine their lifeless forms dripping with coagulating blood.

Immediately Josiah tried to push that tempting thought away, shooting a quick glance over to the players to see if anyone picked up on his very thoughts. But none of them seemed to realize only a moment before that Josiah, the singer they’d all been hired to back, had momentarily harbored murderous thoughts towards them.

As the bassist, a tall lanky blonde of about twenty five years old named Alex, started to fall out of his chair Josiah realized that half his band was drunk again. He sighed loudly in irritation. Great, just great, he thought. Any minute the guys would start to stagger off drunkenly to their bunks in the bus and futilely try to sleep off the boozing. They’ll get a few hours of shut eye, awaken half wasted and confused and awkwardly lope through a half assed performance, all the while blaming it on feeling unwell for no reason. Another fucked up part of Josiah’s life.

And they’d leave Josiah alone with his angel and his demon. The worst torment of all.

Eventually all seven of the guys filed back to the bunks. Josiah closed his eyes as they passed, feigning sleep just so he didn’t have to make small talk. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the guys in his band, It was more that it just simply took too much energy for him to make the effort. Plus sometimes when the angel and the demon started battling in his mind he wasn’t always sure what was real or unreal, appropriate or wrong. Like the time he’d been five and didn’t yet self censor, thinking all he experienced was alright.

Josiah remembered a bright sunny morning in the woods of his boyhood home in Chattawah, Mississippi. He’d been in the forest playing with the dark shadowy man in the shadows of the tall loblolly pines.

His mother and he had lived in an ancient mobile home a few miles outside the city limits of Chattawah. The trailer the only thing that survived the long ago wreckage of his parent’s short lived marriage. He’d seen the photos of his mother Delta, a slim and beautiful young woman, with that of his father. Josiah had no memories of his father beyond those lone photographs. His momma told him that his father had been an airman at the near by Naval Air Station who’d left for advanced training on the Puget Sound and had never returned to Mississippi.

Now as an adult he realized his mother had hidden her frustrations and her sadness, stuffed them down with food. Josiah could not remember a time when his mother weighed below four hundred pounds. She shuffled around the turquoise sided trailer in a cheap floral print house dress and flip flops from Kmart, collecting welfare checks and food stamps and SSI.

That day Josiah had lost track of time, he’d gone farther and farther into the pine scented woods, laughing and chasing that elusive dark man who’d been with him as far back as he could remember. Momma had told him to come back to the trailer for his mid morning snack of Twinkles and cola before they left for town. Momma was out of diet drinks and cigarettes again. She always had a Tab in one hand and a Parliament cigarette in the other.

But in the forest there was no sense of time under the soaring canopy of the loblollies. There were places of shadow, of deep darkness where the sun of late spring never penetrated. He’d chased The Dark Man and then the man had chased him. They played hide and seek for a long time. But Josiah had forgotten he was supposed to be home quickly. By the time he looked up and squinted at the few shafts of light penetrating the long deep green needles of the pines it was late, maybe as late as noon. The Dark Man tried to persuade him to stay and play but Josiah knew he had to head home before his momma had one of her spells.

Momma in a spell wasn’t a good thing, she’d take to her bed, staying locked in there for days on end. She’d eat boxes of candy, weep, read romance novels and drink some funny smell clear liquid called Gin. When she got like that Josiah had to fend for himself, living on whatever food he could scrounge up. The last time his Momma had a spell he’d ended up digging through the trash behind the Piggly Wiggly and Johnsons Rexall for thrown away food. One of the local deputies caught him and took him back to the trailer, telling his Momma she had to pull herself together or they’d take him off to foster care or to the Mississippi Lunatic Home. That threat had jolted Momma out of her stupor. She took more care after that to at least emerge a couple of times a day to make sure Josiah was alright.

Josiah ran as fast as he could, speeding up as he neared the trailer, ignoring the calls of The Dark Man. As he stepped into the clearing he could see that Momma was waiting for him, wearing a clean house dress with fancy town shoes, her hair trimmed with fake for get me nots, white gloves on her hands as she primly clutched her pocketbook. That old peahen from down the road at the big white house, Mrs. Jackson, sat in her car. Josiah could see the pursed frowns on both womens faces. The set look on his Momma’s rouged lips scared him as he ran up panting and shouted out, “Momma.. I’m sorry, I lost track of time.”

Momma glared at him and said tersely, “Get in the car”

As they’d driven away in the old rattletrap Lincoln Josiah had said to the adults, “I was playing with the Dark Man and forgot we had to get to the store.”

Mrs Jackson’s lined face took on a whole new set of wrinkles as she frowned in confusion before snapping at his Momma, “Delta, are you still entertaining this boy’s nonsense about haints and spooks?”

Momma’s face had taken on a dark color, like a bruised plum and she’d grabbed his arm and squeezed as hard as she could, nails painted bright red and cutting a line of bleeding half moons into his flesh as she hissed, “Boy, you ever talk about that ridiculous crap again and I’ll leave you at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum myself. Do you understand?”

As she spoke those final words she’d increased the pressure of her nails until Josiah thought he might black out. He didn’t trust his voice because the pain was so intense if he opened his mouth he would shriek. So he nodded yes to his Momma until she let go.

They’d once gone to see Momma’s own mother, his grandmother, at the asylum and Josiah still had nightmares about the place. A large crumbling edifice near Jackson, Mississippi. It looked like something out of a monster movie, one of those movies that starred a haunted house in the rain. And it wasn’t much better inside, long gray corridors smelling like pee and disinfectant and tiny rooms without air conditioning only holding a small hospital bed. He’d gotten a glimpse of the kids that made it their home.

Karma Day 25. Will I Make It?

2008-11-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

When I entered college I traded rural Mississippi for rural western mountainous Maryland. It was a big change for me in many ways but in some ways nothing changed. I studied hard when not in class and I worked as much as I could at a nearby pizza joint. Nose to the grindstone, no time for the kind of social interaction. Just like high school I didn’t date, I stayed home or worked. I knew I struck my dorm room mates as a stick in the mud but I didn’t care. I had my eyes focused on a future that didn’t include food stamps or having to make do and no handsome flirty boy or booze was going to derail that. Besides, I’d seen first hand where that lead from my days living with my momma.

The biggest change for me was losing the musical cadences of the various southern drawls of Mississippi and losing the melody of the passing trains. That unique southern music left my live. I felt as if I had invaded yankee land, going up north past the Mason Dixon line.

Plus it was cold, colder than anything I’d ever experienced in Mississippi. The coat I brought was perfectly serviceable in Mississippi but here in the Allegany mountains the fall wind cut right through it like I was wearing mere newspaper. That first winter I suffered from chill blains most cruelly even if I was thrilled to see snow for the first time.

All four years I studied at the Catholic college in Maryland slid by in a haze of work and school. I took the train home every holiday to see my grandmother and took occasional weekend side trips to Baltimore and Washington.

By the time I’d met Michael I was one year out of college and working in Silver Spring, Maryland as an OR nurse. I’d settled into a nice life in suburban Maryland, buying a new car and furnishing my first apartment with furniture from Ikea.

We had a very quick romance, going from dating to engaged to married in just under a year. In fact, we married on opening weekend at the Renaissance fair dressed in period clothing. After sending my grandmother copies of the wedding photos I got a lengthy letter telling me that this was just simply not done. You do not marry at a fair! I laughed reading her shocked words as she clucked over the fact that I’d trampled on her precious etiquette during my wedding.

I lay on Marvelette’s sofa and tried to figure out what had gone so terrible wrong between Michael and I. Those first years together we got along so well, so much in love. Michael and I bought a condo in Crystal City and planned a life together that looked bright.

The only dark cloud on the horizon was that Michael completely cut his family from his life. He complained that since he’d left law school they’d been dunning him for every dime that they could. I tried to never mention Michael’s family to him because it only put him in a terrible mood. It was five years before I had a chance to meet his parents.

And then I got pregnant after we’d been married for five years. We had never discussed having kids, it was just one of those things that seemed to loom way off in the future, a some day occurrence but not now. I’d been on the pill but ended up pregnant anyway. I remember the night I told Michael we were going to be parents.

The whole subject made me nervous because we’d never really talked about having a family so I had prepared to tell him the news carefully. I made sure the condo was immaculate and that I’d prepared all of Michael’s favorite foods right down to triple chocolate cake. I took care with my hair and makeup and I wore the dress Michael loved the most, form fitting, slinky and black.

But not matter how carefully I prepared he still flew into a rage when I told him we were to be parents and accused me of planning this to tie him down to responsibility. But after a few days he came around and said it would be good to start a family, in fact, we should look for a new larger home, something in the Virginia countryside, invest the money from the sale of my grandmother’s home. Which led to another fight.

Michael had been after me to do something with the money for months now. Once my grandmother had passed on her possessions had all been left to me. There wasn’t much to be had, some of her ancient furniture and the house. I packed up some of her things to take home but the majority had been auctioned off. The house sold quickly and I deposited the money in my name only at our bank. Michael was upset with me for not putting his name on it too. It should have been a tipoff, a warning sign but I was too much in love to see anything.

My pregnancy triggered an eighteen month search for just the right home for us. I was adamant I wanted a small farm or a rural homestead while Michael was insisting on a plastic sided house on a cul de sac in one of the thousands of identical neighborhoods encircling Washington DC like the outer rings of Saturn. We fought over what type of home and fought over prices.

Every weekend for months was filled with excursions to all the far flung outlaying regions of the Greater DC area, from southern Rhode Island all the way down to West Virginia and almost to Richmond. I fell in love with the Piedmont region of Virginia, the gracious rolling green hills fenced with white board held some of the finest horse flesh in all of the US with the looming Blue Ridge mountains in the not too far distance. Hard to believe such scenic bucolic landscapes existed within a ninety minute drive of Washington.

But when I first laid eyes on the falling apart farmhouse cobbled together out of an old log cabin I knew I’d found exactly what I wanted. The trouble was convincing Michael. He didn’t mind the drive, but he seemed most to mind that it was a farm. The fact was that Michael didn’t do farming or rural very well. I begged, I pleaded, I threatened but the purchase of what he called sarcastically ‘Tilted Acres’ came down to two things. That it would be much better for our child to be raised in a rural setting as opposed to the gritty inner city childhood he’d experienced and that I would be paying for the entire place with the money from the sale of my grandmothers home.

Through the years as I torn away the uglier updates to our home and redid the floors, pulled the crumbled plaster away from the river rock original fireplace Michael had sneered that the house would never be finished, it would be a perpetual money pit. We fought the hardest on the days Michael perused our checkbook and had seen that I’d spent almost nothing on groceries, getting peanut butter, dried beans and apples, eking out what he called ‘poverty meals’ just so I could pay the plumber and the electrician. He didn’t understand how much I loved it, from the rocky soil to the acreage that spanned gullies and hills to the house that was half traditional farmhouse and half log cabin through the train tracks running in front of the house. The place spoke to me.

Eventually I discovered it was just easier to make the monies I needed for the renovation from the farm. First I tried my hand at making herbal infusions, teas and medicines I’d learned from my grandmother back in rural Mississippi but there was only a limited market for such things, so I supplemented the herbs with hiring myself as painter, a private night nurse and other menial jobs until I settled upon making organic goats milk cheese, soaps, shampoos and lotions from the same goats milk and growing exotic vegetables for the gourmet restaurants of DC in my large garden. The problem was I was still working my day job at the hospital.

A few years of expensive day care combined with Michael suddenly finding religion led to me quitting my job as a nurse and becoming a full time wife, mother, home remodeled and part time farmer. We both agreed it would be for the best and Michael kept saying that as the head of the household under Biblical law he should be the breadwinner while I should be in my primary role of mother. I didn’t argue because I was exhausted from several years of trying to do it all.

I had to keep my business activities limited to what I could produce from the farm, the goats milk products, the herbs, the natural candles I made and the boutique fruits and veggies.

Michael’s sudden conversion to radical evangelical Christianity puzzled me and at first I was reluctant to join him, not even wanting to visit the church when he attended the Sunday services. But he kept nagging me to join him and it seemed like a good way to make friends in the new area we lived in. So I joined him, a non-believer in a sea of the righteous.

I still to this day do not know exactly what happened to Michael. Every time I asked him why he suddenly started believing in God and wanting to go to church he clammed up. Whatever had happened to him was powerful and too intimate to talk about. I did notice that a few guys he worked with also attended the church he picked out for us. I suspect they had leaned on him until he’d had a conversion experience.

No matter how I ran the scenario in my mind I just couldn’t wrap my mind around what had happened. It was just too unbelievable.

It wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t believe in God. I just hadn’t been raised in the church. My only real acquaintance with religion had been my years with the nuns. I could recite all of the Catholic liturgy from years attending Mass before classes. But I just didn’t get that God was as involved with everyone’s day to day lives as all the Jesus freaks claimed. God was in some distant place lofty and removed, too busy with bother with the lives of mere mortals. He didn’t care if you have toast or doughnuts for breakfast because He was engaged in some enormous struggle between good and evil, not our piss ant little lives.

Strange as it seemed, Michael, handsome Michael, vain Michael, competitive Michael turned into a regular Charlie Church. Every Wednesday night found him at Bible study, every weekend he was either helping out with one of the church’s many ministries or attended conferences and every Sunday the day was filled with church, church, church. He talked, ate and slept Jesus.

I don’t think I really took Michael entirely serious until he started teaching children’s Sunday School and humbly asked for my forgiveness for his former sins against me. He didn’t explain what he meant by that but after tonight I can well imagine that infidelity was one of them. He wanted us to put the past in the past.

Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We had turned into one of those couples that started bickering in a second and fought over the most petty things. Once Michael was baptized and washed in the blood of the lamb his attempts to bait me into a fight trickled down to nothing and he started treating me in a more kindly fashion. It wasn’t the white hot passionate perfection of the early years of our marriage, it was more like a partnership rooted in the rules preached by the church. But I sometimes missed the passion, missed the making up after the fights, the intense sex all over the house.

At first everyone at Plover Creek seemed frighteningly strange. It wasn’t unusual to hear people praying for minutia guidance from God for such silly simple things as what to eat for lunch that day. And it frightened me just how many uneducated women were insisting that you only home school your children because public school was a cesspool of liberal thinking. Eventually I found myself joining in on the worship service and feeling a strange sensation, almost like a heaviness, a presence of someone else with me.

But I wasn’t entirely convinced until one night when I heard an audible voice telling me to come unto Him while I was silently praying one night alone out of the porch. I started to have a two way internal dialogue with the divine.

How do you not believe in the face of that? It’s not possible. I started on a path that led me closer every day into the presence of the heavenly.

The biggest miracle was that Michael stopped drinking entirely And smoking. No amount of pleading from me that he was making Jay’s asthma worse by smoking around him had any affect but somehow our new church did. He gutted it out and stopped smoking. Michael went to AA and I never saw him drink again. I owed the Lord an enormous debt for those two things because it eased things even more between us.

We entered a phase in our marriage that was the happiest of all times. We did all things faith related, from service to the poor, church attendance, Bible study and prayer as one. Michael quit resenting the fact that I stayed home with Jay and I made every effort to make his life as uncomplicated and tranquil as possible. I did everything, not that I left much undone for him before but now I made just that from the moment Michael awoke in the morning till he lay back in our bed with a sigh there was nothing in our home that need stress him. I look back on those days and can hardly believe how close we were for awhile.

Then after five or six years at Plover Creek things began to change. First, there was a church split over the role of women in leadership in the church. Those that believed it was alright for women to take high level leadership roles such as deacon or elder or minister formed their own church. There were tears, friendships ruined and families split apart. I watched with dismay as various sides alleged all sorts of sinful pride based behaviors that the other side engaged in. I tried not to take sides.

Not Michael, he took it hard, his best friend from work and in the church was appointed pastor of the new fellowship. His friend Lane went from being a deacon at Plover Creek to giving sermons each Sunday and writing the Statement of Purpose of the brand new church Amazing Life. The thing that freaked out Michael the most was that Lane refused to have anything to do with him once the church split happened because Michael hadn’t supported his faction in demanding that women have equal leadership status.

At Amazing Life Lane’s wife, Susan, was his co-pastor. They met in a small room over the old Exxon station in a nearby village and the church consisted of perhaps twenty members at first.

It was several years before anyone at Plover Creek or Amazing Life would have anything to do with each other and even then it was only on bowling league nights on Faith League night at the large bowling alley in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Michael and I hadn’t taken sides in the split but we’d been treated like the enemy anyway. That marked the first time that Michael showed any signs that he wasn’t utterly content with our faith life.

Six months later our church split again. This time it was the people who wanted to have a Holy Ghost experience, a revival atmosphere like that found at Brownsville Assemblies of God or even at the local AoG church. The agitators wanted us to be able to sing and dance in the aisles, laugh, howl, pound tambourines or even speak loudly in tongues.

Michael was the most horrified by their assertion that everyone needed to speak in tongues, that it was our own private prayer language. He ranted loudly about it many times in our house to me, yelling that speaking in tongues was only for back in Bible times, anyone doing it today was only fooling themselves and speaking in nonsensical gibberish.

I wasn’t quite so sure. I’d experienced a few odd things at conferences, like seeing angels and being slain in the spirit so I wasn’t as dismissive of it as he was. Thankfully he never found out that a group of ladies from Plover Creek once had an afternoon get together in the guise of a special Bible study to talk about this and figure out exactly how one went about speaking in tongues. I remember standing there in front of Sister Charlene’s crackling fireplace, opening my chapped lips and waiting, waiting to talk in tongues, waiting for what I knew not exactly.

By the end of the afternoon most of us were tongue less still and concluded it was a load of hooey dreamed up by someone listening more to the devil. Still, a few had ended that afternoon singing and crying and praying in strange phonic sounds like a long dead language. They were fervent believers now and told the rest of us to get with the program or we were going to miss out on heaven and all of God’s gifts.

I remember driving home in a rage, crying hard. I’d wanted all that God had for me. Why didn’t I get it, I’d raged at God, why? Did I do something wrong? Am I stupid? I’d asked Him, hearing nothing for all my pleading.

Michael never even realized I was in an internal turmoil in those days, wanting to believe the revival folks, but afraid to. Not seeing much evidence of what they claimed was the real truth. I stayed spiritually stuck all that winter, spring and summer until the split finally occurred.

When more people left Plover Creek many said good riddance, that most of the women involved in the first and second splits were sinful divorcees that were controlling and going to hell for it. Nothing worse than a controlling woman because manipulation was likened unto witchcraft according to the Bible. Divorcees and controllers burn in hell.

The second split caused those in our fellowship to take a tack more towards the extreme right. The eldest deacon’s wife demanded we cover our heads because St Paul said so and that we wear loose clothing to hide anything that might tempt a man into the sin of lust but still it should be feminine. No pants were allowed and many frustrated days I split wood for our wood burning furnace or drove my tractor wearing long johns covered by a thick flannel cotton petticoat topped by a long skirt and cursed the day we’d all been told pants were of the devil. No amount of tights, long underwear and flannel slip made up for not being allowed pants on the coldest of days.

When each of these new stricter rules had been announced Michael had inwardly seethed but kept an outward lid on his disagreement with them. He only took it out on me, barking out orders at me not to pay any mind to what those mindless holiness ninnies kept inventing in their spare time.

But I didn’t. I did what the church said because I didn’t want to lose my God or my friends. I found myself turning to them ever more as my relationship with Michael floundered into quiet disagreement and he spent more nights working late in the city before staying over in our condo.

My friends assured me if I just stayed a faithful, praying and obedient wife then Michael would eventually see the error of his ways and return to treating me well, with respect, with love again. Even my friends could see there was tension between us now.

I ignored it because I still loved Michael, as much if not more than I did that first moment I spied the handsome fallen knight at the fair. I’d aged, getting fine lines and silvering hair but Michael was even more handsome with a little age on him. I just knew if I stayed sweet and subservient with a true servant heart towards him that this would all blow over, Michael would make his peace with God and turn to me with renewed love and appreciation.

Until September eleventh two thousand and one I was convinced it would happened. My world had been destroyed in one short day.

I can’t say I slept much that long night on Marvelette’s sofa but suddenly sunlight was in my eyes and I felt confused. I sat up and looked around, wondering where I was for a few brief merciful seconds before the memories of the day before returned. I could hear Marvelette getting breakfast ready for her large brood, setting the table, smell the frying bacon and hot coffee. As I stretched I could see that Jay was sitting glumly in a chair across from the sofa staring soberly at me. He asked me, “Is Dad dead?”

With his words I wanted to crumble, to cry, never to get up again but some silent inner preservation mechanism kicked in and I smiled brightly and said, “No way, silly! Dad missed his flight to Los Angeles yesterday because he was stuck in traffic. He decided to go to the condo and take a later flight. I saw him yesterday evening. He’s fine! He’s just got a lot of work in the city so he might not be coming home for a few days. But I bet he calls you today!”

I certainly didn’t feel like the chipper pleasant everything is right with the way I was putting myself across as to Jay but I saw it was exactly what he needed to hear, tears filled his eyes and he said, “You promise? He’s not dead?”

Marvelette cut me a strange look with her eyes and frowned as I laughed out, “Promise, pinky swear.” and Jay and I solemnly crossed pinkies and shook.

It was only later when Marvellette and I sat down over coffee while her children and Jay ran shouting in the yard that I allowed my real feelings to show. Marve said nothing for awhile, she sat drinking her coffee dispassionately watching my sudden tears before saying, “Do you really think that was wise? He’s got to know sooner or later that his father isn’t coming home.”

At that moment I made a decision, one that would cause me heartache for a long time and I said, “He’ll come back, he always does. Michael gets bored with our life, or out of sorts and eventually he returns to our home and our marriage. This is just more of the same.”

Her face was kind as she said, “Look at me,” but I noticed she was firm, her eyes filled with the inescapable truth, “He’s not coming back. He asked you for a divorce. That’s what you told me last night.”

I got up from the table, suddenly eager to be away from Marvelette’s probing eyes, those ice blue eyes that missed nothing, “I was over wrung by the emotion of the day. Things seem different by the light of day. Besides, I thought you Mennonites were against divorce, all for keeping the marriage together regardless.”

She snorted, “Yeah, unless someone cheats, all bets are off. You found him practically in bed with someone else.”

I sighed, “Marve, I have to keep that door open to accepting him back. He always comes back. I have suspected in the past that he strays but he always comes back. I love him and I’m prepared to forgive him.”

It was much later before I returned to my own home. Jay ran upstairs to his room and his video games while I did the piles of dishes and rewashed the laundry. By this time I’d convinced myself that Michael hadn’t meant anything he’d said, it was just the shock of finding out that the World Trade Center was gone and how close he’d come to losing his life in the crash at the Pentagon. He was talking crazy talk, the talk of someone that has suffered an enormous shock to their heart and mind.

I’d give him his space and he’d come back in a few days or weeks, tail between his legs, contrite and sorrowful. I’d make sure in the meantime that everything was waiting him perfectly here and if I decided if he was unhappy with Plover Creek that it would be alright with me if we switched to another church, perhaps even Amazing Life.

That September twelfth I’d even cleaned our bedroom thoroughly, putting our best bed linens out and putting a dried rosebud on his pillow. I prepared the closest thing I had to a negligee, a sheer white cotton nightie with a hundred tiny mother of pearl buttons down the front. I was completely convinced he would return perhaps that very night.

I skipped and hummed worship songs through my day, more and more convinced I was right. Even a visit from Pastor Will Morgan didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. When I told Will that I was sure Michael would return home tonight he’d looked like I’d just announced the world was ending in five minutes or I was flying to Mars. He let go of the silver teaspoon in his hand and it dropped with a heavy plunk to the saucer beneath his teacup. I could see he thought I was mad, that I’d lost all sense so I airily explained that this was just another phase in our life, Michael would tire of his freedom and come home to momma.

That night I cooked a special meal, organic steaks with asparagus and salad. Jay and I waited to eat, waited as long as we could so that Michael would join us. But he never came, we lit the candles on the dining room table and sat down to cold steaks and shriveled overdone asparagus.

Finally Michael called, just as Jay was getting ready for bed. Jay got to the phone before I did and I ended up picking up the receiver in the kitchen, listening as Michael told Jay that he was leaving us, leaving home and divorcing me. And it hit me again, the trauma of the day before as I sagged silently to the floor feeling my heart breaking again. I sat on the polished brick floor and wept loudly, not seeing the polished copper pots hanging from the rack over the huge old Aga stove or the strings of dried onions and peppers festooned from the open oaken support beams overhead. I lay down, panting and crying, seeing nothing, feeling everything, every miserable painful word from Michael’s lips the night before.

Jay found me that way, laying on the floor moaning wordlessly my distress and I caught a glimpse of panic on his face as he said, “Mom, Mom! You lied to me, Dad says he’s not coming home.” He shrieked and started slapping at me, pulling my braid before he collapsed on top of me and we hugged together, weeping, faces pressed together.

How long we lay there crying I will never know but eventually I snagged one of my beautiful antique embroidered tea towels from the stove handle and wiped down Jay’s tanned face before patting down my own. We sat there Indian style cross legged on the kitchen floor and Jay began to ask me questions. I had to keep telling him I didn’t know the answers, no I didn’t know why Daddy said he didn’t love me any more. No, I didn’t know if Daddy would ever come home. No, I was never leaving him, regardless of what happened I would find a way to make it work out for us. Yes, Daddy might get tired of living alone and come home some day.

That night neither Jay not I could face being alone and I slept with him on his narrow twin bed, listening to his quiet breathing, smelling the mysterious aroma of green grass and fresh air that boys emit. I held onto Jay like he was my life line and secretly cursed Michael for so cavalierly throwing away our life, abandoning our son like this. I would always hate him for forcing our child to grow up sooner than he should have.

One of the biggest things Jay had been worried about was that we’d have to leave our home. He was afraid we’d end up in the streets. He worried about how people would perceive us now that Dad had left. I silently blamed Plover Creek for putting the idea in his mind that divorce was a shameful sin for the entire family.

The last night Jay said to me that night as he drifted off was the most haunting, “Mom,” he’d asked, “did Dad leave because of me, because he was disappointed that I don’t like to play sports?” I’d hugged him even tighter and reassured him that this was simply not the case. I didn’t know all the whys Michael had left but it wasn’t Jay’s fault and I made sure he knew this.

As Jay started to lightly snore between his Spiderman motif sheets I started to worry about the future. What would I tell people? Was what little I brought in from my herbs and goat cheese going to be enough? Was it folly to even consider staying on the farm?

I spent another long sleepless night and in the morning I didn’t feel near as hopeful as I’d felt the night before. Both Jay and I were slow to get up, in fact we were still in our nightclothes at the breakfast table when Will pulled up in our driveway. He’d come by to bring Jay his assignments and books just in case Jay didn’t return to school for a few days. Jay ran upstairs to get dressed while I made uncomfortable small talk with Will Morgan at the table.
Pastor Morgan looked at me solemnly and said, “I see the reality of what happened has finally sunk in.”

I couldn’t even speak, all I could do was nod, I didn’t trust myself not to start crying again.

After Will left I barely had time to slip into an old set of clothes and start milking my goats. I was lugging feed into the barn when my own pastor, Pastor Chas Waverly, a tall craggy faced man with silvering hair, arrived. I dropped the feed sack and ran to him, dissolving into blubbery tears as he hugged me tightly. I don’t know who told him but Pastor Waverly knew that Michael had left me.

Thankfully Jay was with Marvelette and her children again because I spent the next several hours rehashing that terrible evening at the condo, telling Pastor Chas just how horribly off the rails my life had gone. “We’ll get through this together,” he’d assured me, “no matter if Michael does or doesn’t return allow your church family to surround you with love and support.”

At his words I’d felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders and I’d sighed, sinking back into the old sofa. I’d need all of their prayers to get through this terrible time.

Before he left Pastor Chas slipped me the business card of a lawyer, said while he knew that the Bible counseled no divorce I certainly had Biblical grounds to divorce Michael and move on with my life. Even if I didn’t want a divorce it wouldn’t hurt to find out where I stood legally, he urged me to protect myself against Michael.

How stupid I’d been that day, I innocently said with the utmost naivety and sincerity that I knew even if Michael divorced me he’d be fair and he’d not abandon Jay and I to starve. We were adults and he knew his responsibilities. Little did I know.

We settled into a routine of normalcy, well, as normal as it can get once your world is blown apart. Jay returned to school and I kept on with my routine of taking care of my goats, making cheese, picking the herbs and making deliveries to my customers. We slogged along sadly, the same but not the same.

That first week I got phone calls from Plover Creek Church sisters and brothers, most were genuinely concerned wanting to know what they could do for Jay and I but a few were simply seeking to gossip and cluck over my misfortune. Some people sent meals over for Jay and I, almost as if someone had died in our family and a few of the men of the church came over to offer their services around the house. Several sisters came to do a thorough fall cleaning of my home, insisting I go up and rest.

But I couldn’t rest, that day I’d paused at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to go into the bedroom I’d shared with Michael all these years. I couldn’t bring myself to do more than change clothes in there, I had taken to sleeping in the guest bedroom, on the firm barely used mattress, missing the comfortable broken in feeling of my own bed yet unable to sleep where I’d slept with the man who had betrayed me. I still felt mostly numb inside now.

But I didn’t want the members of my church knowing I’d moved out of the marital bedroom. They all murmured words of encouragement, telling me that Michael would come home. I just had to pray harder, beseech God to turn his heart back to his family. He would come home, everyone said so.

When my feelings returned they see sawed wildly from hope and optimism to the blackest despair. I had days when getting out of bed was an impossible task and other days when I bounded out, rejoicing in another day, sure that today would be the day that Michael returned.

Several weeks passed and I heard not one word from Michael. He didn’t call, he didn’t come home. As much as that hurt me I could see it hurt Jay even worse. He flinched every time the telephone rang, running from wherever he was in the house, waiting for me to pick up, listening hard until he could ascertain if it was his father. Once it was obvious it was not Michael he’d sigh, flinch and move along.

The first inkling I had that Michael was still determined to divorce me and that he would not be returning was the day I went to deposit my monies from the places that bought the produce of my farm. The teller at our bank told me that our checking account was closed, that Michael had closed the account and taken all the money several days before. I stood there, shaken to the core, realizing that the five hundred dollars in checks I held in my hand were the only things that stood between myself and poverty.

The bank manager and teller had been so kind to me, the teller led me over to the manager and the bank set up an account for me, only in my name. I was so embarrassed for them to know that Michael had humiliated me like this, abandoned us with nothing.

When I got home I started digging through all of our financial data. Checking the balances of our savings accounts online I discovered the same story. Accounts drained and closed. Even our stock portfolio was closed. I called Michael, first on his cell and then at his office, unable to get through to him. Clearly he was avoiding me. I left a series of messages on his voice mail, getting increasingly frantic and upset as time went by.

I realized that Pastor Chas Waverly was right, I needed to consult a lawyer. But the attorney he put me in touch with wanted a retainer, five thousand dollars up front and I just didn’t have that kind of money. What little I managed to get from the proceeds of my farm I needed for food, gasoline for my truck and electricity at the house. I’d come home and gone over the contents of the house with a eye for value. I had wept as I packed up the large wooden chest of antique silver I’d managed to accumulate over the years and I reluctantly took it to one of the better high end antique stores up on the main highway, coming away with enough money to pay the lawyer.

Before the week was out I’d sold a few more of my more valuable antiques and I was in a rage. Michael had not called, it had been three weeks and Jay had spoken to him. It was as if we didn’t exist to Michael.

That third week brought a series of humiliation to me. I applied for food stamps and aid to dependant children, hard working me, applying for welfare. I wept, thinking my grandmother was probably turning in her grave because of what I’d been reduced to. I went to the electric company and made arrangements to pay late, and made the hardest trip of all, out to Ryland Memorial School to tell Pastor Will Morgan that I had to pull Jay out of private school and enroll him in public school because I could not pay tuition.

Will didn’t say a word as I explained that I had been cut off from any money by Michael, he merely stared at me over the top of his steepled fingers, elbows planted on the top of his stately walnut desk. When he did speak it was to say, “Mrs Smith, there’s no need to worry about the tuition for this month. An anonymous donor here at the school has picked up two months tuition for Jay. Please don’t take him out now, what he needs most is stability, to feel that the important things in his life haven’t changed.”

I frowned, as glad as I was that I didn’t have to cough up tuition for a few months I was not comfortable with the idea of charity and I said, “But the most important thing in his life, our family, has changed. There’s no escaping that. But I cannot afford to keep him here, in this school, beyond the next eight weeks.”

Still Will sat unmoving and he said quietly, “I know that, I just knew that your husband wasn’t going to allow you access to any funding but I feel it’s more important to keep Jay here in school than to burden him with even more changes. Give me a few days and I might be able to come up with a solution that would suit everyone, can you do that?”

“Alright, “ I said, “ a few days, but I can hardly imagine there is much you can do about my situation.”

I went home that day, sad, defeated and tired. I couldn’t summon up the energy necessary to do anything beyond climb the stairs up to the bedrooms and lie down. I’d paused at the door of my bedroom, feeling sudden anger at Michael and went in. Surveying the room I took in it’s odd shape, tucked up over the family room the long hallway area in the room leading to a small square just large enough to hold our antique mahogany four poster bed and marble topped dresser. I stared angrily at the smooth creamy white walls hung with framed prints of hunt scenes, horses and other masculine pursuits of days gone by. I glared at the dark damask drapery and bedspread.

No more, I thought and I ripped down the drapes, pulled off the scratchy bedspread. Quickly I removed the prints, the china dogs on the mantelpiece and other masculine accessories. Why had I decorated this room in a style I didn’t like, just to try and please a petulant male that was wretchedly ungrateful? I was almost shaking with galvanizing cleansing anger. I couldn’t believe how much I hated the furnishings of this room. Quickly I boxed and bundled up all the things I hated about my bedroom and set to work hanging a set of white lace curtains, remaking the bed in pretty vintage linens with a white comforter. I ran around the house gathering well loved adornments to put in my bedroom, erasing any trace of Michael. Before I picked up Jay from school I started boxing up Michael’s clothes, thinking perhaps I should sell the entire lot of them on Ebay. Screw him for not taking care of us, leaving us to starve while he stole the money I’d scrimped so hard to save.

I sat back and surveyed my hard work. I’d moved the bed from the front wall under the windows to the side of the room, directly across from the fireplace. Both sets of windows had white lace curtains, lifting the gloom out of the room by allowing natural sunlight to filter into the room. The room took on a cheerful glow with the extra light and I’d hung floral prints on the walls, simple and pretty. I felt better already, more in control.

But that didn’t last long, as we got back from school I saw a strange truck in our driveway. Strange men in coveralls were lugging things out of the house and packing them into the back of the truck. I was horrified, was I being robbed? I didn’t pull into my own driveway but parked across the street at Marvelettes before dialing up the sheriff’s dept on my cell.

As we waited a familiar figure came out of the front door, carrying an armload of suits. Before I could stop him Jay had thrown open the car door and run across the road, throwing himself at his father. While Jay was hugging his father a sheriffs deputy pulled into the driveway.

I got out and crossed the road to where Michael stood with Jay and the deputies to find that Michael was busy removing anything from the house that he deemed his. He’d stripped out not just his clothing but some of our possessions such as the large screen television from the family room. The movers had packed up most of the electronics from the house, the stereo, the computers and even a few pieces of furniture.

“Michael, what are you doing?” I asked loudly, “Three weeks pass, you don’t call, you don’t contact us at all and now you show up to loot our home like you did our bank accounts.”

As one of the movers tried to cart my vintage Louis Vutton steamer trunk past us I turned and grasped it, “Stop it, stop it, that is mine, not his. Put that back.”

The officers stepped in and stopped the mover, “Son, you can turn around and put that back where you found it till we get to the bottom of this.” The mover backtracked with my trunk.

Michael sighed, rolled his eyes like he was dealing with the mentally deficient and stated baldly, “I told you three weeks ago that I am divorcing you. The paperwork has already been filed. And, officers, as this home is still half mine I am entitled to my own possessions. You cannot stop me.”

“You strip me of any money, our savings and investments and now you’re going to steal the antiques I haggled and bargained over,” as I spoke these words the true import of what was happening hit me like a sledge hammer and my voice grew in volume, ‘things I saved to buy, lovingly picked out that you never gave a tinkers damn about? You don’t deserve anything out of that house.” With that I kicked the dirt in front of me in frustration.

The officers exchanged uncomfortable glances, I knew both of these young men, The stocky blonde was the son of Kelly and Gene Jenkins of Amazing Life Church. The other man was slightly older, perhaps as old as thirty, dark and swarthy. I knew he was the son of migrant workers that had stayed behind many years ago after picking the fall apple crop. The Garcia family ended up being a valuable addition to this community.

Finally Garcia spoke and he said in an apologetic tone, “Ma’am, I’m truly sorry but your husband does have the right to remove whatever possessions he deems fit, at least until you get a court order prohibiting from doing so. There’s nothing we can do.” I knew that most cops hate family situations like this because they can so quickly spiral out of control and end in tragedy plus both men knew us. I’m sure there was just about anywhere else they’d rather be at that moment.

I replied as calmly as I could, “Is that my next step? Get a lawyer so that I can keep my ex away from my things?”

“Yes, ma’am, you need a court order.” Garcia replied seriously.

Michael frowned and muttered, “What on earth did you do to our bedroom. It looks atrocious, like something out of a Amish Living magazine. Where are my prints of hunting scenes and the Italian woven silk draperies? I want them?”

I nodded my head indicating I would listen to no more and pointed towards the road saying simply, “Go.” I was struggling not to go crazy on Michael, the man I’d once loved more than life. Whatever love I felt for him had now been overwhelmed by shock and disgust. How could he keep doing this to us.

But when I saw my much beloved roll top desk in the hands of the movers it was too much, beyond my fragile state and limited self control. I went nuts, reaching out to attack Michael, slapping him, clawing at him and shouting. I didn’t care that the cops were there or not.

Before I could inflict any real damage I was physically whirled away from my husband and roughly body slammed against the cruiser hood. I tasted blood in my mouth from a split lip and experienced sudden knifing pain as both of my arms were twisted behind my body and hand cuffs tightened down. Please God, I prayed silently, don’t let the police do anything further in front of my boy.

Before I knew what was happening I was shoved firmly into the back of the police cruiser. As they pushed me into the car I caught a glimpse of my face, eyes wild, hair coming loose from my careful French braid. I looked like a mad woman.

The deputies left me in the back of the cruiser for over twenty minutes as they spoke with Michael and tried to talk to Jay. I couldn’t hear what was being said but I could see that the police were indicating to the movers to pack it up and go and that Michael was passionately arguing with them about something. As Michael and the movers drove away the back door of the car opened again and a crying Jay joined me in the back seat as Officer Garcia read out my Miranda rights.

“You’re arresting me?” I huffed out in surprise.

“Yes ma’am. Your husband, Mr. Michael Smith is pressing charges of spousal abuse, assault and battery. You’re being charged on all counts.” Officer Jenkins said in a weary voice, “Cooperate with us and you should be able to bond out in the morning. Don’t make this any worst than it already is.”

“Morning?” I roared, “What about Jay? He’s not being sent to jail is he?”

I could see the strange look that passed between the officers as Jay cried even harder. Garcia finally spoke, “Ma’am, your son is going into emergency foster care tonight. Your estranged husband refused to take possession of the boy. We have to take him in, it’s the law.”

As the sun set I experienced one of the most humiliating nights of my life. First, I was taken down to the county sheriff’s office, photographed and finger printed after Jay was removed to another section of the building to await a social worker. Then I was put into a small room containing only a chipped beige enameled table and uncomfortable chairs clustered around it and left alone for a long time. It felt like hours. They didn’t remove the cuffs and I became increasingly aware that I hadn’t eaten today as my stomach rumbled.

By the time the officers returned to take my statement my need to pee surmounted all my other needs and I was having the beginnings of a stress headache from not eating. I gave the officers a brief account of my outburst and subsequent pummeling of Michael. When I told the officers how Michael had been caught by me cheating and afterwards made sure that Jay and I were stripped of any money. While the officers were sympathetic to my problems with Michael, the law was the law and I had broken it.

Being that this was such a small town there was no room in the jail so I was put into the female drunk holding tank with a few other ladies, women I knew of but had no interaction with in the past. One was a disheveled looking red head missing most of her teeth. I knew she had a reputation as the town crack whore, blow jobs for five bucks and whatever you wanted to do of a sexual nature for ten. She was cackling and laughing madly with the other drugged out looking woman when I arrived to her cell. She laughed out, “Oh, how the high and mighty have fallen. You think you’re too good for the likes of us and guess what, here you is, blood on your face and your stupid lookin’ blouse torn. I loves it!”

I ignored her, going to the piece of polished steel mounted on the wall above the exposed toilet and realized she was right. My light weight white cotton button up blouse has a rip where the right sleeve joined the bodice, probably sustained when the cops slammed me to the car and snapped the cuffs on. I also have dried blood from my split lower lip to my chin and dotted on the blouse front. Irrationally the only thing I could think was that it would take a lot of work to get the blood out, like I didn’t have bigger problems.

Both of the other women heckled me for a while longer but I ignored their words. There was nothing they could say or do that could possibly measure up to the hurt I felt from the series of betrayals Michael had inflicted on me.

I was served a sandwich consisting of two slices of dried up white bread with limp tasteless baloney and wilted leaf of lettuce. The meal was rounded out by a spongy orange in a sickly pale shade and some unidentifiable drink I think was supposed to be iced tea. But I was so hungry that I ate it all and was grateful for the meal, bad as it was. A full belly is worth a great deal.

Once the lights were turned out and I gingerly lay down on a moldy smelling thin mattress on a steel bunk there was no way I was going to be able to sleep and I knew it. Another night tossing and turning, rehashing the recent twists and turns of my life. I tried comforting myself by praying silently as I wondered what type of foster home my only son was residing in tonight. I prayed that the foster parents were kind and loving and that there were no evil predators lurking in their home, that he wouldn’t be too frightened for me.

I couldn’t get over the fact that Michael had turned his back on our son. His son. Surely he wasn’t so selfish as to totally reject the child he’d help raise for the last eleven years. The cops had told me that Michael had told Jay that he would not take him in, that Jay was not his son because no son of his would be so bad at sports. Michael was rejecting Jay because Jay wasn’t a reflection of his own glory, a player and supporting prop in his inner sports fantasies. I lay in the dark and trembled with hatred for what Michael was putting Jay through tonight.

Karma Day 17

2008-11-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

When we were about halfway home Reverend Morgan turned to me and said in a firm voice that brooked no argument, “We’re stopping. You haven’t eaten anything in hours and I don’t know about you but I am starving. I know you’re heartbroken but you’ll not going to be able to care for Jay if you don’t take care of yourself first.”

I’d stopped crying but now I was in a state of shock that went beyond petty things like food or human needs. I just wanted to go home and curl into a ball on my bed, hide under the covers forever. I croaked out, “I’m not hungry’\”

Politely, firmly, in a way a parent talks to a small stubborn child Morgan said, “You may not be hungry but you have to eat something. When you get home in 40 minutes you’ll need to be strong enough to meet Jay’s needs. He’s your primary responsibility now. Nothing that happened today changes that.”

He stopped at a restaurant I’d driven past something like a million times and never bored to visit, Town & County Restaurant. I’d glimpsed it’s red neon sign proclaiming the ‘best food in the world’ so many mornings and evenings but the old fashion looking exterior had never lured me in.

Inside the restaurant it was as deserted as the outside. But the interior was humble and quant, booths and tables with red checkered table clothes, framed photos on the wall of long gone celebrities that had once come this way. It was like a fancier version of an old fashioned diner on the inside, cozy and inviting.

Both the waitress and Pastor Morgan extended me mercy that evening. I kept staring at the menu and it might as well be written in ancient Aramaic because I understood it not at all, the words kept swimming past my eyes until Pastor Morgan offered to order for me. I nodded dumbly before saying, “Alright, Pastor Morgan.”

He stopped me and said, “We’ve spent a very long afternoon and evening together on the most difficult day our nation has experienced in many years. I think you can call me Will.”

My thoughts were so jumbled that day that I gasped out, “But, but, you’re a man of God and my son’s principal. I don’t think it’s right for me to be that familiar.”

Will Morgan, Lutheran minister, school principal, smiled at me and removed his clerical collar before my surprised expression and said, “There, now I’m just plain Will. Take off your head scarf and you can be Mary, or Mary Martha if you prefer.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. It seemed to me like he was playing fast and loose and I clutched the end of my head scarf and said in the most dignified outraged voice I could muster up, “Certainly not! Reverend Morgan you forget yourself!”

He shrugged and looked distressed, like he’d offered me a present and I’d ungratefully dismissed it. “I was just trying to make you feel more at ease.”

Fortunately for me the food arrived them and I didn’t have to bother making small talk any longer to my great relief. This had been awkward enough and I barely knew Reverend Morgan. Until the moment I smelled the aroma of the arriving food I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was. Will Morgan had ordered both of us the same thing, a hearty breakfast with country ham, eggs, toast, grits and biscuits.

While I was enjoying tucking into my meal I realized that Morgan had been truthful with me. He was obviously famished because he’s eating like this is his last meal ever. Suddenly I feel guilty that I’d been wrapped up in my world so much today that I could not see the needs of another human being and I decide to be nicer to him. I’ve been snappish and borderline rude because it almost felt like an invasion of my space for him to be here considering I barely know him. But I know he’s just trying to care for me, for Jay, to the best of his ability. It’s who he is.

So I stir myself to talk to him once the pace of our meal becomes more leisurely. “I never thought to thank you earlier for driving me in and tolerating that scene back at my condo.” I say, trying to muster up a bit of a smile. It feels alien and unnatural to try and smile after all I’ve been through today.

Will startled when I spoke, I’d obviously jolted him out of his head, out of the midst of who knows where, he certainly was far away from this table and he blushed before replying, “What else could I do? I’m concerned for all my students like Jay and it was fairly obvious that he was being severely impacted by today’s tragedy. But I must confess, this day hasn’t exactly worked out like I expected it to. I’m so terribly sorry you’ve been put through this, first thinking your husband was dead and then finding out that he was unfaithful. I know the pain that causes all too well. I want you to know that I’ll do everything within my power to help out Jay and you because I know you’re facing tough times ahead.”

I nodded, taking another sip of coffee before saying, “Today was a shocker but it’s not going to end badly. Michael will tire of his single life and come home. He always does.”

Will gasped, worry furrows appearing between his brows as he asked, “This has happened before?”

In that restaurant, in front of this man, I decide that like Michael, it’s time for some truth. “Yes, Michael has always been flighty, less committed to our marriage than I have been. I’ve never caught him cheating before but I think I always knew in the back of my mind that he was unfaithful. He’d go through periods of time where he was hateful and cranky and he worked long hours. Then just as suddenly as it started it would end, he’d show up on time at home, be loving, gracious and helpful, send me flowers and I’d know that whatever it was Michael was struggling with was at an end. This is just more of the same.”

“And the drinking? Is that recent too or a long standing problem?” Will asked.

“Early in our marriage it became obvious that Michael was an alky, his parents were, his siblings were. He recognized this was a problem for him and he hasn’t drank around me in many years. It was a surprise to see him drinking today. Makes me wonder if I ever really knew him. Is this a one time occurrence or a daily thing? I just don’t know. I don‘t have a clue how to handle his drinking it‘s been so long since he‘s been drunk around us. Back when Jay was a baby he roughly handled Jay, bruising Jay and I used that incident and his guilt to force him to stop drinking, at least around us.”

Suddenly Will Morgan looked very embarrassed, he turned red and almost started to fidget like a wayward school boy. Finally he spoke, “I know this is really none of my business but I’ve been wondering how I could broach the subject of possible abuse with you. I’m not trying to pry but I have noticed that your son seems by turns afraid of your husband or rudely dismissive of him. I worry about him. I haven‘t actually seen any signs of physical abuse but I have to be honest with you, your son does show signs of early rebellion that make me think things aren‘t great with Dad.”

I looked down at my plate, suddenly uninterested in my meal, “You’re right, it really is none of your business. Our marriage and parenthood of Jay has been fraught with the normal ups and downs everyone faces. Michael has never actually abused Jay.”

But I could see that Will wasn’t going to drop the subject. He looked very perplexed and said slowly, “You just said your husband was rough with the boy. That sounds like borderline abuse to me.”

I realized again how deep the denial I’d been living in all the years of my adulthood was, here I was, telling cleaned up versions of the truth. Truthfully I’d had to take Jay to the ER when he was a toddler with a dislocated arm from Michael grabbing him hard more than once. Somehow I’d managed to deflect the doctors questions about possible abuse and I’d kept it buried all these things, not wanting to acknowledge what Michael did to Jay when he was a toddler.

But I didn’t want this man before me, this virtual stranger, to know the depth of how Michael had once treated Jay and sometimes me. So I shrugged and looked up at him, eyes radiating innocence as I replied, “I’m speaking of things that happened once when Jay was a toddler. True, Michael and Jay aren’t that close but I think that has to do more with the fact that Michael works long hours in the city and travels a couple of times a month with his job than any abuse or drinking. Michael is gone from sun up to far past sun down and stays in the city sometimes as well. He’s just not around but it’s not by his choice, it’s the job.”

Will Morgan didn’t reply right away, he took another sip of his coffee. “I might have nothing to worry about with previous abuse in regards to Jay but after today I’ll be making sure the staff at school keeps an eye on him. This is not going to be an easy time regardless of how it works out in the long term. I would recommend that both you and Jay seek some sort of professional help to deal with the fallout of today.”

I laughed, “Pastor Morgan, you make it sound like Michael and I are going to be divorcing. Don’t make that assumption that divorce is looming. This will blow over. Nothing will change. Michael will come home.”

“How can you say that?” he asked me, “I was back there, listening to every word your husband said. He wants a divorce. I know you said this is just typical for you but you also said he’d never asked for a divorce before. I believe him, he’s serious and you’ll have to deal with that in a way that protects Jay. Kids sometimes don’t handle divorce very well.”

And just like that I felt my temper raging out of control and I snapped at him, “Don’t you know, my religion forbids divorce. As I said earlier, this will all blow over. Plus, I’m not giving Michael a divorce. God hates divorce, you should know that as a man of God. You’re not married and you don’t have kids so what do you even know about any of these things? You’ve lived the sheltered life of an unmarried pastor so I consider you unqualified to sound off on anything but my child’s education.”

I didn’t add that myself and many others at Plover Creek considered Lutheranism to be just a little less righteous and pure than our own. We Charismatic looked down upon mainstream Protestant religions as being lukewarm and Pharisee like. Will just didn’t get how our faith in God ruled every aspect of our lives.

Amusement sparkled in Will’s green eyes, amusement mixed with some sort of deep sadness lurking behind it all. “Oh, I’ve known tragedy and marriage and children. I’m not the goody two shoes you believe. Did you know I was once married?”

I started thinking about the implications of his confession, wondering how he could possibly be ordained and be a minister, deciding he had to have lost his wife to death. “No,” I stammered out nervously, “I’ve heard nothing about you but I do try to avoid gossip. God hates gossip.”

“Like you, I’m not local. I spent my growing up years living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My momma and daddy weren’t married and they split up and got back together again all throughout my childhood. Momma was a free spirit and Daddy always thought his band would make it big one day. I wasn’t taken to church as a child, in fact, I thought religion was for suckers, feeble minded losers and I wasn’t having any of it. I lived for the next beer, the next wave on my surfboard and the next pretty girl. I did so so in school and after graduation I started working in construction, doing carpentry work and drinking and partying every night. I never got in trouble and I was living a carefree fun sort of life, no worries about tomorrow, no real responsibilities. “

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I gently interrupted his monologue.

“Because you stated there is no way I could possibly understand your situation because I was unmarried, childless with a perfect life. I wish to shatter your illusions and show you I do understand your feelings, all too well. I’ve not always been a minister, hell, I haven’t always been a Christian even. I was a very bad boy for some time, never thinking about grace or God in any way.

I lived like that for a long time, till my mid twenties I suppose, until my regular girlfriend, someone I met through the beach bar party scene, ended up pregnant. We agreed we would get married for the sake of the child, so our baby would be raised by a set of two parents. Even though I didn’t know the Lord, I knew that abortion was wrong. Sarah wanted at first to get an abortion, but I talked her out of it. We married and it was a disaster, we didn’t have anything in common and neither of us really loved each other. I didn’t have the first idea of how to make a marriage work, I kept drinking and partying, Sarah was annoyed that I would abandon her alone at the house, knocked up and bored so I could bar hop after work.

But the minute I saw my baby girl it was all worth it, all the bickering, all the tension. I loved that child from the moment I laid eyes on her. Holding her in my arms was heaven, pure heaven. Something profound happened to me the night she was born, for the first time there was someone who was entirely mine, who looked to me for care, love, protection. It changed me in an instant. I swore I would do everything in my power to be the best father in the world.”

I didn’t say anything during Pastor Morgan’s recitation of his life, I just nodded and occasionally made an understanding noise as he continued.

“Part of that change for the best was accepting Jesus in my life. For months a couple of guys at work had been witnessing to me, trying to get me to turn away from the booze and pot and come to church with them. I’d always been very dismissive of those Charlie Church types but when I beheld the miracle of baby Hannah, that was her name, Hannah, I knew there was a loving and just God in the heavens and it seemed like the next logical step to turn to Him, thank Him for the gift of Hannah and to raise her knowing her creator. Plus I wasn’t entirely sure how to live a straight sober life. I knew I had to give up the alcohol and the drugs. My parents had been stoners and drinkers and I grew up living that way but I wanted better for Hannah.

None of this set very well with Sarah. She wanted me to return to the hard-partying Will she knew from the beach bar scene and wanted no part of my new life in Christ. She mocked me, saying leopards don’t change their spots and there was no way I would be able to stay away from the weed and the bar scene. I couldn’t get her to give it up either. Three months after Hannah was born Sarah stayed away from our apartment all night, calling at the middle of the night from a bar in a drunken haze to tell me she would come home when she damn well felt like it.

I was so tempted to use, to get so high I didn’t care. But I didn’t. I called up friends from church, who came over and prayed with me that Sarah’s heart be touched and she turn to the Lord. When she finally came home days later I was frantic and begged her to never do that again. In the meantime I’d lost my job because I’d had to miss work while Sarah was gone.

Getting another good job in construction wasn’t hard but things never did thaw between us again. Sarah and I lived very separate lives, I’d get up at dawn, feed Hannah, change her diaper and put her back in her crib before packing my lunch and going to work. Yeah, I turned penny pinching during those days, trying to save up to buy a house for Hannah to grow up in and for her to have a college education. I reminded myself every day that what I did, from work to staying with her mother, was towards the goal of being the best Dad for Hannah.

Motherhood didn’t affect Sarah quite the same way. I’d go off to work and much later the neighbors told me that Hannah would cry, sometimes for hours, while Sarah slept off whatever alcohol or drugs she’d consumed the night before. I wanted to beat her when I found out she was neglecting our daughter but my friends at church urged me to keep praying for her, killing her with kindness and be the best husband I could be to her and that eventually she’d come around.

Sometimes we got along better than others, every now and again I’d see things in Sarah that gave me a glimmer of hope that life was going to work out, that we were going to both be believers, fall in love with either other and raise Hannah up the right way. I had such foolish hopes then, but I didn’t know any better. I was so young.

After I’d been a believer for about a year I started getting very involved with life at church. I helped lead a cell group, teach Sunday School and one Sunday I was invited to speak to the congregation on the subject of how I’d experienced God’s love through the birth of my daughter strongly enough to give up drugs and booze. When I wasn’t working or caring for Hannah, both she and I were at church.”

“Lutheran?” I asked.

“Well, no, a Charismatic non-denominational congregation with quite a few Lutherans attending.

At the end of my second year of clean living I started to feel from my daily quiet time that perhaps God wanted me to become a pastor. I prayed about it for a long time and eventually I shared my belief with the leaders of my church, all of whom had been ordained through the Lutheran church. They encouraged me to do just that, go back to school and study towards ordination. It was a big step but I felt that is exactly where God would have me.

But Sarah was enraged when I told her of my plans. We’d been saving towards buying a house. She’d gone back to work as an nurses aide and I’d continued working in construction, building hotels and condos for the area tourist trade. We’d made a lot of money and she wanted to buy a house. For me to go into the ministry meant I’d have to quit my job and go to school during the day while she worked.

We fought for months over this. Sarah screaming at me that I was fooling myself that there was a God. She was still as scornful as ever over my religion, refusing to step foot into church and mocking me whenever she had a chance. That first night I explained I was going back to school she stayed out again all night. She hadn’t done that in a very long time, again she came home days later stinking of the streets, of stale smoke and booze and sweat.

And Hannah just kept growing up. So beautiful, the only source of perfect unconditional love in my life.

It was because of Hannah that I defied Sarah’s wishes and enrolled at seminary.
I quit my construction job, paid my tuition and made arrangements for us to move to a cheaper place, a handy mans apartment at a local vacation time share facility. We lived there rent free in exchange for myself and Sarah being on call 24 hours a day to fix the small things that happened on site. I figured if she continued to work as a nurses aide and I took a night job as a desk clerk at a hotel we should be able to make it through the years of schooling ahead of me without any trouble. I remember those years, days crammed packed with busy.

At first I didn’t notice that Sarah was worse, that she drank more and came home less. I was busy with class and my night job. Somehow I’d managed to get Hannah in free daycare at a school connected with the church and the hotel I worked the night shift at allowed me to bring her with me. I’d put her down in her portable crib to sleep in the room behind the check in area and I’d crack open the books between guests arriving at the hotel. Hannah was either with me or in day care.

Old friends started stopping by the hotel and hinting that Sarah was out at this bar or that one, getting high, hitting on this or that guy. I didn’t believe it at first, sure, I knew she drank and still got high but she was always loyal to me, telling me that even at her angriest at me that she could never cheat. And I knew she loved Hannah, even if she did sometimes act like Hannah was more of an annoyance than a blessing. I just kept holding on praying, thinking that eventually Sarah would see the light and settle down. By that point I was praying so hard for God to change Sarah because I didn’t much like her much less love her with the kind of love a man is supposed to feel for his wife. But I was committed to her, to seeing this thing through to the end. After all, isn’t that what good Christian men did?

One night in the second year of school Hannah was very sick and I had to leave my night auditor job at the hotel to take her to the ER. After we’d waited what seemed like forever for four year old Hannah to be diagnosed with an ear infection we walked in on Sarah. Sarah was in bed with a strange man, in our bed, wasted as can be. We had a huge fight after I threw the man out and Sarah told me the same thing you heard today, that she didn’t love me, had never loved me. Furthermore she knew that I had never loved her, no matter than I’d told her I did. She could tell because I’d always been a bad liar. She left me that night, gathered her things and ran out into the night.

At first it felt like a relief. I knew I could handle school, my night job and my handy man position just fine and care for Hannah. I knew Sarah loved Hannah but I also knew she felt trapped by having to care for Hannah, which is why most of the child care fell to me. But I didn’t mind, I had Hannah and I loved Hannah more than I loved life itself. Maybe even more than I loved God.

After Sarah left I spent many long hours in prayer, begging God for a sign, wanting to know what to do next. Finally I decided she would probably return and if she did I was to offer her true forgiveness and welcome her back as my wife. I told myself that my primary tasks while Sarah was away was to keep on with the studies and keep taking the best care of Hannah I could.

I surrendered it all, put it in God’s hands, knowing He would either lead her back to me and we’d end up with a stronger union blessed by Him or Sarah would file for divorce and I wouldn’t fight it. In my mind I believed that if Sarah divorced me it would be because He was lining up the circumstances for me to be united with the great God sanctioned love of my life, that one woman He’d picked out for me before I was born. I knew the chances of Sarah making a good pastor’s wife were very slim and I thought perhaps this was God’s way of dealing with that problem.

In most ways life was easier and much more tranquil after Sarah left. At first Hannah would sometimes cry and ask for her mother and I would tell her that her mommy was off on a long wonderful vacation because mommy was tired. We wanted mommy to be happy and rested didn’t we, I told her, so we had to be patient and wait for her to return. This seemed to satisfy Hannah and before too many months she rarely mentioned her mother.

We continued on, Hannah started pre school and I entered another year of seminary. We struggled along. No word from Sarah, but we were happy. My parents adored Hannah and they willingly cared for her when I managed to land extra work on the weekends. My parents even came to accept that their son was going to be a minister, told me that they were proud of me and that I was well shed of Sarah, some day I’d met and marry someone who would fall in love with Hannah and be an excellent wife and mother. Forget Sarah and move on, they said.

And I did. I didn’t date because I didn’t feel free to do so while Sarah was out there and we were still legally married. I didn’t feel like it was right for me to file for the divorce because seminary taught that God hated divorce and you had to try all ways of mending the marriage before divorcing. Several ladies at church and seminary hinted to me that they were interested in me but I held off from any emotional entanglements until I knew which direction Sarah would go in dissolving our marriage.

That spring of my senior year in seminary Sarah reappeared, showing up on my doorstep one bright morning like almost two years hadn’t elapsed without a word from her. I could look at her and see that the last two years had taken a terrible toll on her. Gone was the pretty brunette with the sparkling blue eyes I’d married. She was terribly thin, like she hadn’t eaten a solid meal in days and her sagging skin had a grainy gray pallor. Even though I knew she was no older than I, in our late twenties, she looked like she could have easily been every bit of 45 years old. Sick, unhealthy and old. When she started speaking I could see she was even missing teeth.

Sarah whispered that she was sorry, sorry she’d left like she did and sorry she’d inflicted so much pain on me, sorry for all the things she’d done since she left. She didn’t go into specific detail exactly where she’d been and what she’d been doing but I could only imagine the worst after seeing the shell of her old self she’d morphed into. I didn’t ask for any answers. To know would be unbearable.

It wasn’t what I personally wanted, to have her show up like this when my life was so settled and mapped out for success but God gently reminded me of my promise to Him to take Sarah back with open arms and complete forgiveness if this was the path He wanted me to take. So I bit back whatever misgivings I had and did exactly that.

That first night Sarah told me she’d realized two things during her time away, that she needed God in a big way and that she genuinely did love and miss both Hannah and I. She begged me to forgive her, help her find a way to God and to simply love her as my wife. I stared into those blood shot eyes surrounded by puffy bloated lids and crinkles and felt only pity and the love of Christ for another human being so I silently prayed that God would help me find the love a man has for his wife for Sarah. The quicker, the better.

Unfortunately two years is a long time in the life of a small child. When Sarah left Hannah had been a playful four year old. In just two years time Hannah had matured into a very serious first grader, well behaved, studious and helpful. She barely remembered her mother and held her mother at a cold distance at first. I could see Sarah was hurt and I tried to explain to her just how hurt Hannah had been when she disappeared without a trace. Begged her to be patient with both Hannah and I because we were both going to have to take time adjusting to her presence in our lives again. She left just like that and arrived back the same way, with the speed and precision of a meteoroid strike out of the blue. The landscape is forever changed when a meteor hit’s the ground, scarred and damaged. She wanted us to pretend that no time had passed and there was no damage. That wasn’t possible.”

I interrupted Will here to interject, “And just like that you were able to accept her back to be your wife? Did anything change or was it more of the same?”

He sighed deeply before going on as I realized that the longer Will Morgan talked the sadder he’d started to look. Dredging up old painful memories he continued on, “I still didn’t love Sarah but I forgave her and accepted her again as my wife. For the first six months after her return she behaved perfectly, she accepted Jesus, starting going to church with Hannah and I and settled into life as a stay at home mom. She didn’t drink or drug and she finally stopped dressing like she was a bar fly, trading the skin tight jeans and mini skirts for more fitting clothing for the wife of a soon to be pastor. Whatever had happened to her out on the streets was bad enough to make her subdued, quiet and thoughtful, not the ball of fire she’d been. But we did settle in to a life together and I thought, okay God, so this is the woman You have for me and I made every attempt to conjure up romantic love for her. I didn’t love her but I didn’t find having a wife to be a trial either. We rubbed along nicely and eventually Hannah did thaw towards her mother.

By the time I graduated and was ordained things in our little family were on an even keel and I was relieved. I knew to be a pastor and a single father would have been frowned upon so I was glad to have a wife again. We settled into our first pastorate position over in rural North Carolina, up in the mountains at a small church. There was a tiny white clapboard house behind the church. I liked our new community but I knew quickly that she found it restraining, confining. Whenever I came home from work every day Sarah would complain, timidly at first but with ever increasing litany of the wrongs of our small town. I could tell Sarah was bored but I urged her to take up a hobby and start an outreach program through our church.

Sarah’s answer was to decide we needed another child and to go off her birth control pills. In the previous six months she’d started to heal from the months of alcohol and drug abuse and she looked and seemed quite healthy. I didn’t know she had contracted herpes and hepatitis C while she was away from us.

I didn’t want another child right thing. We were busy settling into an entirely different life in a new place and I felt we needed to concentrate on helping Hannah make the transition to our new situation. The last thing we needed to do was to strain our meager finances with another mouth and split our attentions on another child.

We fought bitterly over having another child. I begged Sarah to put it off for a year, just till we settled into our first position but she was adamant, she would get pregnant as quickly as possible. At first I avoided all relations with her but eventually I couldn’t control myself, finding it too difficult to have a willing woman in my bed without making love to her. Soon enough she was pregnant.

I accepted it as a gift from God, swallowing my disappointment that I was being burdened with a big expense I couldn’t afford so at Sarah’s urging I asked to be appointed to a bigger church with a larger salary. And we moved again, this time to Virginia Beach, Virginia, to a larger congregation. I was almost afraid to go there because, just like Myrtle Beach, it was a tourist town and a beach atmosphere known for partying and all the other negatives we’d left in Myrtle.

But Sarah seemed to have no interest in the party scene, pushing herself into establishing our household and decorating the small ranch house the church rented for us. She seemed happy. I liked our new church situation better so I thought this was just another example of God blessing us when I thought it wasn’t going to be good.

I worked hard and Sarah’s pregnancy progressed. Hannah settled into the Lutheran school connected to the new church and soon made new friends. I should have known it was all too perfect and couldn’t last.

And then my son was born, seemingly health weighing eight pounds and ten ounces with a full head of dark hair. We were both over the moon when Jason arrived and I started feeling something akin to the first stirrings of love for Sarah.

We settled into life with our two children. I coached Hannah’s T-Ball team and Sarah took her to Brownies and to Missionettes. I loved my new congregation and they embraced our small family.

Things didn’t start to fall apart until six months after Jason’s birth. Both Sarah and I started to worry because with every major developmental milestone that sprang up Jason wasn’t able to measure up. At six months he couldn’t lift his head, he didn’t smile and he couldn’t roll over. He was stuck about the newborn stage. Finally our pediatrician recommended a specialist and we brought Jason to the new doctor for an evaluation.

What he told us was earth-shattering and ultimately the thing that ended our marriage. Turns out that Jason had contracted both herpes and hepatitis c from his birth and as a result of these diseases rampaging unchecked in his body he was now retarded and suffering from liver disease. There was no cure for either.

Our family physician kept repeating, “If I had only known you had herpes and hep c this could have all been prevented.” Sarah kept howling that she didn’t know, she didn’t know. I was tested for both and found to be negative. Hannah was also clean.

I turned against Sarah, turned a cold shoulder to her after this. How could she had exposed me and our son to these illnesses, how could she not have known she was sick? My restless brain turned over and over the fact that herpes confirmed she’d been with other men during our separation and her promiscuity had doomed our son. I moved out of our bedroom and started sleeping in the study, interacting as little as possible with Sarah. Hannah was confused by all of this, why I didn’t want to be around mommy and why her mother was so sad all of the time.

This went on for six months or so until I started to hear rumors that when I was working Sarah had started to hit the party scene again. She started dressing in a revealing fashion once again and took to the bar scene with a vengeance. I fought with her about it and our diocese asked me to explain the actions of my wife because they found it embarrassing to the church. I tried to explain and spent every ounce of energy I had trying to keep things at home on an even keel. I even asked Sarah to go into marital counseling with me, offering to forgive and forget if we could go into therapy. I even told the lie that I loved her. She refused.

Then tragedy struck while I was away on a three day charge conference in Northern Virginia. Last on the second day of the conference there was a cryptic message that I was to come home as soon as possible from the local Virginia Police. I drove home out of my mind with fear, afraid that Sarah had abandoned the kids or maybe that she’d snapped under the influence and hurt Jason.

It was bad, but not any of the negative scenarios I’d imagined. From what the police pieced together Sarah had been giving both children large doses of a over the counter antihistamine to make them sleep while I was gone and going out drinking and partying with her pals. That day she’d done it again, left the kids alone in the house and headed out for the bars along the beachfront boardwalk. Some time after she left, an hour or two, an electrical short caused an intense fire in the kitchen. When the fire dept arrived they were able to extinguish the blaze quickly but it was too late for Hannah and Jason. Both had died in their sleep of smoke inhalation. The only mercy is that neither of them suffered.

If I had been hurt when Sarah left me or when we discovered that Jason was mentally handicapped it was nothing compared to the pain I felt upon their deaths. In the police station I attacked and tried to strangle Sarah, blaming her for their deaths. The police arrested Sarah on a number of charges but she ended up only serving eighteen months in prison for both deaths. She divorced me while she was in prison, citing ‘emotional cruelty‘, still unable to admit she‘d killed our children. Shortly after she was released she made her way back home to Myrtle Beach and she killed herself with an overdose of pills on top of the graves of our children.

Shortly after all of this happened I asked to be transferred, somewhere with a school preferably so that I could help kids, protect them from themselves, from the screw ups for their parents. I’ve been here five years now and all that happened in the past seems unreal like a bad dream. I like it here, but I’m not sure I can ever trust enough again to marry or have children.

So, you see, I do know what you’re going through today. You snapped at me, said I couldn’t, but I do.”

I was crying by this point in Will’s narrative, wondering how he wasn’t stark raving bonkers. I know I would have been had it been Jay dying tragically like that at Michael’s hand. I would have killed Michael, no question about it. I could only reach across the table and take Will’s hand and squeeze it while murmuring, “I’m so, so sorry Will. I know better than to judge someone or their situation and your story is a good reminder of how I need to not make assumptions. You must have tremendous inner strength to live through that and still walk with the Lord.”

Will looked as though he were close to tears himself and he said, “Am I strong or just too weak to do anything else, Mrs. Smith?”

I blushed, suddenly ashamed of myself for my assumptions and judgments and I stammered out, “You can call me Mary.”

We dawdled as long as we could over coffee. Will assured me that he would be supportive of Jay and myself, he’d help out as much as he could at the school to make sure Jay had loving support. When we finished the drive home we were talking like old friends. Will’s story of what he had endured had opened a dialogue between us, a commonality that I didn’t know existed. I felt worlds better even though I had lived through hell today.

The good feelings lasted until Will dropped me at my home. As I unlocked the door and walked in I noticed that my charming farmhouse more resembled a pig sty. The people who’d came over to wait with me in my house had left a mess, clean laundry trampled on the rug of the study, dirty plates and dishes on various surfaces, mud tracked across the beautiful oriental rug in the living room. I started to weep at the sight of wet marks, ghostly rings on my shiny oak dining room table and when I went into the nearby powder room to get tissue to blow my nose I noticed that all the toilet paper was gone and the medicine cabinet door was ajar.

Suddenly the house felt far too suffocating and I ran from it, not caring it was after eleven pm, I ran from the house and across the yard, seeking out the warmth and love at Marvellette’s house across the road. But an oncoming train stopped me and I wept and wailed as it passed, wondering how I got to this sorry state from my long ago childhood in Mississippi. The trains passed by our house this closely too, shaking the foundation of the house, a constant lullaby.

It always irritated Michael, these trains rolling past our house but for me it only brought back memories of a time when I felt loved and secure, golden feelings of childhood. Tonight it didn’t. I stood shrieking and crying by the side of the railroad grade, upset at being delayed once again.

After what seemed an eternity the train passed and I ran across the blacktop to Marvellette’s house. She sat up with me while I unloaded all the events of this day. I’ll always remember the look of shock on her face as I told her of catching Michael with another woman. She understood when I said I could not face a night sleeping in the same bed that I’d shared with Michael all those years and I spent that fitful night laying on her sofa. Tomorrow would be time enough to sort out what I would do next but I knew I’d never spend another night in the bedroom I’d shared with Michael.

After Marvellette returned to bed I lay on her lumpy old sofa staring at the ceiling, wondering exactly how I’d failed Michael so badly that he would so easily abandon me like this. I pleaded with God to give me an answer to this all.

As the trains passed by again, whistle blasts long and low in the distance, I thought anew about how my life could have taken a turn like this. When I’d been a girl, even though I was poor without many opportunities, I’d believed that life would take me many places.

In those days I lived mostly with my grandmother in her large old house along the main drag in Toomsuba, Mississippi. Sometimes I lived with my mother in a series of rented trailers and small houses but most of the time I stayed with my grandmother. I never knew who my father was and my mother was a bartender who seemed to have a never ending parade of male companions must to the horror of my very proper grandmother. I started living with my grandmother after childrens protective services kept putting me in foster care because my mother would sometimes disappear for a day or two.

I never minded the shuttling back and forth and I didn’t even mind foster care. I always found being part of a large family to be a welcome change that I didn’t mind I was glomming onto someone else’s family.

But once I arrived at my grandmother’s home life took on a steady pace. No running out in the middle of the night on the landlord. No more eating beans from a can and baloney. No more being able to go roam the neighborhood at any time during the night or day. But I welcomed that change too.

My room in her home overlooked the local train yards in the distance and the sound of the trains underpinned most of my days and nights.

Once upon a time my grandmother had been a wealthy woman, now she eked by on her social security payments and whatever she could collect from CPS towards my care. I didn’t realize until I was grown that she got food stamps for having custody of me or that I was on Medicaid.

But I didn’t know we were poor. To me life at my grandmother’s house seemed like paradise. And I’d been too dumb to realize not everyone lived like my mother and I did. All I knew is that I had regular meals now, clean clothes, the nicest ones I’d ever worn and a house so pretty that most of the girls at school asked it if was true that we had one room just for our piano. No one pointed at me as the daughter of the town easy lay and no kids at school accused me of being ‘stinky’ any longer.

I stopped going to the local elementary school and my grandmother enrolled me in a the St Mary Academy for Young Ladies. In exchange for my tuition I worked on the grounds of the school, helping Sister Agnes in the library, scrubbing pots with Sister Thelica in the kitchen or I helped Sister Lalonda pull weeds from the vegetable garden. For two hours every day after school I worked at the convent school on whatever task was set before me. I credit those years working under the tutelage of the nuns as truly forming who I am today. How else would I have learned to grow my own food or to sew my clothing. Not from my mother, goodtime Gertie and certainly not from my grandmother, grand dame of society once upon a time.

What I did learn from my grandmother was how to function graciously in a world starting to go mad with rudeness and self centeredness. She taught me how to properly set a table, the correct way to converse in polite company, how to sit, how to stand, how to dance. I left her home with manners that could have put me in any blue blood family even if I was on food stamps. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized how big a gift she’d given me.

From the age of 7 years old those nuns became a sort of family to me, a family I’d never experienced and one that loved me and supported me up until the day I left the convent in rural Mississippi to go to nursing school. The nuns had turned me into a scholar in those years so I landed a full scholarship to a smaller college in Maryland.

Between the lessons from my grandmother, the education and practical knowledge learned from the convent I was ready to go out into the world to face anything. Or so it felt like.

Day 13

2008-11-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

So they made plans for me. Someone switched off the tv and insisted I take at least a drink of water if I wouldn’t eat, They started talking at me, to me and around me, my pastor, my friends and my neighbors, deciding that someone needed to drive me to Reagan National Airport to meet up with the other family members and see what information that American Airlines could give us. I had nothing to add, I could only cry as others decided what next. My pastor was always good at delegating responsibility and he asked Marvelette to take charge of Jay for today and tonight, got someone else to stay here and answer the phone and started trying to find someone to drive me into town.

Before the pastor could assign anyone or someone volunteered there was a knock on my front door. When the door swung open I could see my 11 year old son standing miserably on the front porch accompanied by the headmaster of his school, Pastor Morgan. Jay, poor Jay, had red eyes. He’d obviously been crying. The body language of both seemed to indicate that this was awkward for both of them.

Jay ran through the door and flung himself into my arms, breaking into sobs as he moaned, “Dad’s dead isn’t he? I just know he’s dead.” I knelt and hugged him tightly, finally getting a grip on my own tears. Now I just felt numb, I knelt in front of my son and told him, “Sweetie, we don’t really know for sure but, yeah, it looks like he went home to the Lord today. I’m going to the airport right now so we need to pack you an overnight bag and your school books because it might be late before I get home. You’re going to stay with Marvelette and Jimmy just for tonight.”

Jay hugged me tighter at my words and wouldn’t let go. He’d gone in an instant from being a 11 year old going on 35 to what he actually was, a little boy. Sophistication melted away in the face of his father’s death.

With a gentle touch and the kindest of voices Pastor Waverley steered Jay away from me with the murmured words, “Go get your things son. Your momma needs to leave, to go find out what happened.”

Jay ran to Marvelette and hugged her even tighter than he’d held onto me. I could imagine that her stalwart bulk and unchangeable nature was the very thing he needed in this exact moment. She was like a second mother to my son and I knew with him at her home I didn’t need to worry. She’d mother him all he needed at this time. I knew he loved being with her children, both older and younger than him. Her kind nurturing home was where he needed to be while I tried to determine what the outcome of today would be.

Pastor Waverley picked up his jacket from the bulging coat rack hanging in the tiny entryway between the living room, den and foyer, slipping it on and saying, “My dear, we need to go. Now go comb your hair and tidy up your appearance. I’ll be waiting in the car for you.” The one thing the group had concluded is that I was quite unable to drive myself to the airport and our pastor had been appointed to take on this task.

As I turned to go upstairs to my bedroom Pastor Morgan stepped forward, red faced and said in a quavering voice, “I’ll take her to the airport, that is where you’re going, correct? It’s no trouble.”

While I’d been reunited with my son Pastor Morgan I could see that he stood just inside the front door looking like a man who would rather be anywhere else in this universe than in my home. He shuffled nervously from foot to foot, looking like he was waiting for the very ground to open up and swallow him in one rapid earthen gulp. He added, “Waverly, I think you’re needed over at Bob Johnson’s house. His wife was also on the same plane with Michael Smith. I, I ran into a member of your church at the school, Barb Yowell, she told me about Bob’s wife.”

Before Pastor Waverley could reply Hannah jumped forward to gasp, “You.. Drive.. Mary Martha.. Alone? But what would people think? They’d talk!”

It was one of the few times I’ve seen my minister lose his temper as he whirled and snapped at Hannah Jenkins, the member of our congregation most prone to gossiping about others, “How can you think about things like chaperones at a time like this? Good gravy, woman, people are dead and our nation is torn into bits and all you can do is yammer on about improprieties.”

Hannah blushed to the roots of her hair, suddenly embarrassed to be put in the harsh spotlight like that and she took three steps back from Pastor Waverly, suddenly interested in the books in the shelve behind her.

Before I knew what had happened I found myself sitting in the passengers seat of Pastor Morgan’s newer Volvo station wagon. We rode along in silence in the deserted landscape. There were virtually no cars on the road going in the direction of the city, only a steady stream of commuter cars fleeing Washington DC, going in the opposite direction.

I remember staring out of the window thinking that a day that held such monstrous events shouldn’t be gloriously beautiful and sunny. It was a travesty. There needed to be gray skies, ominous thunderheads, lightening, tornados, driving rain. Not this serene turquoise sky filled with white fluffy cotton candy clouds.

Thankfully Pastor Morgan never tried to engage me in conversation during that long ride. He just kept driving the car. His own comments were every now and again he’d mouth some platitude about the goodness and mercy of God and I’d look at him like he had three heads. What type of freak was he?

I just simply could not wrap my mind around the idea that the man I loved, had loved for many years now, my soul mate, was gone, vaporized in an instant when his plane hit the Pentagon. I could not imagine a life that didn’t contain Michael, a long vista of lonely days and many tears. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, it wasn’t fair, I thought as I looked at the set grim faces in the vehicles leaving Washington.

When we arrived at the airport we walked right into Bedlam, a crazy house. It was crammed with people in states ranging from that of sheer panic to mild hysteria. A collection of misery, I thought as we walked past a group of people arguing with a ticket agent about the fact that the Federal Aviation commission had grounded all flights indefinitely. People were upset that they were literally stuck here. I don’t blame them.

For all Pastor Morgan’s silence and actions indicting a high level of personal uncomfortableness he managed to snag someone from American Airline and tell them that I was the widow of someone on Flight 77 and just like that we were taken to an abandoned flight lounge to sit with many others. I sat silently, now numb, looking around at the others, realizing they too had all lost someone they loved dearly. I was now at a state beyond prayer.

Eventually an airline rep came out and announced that yes, like we’d heard on the television, that there were no survivors on Flight 77. I barely heard the rest of what he said, something about each of us giving contact information to the airline and being taken to wait at a nearby hotel or going home and they would have more information and help in the morning for us.

I know I must have sat with someone official from the airline and given them some information but I have no memory of it. Just that suddenly we were in Pastor Morgan’s car again and he was asking me what I wanted to do, go to the hotel with the other victims families or go on back home and he’d drive me back in the morning.

As we were walking back to the car I’d noticed that I still wore my dirty garden clogs. I had a smear of mud on my right calf and dirt caked under my nails and for the first time I realized the picture I must present. Did I comb my hair at any point in the day? I just didn’t know.

“Can you take me to our condo in Crystal City?” I’d begged Pastor Morgan, indicating I wanted most desperately to at least change shoes and wash my hands before making any real decisions. He’d nodded yes before telling me I needed to give him directions.

Back when Michael and I had been newly weds, with him working as a junior attorney at a large firm in DC and I working shifts in ICU over at INOVA Hospital in Fairfax Virginia we’d decided to buy a place halfway between both. We’d ended up with a new condo in a high rise building near the Pentagon. We’d kept it all these years, even after we’d bought our farm and moved to the countryside. Michael stayed in our condo on those weeks when he was pulling long hours on a case and we all stayed there on weekends we visited the city. We’d rented it out for awhile when money was tight but for the last five years it had been exclusively our second home and a wise investment. It had quadrupled in value in the time we’d owned it.

When we’d driven past the Pentagon on our way to the condo I’d made Pastor Morgan stop the car. We’d stood on the wide concrete shoulder of the road and stared at the blackened hole in the side of the gray granite building. For the first time all day I’d been overtaken with uncontrollable wailing and I’d collapsed onto the pavement, making noises barely human. It felt like my heart had been ripped still beating from my body and I was dying.

Pastor Morgan sprung into action, scooping me up from the pavement to hold me tightly in his arms. I snuggled against his chest, against the black broadcloth of his clerical coat and wept as he whispered, “Shhh, shhh, I know, I know..” into my hair. We stayed like that for a long time, I could feel the light outside shifting into twilight before I looked up. He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and forced me to blow my nose like a child before he wiped my face and pressed the hankie into my hand.

It was almost full darkness before we got back into the car and continued on to my nearby condo. After parking under the building we took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Something had happened between Pastor Morgan and I when I’d started crying. Now he took almost a protective posture over me, helping me in and out of the car and standing here in the elevator with his arm around my back, patting me in a mindless comforting way.

He followed me as we walked down the long hallway leading to 710, the small two bedroom condo overlooking the Potomac. Fortunately I’d picked up my keys when I’d left the house and I quickly found the worn old key that opened up the first home I’d shared with Michael.

But as the door swung open I realized it wasn’t silent and dark as I’d imagined it would be. Light and noise pulsed from the nearby living room and we both stepped towards the sounds. What I’d seen knocked me for a loop, instead of a silent living room containing a tasteful collection of modern furniture in neutral shades what met my eyes looked like something out of a Playboy magazine. My husband, very much alive and wearing only boxer shorts and socks, was hopping around like a madman on a Dance Dance Revolution play mat in front of the television while one of the recent hits by a pop band blared from the TV speakers. I gasped in shocked, stepping backwards, bumping into Pastor Morgan right behind me.

But Michael wasn’t alone. Drinking from a full champagne flute and wearing only a filmy nightgown a tall red head sat on my sofa, my sofa, like she owned the place. I couldn’t help but notice the empty liquor bottles on the coffee table and the fact that the nightie sported by the other one was one of my older ones left in the closet here.

My shock increased as I realized that the other woman was my opposite in every way, she was tall to my short stature. My hand crept up to the kercheif on my head, feeling my braid as I eyed her glossy red curls. Red polished nails, makeup, even a glossy red lipstick, she looked like a model, beautiful and polished. Suddenly I was acutely aware anew of the mud on my legs, my dirty hands and gardening shoes.

They didn’t notice us for a few moments, so caught up in the game of Dance Dance Revolution they were. Eventually the woman spotted up, leaping up unsteadily from the sofa to shriek, “Mikey, who is this?”

I could feel Reverend Morgan tense up behind me, feel him clutch my arm and squeeze, seeking to show me silently his support for the difficult situation I found myself in suddenly. Michael sat down suddenly on the dance mat, his mouth a perfect O of confusion before he gasped out, “That’s my wife.”

The red head drunkenly wobbled over to him and tossed her champagne in his face as she shouted, “Your wife? You told me you were divorced.”

Before I could help myself I added my voice to the confusion before me, “Michael,” I gasped out red faced, “I thought you were dead. You are dead!”

He pulled himself up from the mat and swaggered over to me, “Look, none of this means anything. I was just having some harmless fun so I don’t get why you thought I was dead. So I lied about the LA trip. I’ve been working hard and need some relaxation.”

With his words I didn’t have time to formulate a response before the other woman erupted in a volley of curses, “Not mean anything, you bastard, you dirty bastard. You told me you loved me!” She stomped off and slammed the bedroom door so hard that a nearby picture fell from the wall, glass shattering all over the wood floor.

An idea dawned in my head, unbelievable almost given the scope of this day and all that had happened, “Michael,” I asked, “did you spend the day in here with her drinking? Have you not looked at the news or switched on the television?”

For years Michael had struggled with alcohol and I’d thought he’d been sober for a long time now but after this discovery I wondered how many of these benders, hidden lost weekends, he’d managed to pull without my notice. He seemed a little too casual and unrepentant for this to be a one of.

“And why would I be sitting around looking at the television during the day? I have to work for a living.” Michael snarled, touching on something we’d fought about for years. He hated the fact that I stayed home to run the farmette and raise Jay. He wanted me to work full time because when I had worked I’d pulled down serious money in nursing. I tried to explain to him time and time again that to earn top dollar I too would have to drive into the city every day. I wasn’t willing to leave Jay so far from parental care daily.

“Terrorists,” I gasped out, tears coming finally as I realized my entire marriage was a sham, a carefully constructed lie, “Terrorists flew planes, the plane you were supposed to be on, into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. I thought you were dead, I came up here to talk to the airline.”

Realization dawned on Michael and he moaned out, “Oh God!”, suddenly sober as he reached to switch on the news. He slumped down on the sofa.

Throughout all of this Pastor Morgan had remained silent, standing just outside of the living room in the hallway. He’d barely shifted when the mystery woman had brushed past him first to get into the bedroom for her clothes and later to storm out of the front door. He simply stared sadly at Michael and myself, a unwilling witness to the end of our marriage.

The conversation that followed Michael’s realization that our world had changed forever was a painful one. In light of the tragedy before us Michael simply came clean, he told me what was in his heart and his mind.

As the years had passed he’d turned from a conservative Christian into someone that no longer believed in God. He hated our church, hated all the fools he saw before him and felt disconnected from me because I still embraced fully our church and our life. This surpassed simply growing apart, it was more like we inhabited different planets. He was city bound, liking the modern times and freed from the constraints of faith while I was increasingly drawn into the world of being a Proverbs 31 wife, faithful, thrifty, Godly and righteous. The lines were drawn.

The most shocking part of my husband’s suddenly candid announcement was that he hadn’t loved me for a very long time. He stayed with me just for the sake of Jay he said, he had never really loved me. Why marry me, I’d wailed to him. He looked at me like I was crazy but had no answer. I knew he was lying to himself to self justify his addictive behaviors but it still hurt, knowing I’d been convenient only, not much loved. Had I misjudged him that much in the years we’d spent together?

He ended his diatribe by asking me for a divorce. “I just want to be free, free of you, free of Jay, free of Plover Creek and it’s hordes of hypocrites. You can have the farm free and clear but I want my freedom regardless of what it costs.”

I reminded him that the church frowns upon divorce and I couldn’t willingly go along with his attempts to shed me like a discarded worn out pair of pants. “Please, Mar,” he begged, “If you ever truly loved me you’d give me my freedom. I swear I’ll keep supporting Jay but I am getting a divorce. You can either cooperate or not.”

I can’t say I was entirely shocked because I’d known something was wrong between for a long time. He spent longer hours at work and here, at the condo, away from Jay and I. I knew now that he’d been living as he pleased as a virtually single man. He’d been defensive and touchy for years now but I never dreamed it would come to this.

Mostly I was glad Michael was alive. In my heart I believed we belonged together and this was just a phase. If I gave Michael this freedom, allowed him to separate from me we’d end up back together. He’d realize how much he loved me, needed both Jay and I and Michael would return soon enough. I hated that he was drinking again and had been dabbling in infidelity but I knew he’d return.

Again, I told him I’d give him time to decide what it was he really wanted, but that I would always welcome him home with open arms and forgiveness if he was truly ready to repent.

Michael had smiled at me suddenly, amused by my assumption that he would tire of single life and he murmured, “But Mar, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to suddenly give up this life, my life, the right thing for me, just because I made a mistake by getting married in the first place all those years ago. I’m not the marrying type. I ignored my inner misgivings and marrying you. Huge mistake. I only married you because all my friends had gotten married and everyone was pressuring me to the do the same thing. I tried your boring life. I’m not a farmer, I’m not a preacher, I have to be true to who I am.”

But this was too much for me to digest I broke down weeping at his words. Mistake? I thought we’d been happy, well, mostly happy anyway despite a few nasty intervals early on. Michael let me cry, not moving any closer as I wailed but Reverend Morgan moved into the room to sit next to me and hug me tightly. Michael shrugged and walked away, picking up pieces of discarded clothing as he called over his shoulder to us, “Should I stay till she’s calmer?”

Pastor Morgan replied in a deceptively quiet voice, “No, you’ve done enough. Leave us please.”

Michael stopped in the hallway, “But this is my home. You leave. Both of you. Mar, I’ll be in touch to make arrangements to move my things.”

And that’s how we left it. I limped out moaning and wailing, in the arms of Reverend Morgan. Passersby in the underground garage stared at us as if we were dangerous, he in his black ministerial get up and me looking like a good little fundie wife. It was some time before I could quit shaking. Pastor Morgan waiting patiently with me in the car while I tried to get a hold of my emotions. We sat in silence in the dark garage for a long time. I had lost all track of time, day or night, time, season or any other identifying factor. This was the endless day.

But eventually he did start the car and away we went. I remember blinking in confusion under the orange sodium arch street lights, wondering how much longer this hellish day would take. A solemn hush had fallen over our area, there was almost no traffic, the skies were utterly clear of the screaming jets usually circling overhead, it was like the world was ours alone.

Karma Day 3

2008-11-03T16:39:00.001-08:00

“Perhaps God spared Michael’s life. He might still be stuck in traffic on his way to Reagan National.” Marvelette had murmured to me just before the first building came down in a roar of dust and debris. But I think we both knew it was an empty hope. There was no denying what the television screen had shown going on at the Pentagon and early reports were that no one aboard the plane had survived the impact.

We both gasped, as shocking as all we’d seen before that moment the sight of the first building collapsing was too much, impossible even. How could anything built so large and sturdy simply turn into dust and disappear? I cried even louder, feeling a deep pain for those watching their loved ones die this day on television. You could almost hear the souls crying out in pain to God.

At some point between the collapse of buildings one and two people from my church started showing up, starting with my minister, Pastor Waverly. He lived just down the road in the next small town, really more like a wide spot on the twisted barely paved road named Twylands Mill. He arrived and wrapped me in a tight hug before asking how I was.

The house filled quickly, ladies from the church, a few deacons and others. The grapevine in our little community was notorious for word spreading fast. People milled around, someone making coffee and someone else making sandwiches while I continued to sit, transfixed by the news coverage and unable to let go of Marveletta. I didn’t notice when my tall basket of laundry got knocked over or when others started to step on it. Only many hours later, when I returned to the abandoned house did I notice the tracked carpet of white cotton garments containing dirty shoeprints across the den and wonder why no one simply picked up the clothes.

We watched the coverage with grim faces and I jumped a foot every time the phone rang, hoping against hope it was Michael. But it never was. It was friends and relatives from far away calling to find out if we had survived. To people in other states the Pentagon had no real fixed address in relationship to anything else, just Washington DC. Hard to explain it wasn’t even in DC proper but on the outskirts in Virginia.

Over and over again I repeated that I hadn’t heard from Michael but I was safe at home. I couldn’t even wrap my brain around what had happened to tell any of the callers that it was a certainty that Michael had perished in the plane that hit the Pentagon.

Eventually some wise lady from Plover Creek realized that I was getting wound up from having to explain I knew nothing over and over and she started answering the phone, fielding all inquiries while I sat on the sofa, hypnotized by the human devastation before me on the small screen. I wept at the sight of all the still ashy faces of the people silently filing out of lower Manhattan on foot. I cried at the stories coming in of the bravery exhibited by the first responders.

But I was finally called away to the phone again around two o’clock by the principal of Jay’s school, Pastor John Morgan. He wanted to know if we were safe and if he needed to hold Jay back for late pickup. He knew only that Michael worked in the city and he informed me that he was calling all the parents of the students where one of the parents worked in the city to make sure someone was around to talk to the child about what had happened.

He stumbled over his words more awkwardly than usual. I could just see him sitting in his large office surrounded by books and the series of paintings depicting the stations of the cross that guarded his walls. I’m sure his hair was it’s usual longish floppy mess, touching the collar and tousled and he sported an expression of pain on his face to match the pain reflected constantly in his grey eyes.

I found myself sharply questioning the Reverend as to how my child would have heard of today’s tragedies and he erred and umed for a few moments before telling me that several of the teachers had heard the news from friends and relatives. Before he knew what had happened most of the classes at Ryland Memorial School had switched on the classroom televisions and started watching the coverage.

I dropped the phone and sagged to the floor wailing. I remember thinking how much it hurt knowing that the sense of safety and security my child had grown up in without any fear of war or terrorism had been terribly altered in one short morning. Images of bomb drills and emergency drills carried out faithfully at my own childhood school, St Agnes of the Blessed Vision danced before my eyes and I curled into a ball like a frightened child to weep even louder.

As people rushed to try and coax me off the floor and hand me a box of tissues I could hear someone telling Pastor Morgan that my husband, Jay’s father, had been on the plane striking the Pentagon. I can imagine Pastor Morgan’s gasp, perhaps he even turned a little red, followed by his profuse apologies and offered prayers for our family.

When my friend Hannah hung up the receiver she told me that Pastor Morgan said he would be bringing Jay home himself directly. Apparently Jay had heard enough from the news reports to realize his father had probably been on American Airlines Flight 77. He was frightening, crying, demanding answers. Pastor Morgan thought Jay needed to see his mother as quickly as possible but said he felt I would be too distraught to go to the school.

Everyone kept talking at me and all I wanted was to be completely left alone. I wanted everyone to leave. I craved my bed, my quiet bedroom at the top of the stairs, to lie on top of the antique quilts and stare undisturbed at the white washed walls. Just to be allowed to pretend this was nothing more than a bad dream. As long as everyone pressed me to eat, or make a decision as to what I felt like needed to be done I couldn’t deny this reality.

“I don’t know, I don’t know” I kept replying to the different enquiries as to what I thought I needed to do. I was petrified if I left the house I would miss a call from the airlines telling me that Michael had been bumped to another flight, or the police might stop in to tell me that they’d made identification of Michael’s body from the plane crash. I just didn’t know.

Karma Day 2

2008-11-02T10:41:00.001-08:00

He’d fallen off his horse during the joists and they’d hauled him over to the hospital tent where I was working as an RN all the while dressed like a serving wench in a tightly laced dress with copious cleavage on display. I remember his friends dumping him unto a cot, silent and still, knocked unconscious by the fall. I’d taken his vitals, struck by the fact that the man before me in the chain mail shirt and knights helmet looked like he could have danced out of a Disney movie about knights and their ladies fair. He was tanned, not too dark but seasoned to a healthy glow. I remember restraining myself from running my fingers over the cleft in his chin and his strong boxy jaw line, willing the black long lashes covering his chiseled cheeks to open and show me his eyes. When he regained his senses I accompanied him first to the local hospital for a head x-ray and later I took him to a nearby restaurant so he could have something to eat. I was in awe of this beautiful man and I still am. He could wear a suit or a suit of armor like no one I knew.

While pulling weeds that morning I’d prayed anew for him, thinking about the handsome knight I’d fallen in love with. So what if the castle was crumbling and he sometimes behaved with selfish disregard, he was still my lord and master in every way. King of the castle even before my Christian faith urged me to be submissive in all ways to him.

The birds swooped and sang as I weeded and prayed for traveling mercies and safety. I prayed that his business concluded quickly and Michael came home in record time. One of the reasons Michael had been in a mood the day before was he resented having to fly out to the Los Angeles area again, he hated LA mightily. Not that I blamed him, we’d always been East Coast people.

I almost hated going inside the house that fall morning because the weather was glorious in all ways. The first of the morning freight trains passed by our house, blasting it’s low whistle while the engineer waved to me out of the window. I smiled and waved back.

Michael had always hated the fact that our house set several hundred feet from the railroad tracks, even if it was just for a local regional line that didn’t run that many daily lines. I loved it because it reminded me of home. He hated it and I always suspected it had to do with his life growing up dirt poor in Philadelphia literally next to the railroad tracks. While the sounds of the train passing many times a day was comforting sweet music from a world and time long gone to me, to Michael it was a reminder of how he’d been raised.

After making sure that the goats were free to roam down into the brushy ravine and up the rocky ridge behind the house I warmed the last of this mornings coffee and settled in to fold and iron the first of today’s laundry. Monday always meant clean clothes and bedding in our house.

While it might mean clean clothing and I knew it was part of my realm as a good wife it was the part I most detested. I would rather do just about anything over wash, iron and fold clothing. It was so deadly boring that I did it every Monday morning while I indulged in one of my few extravagancies, television. Satellite television to be exact.

Throughout most of our marriage I had been the penny pincher, the thrifty one making do, saving, scrimping, while Michael lived like a grasshopper, never thinking about winter, only for the season of pleasure ahead so when I’d insisted we pay for a satellite dish and the subscription fee Michael hadn’t protested. I knew he wouldn’t just as I knew I could never reveal that on the days I was stuck inside doing the family washing I also spent as long as it took to do the laundry with the television on. First a little news, a little CNN, before moving on to the morning talk and cooking shows. Later there were movies, game shows and more talk shows to watch.

I kept my secret television habit just that, a secret from everyone. By the time I picked up Jay from school in the afternoons it was firmly off, as if it had never been on and I never turned it on while either Jay or Michael were around. Besides, each of them had shows they liked to watch and I graciously allowed each to put their needs before my own. It was what we were taught at Plover Creek that a good Christian woman did.

Now Plover Creek frowned on looking at television unless it was to watch CBN and Pat Robertson or Fox News. The rest of tv was considered trash that would rot your brain and allow the demonic to infiltrate your home. No one at Plover Creek knew of my habit either and I have no intention of anyone finding out.

Plopping down on the comfortable sofa in our den, piled laundry basket before me, remote in one hand, coffee cup in the other, I was so naïve, so clueless and innocent to the changes about to occur in my life. I pressed the on button and CNN filled the screen with rescue vehicles as I watched some tragedy unfolding in that Godless American Sodom and Gomorrah New York City.

When I heard that a plane had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center on it’s way to Los Angeles and that they thought it was a tragic accident I couldn’t help but feel my heart dropping into my shoes. I cranked up the volume on our large Sony Trinitron and got up to pick up the scribbled notes on my desk, the flight numbers and departure times for Michael today. NYC is a long way from DC and I knew it wasn’t likely it was his flight but I had to reassure myself again. It was a relieve to see his flight number was not 11 even if he was flying American Airlines.

No clothes were folded that morning. I sat on the soft old beige corduroy covered sofa from our first apartment and stared transfixed at what I was seeing on CNN. While news media scrambled to figure out if this was just a awful bizarre accident something even more stunning happened. Right before my horrified eyes another plane appeared, flying in at an odd angle very rapidly and slammed into the remaining tower of the World Trade Center. I gasped, bursting into tears seeing what I knew was the death on camera of hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand people. How could this be happening? In America of all places? Random attacks on citizens occurred in the middle east, the third world, not here, the land of the brave and the free.

The rest of the day takes on a nightmare haze, a fun house warped clock, time stood still, time sped up but shortly after the second tower was hit I was seized with an irrational desire to talk to Michael, to assure myself that he was alright, even though I knew he was airborne at that point and could not answer his cell phone. I rang it anyway. It clicked over to voice mail and I left him a message to call home as soon as he got off the plane.

And my phone started ringing madly, friends calling unable to grasp the concept that we’d been attacked on our own soil any more than I could. Church members calling, a few saying that this was God’s own judgment on the corruption of our nation, calling for repentance from us all.

Each time the phone rang I grabbed for it frantically even as I couldn’t stop staring at the human massacre playing out onscreen in front of me. I’d answered with my heart pounding, so sure each time it was Michael calling to tell me that his plane had been grounded and wanting to let me know he was alright. But none of those calls were him.

When CNN cut away from the New York coverage to show the smashed smoking wreck of a third plane I nearly fainted. The sight of burning jet fuel scorching the gray granite making up the Pentagon building was more than I could handle. I instantly dropped to my knees next to our coffee table and began to plead with God, plead for the life of my husband. I don’t know how I knew before the plane was identified that it was his, but I knew. I knew he was dead.

That’s how our neighbor from across the road, Marveletta Yoder, found me, on my knees in front of a blaring television calling out for God’s protection over my husband at the top of my lungs. I don’t know how she got in, she just appeared in the doorway to the den, tall and bulky in her hopeful pink dress and starched white cotton cap all Mennonite women wore. She swooped in and crushed me in a bear hug, murmuring, “I’m so so sorry, Mary Martha, I’m sorry.”

I could take anyone’s pity but Marvel’s, she’d been through so much through the years and I collapsed into her arms, unable to speak, awful moans and sobs being ripped from the fiber of my being. My world had ended.

Day 1

2008-11-01T16:48:00.001-07:00

On the worst day of my life I was struck by the cruelty of how normal it all seemed. Immense tragedies should leave warped scorched earth, shifted tectonic plates, plaques, locusts and famine. I stood panting by the side of the road watching the last train of the night roll past my front yard while crickets and frogs sang out their circadian melodies.

As the cars racketed past in their distinctive rhythm I suddenly flashed on the image of myself as a small girl, standing near the tracks back home in rural Mississippi. Watching the cars pass while dreaming about the far flung places they were headed. In those days I thought just about anywhere had to be better than Toomsuba, Mississippi. Now, I think being any place, even Toomsuba, would be preferable to standing by the side of the tracks in the middle of Nowhere Virginia.

The day had started like many others, by being nudged away by some internal prompt to get up and pray before the sun came out. I’d slid silently from beneath the smooth cotton sheets, careful not to make the bed or floor creak, taking great pains to make sure I didn’t rouse my husband Michael from his slumber. He worked in the city and was chronically short on sleep.

That day I’d felt a pressing need to pray, pray hard, like I never had before so I’d taken my old Bible out onto the front porch of our farm house along with a cup of coffee. As I sipped that first reviving cup I’d read from the book of Isaiah and prayed for whatever horrible unknown thing I felt looming overhead. I couldn’t imagine what it was because my life was, if not perfect, tolerable, about as much as I could expect. I had a home, a life, a husband, a child and for those things I was grateful to the Creator that day and every day.

Only Michael rushing to dress and leave going towards the Washington airport and the challenges of another Monday jolted me from the heavenly realms I inhabited while I communed with God in the cool of the day. Michael paused only long enough to kiss my cheek as he rushed out with a cooling cup of coffee in one hand and juggling his overnight case and briefcase in the other. He had an early flight scheduled out of Reagan National Airport for Los Angeles, a business deal he was working on. Usually he’d be for his two hour trip towards his office in Washington DC and most cranky about it. I smiled, what we had between us was strong, or so I fooled myself into thinking on that day.

I sat there in the gray dawn waiting for what I did not know that morning, never dreaming that the fabric of my life was about to be shredded, pulled away like dry rotted drapery turning to dust upon touch. I’d finally stopped praying, going into our spacious kitchen to get more coffee, pack lunch for our son Jay and fix breakfast for both of us. I knew Jay slept till the absolute last second, stealing those last few moments in the grip of sweet sleep before hurrying through a shower and starting that all important task of picking out the coolest outfit in his wardrobe. Both he and his father were dandies, concerned with looking fashionable, something that had never mattered to me.

Which Jay reinforced again, making me smile, over breakfast when he’d paused in his bolting down of bacon and eggs just long enough to comment, “You’re not really going to drive me to school wearing that?” For someone only eleven he sounded closer to a dripping with sarcasm sophisticated thirty five urbanite, not a boy growing up on a small farm. I smiled, teasing him by spreading the patched skirt of my old comfortable floral printed jumper and saying, “You are aware I’m planning on picking apples and making jelly today, aren’t you? I might even start another batch of goat cheese. What do you suggest I wear? Chanel for milking the goats?”

Jay rolled his dark eyes and muttered, “Oh, mother.” before making a face and abandoning the remains of his breakfast. Neither he or Michael were very enthusiastic about anything to do with my small farmette. Jay told me on his ninth birthday that he was ‘allergic’ to the great outdoors. I knew he was joking but still, it hurt sometimes that neither had any love of our land. I sure did.

As usual Jay was nearly late for school that terrible day and he whined that he hated school as I drove him in my old Volvo station wagon. Beautiful morning, not too hot, not too cool, Indian summer weather, as we zipped along I noticed who was harvesting their hay and who still had corn standing. Blue skies, huge white cumulus clouds and sunshine so beautiful it was like a landscape painting on the joys of rural life.

The rest of that morning seems like it passed in a dream. I got home, started a load of clothes in our ancient washing machine in the basement before washing up the breakfast dishes, harvesting off the ripe tomatoes and other vegetables in our garden. By the time the clothes were in the dryer and the first load of bedding went into the washer I’d moved on to feeding the goats, getting the milking done and weeding my organic herb garden.

Michael teased me about my small farm, it was obvious I’d never make the same money he made in Washington as an attorney, but I always managed to make a tidy sum from the organic goats cheese and herbs I sold to the nearby gourmet shops in the next chi-chi town over. The difference between my small farming and Michael’s job is that I enjoyed what I did, the leisurely pace, the quiet, the calm. Michael arrived home everything moaning and complaining about everything from the traffic to the idiots he was forced to work with in the course of his duties as a lawyer dealing with a client list as varied as individuals, corporations and various government agencies.

Lately I noticed Michael had been getting ever more angry with his job, lashing out when I timidly asked him how his day was. I knew he resented the fact that I never had to leave the house even as he complained that the trains passing our house sometimes on an hourly basis were enough to drive him mad. To me they were sweet music, a reminder of my childhood.

I told myself that it was the long hours he worked, the commute, the stress of his job and I daily put Michael and our marriage into God’s hands because I couldn’t do anything else. It had started to be obvious to others outside our little family that Michael had been in a temper lately. Yesterday after church we’d attended a picnic at a nearby park and Michael had blown up discussing politics with some of the other men of our church and he’d stormed off to pace around the lake while some of the ladies had come to me asking me in whispers if everything was alright between us. Yes, yes, I’d laughed, he’s just under a lot of pressure at work, it’s nothing, I’d said. I made excuses to others and myself because I loved him.

Michael said nothing of the incident on the way home beyond mentioning that he was starting to realize what a bunch of reactionary right wing fools most of the men of Plover Creek Christian Church were. Late he rattled off a long list of reasons why he was thinking about leaving our church. I didn’t argue and I didn’t point out the obvious, that they hadn’t changed, the church and it’s people were still the same as they been ten years ago when Michael had drug a very reluctant me, backslidden Catholic girl, to all those years ago. What had happened was that I’d become a believer and Michael, well, Michael wasn’t sure any longer who or what he believed in. Many Sundays I’d spend the afternoon and evening listening to him talk about how this person had behaved like the utmost in hypocrite or how silly the sermon was.

His faith was another thing that Michael seemed to be so restless with.

Thankfully he’d recently stopping trying to turn our son Jay into an athlete. Every year from the moment Jay had been old enough to hold a football Michael had been enrolling Jay into every type of sports league you could imagine. Long frustrating hours sent trying to turn our almost delicate son, thin and asthmatic, into something he most certainly wasn’t, the champion athlete. At first Jay had gone along with it but in the last few years most practices and games were preceded with Jay bitterly arguing with his father about badly he hated all organized sports, that he’d rather stay inside and play video games.

The first time Jay yelled at his father that he wasn’t going to basketball practice and he didn’t care what he thought I’d been shocked. He used harsh words and ugly tones and I felt fear, fear at what Michael would say and do. Eventually Michael started to blame me for Jay’s refusal to have anything to do with sports, said that I had mollycoddled him, purposely turning his son into a weak mommas boy.

If it sounds hard, like I’m trying to portray Michael as a monster it’s only because one of the few ways I can stand to look back and not feel fatal heart pains is to demonize him in my own mind. I loved him and look where it got me. And I thought we were happy, well mostly happy, for all of those years.

When it was a good, it was so good. Michael certainly looked like a knight on a white horse in shining armor when I first met him. I loved him almost from the first time I laid eyes on him at a Renaissance fair in suburban Maryland.

Getting Ready

2008-10-29T06:20:00.000-07:00

Dusting out the cobwebs and getting this old place ready for Nano. I'm excited! I'd love to finish two years in a row. My Nano history has been spotty at best. I've participated something like seven years in a row but only finished a few times, never on consecutive years! There's always a first time!

Winner, Babee!

2007-11-30T05:05:00.001-08:00

Day 30

2007-11-29T18:58:00.000-08:00

A day early and hallelujah I'm very finished with this. Now back to my real novel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I spent the rest of the month leading up to the birth of our last child in a state of weepy remembrance over Cynthia Rose. It colored a time when I should have been overjoyed, happily anticipating the birth of our son Daniel, into shadows and sadness. Afterwards I had a bout of post partum, spending a lot of my time wondering just how right the psychic had been.

This simple manila envelope came into my possession when I spoke at a meeting of professional women at the Four Seasons in Washington proper. I’d spoken to urge the listeners to donate to our foundation as well as volunteer and to raise awareness about our cause. Some of the monies we collected went to the families where the main wage earner was the missing adult and the rest went to provide necessary services for the families left behind that could not possibly afford them, such as counseling for those without health insurance coverage.

As I stood at that dais and looked out over the well heeled crowd of Washington professional women and told of my own personal involvement with NMAO I spotted a vaguely familiar man standing at the back of the ball room. He wasn’t part of the serving staff hustling around serving coffee and desserts nor was he part of the hotel staff. I could feel his eyes upon me and I wondered what he wanted.

After the dessert reception and all the different speakers he sought me out once the women who’d expressed an interest in helping the NMAO scattered and I sat alone at my table. When I looked up I recognized him at once, he was a little older, hair completely gray and he was starting to stoop. I wondered how old Sgt Sam Vocci was now and why he’d come all the way to Washington from Biloxi to see me. His face was unreadable but I knew it couldn’t have been good news.

I stood up and hugged Sgt Vocci, wordlessly, tearful, knowing what he was going to tell me. He sounded tearful himself as he whispered, “I’m so sorry.” When we broke apart he handed me this envelope, over sized and bulky and said gruffly, “Here. It’s all in here.” I held out the envelope, like it was a poisonous snake, like a bomb and stared at it, stared over at him, struck dumb. This was not how it was supposed to be.

Sam Vocci put one hand on my shoulder, a kindly touch and said softly, “Do you want me to hang around till you read it all or would you rather do this alone?” His voice jolted me out of my shock and I said, “Sam, I need to get back to my office and process this, look through the file but.. I might have questions about the material. Do you mind coming to my office and waiting in the ante room?”

He followed me in silence from the hotel and we walked over to the Metro station to ride the train to my NMAO office near Dupont Circle. I no longer clutched the envelope like it was deadly, now I grasped it like my entire life depended on it.

Once I sat down at my desk after telling the receptionist to get Sgt Vocci a coffee and to hold all my calls I sat here, stunned and afraid at the same time. I could sense in my spirit that the envelope held death, the aftermath of death, which led me to think about the twisted path my life and my sister’s life had taken after leaving home.

I hesitated, the longer I put off opening this the longer I had to get used to the finality of what really happened to Cynthia but suddenly I was seized by a desperation, more than anything else in this world I needed to know exactly what happened. I picked up carved giraffe wooden letter opener I’d bought on a trip to Kenya and in one swift movement I slit this thick envelope open and tipped the contents out on my leather desk blotter.

A jumble of things slid out, a womens slim wallet in faded leather still bearing traces of fingerprint dust, an autopsy report, photographs, so many photographs, some of crime scene and some from an autopsy and a sheath of paperwork.

There was no doubt who the wallet belonged to. It held a old faded drivers license that had expired nearly ten years ago. There was no money in it or credit cards but the photo section held pictures of my triplets as newborns, a wedding photo of Jude and I and pictures of Momma and Daddy and our family.

The first set of crime scene photographs were disturbing, a lady with blonde hair lay supine in a cheap hotel room and her skin was an unearthly sick shade of white. She had deep strangulation marks around her graceful neck and further photos showed that her hands had been crudely chopped off. Her face showed a peace that passed this world, whatever had happened to her she was in a place far beyond it. There was no terror or horror in her face.

It was undeniable that the photos of this dead body was my sister, Cynthia Rose, long dead, murdered by a trick from the looks of it. I read through the papers and yet as I cried a little bit what I felt mostly was relief, I think I’d known almost from the beginning that Cynthia was dead. Confirmation of that brought me some closure even as I was filled with horror at how she must have suffered towards the end.

After I pulled myself together I buzzed Doreen, the receptionist, and asked her to have Sgt Vocci come into my office. As he closed the door behind him and stood before my desk I looked up at him and said, “Thank you, at least I finally know. But I’m not sure I can make much sense of these reams of reports. Can you tell me what happened and how you found her?”

He sat down slowly and sighed, “It’s not a pretty picture and your sister, Cynthia, she was so beautiful, she could have done so many things with her life, but apparently, as best we can reconstruct, she chose to continue in her lifestyle with Brad. We don’t know if he had any involvement with this. The original reports seem to indicate that by that time Cynthia Rose and Brad Smith had parted ways, or not. I believe he was taking her all over the country to strip.
Once they left Seattle, they moved down to San Francisco, Los Angeles then on over to Reno. Your sister tended to dance at a place for a week, two weeks tops before they moved on. Both Brad and her changed their names on the circuit and your sister started wearing a red wig when she danced. I guess Brad didn’t want them to be found because there were outstanding federal charges hanging over him. Brad didn’t tend to stay in a place too long before he met your sister.

Those photographs, of the crime scene, are from about six weeks after your sister disappeared. They were taken at a cheap hotel in Baltimore’s notorious Block. Looked like a trick turned bad. Whoever did this horrible thing to your sister chopped off her hands and because there was no id and no way to fingerprint her the Baltimore PD had no way of knowing who she was, another Jane Doe. They ran artist renditions of her in the local news but no one came forward to claim that they knew her so the city buried her as a Jane Doe in the burial grounds they maintain for prisoners, the indigent and for people who die with no name, like your sister. I can take you to her remains if you’d like.”

I interrupt Sgt Vocci at this point, “Why do you have the wallet but no one could match Cynthia’s body with a name?”

“Because the wallet wasn’t discovered at the same time as the body. Your sister died in a run down hotel in the downtown area just off an area filled with strip clubs and prostitution and left only her clothes behind. They never found the hands and she had no distinguishing marks, tattoos and no obvious dental work. It was a dead end for the Baltimore police department until a month or so ago.

Large portions of the downtown area are now being gentrified in Baltimore Maryland. All those strip clubs and old hotels are sitting on land now worth major money and some of them have changed hands. That hotel was bought out by a major chain, who was completely redoing the rooms, gutting it and starting over. When the demolition crew removed the television from the room that Cynthia Rose died in they found a wallet hanging out of the back of the television, shoved back behind the set half in and half out of a loose panel on the back. They called the police, who realized that the photo of the lady in the license photograph matched their Jane Doe from nearly ten years ago. They ran Cynthia on the NCIC and here I am. We found her.”

“Thank you,” I sobbed out, suddenly glad this was all over with while knowing that breaking the news to my parents wasn’t going to be easy. I felt suddenly grateful for Jude too, he’d stuck by me for years while I’d searched, been my rock of stability, loved me beyond all reason.

Sgt Sam Vocci got up and smiled wistfully, “I promised you I wouldn’t give up and I didn’t”

As he stood there I picked up my office phone and dialed quickly before saying, “Momma, are you sitting down? They found Cynthia Rose.”

Day 29 (ONE MORE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

2007-11-29T11:18:00.001-08:00

On a rainy and blustery April day, when the high winds scoured the sands from the beach and the waves lashed about violently Sgt Vocci showed up on our doorstep with the suitcase, handing it over to me and relaying their new information. The condo owner told the police that Brad had left them a forwarding address for Seattle, which turned out to be a strip joint near the Ballard section of Seattle. Seattle PD had arrested Cynthia Rose for prostitution and released her over five months before. The trail grew cold from there, no one knew where they went but now Sgt Vocci knew to start making inquiries at various strip clubs again. NCIC would show them when she was arrested again and he felt certain we’d get a hit, a real lead, soon enough.

But no more leads came in, it was as if the trail went cold at Seattle. Against Sgt Vocci’s advice I even flew to Seattle one blustery fall day and spend days searching the strip clubs and homeless shelters. At night I drove along the long strip of highway between Seattle and Tacoma where the local prostitutes plied their services. No one knew anything about Cynthia. Defeated and exhausted I returned home.

I’d stopped being depressed and now I was angry, horribly angry.

Calling Momma and Daddy to tell them that Cynthia was missing was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Daddy’s terse, “I’m not surprised she came to a bad end” mixed with Momma’s hysterics still give me the chills when I think about it.

Watching me obsess over Cynthia’s disappearance combined with whatever my parents had told Hope Maria kept her on the straight and narrow when she was living with us. She quietly kept wearing her long denim skirts and button up blouses and kept her hours filled with either caring for the triplets or school. We never bonded as close friends in the way Cynthia Rose and I had. Sometimes I got the impression that in those days I frightened Hope Maria. I’m sure I came off as unbalanced many days.

But life moves on, while I heard occasionally from Sgt Vocci that they had no new leads but that detectives in the department were going over the case file again, nothing new turned up.

We moved in those ten years, much more than I would have liked, but in order for Jude to keep his career moving forward it was necessary. He seemed to get promotions every couple of years. Two years after Cynthia’s disappearance he was promoted to one of NASA’s facilities in Florida. I resisted going, I loved our home and didn’t want to sell it but mostly I didn’t want to somewhere else in case Cynthia Rose was still alive and decided to land on our doorstep. This idea, that Cynthia might try to contact me, through work, at my home, nagged at me, gave me sleepless nights and broke my heart. But what could I do, I’d promised in front of God and everyone to love, honor and obey so it was with a heavy heart we left Bay St Louis.

Immediately upon moving Jude broached the idea to me of having more children. He wanted a son or daughter of his own, that was his biologically. So in the middle of moving we started trying to get pregnant.

I hated Florida, there I was miserably pregnant in the insane heat and humidity more intense than anything Biloxi ever dished out, living in a rented house I didn’t particularly like that was a hard six block walk from the beach. I hadn’t been able to get a position immediately with any mental health clinic. I felt stuck in this place against my will. It didn’t help that I suffered from the worse morning sickness I’d ever had and that Jude worked long hours.

So I tried not to bug Sgt Vocci too often or complain to Jude much. I tried to settle into life in south Florida. After unsuccessfully trying to make friends among the largely uneducated housewives in our neighborhood I spent my days concentrating my attention on Seth, Jacob and Rachel and their different personalities.

Sometimes I did some digging on my own at the strip clubs and in the prostitution areas of our part of Florida, looking for any hint of Cynthia Rose, asking questions again only to find no one knew anything. Another repeat of Seattle.

Florida didn’t last long, less than a year, so heavily pregnant and wrangling toddlers I had to pack up so Jude could take his new promotion in Houston. Again I called everyone I could think of in the Biloxi area and left my new contact info on the million to one chance that Cynthia Rose reappeared and tried to contact me.

Houston was a breath of fresh air after the hot humid insularity I’d experienced in our small town in Florida. It was a booming large city, you could almost feel the pulsing vitality of this place. This time we bought a house again, not on the ocean since the beach was a good hour or so from the town of Houston, but in a nice newly built neighborhood surrounding a lake, not too far from the new airport.

But we didn’t have much time to unpack and get settled in before I went into labor and our daughter was born. I wanted to name her after my missing sister Cynthia but somehow it seemed a bit morbid so we named her Abigail Rose instead. Momma came down to help me and oohed and ahhed over our new house and how much the triplets had grown.

Immediately after the birth, two weeks or so, I started looking for a position as a psychologist in the town of Houston. After receiving quite a few offers quickly Jude asked me why I didn’t just hang out my own shingle and start treating patients on my own. He pointed out that by going out on my own I could write my own schedule and specialize in treating people who’d lost loved ones. “You have the compassion and personal experience to make it work,” he said, “use all you’ve gone through with your sister’s disappearance to work for you.”

And so I did, found a small office, made a few contacts at physicians offices and with the local police and human services agencies before hiring a receptionist and a housekeeper and starting to treat people who’d lost the people they loved. For the first time since leaving Bay St Louis I felt useful again, like I was doing something to contribute to the good of society instead of aimlessly drifting through my days in a haze of Barney, applesauce and endless laundry. Some women are meant to be stay at home mothers and some are not. I was not.

One of the women I was treating that lost a daughter in a very similar way to Cynthia Rose’s disappearance and during her treatment she started talking of her involvement with an organization dedicated to finding missing adults, the National Missing Adults Organization. She was involved with the local chapter and told me about how much attending helped her because she felt as though she wasn’t alone in it. Just knowing others had gone through the same experience helped her. That day I broke a rule good therapists never break, I told this patient, Pamela Geldmann about my sister’s disappearance and she convinced me to attend a meeting of the NMAO.

My first meeting at NMAO was eye opening and I plunged into a new cause with a fervent passion. After a few months I started attending the national events and throwing myself head first into the cause of finding the thousands of missing adults in our country. I added it as another part of my life, squeezing in the time between my work, my family and my still futile search for my sister Cynthia Rose.

When Jude was offered a high level bureaucrats position with NASA at their Washington DC office after a few years in Houston I was excited. Moving to the Greater DC area meant to me that I’d have even more time to devote to NMAO and their quest to find the missing. I already held a position on the national council so the move to DC would work on all levels for me.

My parents were thrilled with the move because it would put us a two and a half hour drive from their home.

The kids whined about it. Seth, Jacob and Rachel were now seven and Abigail Rose was four. The kids didn’t want to leave their friends but were excited to see their grandparents, the only grandparents they had considering Jude’s parents had passed away when he was in college.

In some very sick humor that the universe seemed all too eager to inflict upon me I discovered mere days before the move that I was pregnant again. Jude was overjoyed but I was a little less enthusiastic this time. I’d never intended to spend the years of my younger adulthood caring for babies and young children like I had as a teen.

But we went through with it all, I moved again with horrid morning sickness and we settled in an area of northern Virginia just over the DC line called Clarendon. The houses in our neighborhood were beautifully maintained classic homes from the thirties. We moved into a stone Cape Cod with five bedrooms within a ten block walk from the nearest Metro station. This house also had the virtue of a nice mother in law apartment over the garage that I immediately converted to my office.

When I wasn’t being a wife and mother and seeing new patients in my home office I could be found downtown helping out at the NMAO office, still hopeful that one day I’d know what happened to Cynthia Rose. As the organization gained media visibility I was asked to take on the part of speaking in public about the cause nearest my heart, and I appeared on news programs, conferences and talk shows drumming up support for our cause, stalking members of Congress to get legislation passed to allow for a freer exchange of information between law enforcement agencies.

During one appearance while I was in the last month of my pregnancy I’d been surprised at the talk show by a so-called psychic brought on by the host, who asked her what she could see had come of my sister. This woman, whom made me feel very uncomfortable, looked right at me and said on national television, “Your sister is dead, murdered and buried in a potters field.” At her words I fainted and I felt the flicker of hope in my heart for Cynthia’s whereabouts vanish.

I never appeared again on a talk show touting NMAO so rattled I’d been by this trick by the tv producers. From that point on I stuck with conferences and news programs, no more talk shows.

Day 28

2007-11-28T07:32:00.000-08:00

But no matter how many times I knocked no one answered, there was no stray sound in there, no one scurrying about pretending not to be home. It was like knocking on the door of an empty tomb.

Once I got back down to my car I was trying desperately to remember the name of the import business and the strip joints Brad owned, perhaps she was at one of those. I drove to each place in turn but the business was abandoned, I could see through the front windows that everything was a dusty turmoil within. The office looked like it had be stripped of anything usable and left to rot months ago.

My luck at the exotic dancing clubs was only marginally better, at the first two I entered people said sure they knew Brad Smith and Cynthia Rose, but no one had seen either on them in a good couple of months.

The final club I visited was Brad’s biggest and fanciest and I stepped through the door into a world of darkness and degradation. Men sat around in various states, almost as though hypnotized while two women dancing naked and very suggestively together as though they were about to embark on a lesbian relationship. Chants of kiss, kiss kiss, rose from the watchers. The interior of this place was fancy but the action on the stage was part regular stripper act mixed with mostly semi porn action. ‘So classy, Brad..” I mumbled under my breath on the way to the bar.
The bartender told me that Brad had sold all three of his clubs several months back and he didn’t know anyone named Cynthia Rose. When I showed him the photograph I kept in my wallet he gasped and said, “Oh, you mean Tiffany Rockafella? She split, left Brad for another guy and ain’t been seen in these parts for a couple of months. Shame though, because the regulars keep asking for her.”

I left that smoke filled mirrored world with the wildest of suspicions running through my brain and decided that I would go to the main police station in town to file a missing persons report.

But the police were no more help that anyone at the strip clubs had been. The cop that took the report seemed almost reluctant to write it up. He said, “I’ll file this ma’am but the reality is that hookers run away from their pimps every day.”

At his statement I’d blown up, “My sister was not a hooker! How dare you make unfound accusations like that.”

Without a word he turned his computer screen towards me and I saw on the screen that my sister had a long list of arrests through the years for prostitution. It was akin to a spear through the heart, I knew that Cynthia had done exotic dancing for years but not that she sold herself. There were a few drug arrests scattered in for small amounts of pot but she’d never done more than a night of jail time.

I left the Biloxi police station feeling hopeless. No one was worried about a missing hooker and I wept in my car during the drive back to Bay St Louis, knowing that if she’d have been a suburban housewife or career woman it would be all over the news by now.

During the months to follow I took to sleeping for a few hours after everyone in the household had gone to bed, and getting up to cruise the closing strip clubs and casino shift changes, looking for someone that resembled my sister even slightly, a certain way of walking, the carriage of herself, but it was for nothing. I didn’t find her.

Jude tried many times to talk me out of it, pointing out that if Cynthia was still around anywhere in the country that she would eventually find a way to let me know. She’d call eventually. Jude believed she was just off somewhere with Brad having an adventure, perhaps stripping on that trip around the nation’s clubs she’d mentioned that Brad was pushing.

My worry for Cynthia and my obsession with finding her sent me spiraling down into a steep depression. All the things I’d put off dealing with, the death of John Collins and everything that happened, giving up my first baby, being cut off from my family for so long, it all caught up with me and I felt no joy in living. The only emotions I could feel were love for my children and Jude and the blackest emotional pain. I moved through my days on auto pilot and only allowed myself to break down once I got home. I stopped combing the areas underbelly for my sister and I believed her to be dead.

My only pleasures lay in the triplets and with Jude. I had come to deeply love Jude, just as he’d hoped I would. Many times when I took to our bed during this depression he sought to ease my feelings by making love to me. It was a temporary lift. Finally the day came when he insisted I go to one of my supervisors at work and ask to go into therapy myself before he took me down to the Biloxi police station to demand that they do something more.

So I spent my lunch hour several times a week in therapy with a senior therapist and went on anti depressants. It helped, I started to feel more normal and on an even keel even if my sadness over Cynthia Rose’s disappearance never really lifted.

That afternoon that Jude and I showed up at the police station to ask why looking for my sister seemed to have taken a back seat to other types of law enforcement also helped me deal with what was going on. Jude got into something of a hostile argument with the officious and bitter young black man who worked missing persons. The officer had snapped at him that they didn’t have the resources or the man power to chase down every hooker reported missing.

As their voices raised a middle aged man stepped out of a glass fronted office and stared curiously in the direction of the ruckus. He had wavy salt and pepper hair, a stocky build and eyes that looked like they were haunted by having viewed the horrors of this world behind his thick black glasses. He listened to the dispute somberly before cutting off further argument with a briskly spoken, “Detective Jones, in my office, now.”

Jude and I sat there for about ten minutes, unable to hear what was being said but watching through the glass as Det. Jones and this mystery supervisor were clearly arguing about something. Jones emerged and glumly left the office. The other man emerged and invited us into his office, saying he was personally going to be following up on our missing person report.

Cynthia had been missing six months now.

He introduced himself to us as Sergeant Sam Vocci and proceeded to tell us a great deal about the case that we didn’t know. Apparently Brad Smith had a number of aliases and the department had been trying to bust him for years. A year ago the FBI became involved because Brad Smith, real name Joseph Antonio Cosino and he wasn’t from Stamford, Connecticut as he claimed, but from Brooklyn, a product of the streets and almost certainly part of the Mafia. He had a string of arrests and some prison time for drugs and running prostitution operation along with other recent federal violations. He always masqueraded as a Waspy business man in the import business when he approached ladies to add to his stable of hookers.

He pulled no punches and gave us no false hope. He said about my sister’s whereabouts, “If she’s not dead somewhere then he may have sold her into slavery to the South Americans or to one of the Arab sultanates because he’s done that before. What I can do for you is to get search warrants and search that apartment and the businesses of his, we’ll put your sister’s photo, fingerprints and information onto the NCIC and then we wait. We’ll revisit the case every few weeks and work it from every angle but I must warn you that it might be likely that you’ll never know for sure what happened to her. Are you prepared for that possibility?”

Holding back tears I shook my head and said, “I’ve realized that it’s likely she’s dead somewhere and we’ll never know. But I need to know that this police dept has done all it can do before I can live with not knowing her fate.”

We shook hands on it and I found myself trusting this man, Sgt. Vocci. If Cynthia Rose was somewhere out there alive he would eventually find her.

The searches of the clubs and the business offices of Brad Smith turned up nothing. A dead end. But when the cops showed up at Bayswater Biltmore they’d found another man in residence, a man who claimed to be the real owner of the condo, saying he’d been subleasing it to Brad Smith while he was working overseas for a few years. The owner led them to the few possessions left behind by Brad and Cynthia he’d put aside in storage in the basement.

One of the things left behind was the cheap suitcase Cynthia Rose had come to Biloxi with and it held personal possessions from her past, her clothing from when she’d first arrived, long calico jumpers and modest blouses, a favored stuffed animal from childhood and her journals and books.

On a rainy and blustery April day, when the high winds scoured the sands from the beach and the waves lashed about violently Sgt Vocci showed up on our doorstep with the suitcase, handing it over to me and relaying their new information. The condo owner told the police that Brad had left them a forwarding address for Seattle, which turned out to be a strip joint near the Ballard section of Seattle. Seattle PD had arrested Cynthia Rose for prostitution and released her over five months before. The trail grew cold from there, no one knew where they went but now Sgt Vocci knew to start making inquiries at various strip clubs again. NCIC would show them when she was arrested again and he felt certain we’d get a hit, a real lead, soon enough.

Day 27

2007-11-27T06:25:00.001-08:00

Home stretch, home stretch, just a few more days now!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I could see why Cynthia Rose was attracted to him, Brad Smith was a very handsome man, he looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of a men’s magazine like GQ. Blonde hair, cerulean blue eyes, that perpetual tan of the boys of summer. His jawline was regal and his face in perfect proportions. He was slim and muscular, I would bet beneath those expensive designer threads he wore he had a rippled six pack.

But to me all I saw was a snake slithering in the grass of Eden. He came off with an oily charm and when I looked at him I heard warning bells.

He said all the right things but I saw the way he looked around, like our nice home wasn’t good enough for him, his smug pride when he looked at Jude’s plump face, Jake’s average face and Daddy’s wrinkles and thought secretly that he was the handsomest guy in the joint.

But he made me the most uncomfortable with Cynthia Rose. When they sat together at dinner I picked up a note of menace in his few softly spoken words to her. Cynthia Rose looked directly down at the table top and blushed red. I was amazed because I’d thought with the life style Cynthia had lived in the past that she was beyond all embarrassment. I was wrong.

During dessert he tried to ingratiate himself with me by engaging me in conversation about the state’s new sweepingly ambitious mental health programs and how that was going to translate to less crimes and decreased poverty in the state of Mississippi. But I saw through his obvious facade. Cynthia cut me a look as if to say, “I’m sorry.”

Looking back at that dinner party makes me weep because if I had even an inkling of what was coming soon I would have never let Cynthia leave and I would have perhaps called the cops to removed Brad Smith. But you just never know when things are unfolding where they will lead. That was the last night I ever saw my sister.

Momma and Daddy went home the day after that dinner party, we saw them off to the airport and several days later my sister Hope Maria showed up, as naive and sheltered as I’d been, straight off the bus from Pennsylvania. We bought her a car and paid her the salary we would have given to a stranger and I was glad to have her in our home, reconnecting with another member of my family. I enjoyed her presence and her crazy sense of humor.

It was kind of a funny thought leaving my children in Hope’s care considering I had cared for her during her young years, changed her diaper many times and given her a bottle. Now she was returning the favor in my life through my children.

And we settled into life. Hope enrolled in seminary for night time classes, I went back to work thirty hours per week and Jude continued on at his position with NASA. We settled into a routine, the only thing changing was how much the babies grew.

It seemed every day they changed a little bit and I felt torn between Rachel, Seth and Jacob versus my job. Raising the triplets meant that I didn’t get much rest at home after work. The washer seemed to be constantly in use and many times both Jude and I had to get up together to get the diapering and feeding done in the middle of the night. Sometimes even with my sister Hope there to help out I felt like a zombie.

Because I was walking around in this state like a zombie I didn’t even realize at first that it had been a few weeks since I’d last talked to Cynthia Rose. One afternoon a client cancelled at the last second and I had a few free moments so I decided to give her a call.

When the phone was picked up after many rings it didn’t even sound like my sister on the other end. It sounded like the booze rattled too many cigarettes and late nights night owl croaking out a greeting immediately upon rising in mid afternoon. We talked for awhile and Cynthia told me that because Brad was even more short handed at the bars she was pulling more shifts.

Over the coming weeks whenever I spoke with Cynthia Rose she sounded even worse, sickly even. I kept asking her if things were alright between Brad and her but I always got the answer that he was wonderful and that they would be marrying after all this trouble with the clubs settled down.

Of course I never believed her and I let her know each time if she ever needed to get away she was welcome at my home. She could call me any time day or night.

When the call finally came I wasn’t really expecting it. I’d fallen asleep in the rocking chair in the babies room after having breast fed all three babies. Jude had stumbled into the nursery, sleep addled and hardly able to walk or talk. He mumbled out that Cynthia was on the phone for me and it was urgent.

I was instantly awake and I ran downstairs to talk to Cynthia without stealing any more of Jude’s precious sleep. But Cynthia was crying so hard I could barely make out what she was saying, something about how Brad had beaten her black and blue because she’d dared to refuse his request to go on the road. Brad had purchased interests in clubs nationwide, from Seattle to Key West and he expected her to dance in all of them. His scheme was to rotate his dancers around so that the clientele didn’t get bored with the same old dancers.

She’d gasped out, “There’s just so much you don’t know, Emily and I’m afraid to tell you.”

“Do you want me to come get you?” I asked anxiously, “Whatever it is, Cynthia, it’s easier to face if there are two of us. I would never presume to judge you on anything that you’ve done in the past. I’m your sister and I love you.”

“No, no,” she whispered, “I’ve already called a cab, I’ll come to you. Just make sure that the security personnel at the gate know not to let Brad in regardless of what he says. I’ll be there in about an hour because I need to pack first.”

“Leave your things and get out of there. Things are replaceable but you are not.” I urged frantically.

“I want to take my jewelry and some things I’ve had for years. Don’t worry, Brad left for his club across town to watch the late shift manager and he’ll probably be gone till dawn. I have plenty of time to get out of here” Cynthia said, sounding calmer already.

After I hung up the phone I’d made a pot of coffee and sat in front of the french doors watching the waves roll in and out, thinking about Cynthia and how much she’d changed through the years.

She never came. Close to dawn I got a phone call from her brightly saying that everything was good and I shouldn’t worry. Brad and her would be setting a date next week and she’d call me and let me know. That was the last phone call from my sister.

Several weeks past, no word. I was feeling scared for Cynthia Rose but heard nothing. She didn’t call and life went on in it’s endless cycle of diapering, feeding, sleeping and work. I worried but not unduly, this is always how it went with Cynthia and I, when things were going well, or at least average, she didn’t call much. But when things were not so great I heard from her a lot. I figured her silence meant she’d worked out whatever the problem had been with Brad. While I wanted her to dump Brad I knew that there was nothing I could say or do to make that happen. Cynthia would have to take the first essential step of breaking away.

When six weeks had passed without hearing from Cynthia I tried given her a call, first to her cell phone, which just rang and rang without either clicking over to voice mail or being answered. Very odd, I thought. When I rang her home phone it immediately clicked over to voice mail but the voice wasn’t someone I recognized saying that this number wasn’t available so please leave a message. Usually you got a recording of a bubbly Cynthia Rose telling callers that she and Brad were all tied up and to leave that message.

Not too weird and alarming but still, I knew at that moment something was very off without knowing why.

When another week passed and now Cynthia’s cell phone gave the message that the number was out of service combined with that strange voice on her home phone I started to worry. I took off work early one afternoon and drove into Biloxi to the apartment she shared with Brad Smith atop the Bayswater Biltmore.

I did not find what I’d been expecting at all. And it made me even more uneasy than before.

I remember how my ride up the elevator to the penthouse apartment Cynthia Rose lived in seemed to take an eternity instead of a moment or so. I had no eyes for the view from the rooftop lobby window across the wind swept beach. I was solely focused on assuring myself that my sister was alright.

Day 26

2007-11-26T06:09:00.000-08:00

Finally he spoke to my father, in a deadly serious tone that brooked no argument. “Sir, I know it’s been a hardship on your family to be missing their mother, the glue that holds the family together but the needs here were more pressing. You may not know this but your daughter very nearly lost her life having your grandchildren. I’d think you’d have been glad that your wife was here to help out and to spend time with her daughter. Both of you will always be welcome in our home, but we do demand you treat our choices with the same respect we treated yours in your home.”

Daddy looked momentarily alarmed, looking from Jude to me and said, “Kitten, is that true?” I nodded yes, confirming Jude’s words. He sat down suddenly, like a man with the wind knocked from him and he grasped my hands while saying to Momma, “You never told me that.”

She hugged his shoulders and whispered, “I didn’t want to worry you, honey. I knew it was hard enough being apart all this time. I decided not to say anything unless, you know, the worst happened.. thankfully God was merciful and everything is alright now.”

While Daddy held my hands and said, “I’m so sorry. I just charged in here like an old fool because I was missing your mother so much. I never thought to consider what it’s been like here.”

“Daddy stay,” I urged, “just for a few days, here with Momma.”

He agreed, nodding mutely. I could see behind him that this made Momma very happy, she clapped her hands in a girlish joy.

“Will you at least see Jake and Cynthia Rose while you’re here. No matter what type of choices in life they’ve made they are your children. The Bible teaches forgiveness so can you not put your feelings about their paths aside to see them? I know they’d like to see you again.” I urged gently, as funny as it felt to be lecturing my father on what the Bible said.

Still holding my hands I could see he was now weeping, realizing that I’d come close to death had a profound affect on my father. He still didn’t speak, he nodded yes again and sobbed openly.

My mother sprang into action, hugging him tightly.

I’d thought at first that having both of my parents here for the additional two weeks they stayed would be strained and difficult, but it wasn’t. I realized that the real reason he’d come after my mother was indeed that he missed her. They’d never been apart more than two days before and here she had been staying with me for over five months. I saw now what a sacrifice it was on their marriage.

In my ignorance I’d always assumed their marriage was based on duty and guilt, guilt over the baby they aborted in high school. But as I spent time with both of them, time as an adult with life experienced I couldn’t have hoped to possess as a kid, I realized that they both were deeply in love with each other, that there was still considerable sexual energy between them. My parents completed each other in a way I’d never realized before.

Watching them I wondered if nearly thirty years into our marriage would Jude and I have this sort of love still between us. I envied them that love and hoped we would have that type of white hot flame still burning between us as the years went on.

And so yet again I summoned both of my siblings, Jake from south Florida and Cynthia Rose from nearby Biloxi to my home for a meeting with one of our parents.

Cynthia glumly agreed and didn’t bother taking offense when I asked her to dress conservatively and act at least slightly repentant for living with Brad. “I’m not stupid,” she’d said in a dull voice, making me wonder exactly what she’d been up to since I last saw her. “Brad and I are engaged. I’ll wear my engagement ring and even drag Brad with me. He owes me big time right now.”

When I called Jake he said to my request, “You know, this is why I’m starting to dread your phone calls lately. It was awkward enough with Momma but gay bashing homophobic Daddy? Impossible!”

“Please, Jake?” I’d plead, “Do this for me if you cannot do it for yourself. Besides you haven’t seen your new nephews and niece yet.”

“Okay, okay, you win,” he’d agreed finally, “But I’m doing this for you and to see your babies, not for Daddy.” A note of wistfulness crept into his voice as he added, “I would like to see Momma again before she leaves.”

We spent the two weeks that Dad was with us as we had been spending most of our time, simply living day by day. I took long walks on the beach with Dad and he accompanied me when I took the babies out for an afternoon walk on the sidewalks through our community. All of us gathered for dinner nightly. My parents spent a lot of time with each other or together with the babies.

I even took my father with me a few times to the clinic I worked at so he could get a sense of what I did for a living, perhaps even understand that what I did was help others struggling with a variety of issues. I had to attend a few meetings so I’d be up to speed when I returned in a few weeks. One afternoon I came out of a short meeting on changes in regulations on insurances to find my father nearly in tears. “These poor people.” he whispered, much affected by sitting here among the depressed and chemically addicted, “They need Jesus so much.”

“Yes,” I simply agreed, “but since many of them are so unwilling to accept Him into their lives then they need other kinds of help. That’s where the other therapists I work with and myself come into play. We help them deal with the stuff of their lives, Daddy.”

He looked up at me with a new level of understanding and said, “This is your mission field, isn’t it?”

I smiled, he finally got it. “Yes it is.”

On the ride home from the mental health clinic Daddy was uncharacteristically silent, staring out of the window at the landscape of knobby loblolly pines and palmetto plants mixed with occasional home or business. He finally spoke when we were nearly home, “Emily, I’ve decided to sent Hope Maria to you to help out with your babies. That way you won’t need to hire some outsider you don’t know if you can trust. Hope has her heart set on going to ministry school and being ordained. One of the schools she’s got all picked out is in Waveland, the next town over. They offer night classes, so she can help out with the babies while you and Jude work and go to school at night.”

I sighed in relief, knowing that by the offer my father was showing his approval of Jude and I, our life, our small family, as well as solving my biggest ongoing problem. a nanny or au pair for the babies. So far I’d interviewed ten people and my inner sense was that none of them was really right for the job. But I felt I had to tease my father just a little too. “So,” I said, “does that mean you’re no longer opposed to women in the pulpit, Daddy?”

He sighed, a long sad exhalation and said, “This world is a changing too much for me but I can find no direct scripture forbidding it in the Bible. It wouldn’t be my first choice for Hope Maria but I’ve learned the hard way, through you, through Cynthia Rose and Jake, that I must give each of you the space and freedom to be who you are in the Lord.”

I hoped he meant that because the weekend before they would be leaving was upcoming and we were hosting a dinner to which Jake, Cynthia Rose and Brad were invited. Jake was no longer with his Captain but he complained that he would have liked to have brought a special someone to my home had he been seriously involved. It was the only thing I was ashamed about the invitation, I’d told him not to bring a lover or partner. I just knew that Daddy couldn’t have handled a meeting under such circumstances.

Not that I or Jude objected. Our church taught that while the Bible frowns on homosexuality it wasn’t our place to judge or discriminate, we were to treat others from different walks the same, with love, the love Christ showed each of us, with out reservation or discrimination.

The dinner turned out to be awkward, my father wasn’t as far along in his ability to forgive and forget as I thought he had been. He treated Jake almost like a leper, unable to look him in the eyes, wincing upon hearing that Jake had a career as a graphic artist with a newspaper in south Florida, like it wasn’t a manly enough pursuit. He kept asking Jake what had been wrong with working on the fishing boats, not understanding that Jake, like I, had decided to give it a try working with what was his passion.

At best by the end of the evening an uneasy truce had been affected. Jake had spent most of his time with us holding one or another of the babies.

But I wasn’t so worried about Jake as I was Cynthia Rose by the end of the evening. Cynthia and Brad had turned up an hour late and Cynthia looked to be on the verge of tears even if she looked every bit the respectable lady that Momma thought she was. She slurred her words as though she was on some sort of drug and I noticed a new welt on her upper arm when she rolled up her sleeves to help Momma and I wash the dishes after dinner.

This was the first time Jude or I had met Brad and neither of us cared much for him. Watching him suck up to first my mother and later, my father, made me sick to my stomach. When the triplets were brought out he cast an eye towards them almost like he was busy calculating the financial worth three healthy white infants could bring on the adoption black market. He gave me the creeps in the worst way.

Day 25

2007-11-25T10:15:00.001-08:00

I can barely remember any of this because I ended up in ICU after the medical team had a hard time stopping my bleeding. For some reason my uterus refused to contract as rapidly as it was supposed to and I came very close to bleeding out. I remember feeling lightheaded and a nurse checking me out only to discover I’d bled too much. After that things got every fuzzier and when I came to in ICU only to see Jude crying over me. He’d been shaken to the core by my turn for the worse.
When I came to he told me how many pints of whole blood I’d been given and that after different treatments and so much blood replacement my body had finally responded. But he’d been told if the bleeding didn’t stop they’d have to do an emergency hysterectomy.

Poor Jude had starting thinking he might lose me and he’d broken down. But he’d finally seen the babies and was happy to tell me that all three were healthy and as developed as could be expected. Looked Rachel might be developing jaundice but all three babies were stable.

My week in the hospital passed quickly between visits from friends and coworkers plus Momma and Jude stopping by several times a day. But on the day Cynthia Rose came to see me I was glad neither Momma or Jude were there, I could see as soon as she stepped into the room that while she was happy for me there was a great underlining sadness in her very posture. She was dressed more like her old self again, high heels, short hip hugging skirt and her hair was in a wild blonde mane suitable for a rock and roll music video.

When Cynthia Rose sat down in the chair next to my bed and pulled off her sunglasses I had to suppress a gasp. She sported a black eye poorly disguised by eye makeup. “Don’t” she said with a sigh, “Don’t ask me any about this.”

“Honey,” I said, on the verge of tears again, “How can I ignore that something monstrous is going on with you. Did Brad do this to you?”

She blinked back tears and said, “I can’t talk about it but I am dealing with this. Please trust me Emily. I’ll be alright. Please don’t tell Momma.”

We sat there and tried to pretend this was a regular normal visit, but the unspoken specter of what mysterious bad thing Cynthia Rose was dealing with made normality impossible. She gushed about the cuteness of her new nephews and niece and reacted in a shuddery grimace once I described what I’d been through physically in the last few days. Cynthia kept one eye on her watch, slipping out of well before Momma’s next visit.

I prayed silently for her as she left, wondering why the sudden change from ladylike demeanor and clothing back to the look of a stripper again. I had to believe that Brad had thrown her out and she went back to the only life as an adult she’d known, that involving exotic dancing in the casinos and the club circuit.

Who gave her that nasty black eye I didn’t know unless it was sustained in a battle with Brad. Perhaps things got out of control. I tried not to worry too much because I believed if the circumstances that Cynthia Rose found herself caught in were too bad she’d come to me for help.

Besides, even if it turned out that Cynthia Rose had left Brad and gone back to stripping at least I didn’t have to worry about her with Brad. I still had feelings of uneasiness without any real evidence over her relationship with Brad. And I knew she’d tell me what happened eventually. Cynthia Rose never could keep a secret or hold back her emotions very well.

Finally I was allowed to go home but I went without my babies. The hospital wouldn’t release any of them until they’d put on a bit more weight. So my days and nights revolved around either going into the hospital to breast feed them in the preemie nursery or pumping breast milk to give to the nursery to feed the babies when I wasn’t there.

But a month later the babies came home and we settled into life as a family. Thankfully Momma was there at first, I knew this was a hardship on her and daddy because they’d now been officially apart for the better part of over three months. Every week when Daddy called he begged Momma to tell him how much longer she would be away and she’d tell him she didn’t know how much longer it would be.

Her help was invaluable in the early days I was home with the babies. It seemed a strangely fitting thing that while I’d cared for many of my younger brothers and sisters from the time they were very small, she was caring for my three babies and I.

And I was so tired in those early days. I needed all the help I could get in order to try and recover enough to return to my job.

Towards the end of the first six weeks after we’d all come home from the hospital I started looking for an au pair, some girl going to night school who needed a chance to make money with free room and board, someone studying early childhood education or a related field. I’d interviewed a few people but hadn’t chosen anyone and I’d insisted that Momma sit in on the interview process because her input was important to me.

But instead of the two o’clock meeting with a new girl when the doorbell rang it was my father standing on the front steps.

“Daddy? What are you doing here?” I asked, feeling anxious, so far it had never been a good thing when he showed up at my home. I suspected he was there to take my mother home.

“Well, aren’t you going to invite your own father in and show me those grand babies?” he said with a smile.

I invited him in, stepping aside to allow him into my home but I felt very uneasy about Daddy’s sudden reappearance, remembering visits past.

And I had good reason to fear this visit because after he’d seen his first grandchildren and admired our beachfront home my father told us the real reason he’d flown to Bay St Louis, Mississippi. He’d come, just as I suspected, to bring my mother home. I was dismayed to listen to him pour on the guilt, see my mother’s face change from the joy and freedom she’d tasted here to a mask of duty, marital obedience and submission. Seemed some things just never changed.

While Daddy had accepted me back into the family fold and welcomed Jude in because we were now married and going to a Bible based church he made it clear he didn’t wish to see Cynthia Rose or Jake. To him they were both still dead. He was upset to find that Momma had seen both and been reconciled to both. Momma kept begging him not to judge Cynthia because she’d come out of her wild times and was now living a stable sedate life with her fiance, she would be respectable again soon.

I kept my mouth shut during all of this. Momma still hadn’t seen that Cynthia Rose had gone back to her old life. She hadn’t seen the revealing clothes, the tons of makeup, the high heels. On the days Cynthia had visited here after the babies came home she took care to dress conservatively again but I could see by the wildness in her eyes that something more was going on. She finally confided in me what is was.

She’d discovered that not only did Brad own an import business, he owned three local strip clubs, hard core clubs where the dancers stripped down completely nude. I recognized the name of the clubs, they had a bad reputation for drugs and some in Biloxi alleged that they were mere fronts for prostitution and drug trade. When the biggest club had been short handed recently Brad had insisted that Cynthia Rose return to her dancing roots and pull a nightly shift at the club until they hired more dancers. She’d resisted, they’d had a furious row and he’d hit her.

I wasn’t about to let either of my parents know that Cynthia Rose had gone back to stripping and that her fiance had started to abuse her if she didn’t go along with his plans.

The day I found out I’d done everything in my power to beg her to leave him, even offering to allow her to move in with us until she figured out her next move. She turned it all down, saying that Brad was under a lot of pressure from his various businesses and he was a sweetheart most of the time. He had been so sweet to her after hitting her just that once and he’d promised he’d never raise a hand to her ever again.

It was so hard for me not to put on my psychologist’s hat and tell her that truthfully once they start with the physical abuse it never stops. I simply offered my support, a sympathetic ear and somewhere to stay if things got worse.

But as Momma resisted going home quite so soon, Daddy let her know that he feared her being in the grasp of our worldly influence so much. “Martha,” he said, “I can see you’ve changed more than I would have liked during this trip and it makes me question just how good an influence our own daughter is.”

I’d remained silent until that point and I could well see a vein angrily throbbing in Jude’s now somber face. He was restraining himself as much as I had been.

Day 24

2007-11-24T05:34:00.001-08:00

That day Jake never told me exactly what it was that he was thinking about and I couldn’t imagine the horror that he was speaking of. It wasn’t until many months later that he told me he was pretty sure that Cynthia Rose’s beau was involved in the illegal drug trade or prostitution, both of them sometimes euphemistically referred to as the ‘import’ business.

That night in bed Jude and I discussed the meeting, how it had gone and how happy we both were that my mother had a chance to make up with my siblings. I told him of Jake’s mysterious words but he didn’t have any more clue than I what they meant.

The next couple of months after the party drug out. Time seemed to slow down. Every day I became less and less comfortable as I was now the size of a baby elephant. Jude kept telling me how beautiful I was but I just wanted the birth over with. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time, I couldn’t seem to really get comfortable no matter how I tossed and turned. Breathing became difficult as the babies grew and pressed up against my lungs and I lost the ability to do much more than waddle a few feet before becoming out of breath.

Momma drove me back and forth from the doctors offices in September, where they started giving me shots to help mature the babies lungs so they could be safely delivered soon. One of the little boys had stopped growing as rapidly as his brother and sister so I knew I would be soon induced.

For me that was the frightening part on so many levels. I’d never been hospitalized in my life. I had somehow managed to stay healthy up until this point and avoid those places. Something about staying in that sterile environment did not appeal to me. I wished that I could have had the triplets at home with a midwife again.

But the biggest fears I had were for the babies themselves. Triplets almost never make it to the end of the pregnancy, most of the time they had to be delivered anywhere from 22 weeks to 30 weeks. My doctor kept telling me I should consider myself lucky that I was delivering at 29 weeks as it gave the babies a much greater chance to be born normal and healthy.

An even greater part of me wanted this to just simply be over. I wanted my body back and I wanted to get the long painful hell that was childbirth behind me as quickly as possible. There were so many things I missed doing, from running on the beach to making love. Jude and I still hadn’t consummated our marriage because I’d been prohibited from sex since a couple of weeks before we married. I looked forward to being well enough to finally make love to my new husband.

I found myself very attracted to him, feeling a deep type of love and commitment to him I had never experienced before, certainly not with John.

The strangest part for me was that I rarely thought about John Collins. There I had been so deeply in love with him and now he was mostly banished from my thoughts. Looking back I think I must have subconsciously tried to repress memories of him just to be able to get through my coming ordeal.

When I did think about him it was like I imagined getting socked in the gut by a heavy weight fighter would be. My eyes filled with tears, I couldn’t catch my breath and I sagged down to my knees, overcome with the horror that had happened, that the man who’s babies I carried and had loved deeply had killed himself.

I could keep it under control most of the time but every now and again something would happen, I’d hear a song that reminded me of John, or I’d see a man from a distance that reminded me of John and down I’d go for awhile. Years later I’d find myself unable to move past this, stuck in a depression that I’d have to work through. My mind locked his memory away much of the time.

The last time it happened my mother and I were out on the beach. She didn’t swim as much as my pregnancy got closer to the end, she hovered a lot. So in the past I’d been able to hide my distress from her when I did think about John. That day I couldn’t hide and she asked me directly, “Are you thinking about him?”

I’d played dumb and gasped out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” and she’d told me that Cynthia Rose had told here everything. I wanted to throw up, or drag my larger self into the waters of the Gulf and swim off. I was ashamed beyond measure. I knew Momma and Cynthia had started to become close again but I never dreamed she’d spill all my secrets.

But at this point I didn’t know that my Momma had secrets of her own, about her and Daddy in high school. So knowing that Momma knew how I’d violated many of the rules of polite society was hard for me to take then.

But I didn’t run off into the ocean, I just started crying, unable to still my gasps and moans. Momma crushed me to her and said softly, “Don’t, don’t..All of us, even Daddy and I, have things we’d been involved in that weren’t right yet we still did them. I’m not going to judge you for your actions because I’ve never walked in your shoes but I know I have had enough heartache in my life to at least be able to sympathize with what you must be going through inside.”

I couldn’t shake it that day. Momma helped me up and I leaned heavily on her as we went back into the house. I took to my bed and cried most of the afternoon before finally falling asleep in the late afternoon. By the time Jude got home and I’d arisen for dinner I’d finally managed to shake my distress off.

But the next morning when Momma went out to get milk I’d called Cynthia and laid into her for telling our mother the complete circumstances of my life. She’d been apologetic and told me again and again that I should know by now how Momma was, able to see through things and worm secrets out of us. I’d forgotten about that, my mother’s ability to instinctively know when one of us was lying about something and her gentle prodding to get to the truth of the matter. We both cried during that phone call but ultimately the shared bond of what we’d jointly experienced and our sisterhood was strong enough to strip away any ill feelings between us.

I was able during that phone call to probe her a bit about her relationship with Brad. Momma had finally met the mysterious Brad and her only comment on him was that Cynthia Rose could do better than Brad, which we found very confusing considering Brad and Cynthia lived in some of the most luxurious digs in all of Biloxi and he was a supposedly a wealthy businessman.

Cynthia Rose cried that day, told me that while things weren’t perfect with Brad he was her best chance of having the life she wanted. I tried to get her to open up what was wrong but she just said she couldn’t burden me in my state with her own problems. I made her promise to come see me soon.

The scheduled day came during my thirty second week of pregnancy for me to check into the hospital to have my labor induced and I was a nervous wreck. Logically I knew I was going into the best place for the triplets to have a fighting chance but my own disquiet over being in a hospital for the first time made it a frightening day for me.

But everyone couldn’t have been nicer, and eventually I was settled into a labor and delivery suite and hooked up to machinery. My ob gyn had seen in my blood pressure how my nerves were playing up and given me a small dose of something to calm my nerves. I was feeling relaxed for the first time in six weeks. Until that moment I didn’t realize just how much tension I’d been carrying for so long now.

Things went much quicker than my first labor and delivery, the drugs they gave me caused my labor to happen rapidly and a mere six hours after checking in I gave birth to a three pound twelve ounce boy we named Seth, a three pound ten ounce son dubbed Jacob and lastly, a three pound two ounce daughter, our precious Rachel. All three were whisked away to the neonatal ICU to be checked out before we had much of a chance to hold them. They were so tiny, that is what I remembered thinking the most.

But my birth experience in the hospital was so very different than giving birth to Emmie with a midwife at the Collins home. First of all they gave me an epidural, which meant I felt almost no pain in comparison to my first birth. And here every possible need was anticipated.

Both my mother and Jude were with me the entire time and both couldn’t do enough for me. Jude was even more excited than I was to finally have the babies here and after their birth he kept ringing up to NICU to see when he would be able to see them again and if he could hold his babies at some point.

Day 23

2007-11-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

Man, even the hand I had carpel tunnel surgery in is aching. I don't think I'm cut out to be a writer...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time slowed down for me, I slept in late, rarely got fully dressed and mostly lolled from bed to sofa to chaise lounge. Occasionally I stirred myself to walk down to the beach with a folding lounge chair and watch Momma enjoy the surf. On the hottest days I joined her in the water, not swimming or moving around vigorously, more sitting in the cool water and allowing the tide to surge around my ever increasing girth.

Somehow I even managed to get my mother out of that travesty of a swimsuit she had been donning for years now, a zippered neck to crotch double layer garment that was like an elbow to ankle leotard sewn into a loose nearly floor length house dress. I think she realized how cumbersome what she’d been wearing was and ended up swimming in a pair of men’s surfer shorts and t shirt, realizing that it didn’t have to be floor length to be modest. Partially I think she made the change because when she and I were on the beach the occasional person would ask her if she was Mormon or Moslem, not understanding the purpose of the long baggy swimming garment. She did dress more up to date now so it was truly time to ditch that special swim wear of hers. Not to mention it had initially been quite costly but after twenty years it was a stretched out, much worn and bleached by salt water and chlorine wreck.

Momma spoiled me, keeping the house spotless and cooking huge meals for just her, I and Jude. Many evenings we played board games or watched movies. Momma couldn’t get enough of the many movies for rental.

During that long summer I relaxed and enjoyed the only time in my entire life I wasn’t working madly, either taking care of my brothers and sisters, or going to school or on my career. I’d never had leisure time like this before and I made the most of it, reading just for sheer enjoyment, not because I had to write a paper or because I had research due. Momma taught me how to knit that summer and I made a blanket for each of the babies.

As much as I was enjoying being a pampered only child in many ways part of me was afraid that any day now either Cynthia Rose would pop in unannounced or she would called up and angrily demand a meeting with Momma. But she didn’t, we talked that summer quite a lot but she was careful to time her visits to my home when she knew Momma would be gone for several hours.

I worried for Cynthia Rose. She was still madly in love with the man she’d given up stripping for but she worried me still. There were shadows under eyes, dark circles that told me that as modestly as she dressed now and no matter how over the moon she seemed with this new man something wasn’t quite right.

She told me she’d been learning how to do the books at his office but she didn’t seem very happy about being gainfully employed. Cynthia Rose complained that working in a straight job didn’t pay as well as taking off her clothes for a living had but her man, Brad, was everything she ever wanted. She’d do whatever he wanted her to do.

I had to think that at least she’d stopped with the drinking, hanging around the casino, plastic surgery and seemed almost like her old self again. If this Brad got my sister to forgo these things perhaps he wasn’t as bad as I thought he’d be.

One day in late June I heard Momma come back from shopping just as I was finishing up my phone call to Cynthia Rose. I heard Momma moving around downstairs, carrying bags into the kitchen, cabinet doors opening and closing, the refrigerator being filled with items so I tried to complete the conversation. But I wasn’t quite quick enough, Momma stuck her head into my room, listened for a moment or so until I hung up. She stood there, gazing at me with a sad look on her face for awhile before asking, “Was that Cynthia Rose?”

All the troubles I’d gotten into in the past grew out of the lies I’d told, even with the best of intentions so I told her the truth, “Yes, that was Cynthia. She and I usually try to talk a couple of times a week and sometimes she visits when you’re not here.”

Momma sat down suddenly on the edge of my bed and took my hand. I noticed for the first time that she was almost crying. She said softly, “I’d like to see her again, if you think that’s alright. I know I said some harsh things to her the last time we met but I’d like to see my baby again, her and Jake. Could you arrange for her and Jake, if he’s around, to come here sometime?”

I smiled at my mother, feeling her worry and fear as I reached up to smooth back her long hair from her face. She’d taken to not putting her hair up in a ponytail or bun every morning. Now she combed the shimmering brown waves back and wore it down. The update in clothing and hair took ages off her appearance. I was glad for her.

“Of course I will,” I said, “in fact, I think it might be a good idea. I know Jake and Cynthia Rose have missed you mightily. I’ll arrange it.”

A few weeks later they came, both of them. I’d had Jude help me don clothing that wasn’t a nightgown or a beach throw that day and Momma had cooked some of our childhood favorites for all of us to eat.

When they arrived I think Momma was the most surprised by the changes in my brother Jake. In the ensuing years of working on a fishing boat before going back to school to study art Jake had grown even taller and more muscular. The clean cut young man who had left her house was now a handsome man in great shape, someone that could easily be mistaken for a male model. His flashing white smile and vivid blue eyes set in a deeply tanned face just reinforced this change. Momma took one look at him and wrapped her arms around him, crying happy tears and calling him her baby.

I had already prepared Momma for the news that Jake was still gay and he had been living happily with an older man for a long time now. But I’d been quite surprised with my mother’s response. I’d expected her to start talking about abominations and sin but she’d blinked and said mildly, “Emily, I’ve learned not to judge others for their choices I don’t agree with. It is God’s job to convict and convince, not mine. That’s what the years I went without contact from my eldest three children taught me. I swore to God if He was gracious enough to allow me to see all of you again I would learn not to be as judgmental.”

Cynthia Rose showed up a few minutes later. I was surprised to see that she didn’t bring Brad with her and I asked her where Mr. Wonderful was. We’d been trying to meet him for a few months now but Cynthia always had a logical excuse as to why he couldn’t make it. Today he was out at a meeting of local business men, she said he had told her to tell the rest of us how sorry he was he had not been able to meet our family yet. Some day soon.

And I had to give Cynthia Rose credit. If she had been dressing less like a stripper and more like a young lady lately, today she’d outdone herself. She was wearing a beautiful floral print dress with just a hint of makeup. Matching low heeled pumps, purse and pearls completed the look.

“Cynthia Rose!” my mother had said excitedly, “look at you! You’re so elegant, so pretty.” before she leapt forward to hug my sister and cry over her too.

The day was filled with laughter and tears as everyone made the supreme effort to let old sins and petty hurts stay long buried. Momma got the opportunity to catch up with each of them and made Cynthia Rose promise to go shopping with her one day soon. I could see on the faces of all three just how much this reconciliation meant deep inside. I was glad I could be part of it, help it come about.

The only unpleasant bit of the day came when Jude took my mother and Cynthia up to look at the nursery Momma and he had been working on and left me alone with Jake.

Jake cornered me in the family room and immediately wanted to know what on earth our sister had done to her body and face. He couldn’t get over the change in her. I told him he should consider himself lucky because it seemed now that Cynthia had managed to pull it all together. Between the time he left the area and now Cynthia had extensive plastic surgery to resemble some sort of ultimate stripper but now she had stopped all that nonsense and seemed more stable.

“Have you even met this Brad she keeps talking about?” he asked, real concern distorting his handsome features.

“No,” I said, “I keep asking to meet him, offering to have them over for dinner but I keep getting excuses. Should I be worried?”

Jake poured himself another glass of wine, walked over to the french doors leading to the sands and stood for a minute, “Well, let’s just say I knew some unsavory characters in Biloxi that claimed to be in the import business but were actually in another sort of business, just as illegal.”

“What?” I asked innocently.

He frowned, “Nothing, forget I ever said anything. I don’t.. think it is likely.. but, just forget it.”

Day 22

2007-11-22T17:08:00.001-08:00

After I’d dismissed both of them I’d gotten up from my small office and walked, rather waddled towards the biggest of the conference rooms in this sunny modern office building. I could feel the curious eyes on my back from my coworkers, several of them stood together in buzzing knots, hushing only when I came into view. I have to wonder who is waiting for me that they would be so interesting in.

Slipping open the thick oaken door and rapidly closing it behind me I’m surprised to see Annie Collins standing by the far window, dressed chicly in all black, black dress, black gloves, black hat with a veil. All black in the oppressive heat of summer. Even more surprising she held Emmie, now nearly a year old and dressed in a frilly dress in a dark floral print and black patent leather shoes. Annie looked like she’d been crying beneath that black veiled hat I noticed when I got closer.

While I wonder what she wants I know whatever it is cannot be good. And I say, “Annie, what is it?”

Before I can get the words completely out of my mouth Annie crumbles, sitting down suddenly in a nearby chair as she clutches Emmie so hard that the little girl cries as hard as her momma is. I pull up a nearby chair and clutch her hand, realizing no matter what good and bad has passed between us we’re still bound together by this child.

Annie was shaking and trying futilely to get a hold of her emotions. She put the baby down floor and said out in great hoarse sobs, “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet but several weeks ago John was arrested and I moved home to my parents with Emmie. He bonded out yesterday, went back to our house and put a gun to his head.. Just like that he killed himself.”

Even though my love for John was long over I was pole axed by her pronouncement and burst out in tears myself. For one long terrible moment we clung together, hugging each other in the face of this calamity, tears intermingling. We had both loved him and once upon a time we’d been friends.

Eventually she disentangled from me and wiped her eyes, saying, “We’re burying him tomorrow. a small ceremony with family only. I know you loved him so I wanted to invite you to come and say goodbye to him too..”

I still clutched her hand and I said to Annie, “I don’t think that would be good for me or my babies. I said my goodbyes to John a long time ago. Annie, what are we going to do about this? Are you going to fight me for custody?”

Annie reached down to pick up a crying Emmie from the soft carpeted floor and she said quietly, “No, I don’t the triplets. I don’t want them around me because every day I’ll look at them and see John. You’ve said a few times recently that you’d changed your mind. Are you still wanting to keep all of them?”

Plunking a fresh tissue from a nearby box I dabbed at her tears. One big advantage of working at a mental health facility is everywhere you turned around there was a big box of tissues. This place had seen many tears, ours that day would certainly not be the first or the last shed in this place.

“I’ve developed maternal feelings for the first time in my life,” I explained to Annie, “and I knew a few months ago that I couldn’t willingly give up the three of them. Oh yes, I want them.”

She grasped my hand hard and said in tone indicating she was near tears again, “I also came to say ‘thank you’ to you. Having Emmie in my life has given me the greatest joy I’ve ever know. I wanted to come say that to you in person because things haven’t been right between us for a long time now. I did, do, value your friendship and I love you for given me this child. I promise you I’ll raise her to be a worthy individual and love her more than anything else on this planet. Just please don’t take her from me.”

I hugged her again, choking back my own tears and said, “Just like you cannot have any reminders of John around in the form of his children I just don’t feel that essential bond with Emmie. She’s beautiful and you’ve done a fantastic job as her mother. I couldn’t rip her away from the only stability and mother she’s known even if I wanted her. She is your daughter now.”

Eventually Emmie drifted off to sleep as Annie and I laughed and cried while sharing our memories of John and our mutual friendship. Before she left she promised to stay in touch to let me know how Emmie was and she slipped me several new photos of Emmie. I knew in my heart this was very probably a goodbye but I pretended to believe her. I walked her as far as the elevator, my arm tenderly around her shoulder, not envying her future and the press that were probably stalking out her home.

I got some strange stares and a few people ventured to ask if I was alright as I walked back to my office and I gave a short untruthful explanation that Annie was my sister, her husband had died suddenly and she could not take care of the babies I’d been carrying as a surrogate for her. That I was going to have to keep the babies. I figured sooner or later it would come out that I didn’t give up the triplets and John’s death provided me with a convenient excuse to break the news.

How Jude heard the news of John Collin’s suicide I didn’t know. He must have been reading the daily paper. But he showed up at my office mid afternoon wanting to know if I knew and how I was coping with the news. I told him of my meeting with Annie Collins and how she would not contest us raising the triplets. I could see the look of pride on his face when I told him that we were going to be able to list him as the father on the birth certificate, no one needed to know he wasn’t the actual biological father now.

He wanted me to go home but I assured him I was able enough to finish out my last day at work for four or five months. But I told him I wanted to take one last moonlit stroll on the beach away from the eyes and ears of my momma before tomorrows first day of enforced rest.

During the last hour of work before we shut the doors for the day the staff surprised me with a small party including a cake and a few small presents since this was the last time I’d be in for some months. I was touched that they’d organized this for me.

By the time I got home that night I was worn out, bone tired from the emotional rollercoaster I’d been riding all day. I was looking forward to resting till the birth. Because I’d not thought until recently about keeping the babies we had no nursery planned so I was trying to coordinate that all from catalogs and local stores. I also had a pile of books to read and training materials to stay current in my field.

I don’t know if Momma picked up on the fact that Jude and I were preoccupied with other thoughts over dinner but if she did she never showed it. She happily chattered on about the beauty of the beaches and water, the thrill of going swimming for the first time in years and how much fun she’d been having putting our newly expanded household in order.

It wasn’t until well after dinner that Jude and I were able to slip away from Momma and talk on the beach as we walked. I savored the feeling of the sugar white sands under my feet and the muscles of my legs burning from the walk, it might be a long time before I had a chance to walk like this again on the beach.

I simply told Jude every nuance of my visit from Annie and how while I was heartbroken for her and Emmie that John was dead, not to mention how much I felt hurt that he’d died, his death solved a number of problems, namely there would be no one to protest keeping the triplets. Annie didn’t want them so they were ours. That night we dared to actually start picking out names for the two boys and one girl I carried.

We rinsed off the sand from our feet and headed into the living room only to find my momma up late watching something forbidden in her household, television. Not only was she watching Jay Leno on a late night television talk show, she was eating a pint of ice cream, another rare indulgence in our home.

That night as we lay in bed both Jude and I had laughed at how quickly Momma had embraced the world and it’s temptations while staying in our home. I knew that Daddy probably wouldn’t be pleased if he knew but I also knew that for many years now my mother had put herself last and her children first. I liked the idea of her enjoying herself and that I could spoil her just a little bit. Daddy didn’t have to know and I knew first hand the power of memories of pleasant times and places you’d enjoyed could easily carry you through the daily and the mundane. Momma deserved this respite.

Day 21

2007-11-21T13:33:00.001-08:00

I could even see why my mother seemed so out of it for much of our lives. All those pregnancies must have taken a toll on her health and sapped much of her strength.

On the two day drive from Biloxi to home I thought about all the great things I’d learned from them and all the gifts they’d given me that I’d never realized before. Jude drove my Prius because I could hardly squeeze behind the wheel now and I just sat back and looked out of the window, enjoying the scenery. We spent the night in Tennessee.

Our marriage was still unconsummated. Jude told me before he married me that sex wasn’t an option until after the birth because he would hate to cause something like me going into premature labor. I knew the chances of that weren’t very high but I honored his wishes and didn’t push the issue even though when we lay next to each other in the bed and indulged in kissing and other intimacies I could hardly stand it. Somehow I, the formerly frigid virgin, had developed a sexual appetite.

Once we crossed the border of Maryland into Pennsylvania I started getting more nervous than excited and it crossed my mind that my parents might not be thrilled to see their recently married daughter pregnant with triplets holding the last name of Greenburg.

I was surprised that the old house looked the same from the outside. Somehow I’d always imagined it would look smaller than in my memory. We drove up the long gravel driveway and I caught sight of my younger siblings outside playing, the youngest toddlers. But when the kids saw the car they ran into the house and I could hear their shouts of “Momma, Daddy, strangers here.”

Jude got out and helped me out of the car. just as My mother came to the back door and stared, taking a hard look at me as I got out of the passengers side. I’d taken care to dress modestly, no shorts and t shirt but no baggy calicos either. I had on a plain dark blue maternity dress and sandals. The dress would have been cute if I hadn’t have been baby elephant sized now at the end of my fourth month.

Her face seemed to crumple and she shouted, ‘Emily Ann!” as she ran out of the house to throw her arms around me. She sobbed and held me, “My baby, my baby..”

On the drive back to the local hotel I could hardly believe what had just happened. We’d been welcomed in with open arms. Both of my parents were happy to see me and my brothers and sisters had grown so much it was scary. There was even one brother I’d never met, born after I left home.

No one seemed thrown by the idea that I was now Emily Greenburg, psychologist but both of my parents seemed relieved to find out that Jude and I were both practicing Christians.

One of the biggest changes I noticed at the house was that my mother and sisters were no longer dressed as if it was pioneer times. True, they did still dress modestly, but now they were dressed in different things, such as denim skirts, stylish tailored button up shirts, polo shirts and a variety of shoes from earth shoes to penny loafers. Still no stilettos or jeans, but still it was forward progress.

My mother confided in me about the changes on the second day, she told me that after that last visit from Biloxi, being so shocked to see how far from their teachings that Jake, Cynthia and I had strayed that they realized it would be better to give every child some smaller measures of freedom instead of having them rebel once they left the family nest. I found out of my now nineteen brothers and sisters that seven of us were gone from home, either settled into a life or at school. Momma told me in hushed tones about how my sister Ellen Louise had refused to go to a Bible college and ended up winning a slot at Penn State, where she was now getting ready to graduate.

It was a long time before the topic turned to Cynthia Rose. I’d been showing Momma my wedding album, half winching expecting her to say something about the fact that I was so obviously pregnant but she didn’t. I’d already told her that I’d given the baby I’d been pregnant with before up for adoption and while I didn’t know what Benjamin and Sarah Rachel had said about their visit with me I can just imagine it wasn’t positive.

While Momma had looked through the album of pictures, exclaiming in delight seeing my beautiful condo that looked right out onto the beach, asking me who this or that person was in the photos I started getting very nervous. By the time she turned to the page of wedding photos she zeroed in on a bleached blonde head I knew all too well and asked, “Is that Cynthia Rose? It can’t be, but... it sort of looks like it is.”

I took one of Momma’s careworn hands in mine and said, “Yes, yes it is I’m sad to say. Cynthia Rose has been working as a dancer at one of the casinos, Momma. I think she’s had plastic surgery, in fact I’m certain one of her former male companions paid for her to have a breast enlargement and some work done on her face. I keep hoping she’ll settle down and I think it’s starting to happen now. She’s in love with someone that has been encouraging her to stop dancing and they live in one of the nicest high rise condos in Biloxi. She’s even taken to toning down her makeup and dress. They’re talking about getting married.”

What I don’t tell Momma is that this male companion of Cynthia Rose’s gives me the willies. He seems perfectly normal in every way but there is just something oily and dishonest about him. If you ask him what he does for a living he keeps talking about how he imports things from China for sale in the US, bringing shipments through the post of Gulfport, which doesn’t even make sense. It would make much more sense for his cargo to land in California somewhere and be shipped by rail or truck overland to be distributed. Something is seriously off about the man.

We ended up staying for four glorious days, while I was home I got to know my parents from an adult perspective and actually enjoy who they are. I also got to thank them for being my parents, for their forgiveness and we seemed closer than we’d all been in years. Even better they’d accepted Jude with joy, treating him as a treasured new member of the family.

By the end of our time there Momma started speaking longingly of going back to Biloxi to see the sea and to help me out during my confinement. Then the unexpected happened, Daddy told her to pack up and ride back to Mississippi with us, he’d buy her a plane ticket back after I’d had the triplets and was able to care for them and myself.

So she packed a small bag, kissed everyone goodbye and rode all the way back to Mississippi in the cramped back seat of my sub compact car. Even thought Momma had driven to southern Mississippi before with Daddy there was just something very different about her this time, a new freedom. I knew this was the first time in the thirty years Momma and Daddy had been married that she’d been completely without kids or Daddy away from home.

It was night when we pulled up in my numbered parking space by home but it didn’t matter to Momma, she still wanted to pull off her socks and shoes to wade in the warm salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was midnight before we could get her to calm down enough to go to bed. She’d danced in the splashing surf of the ocean, like a person newly freed from their restraints.

While we’d been gone the construction crew hired by Jude had started the process of making our two condos into one large condo, cutting a large archway in the main wall between my living room and his. Since my condo had been the model home with upgraded appliances and fancier decoration we decided to keep my kitchen but cut another archway, strip his kitchen down to bare walls to turn it into a long galley dining room. One more arch cut in the upper hallway opened up the upstairs of from one smaller bedroom over the kitchen and one large one facing the living room with it’s own balcony to two large bedrooms and two smaller ones.

Momma was happy to be installed in Jude’s old bedroom and she helped move his things over into my bedroom, even putting them away. She loved her room, overlooking the ocean.

As Momma settled into her new digs I went back to work for a few more days to tie up all the loose ends. I was going into my fifth month now but my new doctor said all bed rest up until delivery. She wanted me to go as far over the sixth month mark as possible, triplets tended to come early and be tiny so it was essential I rest to make that happen.

On my last day of work something upsetting happened. I’d been just ending a session with a client I was transferring to another colleague, introducing the colleague and the client and going over a continuation of her treatment plan when I was buzzed that I had a visitor waiting for me in the big conference room.

Day 20 Nano

2007-11-20T05:57:00.001-08:00

“Let me guess,” I ventured, “you came here thinking you were going to tag team brow beat me into having a selective reduction. Please think again because it’s not happening, in fact, I don’t want either one of you going into that examination room with me.”

“Those are my babies,” Annie growled at me, “I’m paying for them and you’re not stopping me.”

Jude moved closer to me, I could feel he was tense, ready for this confrontation. But I felt strong for the first time facing Annie and John and said simply, “Either the two of you leave, or I leave.”

“Annie, honey,” John said, dark brows raised nervously, “Let me talk to Emily for a sec. Get in the car. Please honey”

She almost sprinted away from us, long legs moving swiftly regardless that she wore high heels and a skirt. “She looks so much like you it’s scary, but she looks like a meaner you.” Jude whispered to me.

John approached, hands outreached to me and said in a sorrowful voice, “Emily, honey, I’m so sorry it had to be this way. Annie forced me to give you up but I still love you. Please, if you have any love left in your heart for me, go along with Annie’s request and let the doctor give us twins instead of triplets.”

He looked so miserable that for a millisecond I actually felt a little bit of pity for him. In the last few weeks I’d been reading in the papers about state senator Collins problems and knew that he had more pressing matters going on than trying to deal with me. But knowing that he had been deceiving me, using me just when it was convenient blotted out any compassion I might have felt..

“John,” I said simply and without rancor, “It’s over. All of it.”

The doctor told me there were just one problem with giving me the records, ‘They’re all in Annie Collins name. I was being forced to treat you as Annie Collins.”

Dr Parley hung his head sadly, “I suppose you think I’m a foolish old goat and you’re going to sue now.”

“No,” I said softly, “I think you’re still a doctor, a good doctor. I do appreciate the care you’ve given me. Just bring the records in and give them to me and no one has to know. If anyone pokes around for the them claim they’re misfiled or lost. We both know that John is in so much hot water right now that he’s in no position to hurt either of us.”

We got the records quickly and left. Jude had been silent through most of this and when he finally spoke he asked, “Why would your fertility clinic records be in Annie Collins name?”

I looked up from the file, I’d been reading the reports and looking at the test results, “Because it looks like they were planning a home birth again with a midwife. That was why it was so important to have a selective reduction, not as much risk factor for things to go horribly wrong. I think Annie had it planned I would deliver again with the same midwife at their home and they’d fake the birth certificates again by putting Annies name down instead of my own.”

Spying something in the file I pick it up and show it to Jude, “Look, can you make out the three different babies?” and I laugh.

Several days later I get a strongly worded registered letter from someone else in John’s law firm, indicating that if I do not go through with having these babies and turning them over to the care of John and Annie that I will be found in contempt of an oral agreement by a judge and they would make sure I was stripped of any custody.

I show the letter to Jude, knowing from the fresh allegations against John in today’s paper that this is mere saber rattling. I’m not the dumb naive little college girl I’d been when I met the Collins only about eighteen short months ago. This was a just a last attempt by John and Annie to control me.

“You know there is an easy way to deal with this, to make it go away and make it almost impossible for them to get custody..” Jude said after reading the letter.

“What is that?” I ask, wondering what he’s come up with now. Over the last six weeks he’d become the closest friend I’d ever had. He was a great kisser too and he didn’t try to control me. I was finding myself growing very fond of this sweet man.

“Marry me,” Jude says after dropping to one knee and grasping my hands.

My first urge is to laugh, laugh it off like the joke it strikes me that it has to be. But I see naked vulnerability in his dark eyes and I realize he actually means this. I don’t answer.

“It would almost guaranty that they don’t try to take your babies. Can you imagine the headlines? If John Collins tried to take his three children from a single former girlfriend the media might notice and then again, they might not. But it’s almost surely be negative press if he were to go after a married professional and try to claim her children were his and try to force a paternity test. Messy, nasty and something that he cannot afford now.” he continues on in this practical vein, “Besides, I make a good salary, around a hundred thousand before taxes. You keep saying you’re worried how you were going to raise three kids on your salary. You don’t make bad money but with our combined earning power it wouldn’t be as hard to make ends meet. You’re going to need help with the three babies and besides, you’re going to be on bedrest in a few weeks, who’s going to do your laundry and pay your electric bill.. plus.. I love you, Emily.”

I crouch down on the carpet next to him and say quietly, “Are you really sure that you’re fully committed to raise another man’s children like this? You want to get up and change diapers in the middle of the night? You forget I know what it’s like but you don’t.”

Jude confuses the issue by kissing me and I lose all train of thought, I just want the kiss to go on forever but eventually we come up for air and he says, “I’ve loved your babies as much as I’ve loved you from almost the first day I want a family. We could be a ready made family, knock out a few walls between our condos, remodel just a little bit and we’d even have more than enough room for two boys and a girl to grow up in.”

“You’ve really given this some thought, haven’t you?” I said

“It’s all I’ve thought about since about a week after you decided to call me your boyfriend. I knew for the last year I’ve lived here that I had to find a way to get your notice, but once we’ve been together I just knew that this was it for me. You have my heart.” Jude said, hugging me even tighter.

“I.. I don’t love you,” I confessed, “I mean, I love you as a friend and I’m starting to feel more for you each day but I don’t have that all encompassing thing I thought I’d feel for the man I’d marry.”

He smiled tenderly and kissed me again, “I know that, but I also think with time you’ll fall as hard for me as I have for you. You gotta admit what’s between us, it’s pretty spectacular. You’re just speeding up the inevitable and it’s going to solve the problem with the Collins.”

So I finally said yes. What else could I do? I cherished Jude dearly, I was physically attracted to him and he was right in pointing out that I really needed a partner to help me with the day to day of raising the babies.

We asked the minister from the church we attended to marry us on the beach the next weekend, applied for a marriage license and told our respective families. Jake and his partner decided to fly in from Key West and Cynthia Rose excitedly dragged me to a number of fancy maternity boutiques and wedding attire places to get a dress. “Great,” I’d griped, “I’ll be wearing a lace potato sack and look like a huge lace embellished ball, perfectly round.

But we found something of thin white cotton embroidered with white and pastels that had very little lace. The dress was beautiful, we had a small cake and I ordered a small spread from a caterer. Jude’s only living relative, an older sister and her grown children, couldn’t make it down from Minnesota on such short notice but a handful of people from his office and mine rounded out the numbers. For my witness I used my first real friend in Biloxi, Roberta. Even if we’d not seen as much of each other in the last year I still loved her dearly.

The wedding was simple but simply beautiful. Jude decorated our patios with simple potted plants and wedding decorations from an art supply house. He wore a simple white linen suit and we took off our shoes to exchange our vows on the beach. I smiled happily, thinking that as a girl I’d never dreamed that my Prince Charming would be a Jewish guy with a sweet smile and beautiful curls.

During our small reception Roberta approached me and apologized to me for getting me enmeshed with the Collins. “Did you see today’s paper?” she asked quietly, “The state police arrested John this morning.”

Poor John, I couldn’t help but feel that in some small measure he wasn’t entirely responsible for his crimes. I felt that probably Annie had exerted pressure on him over various things until they’d come to this scurrilous interlude. I feel sorry for him, sorrow and nothing else. Any love I felt for him was long gone now.

We took off right after the wedding for Pennsylvania because my new doctor, a nice lady with an office only a few miles from the condo, had given me a bed rest date of the next week. So this small window of time, between our wedding and when I was to stop working for awhile, was our only opportunity for Jude to meet my parents and for me to reconnect with them.

This pregnancy of mine had given me a gift, the gift that I now had enormous respect for them, for the first time I truly understood how much my mother had sacrificed to have and raise all of us kids. It couldn’t have been easy always standing up for their beliefs in every aspect of our lives in the face of a hostile world. I didn’t necessarily believe the same way as them but I wanted them to see that I hadn’t really turned out that badly. I was grateful to them for giving me life.

Day 19

2007-11-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

Jude stood suddenly, I felt a deep respect for him I’d never felt for a man before except my daddy, here was someone not afraid to protect others, “You’ve overstayed your welcome, Mrs Collins.”

Annie rose to go, cool and lean in her summertime linens by some expensive designer. But the hatred twisted her features scared me as she said, “We’ll take you to court if you don’t go along with this. Don’t think we wouldn’t enforce the agreement.”

“I think you’re going to have a hard time doing that, John never had me sign a contract this time. I guess he trusted me because he was in love with me.” I said softly, knowing this would hurt Annie but no longer caring.

“What?” she gasped, “He swore he had you sign it and it was in his office safe.”

I sat on the sofa trembling as Jude escorted her to the door. Just as she crossed the threshold I found my own angry voice yelling, “Tell your husband to stay away from me.”

The first thing I did after she left was to call down to the security officers at the front gate and tell them that under no circumstances were they to ever allow either of the Collins inside the gate. I was revoking their pass privileges.

Jude and I spent the rest of the day out on his patio in the sun shine talking about this situation, what I was going to do. What we came up with was that I was going to find a high risk pregnancy doctor right here in town and start going to him or her right away and in two weeks when I had my appointment with Dr Parley Jude would accompany to the appointment where we would get copies of my medical records before telling him I was switching to another doctor.

I still couldn’t imagine myself raising three babies but it looked likely that would happen. I knew in my heart that I could not give them up to another family and there was no way I was giving them up to the Collins. John could take me to court, force a paternity test, whatever, but I was going to fight him.

John told me he loved me many times. Was that a lie too?

I never said yes or not to Jude if I would allow him to be in my life in a romantic way but after that first night when he kissed me and I felt it to my toes I realized that resistance was stupid. Here was a man that really cared for me, protected me against the aggressors in the mess I was in and still wanted me no matter how ridiculous the circumstances were. He was a rare guy and I knew it.

Over the next few weeks I did everything we discussed, I found a doctor I trusted, I talked with the director at work, breaking the news to her that I would need a long maternity leave because chances are I’d be on bed rest soon.

I hired a reputable lawyer, who sat there and listened to my crazy tale of the state senator adopting my first child by pretending his own wife had given birth to Emmie and all the other things I had to say about the Collins. He agreed to represent me if the Collins ever tried to claim custody.

The most surprising thing to me was the silence from John Collins. But I knew no matter what his real feelings for me were Annie was obviously exerting considerable pressure on him to give me up. I must have really been a threat to their marriage more than all his other affairs.

The second most surprising thing was that Cynthia Rose. I took her to lunch one day away from the usual casino buffets than she insisted on. I splurged that day and took her to Mary Mahoneys Old French House, an elegant restaurant built in a older building that looked like it had been transported out of the New Orleans French Corner and dropped right down in the oldest part of Biloxi. There were starched white linens on the tables and we sat in the main dining room on delicate antique chairs. This place was famed for it’s atmosphere and elegant menus.

I’d chosen this place for a two fold reason. First I knew that Cynthia Rose would be too intimidated by the elegance of this place to make a scene. I wanted no repeat of the time we were asked to leave a casino restaurant because we were arguing. And secondly, she was my beloved sister and I wanted to treat her to something nice for a change.

It was easy to see that Cynthia was excited to be eating here, she was like a young girl. For the occasion she’d even gone easy on the makeup and worn a dress that was downright sedate. She looked at me over the top of the elegant menu and said softly, “Did you ever dream when we were kids that we’d end up eating in a place like this?”

Laughing I said, “No, I didn’t know places like this existed.”

Over a slowly savored lunch of seafood I told her about the big changes in my own life, that I was going to be keeping the babies, that I had a boyfriend, a genuine unmarried nice normal guy that wanted me in his life. I told her all things I had never confessed about the Collins, how I’d fallen in love with them and now things were tense. I kept waiting for her to object or explode at the things I was telling her but Cynthia Rose seemed in a dreamlike state, even when I mentioned I was going to travel up to Pennsylvania before the doctor could put me on bed rest and try to reconcile with our parents.

“You should,” Cynthia Rose said as she motioned to the waiter for another glass of white wine, “Although I must say it would be about a million times better if you showed up as Emily Greenburg. They’d just die if you married a Jew.”

“Actually,” I told her, “he’s now a Christian and we’re going to church together every Sunday, to a non denominational place near our condos. But I am bringing him with me back home. I need the moral support because I don’t know what type of reception I’m going to get.”

Cynthia Rose changed the subject abruptly, “I’m in love,” she confessed, almost blushing before telling me about a wealthy guy she’d met that had moved her into his luxury condo in the swanky Bayswater Biltmore complex. Somehow this miracle man had talked her out of stripping or dancing at the casino and was supporting her completely. This sounded too good to be true so I prayed it was so, that Cynthia had found someone decent for a change.

That was one of the best things to come out of my breaking off any relationship with the Collins family. I got my sister back. We started spending time together and I watched a lady try to emerge from her old dancer self.

It seemed like every day my waistline was getting bigger and I could hardly breath or eat because of the weight of the growing babies pressing on my internal organs. When I wasn’t working or sleeping I was with Jude and with every passing day his sweetness and kindnesses to me touched my heart even more. He wasn’t a bad kisser either.

Finally the day came when we drove up to Dr Parley’s office for my supposed appointment but in reality we were going to sever my relationship with the doctor. I still had heard nothing from the Collins except for receiving one tersely worded letter from John’s law office outlining the various legal things they could do to me if I didn’t care to cooperate.
I certainly wasn’t expecting both Collins to show up for my exam. In fact, they’d stopped doing that after the first one but lo and behold, there they both were, a hostile looking Annie and John, looking like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. John tried to greet me with a kiss on the cheek but I clumsily side stepped him. It was only then that John saw that standing behind me was Jude Greenburg. John’s eyes got wide, as though he’d heard of this but didn’t believe it until seeing the evidence with his own eyes. John looked like a man sucker punched in the gut. Annie smiled cruelly.

Day 18

2007-11-18T16:18:00.001-08:00

When I awoke the sun shone into my home, lighting up every surface. I felt very confused, awakening on my sofa with dried drool and puffy eyes. I sat up and saw Jude slipping his shoes back on, sitting across from me in the recliner. “You stayed the entire night here?” I croaked, voice hoarse with sleep.

Jude smiled, his dark curls unkempt, he reminded me of a mischievous little boy. “I couldn’t leave you alone in the state you were in. I would have stayed awake worrying about you if I had gone home. It was safer to stay and be sure..”

Yawning and stretching I muttered out a quick, “Thank you.” even as I was thinking I really wanted to be alone to mourn the death of my illusions.

Jude stood and said, “Get a shower and I’ll be back in a short while. I want to take you to breakfast this morning and afterwards, we can talk... I think you need to talk about whatever happened with you yesterday.. I’m worried for you.”

We didn’t speak much on the ride from Bay St Louis into Gulfport, Mississippi. I’d had a hard time getting the lap/shoulder belt of Jude’s restored Volkswagen Vanogon to fit around my burgeoning middle. But it was like the Gulf was ours alone that morning, Jude opened the sun roof on his van and we sped along old highway 90 towards the sun. No one much stirred except in the vicinity of the several golf courses, green grass glittering in the sunlight like emeralds, we passed and on the grounds of the Reserve Naval Station in Gulfport proper.

At first I didn’t know where Jude was taking me to eat. Most of the casinos have a buffet that operates around the clock and various restaurants but I never cared much for them. I much preferred to munch on a piece of Church’s fried chicken or eat at one of the local place. So I was relieved when he pulled the van into a parking spot near Daddy’s Little Kitchen.

Daddys food was nothing fancy, it was all American hearty fare and breakfast was their specialty. Biscuits, grits, gravy, sausages. But I had to tease Jude so I said, “I was afraid it might be IHOP or that fancy place the Mockingbird Cafe, or, even worse, casino fare.”

I watched Jude throw back his head and laugh heartily as I thought that he didn’t fit any of the classic molds of ‘handsome’ but at that moment he was just so cute. “As if. even in the morning casinos are as frenetic as the stock exchange. Ihops good for a middle of the night pancake craving but again, not an atmosphere I’ve ever cared to linger at. And I don’t even know what the Mockingbird Cafe is but just the name gives me the willies, conjures up images of little old ladies drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches. I’d sooner cut my dick off.”

The food smelled heavenly and by the time my omelet and biscuits arrived I was drooling. When I hadn’t had morning sickness during this pregnancy I’d been ravenous, today I was so hungry I’d been tempted to order half the menu.

We ate silently for a long time. The restaurant wasn’t deserted but there were few enough customers this early on a Saturday morning that it gave the place a relaxed feeling. Yesterday seemed to fade far back into my ancient history.

But finally it did come up, Jude asked me what had happened yesterday after the waitress brought him another cup of coffee. And I just simply told him. I was calmer now but tears still ran down my face as I told him about my affair with John, the fact that everyone was pressuring me to do a selective reduction, the difficulties I might encounter as the pregnancy continued and my increasing wariness of the Collins.

“Did you sign a contract with these people?” Jude asked me.

I had to think for a moment, “No, I signed one with first baby but we somehow never got around to it this time.”

Jude smiled tenderly at me and said, “The solution is simple. You don’t have to give up your babies to these people. Keep them yourself.”

“I can’t,” I moaned miserably, “I know I said I’d started having maternal protective feelings for them but.. I.. I can’t raise three babies alone. John Collins, the babies biological father, is a powerful lawyer, and he’s got some position in state politics. He’d take me to court.”

“Take you to court?” Jude chortled, “and risk exposure of your affair with him? From what you’ve been telling me about this deal, they manipulated you into giving birth in their home so that they could falsify the birth certificate instead of legally adopting and you’re worried he’s going to come after you? You know, I thought he looked familiar so I asked around and did some research on Google, he’s up to his neck in criminal investigations right now, every thing from misappropriation of funds to campaign irregularities and arranging illegal adoptions. He’d be stupid to come after you.”

“But that still doesn’t answer the question how I’m going to support three children? And I’m not just talking financially, how can I possibly have the time to work and take care of their needs, get enough sleep to work and.. I’m scared I’ll be a terrible mother.” it all came out in a terrible quick rush of words.

“I’d be happy to help you however I could.” Jude beamed at me, “Don’t worry, I’ll help you figure something out.”

“Figure something out.. why would you even bother offering to help out. We barely know each other.” I whispered out, looking down, knowing that I knew the answer but not wanting to hear it.

But it was too late, Jude reached across the table, seized my hand and looked at me with tenderness in his eyes, “It cannot escaped your notice that I have feelings for you. I’ve watched you for afar this last year and felt an immediate attraction. These last few weeks getting to know you makes me think you might be the one for me that I’ve waited for..”

I’m not repulsed like I thought I might be, the touch of his hand on mine is actually pleasant. I gulp, feeling suddenly hot and cold at the same time, “Even with the three babies?”

He smiled, “Especially with three babies. I love kids and always wanted a houseful.”

“I don’t quite know what to say to all of this,” I replied.

After breakfast we went for a long walk on the beach in Gulfport. Jude held my hand and it felt good. Being with someone that was happy to be seen in public with me, whom I didn’t have to sneak around with was a new experience. Freeing. Jude had treated me with nothing but loving respect since the day I met him.

But eventually we drove back to Bay St Louis, reversing our drive down highway 90 with the road and area crawling with scads of people, sunkissed oiled bodies laying out on the beach, crowds milling around tourist places hawking bikinis, suntan oil, hermit crabs and shells, restaurants filled with people eating seafood and drinking exotic looking drinks. Even the luxurious golf greens seemed to be in gridlock.

When we turned into the driveway leading to the condos I could see someone’s Mercedes double parked behind my own Prius and I sighed, “Oh no.”

“Who is that?” Jude asked, parking in his numbered slot and I muttered miserably, “That is Annie Collins.”

We got out of Jude’s van and both walked quickly towards my front door. Annie sprang from her Mercedes and ran after us calling, “Just a minute, Emily.. You owe me an explanation, missy.”

“Explanation for what?” I asked, knowing perfectly well she was talking about the selective reduction. She tried to block my way into my own home and growled at me, a different Annie, one I’d not seen before, fierce and crazy looking, “You know what. Dr Parley says you refused the selective reduction. You need to have it and besides, we don’t want three babies.”

“Lady, watch what you’re doing,” Jude said mildly, simply grabbing Annie by her slender arms and pulling her away from my front door.

“Look, this is stupid, standing on the step yelling. Annie, come on in and we can talk this out like sensible adults, like we’re supposed to be.”

I’d expected Annie to follow me and Jude to go into his own home but he didn’t. He put a possessive arm around my shoulder as Annie entered the house. She perched primly on the edge of a straight backed chair in the living room while I sank down on the sofa. Jude sat next to me and took my hand. I liked that feeling, that suddenly a knight was here protecting me, caring for me. It was a novel feeling and I almost wept from it.

“You know we’re not paying you a dime for a damaged baby. You have three and one is retarded or with birth defects and you’re out of luck. You’ll be stuck with it. I don’t know why you’d take such risks with your own health and with the health of our babies.” Annie snapped at me.

I looked down at the floor, not quite sure how to tell Annie I’d started having big second thoughts, so I started simply, “Annie, I know you didn’t want or expect this many children at once but you know what the fertility clinic said before we started the insemination, that it might result in multiple births. You also know I don’t believe in abortion or anything like that selective termination that Dr Parley is recommending. He’s doing it just because you’ve decided you don’t want triplets. He says they are all growing well and there’s no problems with my health or theirs.”

She looked at me with scorn, jerked her thumb in the direction of Jude and asked, “What is he doing here?”

I could barely choke the words out but I did it, “He’s my, my boyfriend.”

“I’m not discussing this any further in front of this outsider,” Annie huffed.

For the first time I saw Jude’s dark brows lower and a stubborn look cross his face, “You better get used to it, lady. Someone has to protect this woman against your bullying.”

Two crimson spots appeared high on Annie’s cheeks and she sneered, “Then you probably know your girlfriend is having an affair with my husband.” She turned and simpered to me, “Of course I knew. John screws anything and he could talk the pants off a nun. That same quality makes him a great lawyer and a wonderful state senator.”

Day 17

2007-11-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

Here I was, someone supposedly smart, trapped in the dumbest of all situations, an affair with a married man.

As I closed the door to my home I caught a glimpse of Jude out of the corner of my eye, outside innocently opening his mail box. For just a millisecond our eyes met and I could see he knew all. Never before had I felt such shame, except perhaps when I was a small child and my father could reduce me to tears by convincing me that Jesus would be sending me to hell for daring to answer my mother not in the proper respectful tone of voice.

I’d sinned terribly and Jude knew it. But the oddest thing was that I didn’t see scorn on his face. His eyes were filled with a terrible sadness and compassion. I shut the door quickly so he wouldn’t see I was almost on the edge of tears myself.

After that I tried to avoid Jude, I didn’t want his pity. But that was hard enough in our small condo development, we kept running into each other in the parking lot, at the mail boxes and over at the gym.

He’d even shown up during my daily walk in the sand. I’d taken to walking on the beach at sundown now, when it was a bit cooler.

The heat of the day in early summer in southern Mississippi was brutal but I felt it more keenly this year because of the multiple pregnancy.

At first I’d been afraid that Jude would be judgmental, but he never mentioned that he’d seen my lover sneaking away from my home. He treated me like he had that first afternoon we’d shared sunshine and iced tea, with kindness, consideration and friendship. After a few weeks of his companionship I relaxed again, just enjoying the company of a new friend.

Work was going smoothly too and I found myself being assigned women who were abused in their former relationships or used in some way. Sometimes it was difficult to sit there and hear a tale of a relationship ruined not too dissimilar to my own. I wanted to weep for these women and more than once I had to take a short break after a session to wipe my eyes. I managed not to openly cry but the much larger amounts of hormones surging through my body made me feel so mixed up and emotional.

John didn’t call and he didn’t stop by unexpectedly again. Later than month when I went in to see Dr Parley for my exam I got a call from Annie telling me that social commitments prevented them from taking me out for dinner after the exam.

Just as well because I had no desire to sit there and be polite. I don’t know what had happened in my heart in regards to the Collins. I didn’t think they were bad people, in fact, I saw when I was with them that they adored Emmie. They were excellent parents. But there was just something else about them now that I hadn’t seen before.

I couldn’t actually define what it was, it was more like the honeymoon was over. Contrasting now, Annie avoiding me and me not being invited for any more weekends to their home with when I first met the Collins and they were so accommodating, so charming, insisting I spend nearly every weekend in their beautiful home. Now they treated me with the same regard one might treat a farm animal. Just pop out the babies, be available for John anytime he wanted and stay away.

During my exam with Dr Parley he’d said even more disturbing things involving the Collins and then told me some facts about my pregnancy that I hadn’t thought to consider. I might be at fourteen weeks now but in six more weeks he was putting me on bed rest. This visit he spent warning me about the risks of a multiple pregnancy like this one, pressuring me to do a selective reduction. The dangers were worse than I ever dreamed, high risks of one child having a birth defect or abnormality, that I might go into premature labor and lose them all or develop any number of pregnancy related troubles that could take my life.

“But, Mr Collins agreed with me that there would be no reduction?” I told Dr Parley. He shrugged and said, “Well, I’m sure Annie pressured him into changing his mind. He’s run around on her for years, that gives her a great deal of leverage to force him to change his mind considering he’s run his political career on her father’s money.”

I’d run from the fertility clinic as fast as I could, in tears because the very last thing that the scheduling nurse tried to do was pencil me in for a selective reduction procedure at the local hospital. Again, I refused.

Everything had been intensified about this pregnancy, from my morning sickness to my emotions and as I drove home crying I felt a surge of protectiveness towards the babies in my belly. It was an emotion quite unlike anything I’d ever felt for Emmie. Dare I even say it felt maternal?

I knew one thing, I could not kill any one of them at the whim of the Collins. I drove with one hand and protectively hugged by stomach with the other hand. At fourteen weeks I was showing as much as a normal mom at six months. Several times I pulled off the road to cry and even started throwing up.

My feelings about the entire surrogacy, the Collins, the babies, the entire situation, changed in the blink of an eye. I felt horribly betrayed by John Collins, multiple philanderer and liar that wanted to murder at least one of his babies. I vowed to never let him touch me again, I would end the affair.

At this point I wasn’t sure I could get the babies up to this couple with too many secrets.

I got home much later than usual and I had barely kicked off my shoes and put up my aching feet before there was a rap on the door. Jude stood there bearing a covered tray, eyes twinkling “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten..”

He knew where I’d been and what I was doing but I hadn’t told Jude everything about the arrangement. I wasn’t even able to pretend to be polite or normal at that point. At Jude’s small kindness to me I melted down, sagged to the floor sobbing.

“Hey, hey, what is this?” Jude asked, taking care to set down the tray before kneeling next to me on the floor. He swept me into his arms, hugging me, rocking me as if I were a small child. He kept smoothing back my hair and whispering “Shhhh.”

We stayed on the carpeted hallway floor for a long time. I just wept and Jude held me. Eventually I felt calmer and he lifted me from the floor, guided me to the sofa. He disappeared for a moment only to return with his tray and a handful of tissues. “Sit. Eat. Blow your nose first.”

Without a word I gave myself over to Jude’s care, even though the late dinner he brought me, some sort of veggies, chicken and pasta, was cold. I didn’t feel like eating but I did it anyway because I knew I had to for the babies. When he whisked the tray away to wash the dishes in my kitchen I grabbed my favorite pillow, wrapped up in my soft sofa throw and curled into a ball of misery. Jude kept talking to me about normal things, the every day and mundane, like the weather while I found myself getting very sleepy. The last thing I remember is hearing Jude taking about some astrological phenomenon soon to occur.

When I awoke the sun shone into my home, lighting up every surface. I felt very confused, awakening on my sofa with dried drool and puffy eyes. I sat up and saw Jude slipping his shoes back on, sitting across from me in the recliner. “You stayed the entire night here?” I croaked, voice hoarse with sleep.

Jude smiled, his dark curls unkempt, he reminded me of a mischievous little boy. “I couldn’t leave you alone in the state you were in. I would have stayed awake worrying about you if I had gone home. It was safer to stay and be sure..”

Yawning and stretching I muttered out a quick, “Thank you.” even as I was thinking I really wanted to be alone to mourn the death of my illusions.

Jude stood and said, “Get a shower and I’ll be back in a short while. I want to take you to breakfast this morning and afterwards, we can talk... I think you need to talk about whatever happened with you yesterday.. I’m worried for you.”

Day 16

2007-11-16T07:53:00.001-08:00

“You’re an idiot,” she hissed at me, “I thought the point of having the last baby and adopting it out was to start a new life, not to develop a lifestyle like Momma’s, like a brood mare but for pay. You’re whoring yourself out to those people this time.”

People were starting to stare from the surrounding tables. No one expected to overheard a nasty verbal fight during their Sunday morning champagne brunch. “Hello! Pot calling kettle black,” I sneered back, “you go from man to man, you dance wearing almost no clothing at all and you have the nerve to call me a whore? At least I don’t spread my legs for half of population from Picayune to Pascagoula.”

Around us people were either looking at the starched linens of the tabletops of the Grand Imperial Palace casino dining room, or putting carefully bland expressions on their faces to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. But a couple of glaring expressions were thrown at us.

Cynthia Rose bolted down her Mimosa in one swift gulp before ripping into me again, “And I suppose you’re still balling him, screwing your baby’s fake daddy silly every chance you get. So tell me, how does it feel to know you placed your first child in the home of a philanderer that cannot even be bothered to get his wife pregnant but isn’t above renting your uterus and your twat at the same time?”

By this time I was trembling with rage, struggling not to reach across the table and slap my sister until her skin turned red beneath her caked on showgirl makeup. I stared at her and wondered how she’d gone from a sweet faced young girl in a calico jumper and a long silken braid of golden hair to this hardened painted harlot that looked older than twenty four years old. Where was my real sister?

We didn’t get a chance to continue on our discussion because the maitre de came to our table to ask us to leave, too many guests were complaining that we were behaving like guttersnipes. He snootily told Cynthia to get her butt back to the dressing room because her shift was coming up shortly.

When I left the casino I was shaking, by the time I drove off their lot I was crying. So many things seemed to be going wrong in my life. Work was the only thing I didn’t struggle with. Even John had been calling less and our clandestine meetings had dropped to once every few weeks now. Everything felt like it was falling apart.

I wept all the way back home, wishing that I dared to call John or that my brother Jake still lived nearby. It finally hit me for the first time that I was actually alone in this world, alone save for Cynthia Rose but what good did that do when she was so angry with me.

By the time I’d managed to pull into the numbered slot at my condo development I’d stopped crying so hard, I was sniffling. But once I opened the door to the condo it felt as lifeless as a tomb, no matter how beautifully tricked out it was with the perfect furnishings. So I kicked off my sandals and left the back door, intent on taking a long walk on the white sands of the beach.

One thing I’d always loved about having an end unit is that I had less neighbors than most here. On one side was a an eight foot high double fence with a boardwalk allowing beach access to those poor unfortunates that didn’t live on the waters edge but it was rarely used. Just on the other side of the walkway was an abandoned one story condo development, much like my own. The local scuttlebutt was the builder had run out of money and that the property would probably be auctioned off one day to someone who could finish up the building.

On the other side of my home, sharing an adjoining wall lived a man maybe ten or fifteen years older than myself. As far as I could tell he lived alone. He was quiet, never making middle of the night racket or throwing wild parties. Like me, he seemed to go to work and come home with that being the extent of his existence. In the eight months I’d lived there we’d exchanged perhaps a few dozen words, usually banal pleasantries when we bumped into each other coming and going.

But today when I stepped out onto my stone patio and started to walk towards the closed picket fencing he was there, just on the other side of the fence. He kept looking at me and I knew that look. It was one I never enjoyed coming from anyone that wasn’t John, a look of interest in me as a woman. I looked down and shook my head, trying to indicate a no.

“You look like you’ve lost your last friend in this world.” my nameless neighbor said. This wasn’t what I was expecting, no come on, no double entendre and no flirting, just a concern for my emotional condition expressed in a voice that was warm.

I couldn’t help it, I moved towards him like a moth towards a flame and I looked up into his face. I’d never looked closely at him before. He wasn’t classically handsome like John, this man had very dark curly hair threaded with a few wiry grays, his eyes were dark and he had the type of windblown tan that had already left a few creases on his face. He looked like an aged cherub, his face was rounded but what struck me the most was the kindness in his eyes. This man seemed to radiate a goodness I’d not seen in a man in a very long time.

Before I knew exactly what I was doing I replied, “Well, yeah, I’ve been having some rather unusual circumstances in my life recently. I, I haven’t been myself.”

He seized my hand and I was surprised at the feel of his hand against my own, It wasn’t sexual, no tingle or thrill like I felt with John, but just something indefinable. “I just got back from a long walk on the beach and I’d like you to join me on my patio for iced tea. I’m not a psychologist but I am a good listener.”

At his statement I burst out in hysterical laughter mixed with tears, “That’s just the rub, I am a psychologist and I’m such a screwed up mess.”

For some reason unbeknownst to me I sat on this man’s patio and gratefully accepted the offer of a sympathetic ear and a tall glass of iced tea. Once I started talking, it came out, everything except the affair. At first I didn’t tell much, just where I worked, general talk but he drew me out, almost like a seasoned mental health worker would. I told him enough about my childhood for him to get a clear picture of what it had been like to be an extreme fundamentalist with an isolationist mentality. I told him that I was pregnant with triplets, unmarried and the babies were conceived via insemination for a couple that couldn’t have their own and that I was starting to have serious misgivings.

As the nearby gulls whirled and called over head he told me about himself, that he was an aeronautical engineer who worked in the Stennis Space Center. He’d lived and worked all over the world in his chosen field but a little over a year ago had taken this position and settled in Bay St Louis. He wanted a beach in his backyard so here he was.

His name was Judah Greenburg, but everyone called him Jude. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York in a small Jewish family about as far removed from Amish country and fundamentalists as you can get. I laughed and teased him that my family seemed to think that Jews had secret horns and tails, which led to him telling about the anti Semitism he experienced when working in Moslem countries. Jude was thirty four and unmarried, not because he didn’t want a wife and kids but because moving every six months or a year didn’t lend itself to romance or dating.

He tells me he doesn’t suppose I date much, what with the pregnancy and I tell him no, I’m not very datable and I’m kind of ambivalent about relationships because I’m not fond of heartbreak.

What I don’t tell him is that this is a huge step forward for me, that I thought romance, sex and everything else involved in that nasty ball of wax was repugnant to me.

Jude and I connect, there is no other word for it. We’re both lonely in a place where we know almost no one. I make it clear I don’t want to date anyone but friendship isn’t such a bad thing. I need friends.

We sit there in companionable silence for a long time after we both run out of words, enjoying the sunshine, the fresh air and the beauty of a early May day on the beach, that time frame before an invasion of weekenders and tourists that sometimes crowd the beaches of the Gulf Coast.

“I believe someone is looking for you.” Jude finally says to me, indicating with a small movement of his chin that someone had come down the beach walkway and stood near the fence. I’d just been sitting there relaxing, eyes closed for a few moments. I open my eyes to take a look, and to my surprise John Collins stood at the edge of the fence.

John looked furious, “I rang your bell many times, Emily, why didn’t you answer? I knew you were home because I could see your car out front” I stood and glared back at him, “You should know I go out and walk on the beach when I can,” and I turned to say apologetically to Jude, “I’m so sorry but I must go. Thank you for listening and for your hospitality.”

Jude only nodded and I could see that concern creased his brow as I walked away. Under his gaze John followed me to the french doors at the rear of my home and followed me inside.

As I expected John exploded once I shut the door, “Who was that?”

I sighed, sank down onto my overstuffed divan and said calmly, “He’s my next door neighbor.”

It was easy to see that my answer only made John angrier, I could see his perfectly sculpted jaw muscles clench and he hissed out, “Exactly how long has this been going on?”

“What?” I asked, feeling my own temper rise. “I’m not allowed to have friends or talk to anyone but you? I just officially met him today, he’s quite nice and I don’t have many friends in this town.”

And it just escalated from there. We had a ferocious fight, a battle of the words so nasty and vicious that at one point I threw my crystal bedroom lamp at John’s head. But it didn’t stay that way, he overpowered me and suddenly we were in bed having insanely intense sex. Afterwards both of us forgot what exactly we’d been fighting about, murmuring sweet endearments, caught in a private world where only we and our feelings for one another mattered.

John traced the curve of my hip tenderly with his hand and whispered, “I came around the corner, saw you with another man and thought I’d lost you forever. Part of me knew I deserved it because I’ve barely come around here in the last month or so.. I didn’t want to, I wanted to spend every night with you but Annie is starting to act irrationally jealous about you carrying my child. I’m worried about her and I didn’t want to risk her finding out about us while she’s in this state.”

I whispered back, “I understand and I love you. That’s enough for me.”

But even as I was saying those words I knew I was telling a lie, this was no longer enough and the times between us getting together were getting lengthier and I wasn’t satisfied with these short encounters. I wanted someone to love me, be fully committed to me all the time. Not just when he could sneak away from his wife.

I remember standing at the door, tousled and sweaty from the sex in my satin robe, kissing John good bye. I felt such a deep sadness because I knew that he would never be mine. When I’d said I liked our arrangement I didn’t realize that as time went on I’d develop different needs, the strong urge for companionship and love.

Day 15

2007-11-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

And then we waited, we all waited to see if the insemination had taken. I’ll even admit that as my patients droned on about problems that they just kept repeating regardless of how much help they’d had my mind was in other places.

It was a long month. I heard from John many times but he was afraid to make love to me, coming into Bay St Louis only once that month, just to tell me that he thought until we knew for sure which way this was going to go we needed to refrain from lovemaking.

I’d stopped the Clomid so I’d thought that my wild mood swings would stop. And they did. Unfortunately they stopped on dark, bleak and hopeless.

I missed John, I just simply missed him like the scorched earth misses the rain. Something precious and essential had gone from my life.

That month it was like the sun had gone out of the sky for me. I still did all the things I normally did, I treated patients, I went for long walks on the beach despite the chill February winds and I brooded alone. Was this what it might be like if John broke it off for good with me? My mind filled with wild imaginings. Even Cynthia Rose noticed my mood on one of our Sunday brunches.

At first she didn’t, she just rattled on about how great it was that I’d put this whole ugly experience behind me and moved on to a real life, cheerfully bubble headed blonde stripper without a care in the world. But eventually she noticed my long face and monosyllabic answers and asked if I’d ended my affair with John Collins. I remember her saying, “Honey, don’t be sad, good looking men move in and out of our lives like bus boys at a swanky restaurant. You’ll find someone else, someone who can make you happy. You couldn‘t have had a future with him no matter what sweet lies he may have told you”

I couldn’t bear to burst her bubble, so I kept silent, I didn’t mention that until the last month John and I had still be lovers and we were trying to conceive another baby. I allowed her to think I was sulking with a broken heart. We’d never talked of a future together, I realized suddenly, it was all in the moment and my heart broke just a little bit more.

But as Cynthia Rose talked about her current beau I felt an under current of fear. I’d heard of him before, in the papers, something about his connections to organized crime in Las Vegas, New Orleans and New York. He was connected and rumored to be someone that had climbed a heap of bodies to get where he was. But when I voiced my concern Cyn laughed it off, said that the man was a big Teddy Bear, who’d been unfairly pilloried in the press.

Once I got back to my home I sat in my study and looked up this Sammy that my sister was running with and saw he was everything I’d said and more. I printed off as much info as I could from my computer and stuffed it in an envelope addressed to Cyn and marked personal and private.

I knew I was probably taking this step for naught because Cynthia Rose seemed so enamored of this creep. But given her romantic track record, every bit as bad as mine but more populous, I felt certain that he would be gone from her life the next time we met.

It hit me after I’d put that thick sheaf of paper in the mail to Cynthia that I’d never bothered Googling the parents of my baby, John and Annie Collins. But I found nothing beyond that which tore my heart from my body, Annie awarded honors for top volunteerism at the local free clinic. John, smiling and looking so devastating handsome in a three piece suit at a fundraiser.

That afternoon I finally broke down and cried. I wondered if it was the after effects of the Clomid or that my fear I’d lost John overwhelming all else in my life. It didn’t matter what it was, I just knew I’d never felt so sad and betrayed in my life. I wasn’t sure I could go through with showing up in their town next weekend for our visit to the fertility doctor.

But I did, I got through my week, a little quieter, a little more subdued, but in one piece before heading up the state to see if the insemination was a success.

When I arrived there Annie was her usual exuberant self, whatever jealous or fear she’d dealt with all month seemed to have gone and she’d insisted I see Emmie, see how much she’d grown, hold her. I didn’t want to because I still expected I might feel something, but I didn’t feel anything beyond the joy that this couple now had a beautiful little girl. There was no connection to me in the slightest.

Once John came home from work it was obvious that he hadn’t suffered a bit from being apart from me this weekend, he was over the moon happy. Watching him with Emmie showed me that I had done the right thing by giving this couple my child. I’d just now had no desire to do it again. I hoped that the insemination was a failure and I’d just tell them I was ending the relationship, no more babies at all, none that would be biologically John’s. I just couldn’t take it emotionally.

In my funk still I begged off immediately after dinner and went to my room, fully expecting to read awhile and then just to bed. But when Annie put Emmie to bed and I heard her come up herself a little later and stick her head in my room to say good night. The stomping up and down the stairs leads me to believe that John has retired for the night too.

Nothing helps, no amount of reading or even popping a benadryl can turn off my racing mind. I decide to sneak downstairs and take a wee drink of the brandy I know is kept in the bar area adjacent to the kitchen. Some warm milk, sugar and a dollop of brandy cannot possibly hurt anything I think, even if it turns out I am pregnant.

I move as silently as possible, getting the milk out of their huge refrigerator, sliding a cup from the cabinet and after heating the milk pulling it from the microwave before it can utter it’s distinctive ding. I steal into the family room, quietly raid the bar of the brandy and pour a hefty dollop in my warm milk.

As I straighten up from putting the bottle back under the bar I see I am not alone. John sits in the big leather wing backed chair pulled close to the crackling fire in the fireplace. I see his face before he realizes he’s not alone. He looks like a man in agony, someone mentally tormented. Neither of us speak for a moment, in my surprise I lift my mug and bolt down the hot contents as John gets up and rushes to me.

He pulls me into his arms with a loud sigh and kisses me like he’s never kissed me before. John lets go of me just long enough to lead me to the fireplace, pushing back the chair so we can sit together on the sheepskin rug. We don’t speak for a long time, I sit with my head on his chest and cry, trying to stifle the ragged moans trying to emerge. John stops my tears by kissing them away and whispering how much he loves me and how painfully hard this last month has been on him. He nearly said to hell with his life and drove to my home.

Before I realize what we’re doing we’re naked and entwined on the soft fur of the rug, the fire heating our bodies as we make love. I try to stop us by gasping out that if I’m not pregnant from last month’s insemination and I get pregnant from this tryst it will be hard to explain. John silences me with a firm, “I don’t care. Let what may happen, happen.”

John extracts a promise from me, that I’ll be his, regardless of what happens between him and Annie. He loves me and is completely mine and wants the same reassurance from me. Naked on his wife’s rug we pledge ourselves to each other, regardless of what happens.
I tell him I don’t want to marry and have children, not even for him, even as much as I love him. John says that he sees no reason why we cannot continue to see each other at every opportunity and he would promise anything to have my heart as his forever.

As glorious as our coupling on the rug was we were nearly caught by Annie coming downstairs to warm up a bottle for Emmie at three am. The moment we caught the sound of her feet on the stair treads it was a frantic scramble for clothing. I slipped out of the family room into the formal living room and hid behind the sofa, while John picked up his book and sat again in his chair.

I don’t know how Annie could have ignored his tousled hair, not smelled the scents of love making but if she did she pretended not to. As she talked to John about his bout of insomnia, which he explained away as excitement over my possible pregnancy I took the opportunity to tiptoe up the back staircase.

Annie must have picked up on something because before she went in to feed the baby she opened the door to my bedroom, came in to stare at my sleeping form before shrugging and leaving the room. She didn’t leave before stopping to feel my bathrobe thrown hastily across the foot of the bed. Thankfully I hadn’t donned it and it was as cold as if it had lain there all night.

I believe no one got much sleep that night. I know I didn’t and I heard Annie up with the baby more than once. John didn’t stomp up the staircase for bed till nearly dawn, around four thirty am.

So the next day we were a sad dragging lot going into the fertility clinic. I lay back and allowed the doctor to poke and prod my body, naked save for a sheet, beneath the gaze of both Annie and John. He took blood and urine earlier in the day and now I lay spread with the speculum as he tried to feel if my womb was hardened or enlarged while we waited for the tests.

As much as I loved John this public scrutiny was difficult at best. I felt like a piece of meat, selected only for breeding purposes.

The doctor then did a vaginal ultrasound , another indignity I didn’t have the first time around. It involved him shoving what looked like a dildo on the string wearing a rubber inside of me and looking at my uterus. I decided then and there I didn’t like this doctor as he pressed it into me with what I thought was more force than necessary. But he beamed with a broad grin, pointed to several odd looking images on the ultrasound screen and told John and Annie, ‘See here, there are at least three spots of uterine lining thickening. While it’s not an infallible science I believe we’re looking at a multiple pregnancy.”

Jealously I watched the joy on John and Annie’s faces as they cried, hugged each other and thanked god while I was painfully enduring a magnetic plastic penis poking my womb.
We waited in the over crowded waiting room for word that the blood test/urine test confirmed the pregnancy. I felt like puking watching their happiness, seeing John hugging and openly kissing Annie right in front of me.

The one bright spot I could think of is if it was multiple fetuses I would get additional money for each one delivered over and beyond the first one.

Finally we were ushered back to the office of our doctor, Dr William P Parley. As I took a seat on the overstuffed club chair I looked around to see how luxuriously appointed the office was. Infertility must be very lucrative. There was a leather sofa, overstuffed chintz covered club chairs while the walls were either lined with expensive dark oak bookshelves, or painted hunter green and hung with rare prints in gilt frames. I had to wonder what my insemination was setting back the Collins.

Finally Dr Parley lowered his considerable bulk into a chair and said happily, “The tests were positive. Congratulations, you’re having a baby. But the high levels of hormone combined with the multiple thickenings in Ms Frehley’s uterine lining seem to indicate multiple babies so I will need to see her every few weeks throughout her pregnancy. Multiple fetuses are considered high risk.. Of course, you could chose to do selective reduction of the fetuses, removing those that look less viable.”

I blanched at the words “selective reduction” and spat out angrily, “That is out of the question. I don’t believe in abortion for any reason and I’m certainly not prepared to do this horrible thing.”

Before my eyes Annie’s face took on a hard look and she said in a tone that matched my own, “You’re forgetting these babies are half ours. John fathered them and if we decide there needs to be a reduced number then there will be. You have no say so in this matter.”

We both glared at John and he hung his head, caught between both of us, both of us now the mother of his children, Annie by adoption, and myself by biology and he muttered in a low voice, “Those babies are mine and I say no, no reduction. Let nature take it’s course here.”

I’d made plans to leave the clinic, go to lunch out with John and Annie and drive straight home. But as we prepared to leave the clinic Dr Parley called me back, saying he wanted to speak with me alone.

“Why?” Annie asked suspiciously.

Parley replied mildly, “I don’t have much of a medical history on Ms Frehley and I’d like to go over some various options for the pregnancy and birth based on whatever medical history she has.”

I saw both John and Annie exchange uncomfortable glances before muttering out their permission and departing.

The doctor closed the door behind us and indicated that I was to take a seat. I spoke first, “Look, there isn’t much more I can tell you about a medical history. I come from a family with several sets of twins, one set of triplets and my mother never had a moment’s trouble during her pregnancies.”

Dr Parley lifted a finger to indicate silence and when he did speak his subject surprised me, “Are you happy?”

“Why does that matter?” I replied wondering what he was getting at.

A look of concern came on his plain middle aged face and he said, “My dear, you’re a professional who earns a good living, yet here you are agreeing to be a surrogate mother for a pair of scum I wouldn’t cross the street for. You surely cannot need the money.”

I went into my social worker mode and said, “Scum? They’re both professionals and well respected in their community. Why would you say such a thing.”

He sighed, crossing his fingers together in an almost prayerful attitude, “They’ve moved on from Oxford, Mississippi because there was a scandal involving money that Mr Collins was involved in and his wife lost her nursing license due to giving a patient the wrong medications. They aren’t whom they seem to be.”

“Then why inseminate me if you were so concerned?” I ask. “I’ve known them well over a year now and they are fine individuals. Whatever happened in the past is the past and has no bearing on the future. I did this out of love for them, I love them. They’re close friends and I wanted to help them complete their family.”

He countered with, “If that is the case then why did the mid wife they claimed delivered your last baby tell me that she has no record of the birth? She says that she doesn’t know anything about it at all?”

My defense of the Collins erased my doubts of them. I left the clinic in a rage without commenting on his last statement. When I slammed the door to the older brick building shut I was surprised to find John Collins waiting just outside. The first words out of his mouth were, “What did he want?”

I shrugged, some inner voice telling me not to tell John the entire truth, “He wanted to know some extended family history, such as the fact that my mother had two sets of twins and one set of triplets. It was no big deal. Where‘s Annie, is she watching us right now?”

John leaned up against the building, I could see the relief flood his face, “She’s over at Chez Bebe picking up new clothing for Emmie. I told her I had a few things to talk to my partner about on the phone since I’m missing a morning at work and that I’d wait around for you. I’m supposed to call her cell as soon as we leave for the restaurant.”

It was one of the most uncomfortable lunches I’ve ever endured, Annie babbled on and on about how over the moon she was that she would be the mother of possible twins or triplets. John was happy, but I could see shades of worry tempering his joy. Me, I was numb, I didn’t know what to think any longer. I loved John and while I could see that they were wonderful parents to Emmie I had a sense of disquiet about my involvement with them and this pregnancy.

It was during this lunch that I broke the news that due to how busy I was at the practice I was going to be spending very few weekends up here in rural Mississippi. I’d come down to this town every two weeks for my checkup and I offered to have lunch or dinner with them but I didn’t see how I could work out my schedule to spent weekends with them. I saw the look of triumph and relief on Annie’s face and I knew she suspected that her husband and I were more than friends.

I had barely turned out of the parking lot of the French cafe when my cell rang and John was begging me to meet him at the hotel just outside of the southern city limits. Annie was leaving for the hour drive to their home and he’d told her he had to visit a developer on the way home so she wouldn’t suspect.

I hated myself, but I went. I still loved him and it didn’t matter to me what he did. I would still meet him every chance I got.

And so my days went, I worked hard, putting in long hours at the clinic and sometimes pulling weekend and evening duty. John and I managed to be together a couple of times a week to make love and proclaim our great love for each other. I made the trek to the fertility clinic for twice monthly visits, which showed I was indeed carrying healthy twins. As my belly grew with his babies John spent ever more time with me, fascinated by the new life within me.

Eventually the day came, far too earlier because of the fact that I carried triplets, that I could hide my bump no longer. I used the same excuse I’d used at school, that I had an infertile older sister and I was having triplets for her because this was her last option. No one questioned me, a few of my co workers were uncomfortable with the idea but most thought it was one of the most unselfish things they’d heard of.

I didn’t tell Cynthia Rose, but I didn’t need to. She took one look at me in early pregnancy and wailed, “Why? Why? Why would you do such a stupid thing again!” I tried to explain to her that I loved John and Annie Collins and that they’d asked me for a child born of John’s blood. I wanted to give them this gift.

Day 14

2007-11-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

Authors note: We've had some domestic crapola at this house and I nearly left my husband over the course of these last few days. Not much time for writing so I'm having to make up the last two days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time marched on. I didn’t see as much of Cynthia Rose as I thought I would. She was dancing more shifts than ever at a new casino, Captain Neptunes, three shows nightly, big old fashioned Vegas style reviews with nudity. Now not only were her breasts silicon, her nose surgically created and her hair color out of a tube at the hairdressers but Cynthia had traded up on large implants, gotten something done to her lips so that they were inflated like two fat hunks of liver hanging on her face. With cheek implants she looked to me like a walking freak, a real life slutty looking Barbie doll.

But she claimed to be happy and was pulling down a disgracefully large salary for being the star of the floor show. She’d even kicked her series of lounge lizard male companions to the door and lived alone now in on the side of town that took serious money. She drove a fancy sports car and had a maid.

Jake had moved on from his fishing captain and moved quite a ways far from us to Key West, Florida. He had saved a little money and was opening a bar there. The pictures he sent made it seem like Key West was a paradise, a beautiful place where the sun always shown and the liquor flowed freely. In another words, most Sodom and Gomorrah to my parents.

I gave my brother and sister not much thought as I moved forward to my new life. They both seemed to be happy with their lot and doing well.

The purchase of my oceanfront condo was completed and I moved in, completely breaking ties with my impoverished student lifestyle. I admit it, I used the money that the Collins has given me to bankroll my new life in Bay St Louis. I put a substantial down payment on the condo, I bought a smart new Japanese compact car brand new off the dealership floor and I supplemented the designer furnishings of the condo with the things I loved. I went out and bought my self a number business of suits for work. Having Emmie had allowed me to start a life I could not have imagined. My new salary wasn’t insignificant either. I lived well and relished every second of it. Even Cynthia Rose was impressed by the new condo in the gated beach community.

I’d bought a two story garden style home and to get to the beach all you had to do was open the rear french doors and step out onto the small patio, step off into the sand steps later, open the white picket fence and there you were, right on a public beach. The interior was magnificent, all done up in neutrals, like sand, light browns with the kitchen having the top of the line stainless steel appliances, hand made Italian tiles throughout the condo. The furniture was a mixture of modern and eclectic and the entire place was designed for easy sweeping out of sand daily. The small patio held planters overflowing with flowers, overstuffed chaise lounges but the thing I loved the most was the exterior shower and closet tucked in behind a small outcropping of the building.

There was nothing I loved more after a long day at the office than coming home, changing into beach clothes going for a long walk or run along the beach. And I swam so much that for the first time in my life I took on a healthy tan.

Settled into my position with Bay St Louis mental health clinic, assigned most women would were dealing with abusive partners or self esteem issues with the occasional lady with substance abuse problems. Practicing in this large private practice was very different than my practicum listening to students from abusive families, with broken hearts from love affairs gone wrong and whiny self absorbed poor little rich kids upset that mommy and daddy had ended their support funds because they’d spent more time partying than studying.

One of the most challenging cases was that of a lady married to a very religious man. I felt twinges of my past coming back to bite me as I listened to her tales of bearing five children in five years and how the husband demanded everything be perfect all of the time. This patient also had rapidly progressing ALS, getting weaker every month, yet unable to see that the way her husband treated her was abusive.

Of all the people I worked with this lady, Lori, was eager to defend her husband at every turn, no matter what he did, no matter how horrible his behavior. I sat there weekly, professionally trained yet slack jawed to hear things like Lori’s recitation of her husband Mark’s trysts with hookers and strippers at the casino because he said she was now unable to satisfy him sexually so he felt perfectly justified stepping outside the bonds of marriage for sex.

Listening to her talk about her husband’s cheating made me very uncomfortable, I squirmed inwardly, knowing I was doing the exact same thing with John Collins, keeping him as my lover on the side while he was married to someone else. But eventually I was able to rationalize away from I was doing.

Most of my other patients I was able to see some forward progress with but not Lori, every week we rehashed old territory and when I asked her if she’d been able to put any of my suggestions into play in her own situation I’d get an excuse from her about how this or that had happened and Mark was too cranky or stressed out for her to possibly stand up him over some small issue. Her husband continued on his whore banging, emotionally abusive, controlling way and she made excuses for him while complaining about him.

Her religion was strict but nothing compared to that which I’d been raised with. At least she was allowed to wear slacks, have her hair styled and wear makeup. But, apparently, her husband was king and she had to kowtow to him, obey what he said and she wasn’t allowed to have an independent thought.

I got to where I dreaded her visits, knowing we were both wasting out time. While I managed to stay detached and cool during my interactions with her inwardly I longed to grasp her bony shoulders and shake her silly, shout ‘wake up, you’re being abused’ but this could never happen. Give me a garden variety drunk, coke head or someone with reactive depression any day off the week over this endlessly frustrating task.

But there were days when I sat back in my small office and smiled a big self satisfied smile, surveying the tasteful prints on the wall, the beautiful wood desk and the overstuffed sofa, seeing my own stamp on this place. I had developed some very expensive tastes. And I’d arrived about a million miles from my Momma and Daddy’s old farmhouse with flea bitten furniture purchased at garage sales and thrift shops. I wished there was some way to show them that I’d done well but once I’d moved from my apartment I made sure there was no way for them to trace me, Ben and Sarah had made it more than obvious by their visit that I would never be welcomed again into our family home.

The nice thing about my condo in its gated community was that for the first time John and I didn’t have to sneak around. He’d come down and spend the night with me in my place or just meet up for a quick stolen few hours. Once the six weeks prohibition against making love after Emmie’s birth had passed we’d resumed our white hot physical relationship and again, I knew Annie had no clue because she’d called me every few weeks to see how I was doing, tell me all about Emmie and nervously ask if I’d changed my mind in acting as a surrogate at the end of six months so that they could have a biological child of their own. I was reassure her that I was planning on giving them another child.

Because we couldn’t take the risk of me getting pregnant before the specified time I forced John to wear rubbers, and this turned out to be one of the few things he and I fought over. He didn’t want to do it, saying to hell with if I got pregnant, he loved me and he was fully prepared to leave Annie and Emmie for me. I tried several times to explain to him that I would break it off if he were foolish enough to do such a thing, that I loved him deeply but I would be no one’s wife or mother.

I’d seen what marriage meant in my own parents marriage, a subjugation to everything your husband wanted. Dealing with my various female patients reinforced that and I knew I could never trust a man enough to live with him as his wife and submit to someone else’s opinions and authorities.

Likewise I felt no desire for kids of my own. During my years in my family I’d diapered a million behinds, fed thousands of bottles and raised many of my younger siblings. I wasn’t about to be sentenced to a lifetime of that type of drudgery. I never had that maternal instinct but being only in my mid twenties I knew I had plenty of time to change my mind.

One thing I was not going to change my mind about, giving John a child of his own blood. He talked about it almost as obsessively as Annie did, except he added that the child being of my blood, the woman he loved, made it doubly sweet.

Five months after Emmie’s birth I was sent to a fertility doctor that Annie had picked out, given a complete physical and a prescription for Clomid. I tried to protest that I’d conceived the first baby quickly and easily without any medical help like fertility drugs. But the doctor was insistent, saying that his clients, John and Annie, wanted no possible problems, they wanted me to conceive next month when I returned for the artificial insemination.

That too should have rung an alarm, like Annie insisting that a midwife deliver me at their home, that the birth certificate be falsified to show that Annie, not I, had given birth to Emmie. But quite frankly I was still so madly insanely in love with John I would have done anything they asked. So I dutifully told the doctor my cycle, we plotted when the next ovulation would be and set up an appointment for the insemination.

So I dutifully started taking the Clomid even if it made me feel very weird, giving me all sorts of side effects, such as hot flashes, foul mood swings and headaches that would leave me struggling to get through my patient load without strangling anyone. I kept telling myself this was just for a month or so, until John’s baby was snuggly growing in my womb.

What Annie didn’t know is that in the days leading up to the ovulation John and I indulged in a sex marathon the likes of which we’d never done. By the time I arrived at the fertility clinic for insemination I felt sure I was already pregnant by him. John had taken me again and again, telling me how turned on he was that he was to be making a baby, that he wanted to knock me up the old fashioned way. I didn’t protest, I just loved him so much that whatever he wanted to do was fine.

The actual insemination procedure was a little weird. Not to mention it was uncomfortable. I remember stripping off from the waist down, laying on the table and putting my feet in the stirrups while we waited for John to produce a sample. The doctor came in and inserted a plastic catheter into my womb, I was already swollen and tender from the huge surge of hormones due to the Clomid so this actually hurt quite a bit, lots of uterine cramping. I lay back draped with a sheet vagina dilated wide with a speculum and with the medical equivalent of a long straw inserted deep within my body. After what seemed like an eternity the doctor returned with the sperm sample and used a long syringe hooked to the catheter to do this bizarre mechanical ejaculation into my womb.

The oddest bit is that Annie followed the doctor in and made sure that he did it, that the sperm came from the sample she’d watched her husband give. During the fifteen minutes they made me lay back with my knees together and pelvis tilted upwards we made uncomfortable small talk. Whatever real friendship I’d had with Annie was strained and odd now and I remember thinking I wondered if she knew that her husband and I were lovers.

Afterwards I spent the night at their home and it was a somber evening with none of the fun and gayety of previous visits. I saw my baby, I saw Emmie but Annie didn’t want me holding her. She was strangely possessive of the baby and so wrapped up in every aspect of her care that she utterly ignored John. I felt sorry for him, no wonder he’d turned to me and I started thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t be giving this perfect looking couple with an imperfect relationship my babies.

John must have picked up on my misgivings because once Annie ran out to get diapers for Emmie he slipped into my bedroom to apologize to me for Annie’s treatment of me. He said sadly that nothing gave her greater joy than being Emmies mother but that she was now jealous and insecure with me because she believed I might try to renege on the deal, keep the baby we were all trying to conceive and try to take Emmie away.

Once I knew what the problem was I chased Annie down that night in the kitchen as she was putting away the baby’s finished bottles and I told her flat out that I wasn’t going to change my mind, that’d I’d long ago concluded that I didn’t want children. Why would I want children when I’d been forced to raise most of my younger siblings. I told her I was doing this surrogacy because I loved them as a family and I wanted Emmie to have a brother or sister, it wasn’t for money, it was for love.

She broke down in tears at the kitchen table and I ended up listening to Annie tell me of her many frustrated attempts to have a baby, the miscarriages, the treatments and how desperately she wanted this but how afraid she was that I would change my mind. I listened to her spill out her own story of a dysfunctional childhood and sexual abuse at a young age.

I just sat and simply listened for a long time, treating Annie like I did my patients, suggesting different ways of looking at things and dealing with the past. I urged her to get therapy for her low self esteem and the host of other issues plaguing her from the past. Many times my emphasis was that I wanted her to be healthy for the sake of Emmie and the planned baby.

By the end of our conversation I’d managed to help her, at least I think I did. We hugged and she told me how much she’d missed my friendship.

But that didn’t stop me from allowing John to climb into my bed and onto me yet again. I was addicted to him. Not only did we make love that night with a passion I’d never felt before but on my way out of town the next day John met me at a local park, we’d pulled to a secluded spot and make love again in the back seat of my car. I rationalized it away again, I was taking the most onerous chore of Annie’s away, I was helping with the conception project but in reality I was as addicted to John worse than any of my substance abuse patients were to their drugs.

Day 11

2007-11-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

We spent that long morning and afternoon in tense conversation. Sarah didn’t say much but Ben did enough talking for the both of them. He lectured me on how far I’d strayed from home and hoe heartbroken Momma and Daddy were. That knowing I was pregnant out of wedlock would kill both of them. I carefully explained that calculated lie I’d used to great effect all pregnancy, that I wasn’t technically pregnant with an illegitimate child, that I was acting as a surrogate mother out of a combination of wanting to help an infertile couple and to raise funds to pay off my student loans. When I spoke of giving up the baby was the only time that Sarah Rachel would speak up, she kept asking, “How can you give up a baby you’ve carried all these months, a sacred gift.” and I’d said plainly, “It’s not my sacred gift.” I described the Collins to them, explaining that the baby would have all the material advantages every child deserved, that they were good people, honest, churchgoing people. I left out the part that I was deeply in love with John Collins.

Turns out that my siblings had a car and were on their way to a Bible college in Pensacola, Florida but had decided to take a weekend to drive down to Biloxi and try to persuade me back into the family fold. Apparently Farmer Henson was still waiting for me to come to my senses, return home and marry him. I told them yet again that I would not be doing that. We ended our visit on something of a stalemate, they disapproving of my life and me unwilling to go back to the family way.

In fact, during their short stay I tried to talk to both of them about the opportunities and pleasures available out in the wide world that we’d all been needlessly sheltered from as children. That not everyone living differently than the family was evil and worldly, that most people had a core of decency and goodness within, even if they didn’t believe in God. My words fell on deaf ears.

I’d been not entirely decided in buying a condo or what I would do but after my siblings disturbing visit I plunged headlong into ownership, going to the beach front development and signing on the dotted line to buy the last condo available in the development, the model home, complete with the furnishings and all. It was about as far as you could get from the sprawling farmhouse I’d grown up in.

Predictably when I got home I got a phone call from my parents. Ben and Sarah had ratted me out and Momma and Daddy furious I’d done this. They equated my surrogacy with prostitution and demanded I come home. This lead to one of the worst fights I’d had with them. Before hanging up my father stated I was now dead to the family for my sins. Fine, I shouted, if you had any real Christian love in your heart you’d understand but all you have is religion and man made laws before I hung up on them.

It didn’t matter anyway because I was packing to move in with the Collins for the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I packed quickly, in a fury to get out of there and get away from my sick family. Even my beloved sister Cynthia Rose was starting to scare me with her various plastic surgeries and how hard looking and sleazy she’d become.

I looked forward to starting my new life, in a new place, after giving birth to this child.

The drive up past Macomb, Mississippi to the Collins house seemed to take forever and I was glad when their house came into view and they both greeted me, excited to a fever pitch to be getting that long wanted child.

The days passed slowly those two weeks, I ate, I slept, I read, and I sat in the sunshine. Annie would not allow me to lift a finger to help out, she buzzed around doing all the cooking, dishwashing, and cleaning, insisting I was to rest. Time seemed to slow down with nothing for me to do.

On the day of the baby’s official due date I was surprised to see the midwife at their home. I asked what she was doing here since I wasn’t in labor and she informed me she was here to break my waters to start the labor. I really didn’t want to do this, having thought I would just wait until I naturally went into labor so I stalled, arguing with the midwife and, for the first time, with Annie. I fled from both to lock myself in my bedroom and call up Cynthia Rose, spilling out how unnerved I was by the insistence of Annie and the midwife that it was time to start my labor.

“What do you care?” Cynthia had laughed between drags on her cigarette, “Let ‘em do what they want to do because the sooner you pop out that brat the sooner you can have your life back. They’d not going to do anything that would harm you or the baby. They want that baby too badly.”

What Cynthia said made sense and I felt a modicum of calm, I came out of the bedroom and agreed to go along with the water breaking before allowing myself to be lead into the extra bedroom they’d set up as a delivery room.

What followed was a day, night and another day I would never forget. The midwife ruptured my waters and the pains began within a few hours, starting off slowly and building to a level I didn’t know if was possible to live through. I was caught in a hell of pain and panic until around five pm the following day I managed to push out a perfectly formed six pound baby girl. Seeing the look on John’s face make it all worth it. He was over the moon over his new daughter. Annie was thrilled too, but her forcing the issue of my water being broken to bring on the baby made me detach just slightly from her. I started thinking that she didn’t give a damn about me, my safety or health, and during the labor I got the distinct feeling that she would have gladly sliced my belly open with a kitchen knife regardless of how it hurt me just to get to the baby. It was a weird eerie feeling.

While I was resting after the birth John snuck into my room while Annie was busy with the baby to tell me how proud of me he was and how deeply he loved me. He sat with me awhile, smoothing my damp hair from my sweaty brow, whispering endearments.

Even though Sarah and Ben had said I would feel something for the baby, some love, I felt nothing. It was simply the byproduct of a not so good moment in my life, a mistake. So I couldn’t begrudge Annie her complete absorption in everything about the baby. I barely saw her after the birth, the midwife came in to check on me and the housekeeper they brought in brought me my meals in my room.

On the fourth day after the birth I was given a clean bill of health by the midwife and told it was time for me to go home. I drove myself home, very shaky and weak and it was only then that the enormity of what I’d really done hit me. I’d ended my place in their household, the first place I ever truly felt unconditionally loved for exactly where I was and I knew it was unlikely I’d hear from John again. I wept and wailed all the way home, pulling off the hwy several times because the tears were coming too hard and fast to see the road.

When I slowly crept up to my front door I saw a sealed envelop taped to it. A handwritten note from my father begging me to come home. I crumbled it and threw it away before crying some more. I felt completely empty in a way I never had before.

As I lay on the sofa crying a soft knock came at the door and John came in, the first time he’d dared to come to my actual apartment. Wordlessly he came him and wrapped me in his arms, shushing my tears and telling me he loved me. Nothing had changed between the two of us. He spent the night with me, a sexless night with him taking care of me after telling me that he’d told Annie he had neglected business to take care of at one of his offices. I felt immediately better. I was loved.

And we fell back into our old habit of being together several times a week from prying eyes and nosy people. Even though I was recovering from the birth and unable to make love we still flew into each others arms. John told me how the baby was doing, showing me photographs. I smiled, nodded and made all the right noises but I still felt no connection to that child even as I’d given birth to it. I kept asking about signing the adoption papers and birth certificate but John said that the midwife had filled out the birth certificate in his wife’s name so that there could be no paper trail leading back to me in years to come. My anonymity was protected. I thought this sounded somewhat off but I said nothing, after all he was a lawyer and knew about these things and I was uninterested in having this child, Emmie, turn up on my doorstep as an adult.

Yeah, they named her an amalgamation of my name, Emily and Annies, Emmie. I groused when I heard the name that it sounded like a televised award show, not the name for a precious little girl.

Day 10

2007-11-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

And that’s how the rest of my pregnancy went, I was well and healthy with the exception of a little morning sickness and I was hooked on John Collins. I took every opportunity to sneak out and meet him for sex. It didn’t matter what lie I had to tell or how far I had to drive. I was as addicted to him as the crack whores that worked the bad part of Biloxi were to their crack rocks. I loved him fiercely.

As a result I turned even more inwardly. I stopped hanging out with my friends and had no desire to be friendly with my coworkers. Most of the time I was just marking time until I could see John again and have him hold me in his arms. For the first time in my life I felt deeply loved and I blossomed under that feeling.

Cynthia Rose still tried to talk me out of my relationship but I was having none of that. I would point out to her that my life was everything it could be, I was getting high grades in college, on the verge of graduating with my Masters degree in psychology and I was in love. What more could I ask. She kept saying again and again that once the baby arrived he would dump me like used shoes.

That was the strange part to me, this pregnancy. While I felt more energy and in better health than ever before I felt no emotional attachment to the baby growing in my own body. It was more like I was temporarily harboring a parasite that was scheduled for surgical removal soon enough. When people at school and work asked me when I was getting married I’d set parrot off the lie I’d come up with to explain my pregnancy, I said I was being a surrogate mother for my eldest sister since she was infertile and desperately wanted kids. No one had to know that I didn’t have an older sister, they knew I came from a huge fundamentalist Christian family so the lie was accepted as the truth.

During that year I could feel that my siblings and myself were drifting farther and farther apart. I started seeing less and less of Cynthia Rose as my weekends with John and Annie became more frequent.

Cynthia had left the man she lived with and moved on to someone else while she’d personally taken on a more glossy sex pot look. Clothes that showed off her body every more with deep cleavage and that hugged her curves like Saran Wrap. She’d also blonded her hair to platinum and grown out her nails to dangerous lengths. In early spring she showed up at one of our brunches with bandages on her nose and a scarily large bustline, shrugging off my worried enquiries with a remark that all the top dancers had plastic surgery. To me she now looked every bit the wanton hooker my parents had dubbed her on their last visit.

Jake was involved himself with his lover. And he’d changed, turning from a handsome and earnest looking young man to something out of GQ magazine, groomed to within an inch of his life. He too looked like a stranger to me.

Every time I saw them I was more shocked by the changes that had taken place in them personally and wondered sometimes if I’d changed as much. Annie had restyled me to more of an elegant classic look and the t shirts and shorts were largely banished for the expensive clothing she bought me. I felt like I was going through a metamorphosis myself personally.

Looking back on that year I wonder how Annie could have possibly missed the signs that her husband and I had fallen in love, that we were having regular wild sex with each other. But she acted like she always did on my weekends there, like a nurturing big sister taking care of her younger sibling. Soon I was there every single weekend.

As the birth drew near I remember thinking that the arrangements they’d made sounded a little weird. From the earliest days of my pregnancy I’d been going to a doctor in Biloxi, who sent them reports on my health, how the gestation was progressing but Annie insisted that we go with having a local mid wife deliver the baby in their home. They wanted me to pack up and move in with them the final two weeks of my pregnancy. I felt odd about all of this but said yes, after all, my own mother had home births attended to only by a midwife and I had been studying to be a midwife. It was the natural way after all.

Another warning bell should have sounded when during one of my late night trysts with John in a motel halfway between his home and Biloxi he mentioned that they would be wanting me to give them another baby, one of their own using John’s sperm. He told me that Annie was going to approach me about this on the very next weekend. As we lay there in each others arms, sweaty and tousled from sex, John asked me to consider being artifically inseminated to expand their family. “Sweetheart,” he’d whispered, “there’s nothing I’d love more than a baby that was yours and mine.”

I didn’t know if I should take him seriously or not but he mentioned a figure, even higher than what I was receiving for this baby and I found myself agreeing. I loved John and I would do anything to make him happy. The idea of carrying his baby was something I would gladly do for him. And it gave me an excuse to keep on seeing him. I would be in their household still for another year or so and I’d still have him as mine for a little while longer.

Sure enough the next weekend Annie broached the idea that at three months post partum she would like me to consider being artifically inseminated with John’s sperm so that they could have a child they had a biological link to. I hugged Annie and told her I thought it was a marvelous idea and I’d be happy to do it.

What I didn’t tell them is that it would put all of my plans in jeopardy. I’d originally been planning on finding a psychologist position in another state, somewhere with better beaches than Biloxi, somewhere more cosmopolitan, say Miami or even California. But I gladly scrapped those notions and decided to look around for my first job in Biloxi after all. I’m sure I could practice at the clinic I did my student practice at now.

As summer approached I graduated from graduate school and it was a sad day while it was proud. Neither of my siblings attended even as I’d sent the invitation and I knew I was probably the only one up there getting a sheepskin that didn’t have a parent present. I hadn’t invited Momma and Daddy because I was pretty big by that point, ready to pop, the only heavily pregnant one on the platform. Annie and John Collins came and afterwards took me to the nicest restaurant in Biloxi to celebrate.

The month between the end of school and the due birth of my baby I spent working at the clinic. Just as I’d figured they were happy to hire me on as a new psychologist, pregnancy or no, and were willing to give me nine weeks off for the birth of the baby.

But a few weeks later I was asked if I would consider transferring to their Bay St Louis office where they were extremely short handed. They wanted me to start in the fall. Bay St Louis was just a short jog down the road from Biloxi so I agreed since this would be after the arrival of my baby.

I found my new schedule of just working with no schooling much easier and the salary I made was big enough for me to start thinking about moving out of my cheap little rundown apartment, to start looking for something much nicer. I haunted the beachside rentals and condos of the Bay St Louis area.

One bright Saturday morning I’d delayed my trip to see the Collins because I had an appointment with a realtor in Bay St Louis when someone knocked on my front door. I opened it, thinking it was Roberta, who I hadn’t seen in a while or any one of my other neighbors I’d been friends with. Once the Collins came into my life I admit I had almost no time for friends or anything else.

But to my surprise my brother Benjamin and sister Sarah Rachel stood there looking uncomfortable in their long very modest clothing in the humid summer heat. As I was mentally trying to figure out how old they’d be now, something like twenty one and nineteen, they both looked shocked, white faced shocked and Benjamin gasped out, “They said you’d become apostate and sinful but,, but..” My brother’s voice trailed off, not knowing quite what to say in the face of obvious sin.

I know that they, like me, was taught that some sins were almost beyond redemption, fornication outside of wedlock was one of those. “Please tell me you’re married.” Sarah said. I shook my head no and said, “Quite frankly, this isn’t really any of your business. Now tell me what you’re doing here.”

Neither would step foot over my threshold and I knew it was because they both were afraid of being tainted by my sin. There was no telling what my parents had told all my siblings about Jake, Cynthia and I. So I did the only thing I could, I lead them towards the beach and we sat down together on the steps of the seawall.

Day 9

2007-11-09T06:07:00.001-08:00

I nearly fell over into the wet sand as another blast of chilly air rushed past. Cynthia’s question threw me off balance. “What? No,, NO!” I sputtered.

“But you are,” Cynthia Rose said insistently, “You always were a poor liar, you look down when you lie and your mouth does this strange twist. You’re doing it now.”

I didn’t quite know what to say so we both kept walking on the cold wet sand, seagulls wheeling around us with their keening cries.

“I don’t know why you won’t admit it.” Cynthia Rose said again, blinking against the gray cold morning.

“Okay, okay,” I said in resignation, “I am having an affair with Mr Collins. I know it’s stupid and that after this baby is born we’ll be parted. I know it’s a dead end but that’s okay. I’m not looking for a long lasting relationship. I’ll end it after the baby is born and we’ll all move on with our lives. I didn’t plan for it to happen, it just did.”

I thought this would satisfy Cynthia Rose but I was wrong. The rest of the day she lectured me on the wrongness of it and I had to keep a poker face on because the idea of a stripper living with a married man in sin lecturing me about my own behavior seemed ironically funny to me.

But Cynthia wasn’t the only voice of morality and reason in my life. She told Jake, who promptly repeated everything she said about why I should stop sleeping with John immediately. Another one tossing stones when he himself wasn’t exactly sinless. Jake had moved in with the captain of his ship, an older man who not only employed Jake but doted on him. I couldn’t take relationship advice from him any more than I could from Cynthia.

This was the first year that none of us made the long trek home to Pennsylvania for the holidays and it was just as well. The three of us were living lives that would have caused Daddy to have a stroke and Momma to refuse to talk to us. I got a package from my parents in the week before Christmas that I unwrapped on Christmas Day. The contents of the gift made me laugh and I had to contrast it with the things that the Collins had bought me, a beautiful nightgown, robe and slippers and the most heavenly scented bath oils. Even the small gifts those of us in practicum at the local mental clinic had exchanged were nicer, scented candles, boxes of candy, gift cards.

So what had they sent me? A new Bible, with the scriptures dealing with being a sweet submissive woman to a man/family highlighted in screaming yellow. There was a pile of home made garments, a high necked white cotton nightgown, like we all wore. a new set of handmade clothes, calico of course. I sat there and fingered the pretty lavender flower pattern against the navy blue fabric on the jumper This clothing had been made with more care than our usual, the nightgown was actually pretty with the multitude of pin tucks and lace. The jumper and white cotton chemise to wear beneath showed the same level of fancy, lace, pin tucks, ribbons. Tucked into the garments was a handwritten note from Momma saying that she knew I had to have needed some additions to my wardrobe so she’d made me a special outfit, how much she enjoyed making this for me but mostly how much she missed me. I was touched, this was Momma trying to reach out, even if it was so misguided.

But that wasn’t all the package held, underneath the clothing someone had enclosed a plastic bag of my favorite candies from the local Mennonite store, coconut bon bons in every flavor, strawberry, lemon, vanilla and chocolate. And just like that I felt a sudden yearning for home, to be a child again in our old farmhouse, to sit at that long table on Christmas morning eating Momma’s special Christmas bread and cocoa before going to open the simple handmade presents we each gave one another. There’d be a roaring fire in the living room and a simple Christmas tree decorated with popcorn strings, strung cranberries and ornaments fashioned from all sorts of things like pipe cleaners or construction paper, glue and glitter. For just that moment I considered throwing it all aside and going home.

That feeling faded as I pulled the last thing out of the box. It was a note from Daddy, attached to a small box and another envelope. Daddy stated firmly that while being educated was all well and fine that I needed to come home after my studies and that he had everything mapped out for me, the direction of my life.

I opened the box to find a finely made white linen apron heavy with Battenberg lace. Once I opened the attached card I saw what Daddy had in mind about the direction of my life. Inside was a letter and a picture of a plain faced man, pink skin, tightly shorn hair, wrinkles around his eyes, like someone that has spent his entire life out in the fields battling the elements and taking whatever weather God chose to give out.

The letter was from this earnest looking man. His name was Zachariah Henson and he was from the next town over from my family’s home. He told me that he was 35 years old and a widower with four children. His farm needed a woman, a woman’s touch, and his children needed a mother. He needed a wife and wanted someone raised devoutly that would give him more children and help him run his large farm. He went on to say he’d seen me many times out in the community and had felt a strange connection. In his devotional time before the Lord it had become obvious to him that since I was now an adult I was to be his wife. He wanted to marry me as soon as I finished graduate school and said that he didn’t mind if I wanted to work at the local mental health facility in the area. He just wanted me to be his wife.

They must have told him I was hard headed and independent because Zachariah offered me much more freedom in his proposal than the average Church of the Holy Basementer.

His letter was touching and sweet and for just a moment I wished I was still that same girl I’d once been, someone who would have been happy to receive a proposal from a kind man who promised me a modicum of freedom. But I could never go back to that life regardless of how homesick for old times I felt. I started giggling uncontrollably at the thought of turning up on good farmer Henson’s doorstep after graduation with my belly sticking out a mile. I’d bet he wouldn’t be so eager to marry me then.

In my mind I contrasted this plain farmer who probably smelled of Ivory soap, hay and earth with my beloved John, with his smooth soft skin and nice smell of cologne. I cannot imagine that the farmer would be able to give me the same thrills in bed that John did either. He’d probably make love like plowing a field, straightforward, nose to grindstone till the task was finished and I’m guessing he’d never heard of foreplay.

Just knowing he had a herd of kids and expected more put chills up and down my spine too because I had no desire to ever have a family. I was enjoying my freedom too much.

So I sat down with a sigh and wrong Farmer Henson a note stating that as flattered as I was by his proposal I could not accept and I wasn’t returning home after college.

On Christmas day both Jake and Cynthia came over and we exchanged presents after having a large meal. Between the three of us we had cooked all sorts of strange things, no fresh turkey and dressing. We’d each made favorite foods like hot wings and chips with salsa, things we had never known existed until after we’d gotten free of our family.

The day was jovial and fun, at least until I received a phone call from Pennsylvania. Momma and Daddy called and after tersely wishing me a happy holiday launched into a sermon about I was to come straight home after graduation and marry Zachariah. It wasn’t the most pleasant conversation I’d had with my parents and when I tried to tell them that Jake and Cynthia Rose were there and both were doing well I was informed that both were considered dead to the family. By the end of the call Momma was crying, I was holding back tears and Daddy was barking out orders. It was a stalemate.

My siblings had only heard one side of the conversation but it was enough for both of them to figure out that our parents didn’t want to talk to either of them. I’ll always remember the stricken looks on their faces and wonder if this was the final blow that propelled Cynthia Rose even further into the world of exotic dancing.

The rest of the day was somber and I was nervously watching the clock because that evening I had another tryst planned with John Collins. Annie was going to her mothers home in Meridian, Mississippi for a few days and John was coming down here to spend that time with me in a room at the Majestic casino. We didn’t plan to leave the room, sex and room service cannot be beat.

Day 8

2007-11-08T06:48:00.001-08:00

My weekend spent with the Collins was eye opening to me on many levels. They lived like I’d never dreamed your could. In my mind I kept contrasting that huge new immaculate house with my small apartment and the drafty old farmhouse I’d been raised in. Everything was new or looked new and the house was luxurious in every way, from the wall to wall carpeting to the french doors outside. Any child raised in this home would surely want for nothing.

Annie and John treated me like I was their treasured and honored guest. They catered to my every desire, which was a bit hard for me to take because of how I’d been raised. In our household you were taught that what you wanted didn’t matter, only that you do what was necessary to keep the group going, everyone pitching in for a common goal. If you didn’t like what was being served that night you’d damn well better eat it.

I came away from that first weekend just a little bit in love with the Collins and several days later I told them that I would give them my baby. I can still hear their cries of joy and I remember feeling loved, swept into the circle of a loving family as they were insisting I spend every other weekend with them so that they could get to know me better and I would know them. The next time I came to their home the first thing that John did was pull out the contract and insist I sign immediately. I did because I was now more determined than ever to give my baby to this perfect family.

And they seemed too good to be true at first. They gave me money to help with my living expenses so I wouldn’t have to work so many hours and when I was there Annie would haul me out to shop, buying me a stylish maternity wardrobe, taking me to her hairdresser and springing for makeup at the dept store counter. I felt like a princess.

Weekends at the Collins also involved things like games, watching movies and cooking together. I got comfortable with them, so comfortable I found myself one night telling them the true circumstances of the baby’s conception. All they’d been told initially is that I’d gotten pregnant from my ex boyfriend. Now I told them what really happened, that I’d been on a blind date, a fix up and decided that I needed to know why everyone was so insane about sex and how I still hadn’t figured it out, I just knew it was better for me to live a celibate life. My pregnancy was proof of that.

In retrospect I wish I’d have never uttered those words because what happened as a direct result later left me crushed. I was so naive then as to think that most people were purely good and if you’re dealing with them in honesty they’ll not use and manipulate you.

It all started innocently, I was down at their home for the weekend sometime in my fourth month, just as I was starting to show when it started. Annie had gone to bed early with a migraine so John and I were left alone in the kitchen to do dishes and put away everything from our late dinner.

I have to confess I was halfway in love with John at this point. Everything I’d never felt before I was developing for him, falling for the adoptive father of the baby I carried. He must have seen the way I looked at him when Annie wasn’t around, my open hero worship of him must have been irresistible to him.

John stood at the sink rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwashing while I rushed around putting leftovers in plastic containers. He looked up from his soap suds and said to me, “That story you told about the night you got pregnant.. are you serious about that?”

I stopped what I was doing and I know I had to have been flushing red to the tips of my fingers. I couldn’t find my voice so I just nodded yes. I could feel his eyes on me, crawling over my bloating body and I felt something new, desire for him, desire to let him look at me however he wanted.

Turning off the faucet John turned to me, coming dangerously close to say, “That’s a shame, a beautiful girl like you should know love, passion, experience how your body was created to work.” I backed away from John and then he said, “ I just don’t want what happened to Annie to happen to you.. She was raised in a strict religious household like you and she doesn‘t like sex. She‘s refused to have sex with me since her last miscarriage three years ago. I‘d hate to see someone as beautiful and sweet as you miss out on what it means to be a woman”

I’m trembling as his closeness and I gasp out, “I’m not beautiful.”

He closes the gap between us and touches me, rubbing his large masculine hands over my belly and up to my breasts as he says, “Sweetheart, you are so beautiful to me right now. It’s all I can do to keep my hands off you.”

“But.. but..,” I sputter helplessly, part of me wanting him to stop but a larger part dying for him to keep on, “Annie.. what about Annie?”

I could feel his hot breath against my neck and I shivered. He moaned into my skin, “Annie’s told me she doesn’t care if I have lovers but I have stayed as celibate as you... until now. I can’t help this, I’m falling in love with you.”

John picked me up as though I weighed nothing and carried me out the door to the pool house. He did things to me that I’d only read about and for the first time I fully understood why Jake and Cynthia Rose fought so hard for their sexuality. I finally got it! It made sense.

Entwined with John in the moonlight I whispered to him that I wished he could have been my first. He smiled, that devastatingly charming smile and said, “Oh, but I am.. you might have gotten pregnant from that other time but you didn’t get any pleasure from it.”

And so it started. Part of me felt very guilty, I loved Annie like a sister. But the bigger part of me loved John and not like a brother. I had fallen in love with the adoptive father of my baby. Sick and twisted, yeah, I knew that. But I also knew I couldn’t live without him. I lived for the moments he was on top of me and inside me and the things he said to me. I was as firmly addicted to him as to any drug.

John and I would make up several times on the weekends at their home, whenever Annie left us alone in the house or went to bed after taking her migraine meds we were on each other like famished sailors. The garage, the pool house, the kitchen, even their own bed.

After the first month we were together things got even more intense, John swore he couldn’t live without me and we started meeting up for sex several times a week. The passion between us burned with a white hot flame. Being that John was a lawyer working for big real estate developers and he was a state senator meant that he had a good excuse for late nights and over nights from home.

I felt bad for Annie but I was too much in love to really care what the consequences of my actions could be.

The only person in Biloxi that picked up on something was my sister Cynthia Rose. We’d gone out for our usual Sunday late morning brunch and walked along the beaches, talking, sharing what the past week had brought into our lives. Now that we no longer lived together we made time to get together at least once a week. That particular Sunday Cynthia kept starting at me and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew I was getting pretty big with the baby at 6 months along but it wasn’t like I looked like a freak of nature.

As we paced the beach, braving the brisk March winds, she’d said suddenly, “You’re in love..so who is he?” I denied it, denied there was anyone and she said she knew there had to be someone, because I had that glow about me, the glow that you get when you’re madly in love and getting regular fantastic sex.

“I’m pregnant, you twit..” I’d growled out in denial, “All pregnant women glow like that.”

She pulled her sweater closer and said, “Nope, it’s not that.. Momma never glowed.. it’s love and sex.. so who is he?”

Despite the brisk winds I pulled off my sweater, I was always hot all the time now and I sighed, “Who do I even have contact with enough to have an affair with? I’m either working at the school mental health clinic or I’m in school or I’m away visiting the Collins. I don’t have time for an affair and Momma never glowed because she was too busy thinking she was fulfilling God‘s will to be happy about being knocked up..”

“So you’re happy about this now?” Cynthia questioned.

“Yeah,” I replied, “I’m helping a family that cannot have kids to have a family. Can’t I just be happy because I’m helping someone else? Is it a crime?”

“It’s not a crime,” Cynthia Rose shot back, “but it’s him.. you’re doing the husband!”

Day 7

2007-11-07T05:35:00.000-08:00

I must have walked for miles that afternoon, mulling over my dilemma before I realized I was at the same casino that Cynthia Rose danced at. She would just be coming in right now so I did like I‘d done so many times before, slipped in the door to the dressing rooms and sought her out.

Cynthia was just putting on her makeup, sitting in a high chair before the bright lights of a makeup mirror, surrounded by a large array of makeup, the biggest I‘d seen outside of a drugstore display. She didn’t pause in her makeup routine while I poured out the news that our wild weekend in New Orleans had unexpected consequences.

She kept questioning me on why I wasn’t on birth control or if Julian wore a rubber and I had to keep answering that I didn’t know if he did or didn’t because I didn’t know much about birth control. I don’t know what I was thinking, that Cynthia Rose would be sympathetic or something but she turned on me in fury, calling me the biggest dummy after hearing I had unprotected sex with Julian. What did I think would happen, she snapped at me.

It was all too much, I broke down crying, begging her not to tell Julian or his friend, her date and she promised that she would keep my secret before she moved on to the subject of abortion. When I gasped in horror and told her I could never do such a thing she sneered and told me that she’d already had two and it wasn’t that big a deal.

The thought that struck me the hardest that afternoon was how changed Cynthia Rose was and not necessarily for the better. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks since she moved out and she had already taken on a glossy hard exterior. I stared at her and tried to remember the fun loving, sweet, shy girl she’d once been contrasted to what she was now, a casino showgirl. I felt a massive amount of guilt over her change, she would still be the same girl, just a little older, perhaps married with a child or two of her own, had I not strayed off the path Momma and Daddy had laid out for our lives. If only I’d stayed the same here and never embraced the outside world and it’s influences.

But even as I was having those thoughts I knew that it wasn’t so. Cynthia Rose would have probably found another way to rebel had she not come down here and seen me living as I pleased. Besides, it was a long way from me wearing shorts to her dancing mostly naked on the stage. I’d never done that and I never would. She and I were different and I knew I didn’t really cause her life style choices.

Eventually I made her see that it would be alright to have the baby and put it up for adoption to someone who wanted a child but couldn’t have one. She seemed to be saddened by my decision and told me that she’d check on me in the few days. We parted as loving sisters again.

I went home, weary beyond words, tear stained and feeling like the weight of the world on my shoulders. Walking down the cracked cement sidewalk that ran through the apartment complex I kept my head down, not wanting the young college aged crowd that lived here to see that I was upset. Kids sped past me, someone threw a frisbee and someone else raced by on their bike. It was the usual late afternoon early evening mayhem.

But there was one person I couldn’t avoid, Roberta. Roberta was out on her front stoop in a folding lawn chair smoking a long cigarette, her usual ultra slim Virginia Slims. She took one look at my face, leapt up, cigarette forgotten and said, “Sweetie, what’s wrong.” and I crumbled like wet tissue before spilling out the whole ugly story.

Roberta listened to me cry for a long time, handing me tissue after tissue, before coming up with the first practical advice I’d gotten all day, “I might just be able to help you,” she said softly, “I know someone who’s been looking to adopt for years now. My lawyer and his wife have been on waiting list after waiting list. They’ve almost given up hope.”

And so I let Roberta handle it all, contact her lawyer and few months later I was driving up to meet them. The couple lived in rural Mississippi, about ninety minutes north of Biloxi. I was curious to meet them because Roberta described them as the perfect couple, both around their mid thirties, educated and well off. The wife, Annie, had been a nurse for many years and the husband was a successful attorney.

Annie found out after trying to conceive for five years that she was infertile. None of the surgeries or treatments she underwent helped. She had a couple of miscarriages but now it was obvious they would have to adopt. They’d tried to hire a surrogate unsuccessfully and were wait listed on the adoption agencies lists, being told it would take another five years or so to get a healthy newborn.

I knew all of this because a week after I’d confessed my problem to Roberta she’d put me in contact with Annie and her husband John. The Collins seemed almost too perfect. I’d now spoken to them separately and together on the phone many times and it wasn’t like I was going to meet strangers, they felt almost like family now.

After a number of conversations they’d offered to give me seventy five thousand dollars to give them the baby outright immediately after birth. I’d protested to them at first that I’d gone into this with no thought of getting money, in fact, I felt odd about it. But they came to make me see that it was the sensible thing to do. I was going to be graduating from grad school four or five weeks before the birth and this would give me a nice nest egg to set up a life afterwards. I’d have the freedom and the resources to set up a whole new life anywhere in the country and go to work in the fall as a psychologist.

When I discussed it with Cynthia she told me I should go for it, take the money, give them the baby and never look back or think about it again, move on with my life. Jake, on the other hand, had tried to talk me out of it, saying that I would regret giving away my child, that it would haunt me forever. I finally made him see that I was in no way ready to be a mother and I had no intention of starting my career post college as a single mom.

I drove through the charming southern Mississippi town the Collins lived in, looking at the storybook Victorian homes, the downtown area that looked like it had been dropped out of a Norman Rockwell painting and thought that this place was like some beautiful dream. The rest of the town was just as charming, I thought as I tried to read the directions on my map and drive at the same time.

The Collins lived just outside of town, down a long driveway with the house half hidden in the pine woods in a gated community. After I’d been waved through the front security gate I’d driven around the community slowly, mouth gaping, marveling at the million dollar homes hidden here in the woods. When Roberta had told me that the family was well to do I didn’t realize she meant rich. She had told me that Annie came from money, old money and that John was a successful real estate lawyer, involved in multi million dollar development deals.

The address they’d given me held a three story faux Edwardian manse in gray stone set on a landscaped lot. I just sat there in my car and stared in shocked silence at the house. If I gave my baby to these people he or she would surely never lack for anything. I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland stepped through the mirror.

Before I could gather my thoughts the Collins came bounding out of the front door, all smiles and warm welcomes. I got out of my car and just observed for a few moments. I could see the desperation in their faces, they wanted this baby with every fiber of their beings. They would do anything to make sure that they ended up with my child.

The resemblance between Annie Collins and myself was uncanny, we were around the same height and had the same coloring, dark eyes, dark hair with the same perfectly oval faces. We even wore our hair the same, straight and shoulder length parted on the side. I have to admit I found it a bit spooky. But she was dressed far more fashionable than I ever did.

John Collins was gorgeous, drop dead beautiful. He had the looks of a male model with brown hair and twinkling hazel eyes and I just stared at him in awe. He looked like a much handsomer older version of Julian and I realized that this child of mine would fit right in. Regardless of if he or she took after myself or Julian no one would question that this child belonged to these people.

With Annie fluttering around John came right off their broad steps and crushed me in a bear hug. And with that they both started talking rapidly and pulled me into the house.

When I got back I was totally convinced this was God’s favor, the perfect couple with the perfect house and the perfect relationship aligned to welcome my baby.

Part 6

2007-11-06T06:28:00.000-08:00

After that I would still get calls from my parents, but they weren’t weekly and after a year they tapered off to once every few months. The calls would always be the same theme, leave Sodom and Gomorrah and come home to marry a Holden boy and all will be forgiven.

Occasionally they would ask about Cynthia Rose and Jake and in the same breath condemn them to hell for their chosen life styles. But both of them would ask me to tell the others if they’d stop sinning and repent that the same offer stood for them. They could come home, be forgiven and resume a life of righteousness. Momma and Daddy just never got it that it wasn’t something either one of them could help, Cyn had always had a bit of a wild streak and Jake could no more help his own sexual orientation than the sea could stop hitting the shore.

Life went on. Jake enrolled in the local community college to take a year old graphic design class when he wasn’t out on the fishing boat and Cynthia Rose kept dancing, moving to a new casino and becoming one of the headliner featured dancers, pulling down serious money.

We spent our free time doing those things that had always been forbidden in our parent’s world, such as staying up all night long to watch gory horror movies and eat pizza. I tried hang gliding that summer and Cynthia took her first lover before moving out of the apartment and in with a man. Jake tried surfing and casual sex with strangers he met on the beach and in bars. I stayed celibate as always.

I watched the ease with which my siblings paired and partnered up with others for romance or sex in horrified fascination. And I realized for the first time that I had no desire to allow a man or a woman sexual access to my body. I also didn’t feel like I could ever be bothered enough to let down the emotional walls around myself to be able to have a romantic relationship with anyone. I felt no desire for any of it. I was fascinated with others ability to do so or how strongly it drove them but I couldn’t comprehend why exactly.

When I asked Roberta about love and sex she exclaimed, “Oh honey, it’s just something instinctual, like a moth being drawn to a flame.”

I still didn’t understand because I’d never felt that tug in any way, shape or form. It made me feel like an alien spying on a primitive culture that did puzzling things for the most part and it created a lot of awkwardness for me. I wasn’t as beautiful as Cynthia Rose but I must have been attractive in my own right because throughout my time in college I had a number of young men ask me for a date or try to flirt with me. It only served to make me feel even more weird and out of place.

The biggest mistake I made about my feelings dealing with romance and sex was to confess to my sister that I just didn’t get it, I didn’t understand it and I’d never felt it. Cynthia just thought it was because I hadn’t tasted it for myself and she immediately called for a weekend in New Orleans for the two of us. We both took off from work that late October evening and took the short several hour drive over to Louisiana, ending up at the bars of Bourbon Street.

Cynthia had taken care with my appearance but it only made me feel self conscience. I wore her revealing clothes with tottering high heels and too much makeup. It wasn’t long before we were joined by two very good looking young men, who stayed with us the rest of the evening. I realized pretty quickly that Cynthia has called someone and the man she was with was someone she’d known awhile and that the man hovering around me, Julian, was an obvious fix up.

I went along with everything they did that night, deciding to treat this as a quasi scientific sociological experiment, seeking to see what drove everyone else like magnets smashing together, tugged by an irresistible force. But I just didn’t get it.
Julian would kiss me passionately every now and again and I’d feel nothing more than his lips against mine, not pleasant, not unpleasant but a bit more intimate than a stranger pushing against you on a bus. I certainly felt no zing, za za zou or any other thing described by my friends.

We went along like this all night, me allowing Julian increasingly intimate access to my person, me not objecting or throwing up any roadblocks yet feeling nothing. I wondered what was wrong with me.

Even as Julian was on top of me, making rather passionate love to me I remember thinking I just wanted it to be over with, that I couldn’t breath because his bulk was squashing me to the mattress. When he caressed my bare breasts he might as well have been rubbing cantaloupe melons at the market. No response. The only thing I do remember feeling that night was a fleeting sharp pain as his hard cock penetrated my maidenhead. It eased after a moment but nothing he did made me feel pleasure, not all the foreplay before hand. I felt a strange fullness as he ploughed into me over and over again before the pressure of a pulsing wetness exploded inside. Afterwards I lay beneath him thinking, ‘Is this it?” while he lay collapsed over me, whispering, wanting to know if I came.

I lied and let him think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Once we got back home to Biloxi I found myself enduring a constant barrage of advice and questioning from Cynthia and Roberta at first and later Jake. It was just weird and broke my own personal boundaries. I realized I was more a child of my environment than I thought because sex wasn’t something I had any desire for. Perhaps all that repression and guilt as a child had seeped into my brain and I didn’t even know it.

I did know one thing. I could never have been married to one of the Holden boys and endured nightly bouts of sex like that. Not even to have a child, which we’d been taught was the ultimate task all women had been put on earth for. I didn’t want a relationship.

Unfortunately my experiment with sex had some unexpected consequences. First I started having strange painful feelings when I pee and several days later I would wake up sick to my stomach. I didn’t know what to think and I went to the university’s free clinic thinking I’d contracted a stomach virus. I remember thinking as I was driving to the clinic that thankfully I’d stopped cooking at the Seaside and now had a position at the university’s crisis hotline, talking my peers through their feelings of suicide, inadequacy, and other momentary crises. I earned credit towards my masters degree, practiced what I was learning and I make enough bank to get by on. If I’d still been cooking for a living I would have been throwing up even more having to smell greasy foods.

On that cold November afternoon I sat in a sterile tiny room, shivering, giving blood samples and urine after being examined by a practicing medical student. I remember than gray room, waiting, imagining the worst only to have a huge shock. The young doctor came into the room carrying a needle and told me that the burning and itching I was experiencing was because I’d managed to contract common gonorrhea, which one shot of penicillin would clear up. But the reason I was nauseous all the time was that I was about a month pregnant.

It seemed like he was telling me in slow motion, I saw the words leaving his mouth but it seemed to take a long time before the import of what he was saying hit my brain. When I did understand, that by allowing that stranger to shove his cock into my inner being I’d become a statistic and confirmed my parents worse fears, the room started to spin and I dropped like a stone to the floor. When I came to they were waving smelling salts under my nose and insisting that they call someone to come drive me home.

There was no way on this planet I was ready to face my siblings so I called a cab and while I waited the kind young doctor kept telling me about my options, abortion, adoption, having and keeping the baby and how I could find resources and help. I knew, even then, that there was no way I could contemplate abortion. I still had enough of my parents morals within me to know that I would feel damned to hell if I even contemplated destroying this innocent life created by my drunken coupling with a stranger. I could not compound my sin.

Yet I knew at the same time that I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to be a mother. I knew I would have to bear this child and put it into the arms of someone else. Adopt it out. Even though I knew this was the best thing for everyone involved, for me, for the child, for the future, I still sat in that institutional gray waiting room and wept. I didn’t want this.

Completely out of the question was calling up Julian and telling him that he was going to be a father. I barely knew him and there was nothing he could say that would sway me. I knew my parents could be appeased if they found out about this by marrying Julian but I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t image a lifetime living with him, having his body poking into mine in that degrading fashion every day or so. Plus telling him was no guarantee that he would want anything to do with the child. Swinging bachelor that he was he’d probably offer to pay for the abortion.

We did have some connection, Julian kept calling me every few days, trying to arrange another date, telling me he missed me and wanted to be with me, hinting that what he was really after was another sexual tryst.

When the cab finally came I didn’t go home, I went to the casinos lined up along the shore like glittering palaces. I walked through the garish interiors looking at the gamblers, people watching, wondering about their secrets. Did that blonde in the corner, with fake breasts and loud clothing have an abortion? Did she ever have to make this terrible choice? What about that man in pastel polyester pants, did he ever hump a stranger and get her pregnant?

I paced through the bright lights, bells and whistles trying to figure out for sure what I would do.

Day 5

2007-11-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

How shocked they were when both Cyn and I declared that neither of us were interested in getting married. Cynthia sneered in their faces, telling them that they’d kept us sexually repressed and child like for too many years and she was enjoying the power her sexuality held for her personally too much to do something like get married. Marriage was for suckers, she yelled, shocking them both. She planned on getting as much money as she could out of her sexuality and that didn’t involve marriage to some clumsy virgin back on the farm. Dancing was the way to do all of that

“Why marry someone when I can just have all his money by wagging my ass in his face from a stage and not have to put up with his bull shit?” she screamed at them before running out the door clad in her skimpiest bikini. She’d donned her swim suit upon hearing the commotion in the small living room.

Once Cynthia departed Jake had emerged from the shower and my parents tore into him, calling him cruel names like ‘faggot’ and ‘fairy’ until Jake had screamed out that he never wanted to see them again and he ran out of the door, leaving me alone with our two livid and shocked parents.

Momma had motioned to me and said pleadingly, “Emily Ann, come home. Forget all this education nonsense and just come home. You don’t want to marry the oldest Holden boy, alright, you don’t have to. But just come home. You can share a room with your sisters Bethany Marie and Margaret Mary. Just come home and we’ll figure out what to do. Leave all this sinful lifestyle and nonsense, you always were the practical, sensible one. Can’t you see you need to be back in the bosom of your family now? We’ll forgive whatever it is you’ve done.”

This was hard for me, standing in open opposition to my parents, their rules and laws and I started to shake then, stalling for time for a few minutes before saying, “Momma, Daddy, I love you, I love both of you so much but there is something you need to know. I’m not coming home. I want to help people and I love the field I’ve chosen. In just a year or so I could be out practicing on my own, helping people with all sorts of mental illnesses..”

At that point my father cut me off with a stern, “There are no things like mental illness. It’s judgment from God for sin laid upon the sinful.”

I pleaded, “Daddy, that’s just not so. People don’t have nervous breakdowns and chemical imbalances and depression because a vengeful God is judging them.. It can be any number of things but it’s not God causing it to punish them. That’s an old fashioned notion only someone compassionless and lacking any understanding would believe.. I believe this is what I’m called to do here on this planet, to help others through their mental battles and I don’t see why you would object so much. I’m proud that I’m self supporting, that I’m almost got a degree in a field I love. I don’t know that marriage is in the cards for me, I have plenty of time to decide that but I have a life I love and I’m not going home.”

“You!” Daddy shouted, shaking his finger in my face, “You are the succubus responsible for the rebellion of your brother and sister. If you hadn’t have rebelled against us like this and broken with the family your sister wouldn’t be a whore and your brother would still be on the right path.”

I sighed, suddenly sick of this fighting, “Look, I had nothing to do with anyone else’s decision. Jake was away at Liberty these three years and I only saw him when you did. I had no influence over him.”

“But he ran to you with his sin.” my father shouted.

“Because he knew I would love him as my brother regardless of what he had done or was or experienced. He knew I would love him unconditionally and help him get through this. Did it ever occur to you, Daddy, that when I was home I was the one mostly in charge because you were always busy working your real estate business and Momma ignored everyone but the youngest baby she was nursing? Jake ran to me because I was always the one in the family cleaning up the messes. Which is another reason I’m going to make a great psychologist.”

He turned and glared at my mother, “Is this true, Edna?” Before my eyes my mother shrunk back, away from Daddy’s piercing gaze and seemed to get even smaller in her floral jumper, paling before squeaking out in a girlish voice, “I’ve done what’s been required of me by the Lord.”

Softly I say, “Both of you should be proud of me. I’ve done well on my own. I am well on my way to having a degree, I have a life, an apartment and a job. I saved up and bought a car last year. I’ve done nothing wrong and I didn’t lure or influence Cynthia Rose and Jake to do what they did. If anything I’m as shocked by what Cynthia said about her sexuality as you are. I thought she was just a waitress at the casino. They were both determined to leave the courses you’d planned for them.”

Daddy sighed and sat down suddenly on my wicker sofa, “Yes, but you showed them it was possible to stay from that course. Why, why’d you reject everything your momma and I struggled to teach you? You were so pretty when you would dress right and you used to always do what you were told.”

“Daddy,” I sighed, “You’ll always be my daddy, but what I did wasn’t done out of rebellion. It was done because I felt called to do something different than what you and Momma had planned for me. I don’t think I ever want to get married and I knew after a few years that I really didn’t want to be a midwife. I just want to live my own life without being forced to submit to false standards of humility and rules. Be who I am.”

Momma spoke again, “Honey, just come home. You don’t want to marry or deliver babies, fine. You feel like you want to help people feel batter, fine. Just come home and we’ll let you do something like work at the local food pantry or maybe at the hospital. Just come home.”

Tears filled my eyes as I choked out, “Momma, I can’t.” The weigh of what I’d just done hit me like a ton of bricks and I sagged to a floor and bit back a sob. I knew that by saying I wasn’t coming home that the door was shutting. I’d never be allowed back in my family ever. Sure, I’m positive they’d let me visit and would answer my calls and letters but I would never be able to return home as a beloved child of this family.

They stood on either side of me, neither having enough compassion for me to try and comfort me and my father spoke, “The choice is yours, Emily Ann, We’re going to stay in town for two days and you can come to our hotel room at the Emerald Waters at any point to tell us you want to come home and.. we’ll take you back. But if we leave without you then you’re walking in sin. Cynthia Rose and Jake are dead to us but you don’t have to be.”

I lay on the floor sobbing for a long time after they left, a miserable sodden ball of flesh curled into the fetal position. I felt the weight of their rejection of who I was so keenly that I wasn’t sure I wanted to live. I could do nothing but lay on the floor and weep.

After a long while I heard a light tap on my door and it creaked open, “Sweetie, are you alright?” I heard and looked up to see my transgendered neighbor Roberta standing over me with a look of concern on her pretty face. I started weeping harder, a stranger loved me and showed more concern over me than my own parents. Pretty screwed up situation.

Roberta helped me up off the floor, wiped my face down with a cool damp washcloth while clucking out sympathetic remarks. Her kindness just make me cry harder so she pulled a bottle of pills from her pocket and said, “Here sweetie, take one.” She handed me a glass of water and I swallowed one of her valiums. Roberta pulled me up off the couch and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We spent that evening walking barefoot in the sugar white sands of the local beaches, listening to the surf pound the shore as the sun went down. I don’t k now how long we walked but as we walked Roberta shared with me her own story. How she’d been born with both sets of sexual organs yet her strict Jehovahs Witness parents refused to allow the doctors to remove either set or do anything about sexual assignment. They had her vagina sewn shut yet refused to allow the medical community to give her the hormones needed to turn her fully into a boy. So she grew up, raised as a male but with a strange not female not quite male physiology. Roberta told me all about how she never felt real, like she fit in with her strict family and how it took over 35 years for her to realize she was pretending to be who she really wasn’t and what happened between her and her family once she decided to be fully female.

Some of this I already knew, I’d been using Roberta as part of my practicum hours I needed to graduate, but between the valium and hearing a story so familiar in many ways I felt much calmer. No matter who my family were, if my parents accepted or rejected me, or who I really was there were always going to be people out there in the world that would love and accept me for me. I wasn’t alone no matter what it felt like at that moment.

It was an important turning point for me and I walked back to my small apartment in a still calmness I’d never experienced before. There was no temptation that long weekend to go to my parent’s hotel room and ask to go home. They even called shortly before leaving and begged me to change my mind and I said pleasantly to them that I thanked them for their concern but it was misplaced.

Both Jake and Cynthia stayed away from the apartment for the weekend. I think both feared that Momma and Daddy had camped out there in an attempt to force us all back into the family mold. I managed to find Jake late Sunday night, drunk at a local gay bar and tell him that our parents had gone back home. It took me a few more days to track down my sister and let her know. I found out she’d been dancing double shifts at the casino and sleeping in the dressing room. They both came home and life resumed it’s normal routine again. Me at the diner or campus, Jake on the fishing boat and Cynthia Rose either at the apartment or the casino.

Day 4

2007-11-04T09:26:00.001-08:00

But eventually I figured that Cynthia was legal age and she surely knew what she wanted to do. While I found it shocking I could see the type of money she was pulling down. It made my wages from the Seaside seem pitiful when once I’d felt like it was big money.

When you’ve never had any money even the smallest salary seems like riches beyond compare. While we’d been growing up we’d never been allowed more than the occasional quarter or dime, and even then we were told that only worldly sinful little girls and boys spent those coins, that we were to be righteous and save them. We dutifully deposited those small coins in our piggy banks.

Momma and Daddy must have realized how ill equipped to handle finances that all of us leaving home were because each of us was sat down, given a certain sum of money to help get established in our college life and subjected to a lecture on finance. My first few months of freedom I had to send home a ledger sheet and receipts showing how I was spending my money. My parents relaxed this after they realized I was not blowing it on stupid stuff. With my later siblings leaving for school they dropped it down to just the lecture before leaving and the strict warning that they would not bail out anyone living unrighteous.

My parents eventually did find out that Cynthia and I weren’t exactly living model Quiverful lives in my senior year of college. First, I’d lied outright to my parents, telling them that I needed to stay at Southern Mississippi Christian College to get an Advanced Midwife Certification. They still didn’t know that I’d changed schools and was studying the sinful in their eyes major of psychology. I was actually doing some practicum at the local mental health clinic during my senior year.

I remember how easily the lie about the advanced certification slipped from my lips and how I felt entirely justified. Through my psych classes I’d come to understand how brainwashed and manipulated all the children in the family had been. It was the very reason I wasn’t even concerned with Cynthia’s nearly naked job. I figured she was in a rebellion against how’d we’d been raised and who it was expected we would become.

How we were found out occurred just by chance, the tumblers on the locks of the universe lining up exactly right. First Southern Mississippi Christian College sent a letter home to my parents asking if I or Cyn ever intended to take up my studies in midwifery with them again because they were discontinuing that major. They wanted to know if they needed to transfer our records.

The second thing that happened was that our older brother Jake, had left Liberty University without his degree the month before after being caught with another male student in a sexual tryst on campus. Jake didn’t go home, Jake headed straight to Biloxi and took a job on a local fishing boat. It was a fishing boat that fished for the type of ocean fish that ended up in cat food. One of the big employers in Biloxi was a cat food cannery and we joked that when the winds blew right you could smell the Meow Mix.

Jake slept on our sofa and the three of us settled into a comfortable routine. During that month I put some of my beginner psych skills to the test and listened to him agonize over his failures to live up to Momma and Daddy’s strict standards. I was able to interject enough times that the way we’d been raised wasn’t exactly right to start to make Jake realize that who he was inside was something he could not help. It was just him, not his fault, nothing to feel guilty over.

We could have continued living and working and going to school like that for another year but at the same time that Southern Mississippi Christian University sent our parents a notice about the program so did Liberty University sent Jake’s official expulsion letter home as well. The expulsion letter explained in great detail why Jake had been thrown out the month before and as soon as it arrived at the house Momma and Daddy somehow figured out that Jake had gone south to Biloxi rather than home to Pennsylvania.

Before we knew it they were on our doorstep.

When they knocked on our apartment door I’d thought it was a neighbor, not my parents. We lived in a funky rundown old hotel converted to small one bedroom apartments. The hotel had been considered fancy and luxurious around the turn of the century,. hosting presidents and Hollywood royalty but now it was peeling sun faded paint and Victorian architecture overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

We were all home, Cynthia was sleeping before her casino shift and I was between classes and my shift at the Seaside while Jake was showering off the stink of the fishing boat. I had on my usual summer time uniform of shorts, t shirt and flip flops and sat at our tiny kitchen table having my nails painted a vivid fuchsia by Roberta from next door. Roberta had once been a ‘Robert’ but was now three years post op from sexual reassignment surgery and she talked to me a lot after discovering I was studying to a psychologist. I had asked her everything I could think of about her life, her childhood and how she’d come to make this decision. I don’t know who Robert was but I did know that Roberta was loving, genuine and gentle person, one of my many friends in this town.

Looking back at that day I can see us at the table, radio on blaring classic rock and roll with Roberta applying swift coats of nail polish, her own long fingers gripping the polish brush and darting in and out of the polish bottle like a delicate dance, wielding the brush gracefully. I remember admiring her graceful ways and feeling gawky and clumsy next to her femininity.

The knock came and I across slowly, carefully, so I wouldn’t smear the polish and twisting the front door knob open slowly due to my wet nails. My parents stood on the doorstep radiating a cold fury. I remember feeling very afraid seeing my father’s nostrils flare and the red in my mother’s face, the red misery indicating she’d cried a great deal.

They came into the room like they owned it and I was helpless to do anything but back into the room away from them, in disbelief that they were here. My father glared at Roberta and she sputtered out apologies, picking up manicure supplies before leaving herself.

What ensued was a terrible scene in which Cynthia and I were labeled whores by our father for dressing with so much skin showing. The truth came out, that Cynthia was an exotic dancer at the casino, I was studying to be a psychologist and that Jake had moved in with us to start working on a fishing boat. Our parents raged, called us names and demanded we all return to the fold, give up our sinful ways and return home. My father informed both Cynthia and I that we were betrothed to men he’d picked out for us so we should pack our bags and get ready to leave. They told Jake that to them he was now dead, that there was no forgiveness for fornicating homosexuals, only shunning and damnation.