I'll never let go of your hand

During the months after the awaking the gavel coming down brought me to the sleep of of a whole different kind, a waking dream of me sleepwalking. My mind not wanting to really accept He didn't love me. He never loved me. I was that easily replaced when too old. All those promises were lies. The children I created with him were nothing. Not made of love. Not sacred.

It would have been easier if I had some friends. I seemed to have isolated myself here on this hill, in the farmhouse so old and wooden, so many years ago. I brought my children to a place to be raised of frogs and chickens.

I forgot all but those fun things small farm towns had. The remembering everything else was the hardest part. In the beginning it didn't matter really that I wasn't accepted for the talented, creative, mysterious, loving, kind, curious, magical person I was. All they saw was the mark of my freakishness on my face and my rock star attitude. None of the rest. I tried. They just couldn't see beyond their own preconceptions of me. But unlike when I was a child, I had a man, we had a plan. We had a family. And they could go jump in the big ole lake that housed a town at the bottom of it.

That attitude didn't help when you are without a man. Now I am the freaky bitch who couldn't keep her man. Some of the older women in the shops gave me that look of pity as I try to wrestle my girls out of their stores without too much incidents. It is considered a success if it is under a half hour and nothing gets broken, with one girl going this way, Freedom holding another , another goes another way and Freedom bitching about the child she is holding.

I don't like going to the stores. Not that I have the money for it.

Money. That child support that was ordered came regular for the first few months, then, then... well we all know how this story goes. You get some here and there. when the mood strikes him or he feels guilty. Having children with no friends or family to watch them means mama don't work.

So small town in the boonies and not one outed gay man about for me to lay my pitiful head on his shoulders equals one sorrowful pitiful Emma.

Yup, I dropped the Butterfly crap for the locals, trying to fit in, you know.

Nowadays. I find myself making bathtub wine, in my spear time and finding the occasional extra change for Malibu to drown my sorrows in.




I yearn, in my time of my eyes closing tight, for arm around me, I can almost remember the feel of Ian's around me as we danced or as I made dinner when he came up from behid, not to mention the times in the bed, I have such a hard time thinking of it as making love any more.

In those times, I awake to believe it was all a bad dream and I forget he is not here. His side of the bed as cold as the day he left it. It comes rushing back as I begin my day.

Midsummer's night.

Oh how I miss England.

All the stories of magical Fae.

Where ecsentric is just a quirk of nature to make life more interesting.

Oh England. Where my only family lay.

I think.

Last time I talked to Kim he said he wished me luck and love. He said he wish he could over here and solve all my problems but... oh I hate that word, it is like it negates everything before. Not that I blame him. He said we both had families. He said we both had responsibilities and his keeps him in England. He now looks for talent like his step dad did. He has 3 children of his own. Though he did end with: " you are always welcome to come back home, the wife can help you with those beautiful girls of yours. And if I ever see Ian again, I will make good on my promise made on your wedding day. Luv ya sis, got to go."

I can't blame him and sometimes I think about selling off the farm and moving back home. But, we are both adults now and he shouldn't be having to take care of me all my life. He was my white knight once. He has a woman and children who needs his protection now.

We called every now and again. When I couldn't afford the phone bill so that put the end to that when the phone was shut off.

Midsummer's' night.

Warm and cloudless. Stars that went on for ever. The fireflies tries rival the stars for my attention. They hovered and swirled in their lover's dance.

Me and my wool blanket full of sunset colours. We bought it out west when we went to the Navajo reservation. I wanted to see if Suzie was still there. She wasn't. It is funny how you go to a far away place to find your past and realize that it vanished and all the players moved on. We stopped at a trading post found the blanket for our bed. The man behind the counter recognized my butterfly. Joseph. He sold trinkets to the tourist. He got grown up with a family. Funny he was still a boy in my head and I still a little girl in his.

The blanket I should have burnt it. I could not. More than Ian it reminded me of Joseph. I can't get rid of one of the memories with out the other going up in smoke too.

I have my old steel guitar and a bottle of Malibu.

The were girls asleep, I locked the doors and went to watch the moonless night under the old apple tree. The moss under it is soft and cushy.

I play old blues songs of lost love and heart ache. Most of them by men. I fell asleep when I could stand no more about how when are so wrong.



"Wake up , child!" I heard and it felt like someone kicked my butt.

"Girl! I said wake up your lazy good for nothing butt up!"

Damn all this yelling I rise from my sleepy drunkenness.

Damn I must be drunk. He sounds so familiar that deep old voice.

"Now don't you be treating that child like that, Moses, she's got the blues something bad." A soft voice said.

I got to my elbows and tried to focus on what was going on.

"Moses?" I said. Slowly figures seem to come to focus, illuminated by the fireflies and glowing against the night.

"Who do you think it is? Denzel Washington?"

"How do you know about Denzel?"

"Oh child, I am dead I am not uninformed! And especially not uninformed about your foolishness!" Moses said in that very scolding tone I heard only once or twice.

"Moses!"

"Oh Precious, you see this foolishness this child has gotten up to! Don't be Mosesing me."

"She has been going though a lot. But darling, it is enough now. Those babies need you! You are their mother and that Freedom of yours, she's having to grow up too quick. You are hurting that baby of yours."

I looked down. The bottle was empty. The words stung. "I just don't know what else to do."

"You be a MAMA! How hard is that! I taught you better than this, child. You are being as bad as that mother of yours and those grandparents who couldn't care less for you. " Moses word made me cry.

"Baby, tears wont help those girls, you SHOW them that you LOVE them. You pick yourself up, brush off your derriere and get back to raising those girls right! It wont hurt to take them to church, too. You got any good Baptist preachers up here? "

I started laughing at Precious words. "I think I am five steps beyond church. No Baptists here only judgemental white women wearing pink sweaters."

"Oh, child, We had those down south, too. White or coloured folk, those pink sweater ladies are more judgemental than any good Christan should be. BUT that never kept good folk like you and me from going to church. Your daughters ever been to church?" Precious said.

"Not all of them." I looked back down to the moss under my hands.

"Than you better get them there. It is Sunday morning after all."

"But you are just a midsummer's' nights dream." I shook my head.

"We may be a lot of things, girl, but it is time for you to get your ass up and get those babies to church. Here comes first light." Moses points to the east and indeed I see the sun rising.

"Not much time to make breakfast and get those girls dressed." Precious said in such a loving voice.

"But I... is this all you have come to me for? To scold me? I am so lost."

"You are lost. So I gave you a kick in the butt to show you the direction home. Don't make me do it again!"

I sat up straight now covering my butt with the solid ground.

"We love you baby, that is why we came. You do what you are supposed to, trust in the good Lord to take care of the rest." Those loving words Precious said as they faded into the sunrise were the most kind words I heard in a long time.

I got up grabbed my guitar and blanket and bottle went into the house.

I deposited the bottle in the trash and started making pancakes.

I have made pancakes every Sunday since.

The smell of pancakes woke the girls. I set the table and explained they all needed to get dressed after they ate in their finest clothes.

"Why?" Freedom asked more bratty than curiously.

"Because we are going to church."

"What's church?" Solace and Chaz asked

"You'll find out. And if we like it maybe we will go back some more."

They started scampering off to their rooms to change when I heard "I love you Mummy" and I realized I have heard those words all this time. It just dawned on me that every day I was showered with love I just wasn't willing to except it because it wasn't the kind I wanted.