Dear Liz,

            It’s been a long and wonderful day. How much better I feel! You have such a gift for words! I love the central character the way she’s turning out in the book! I could never be that free of a spirit, but I enjoy hearing about her and knowing that I had even a small part to do with her inception. I had to go pee and I’m so restless! It was the same way when I was carrying Troy. But I was a lot younger then. I’m almost thirty!!!! The big Three-Oh!

            Thank you again. I’m so rummy I’m probably repeating myself. I get sleepy then I get to thinking about flying across all that empty water. What if the plane falls down and there’s no island near by? What if there is an island nearby but its inhabited by head hunting cannibals?

            Thank you again...no, I know I said that already! But I still mean it! I can’t think of a better friend than I have in you. Can I only be friends that I’m thousands of miles away from?  

                                       Cloudy

  ♥

Capitola, California

1:07 am

 -

Dear One,

            ‘Where the sun always shines there’s a desert below!’  That’s an old saying that gets more true with every new crisis I face. Three oh? Try Five oh before you dare to complain you, dear sweet child you! Was your great grandfather really eaten by a bear? I must put that in the book somehow!

            You have such a vivid imagination you are headed in the right direction! Either you’ll be a writer or a con man! And though you are helpless cute and adorable, I think the world would be better served by having another writer! 

            And yes, it meant so much to me that you’d let me pour all that ‘stuff’ out on you. I have a thousand people who know my name, but so few friends that distance doesn’t matter. But look to your own life, like that wonderful man you told me about, Grandfather Webb?  I think you have a much greater impact on the lives around you than you even guess, dear Sunni. Only part of that is due to your Daddy, though you like to give him all the credit. I envy you having some one to love and nurture you that much. If I weren’t so intimidated about what you’ve told me about your Uncle James, I’d find out more about them, they sound like book material.

            In the meantime, don’t be such a stranger. Cable collect if you have too, but I want weekly updates on your trip!

            Be good, Sugar!

                                       Your old friend, Liz

-

            The chill November sunlight slipped behind a cloud, filling the empty breakfast nook with sudden shadows as the petite black woman read yesterday’s email. Her hand responded instantly to the old black dog’s quest for reassurance as Laird pressed his muzzle against her knee, and for some reason she felt impelled to search out the framed picture of Delores and her grandfather from the collection resting on the lower shelf. They all needed dusting but it was hard to make herself do it knowing they were leaving tomorrow and the agency person they hired would be required to do routine house -keeping chores while they house sat. It felt as if she were emptied out, not just the house! At the last minute they’d felt the old dog would be more comfortable with a stranger taking care of him in familiar surroundings than a friend caring for him in strange surroundings, but it didn’t ease the small ache she felt at leaving him behind.

            Suddenly she was a child again, climbing up the rough ladder into the hay loft. She could feel the warmth of the wood, the smooth and the splintered places under her fingers. She could hear the chill Atlantic winds whipping against the bared shrubs but it was summer and there was also the sound of mice scurrying away, thinking she was DomiNick the tom cat.

            “   You be the Indian chief and I’ll be Woodrow Harkness!   “

            Queenie’s voice demanded, more sure of herself because of the slight difference in their ages, and because she was latter, even then,

            Of course, she complained. She wanted to be Caitlin, but she never got too. Then she found herself envisioning the old fashioned name spelled with a “y” rather than an “I” and she knew what she wanted the child to be named, if it was a girl. She’d ask Lionel tonight after they were on the plane and their ears had adjusted to the pressure. It was going to be a long flight to Europe. Even if she had to settle on Caitlyn being a middle name, she didn’t mind. She’d suggested ‘Delores’ to honor her best friend but even Delores had said ‘no’ emphatically! Some old fashioned named would have to wait until they came back in style. They’d pretty much agreed that if it was a boy, he and Troy would name the baby but if it was a girl, then she was true too, pending their approval of course. Troy was so excited at the prospect of being an older brother and starting Preschool all in the neat year!

            She smiled, but somehow she felt more comfortable slipping back to that other seven year old, the one who occupied such a large part of her heart and memories. They did many things up in their secret ‘fort’, gone to the moon and back and living as Joseph and Patter in the Caribbean. Even getting to play the part of white skinned Cleopatra once in a while, while Queenie strutted around as Joseph and got to do the things that only boys got to be, at least for a little while. In real life they were both painfully shy, except around one another she realized with an adult’s introspective nature, without relinquishing the comfort of the much loved child. 

            There was a sadness on Vernon Emmett’s face that she’d never noticed before. Leaving the email on the screen, she reached up and picked up the ornate, gilt frame, looking deeply into the eyes of the man and woman frozen in time. She’d never known the Judge personally, and yet like Papa Webb he was as real as flesh to her. She’d stood on the stump of the tree that Uncle James had cut down after Papa Webb died. They cut it up but never burned the wood. It rotted, stacked in a neat pile, a strange monument to the racial hatreds of the past. Then she looked at the dark skin holding the frame.

            She seldom thought of herself as ‘white’ or ‘Black’ or ‘Korean’ or ‘half-breed’, yet all the labels applied to her in some way. Because she’d married a man so black that he was darker than most of the indigenous Africans still in Africa, she had assured her unborn child there would be no questions such as she had endured growing up in a rural, largely white town. There wasn’t open hostility toward her, only a handful of veterans who couldn’t forgive her Korean half for what they and their buddies had endured in their teen-aged years when slogans and authority were still powerful motivators in their lives.  

            The sharp, unexpected return of winter mellowed sunlight struck her and she jumped, waking the old dog and making him leap up, despite his sore hip. By the time she had him settled and soothed, with a dog brisket treat for his unintentioned injury, she’d forgotten what it was that had so obsessed her. Rather than risk allowing it to return when she had so many last minute things to do while Troy napped, she closed the computer connection, and with it, the past. It was annoying to have the black Labrador under her feet every third step but she tried to tolerate it. Finally she just opened the back door, allowing a chill blast of wind to race through the entire kitchen and dining room area. Laird slunk out to his heated dog run, tail dropping, but she steeled herself against the ravages of unexpected emotion, telling herself it was just her body getting accustomed to the new baby. But she knew better and she hated lying to herself about it.