Tessa is an over ambitious young woman.  She turns over her father's farm to an organic farm, becomes a chef, competes in a competition of young chefs, opens a restaurant, raises pekin ducks and emus.  She has one great fling and a drunken night.  Tessa sees love all around her but thinks she will never find that one true love. Written by Kimberly Caristi Tessa is an over ambitious young woman. She turns over her father's farm to an organic farm, becomes a chef, competes in a competition of young chefs, opens a farm to table restaurant, raises pekin ducks and emus. She has one great fling and one drunken night in Italy which is life altering. Tessa sees love all around her but thinks she will never find that one true love. This Magic Moment My excitement was so hard to contain. I was finally going home with my school art project that I worked so hard on. I couldn’t wait to show my mom and dad what I had been working on. As a second grader I was one of the last kids to get on the bus. There were only a couple of kids in first grade and afternoon kindergarten who were behind me. I was very proud of my project, and I bounced my way up the stairs to show Mr. Vanleer, our bus driver, my house. I had picked the nicest looking popsicle sticks to make my farmhouse. I colored them with the salmon marker making sure that I covered the whole stick in a pretty pink color. Of course, my house might have needed to be painted again but that didn’t matter. I was going to give it to my dad, showing him how much I loved our house and him. I was beaming from ear to ear after Mr. Vanleer said it was the nicest house he had ever seen. I had only gotten past a few rows when some mean boy thought it would be funny to trip me, which sent the house flying and to my utter dismay crashing into three pieces. My heart was broken. I was trying desperately not to cry because I had been taught that big girls don’t cry, nonetheless, a few tears did escape. I was saved by our neighbor Chase, who helped me pick up the pieces and had me sit with him. Chase was in seventh grade. He was the oldest of five brothers, all who rode the bus with my sister and me. Frank was in fifth grade, the twins Louis and Gab were in third grade with my sister Tina, and Andy was in first grade. Chase was so helpful; he used his chewing gum to glue back the pieces together. He talked to me about my house and asked me what my favorite subject was in school. We talked the whole way home. He carried my art up to the front of the bus when it was my turn to get off. His was the next stop after you crossed over the creek. When the weather was bad the bus didn’t cross the creek because it would never make it up that hill it was so steep. They either had to walk the rest of the way home or if they were lucky their mom would pick them up. I would never want to walk across that creek in the wintertime when the water was as cold as ice. Once I fell in the creek where it crossed our property and I was swiftly picked up by my dad and he ran with me in his arms all the way to our house. I was wrapped up in blankets and heating pads for a couple of days and got all the hot chocolate that I wanted. I walked our long driveway home with Tina talking all about Jordan, her new love. Tina was only nine but that was all she talked about was love. I have heard my mom and dad talk about her obsession with love. Apparently, it scared both of them. I was too young to understand it but I thought I would have been scared too if I were her mom. While she yammered on about him and how the other girls were jealous of her, I thought about how kind Chase was and thought he was the nicest boy I knew. Maybe I loved him. The Very Thought of You As the years went on, I watched Chase become the king of the bus. His word was law and everything he said went unprotested. He picked the radio station, and we all had to be happy with his choice of music…no one protested. If someone sat in his seat all he had to do was stand there and look at them. He never lifted a fist as far as I saw, unlike his brothers who were always fighting. Even the older kids who still rode the bus deferred to Chase with his undeniable presence. One day when I was in seventh grade I was late getting on the bus. There was only one seat that had only one person in it and that was Chase’s. I saw there were kids with three to a seat. No one ever asked Chase if they could sit with him. He was a senior and there were unwritten bus rules never ask to sit with a senior. The route our bus took in the afternoon was pick up the kids from the high school first then it went to the middle school. We drove a half hour to the elementary school which was another half hour to our house. Half of the kids got off our bus and got on their buses to go in all directions. If you were flying overhead when all the buses left the school, you would have thought it looked like a bunch of yellow ants leaving the anthill. With my arms full of books and a cake pan, I very tentatively asked Chase if I could sit with him. He picked up his book bag without saying a word. I was so nervous I could feel the sweat trickling down my back on that cold winter day. I didn’t want to bother him, so I sat staring straight ahead. Usually, I was very talkative with everyone, but it was Chase, he was the king. I saw that he was eyeing me out of the corner of my eye. Finally, I took a deep breath, “Do you want to say something?” I should have asked meekly but there was not a meek bone in my body. “I am just wondering if there is something in the cake pan you have sitting on your lap,” instead of being gruff he smiled at me. “Yes, I had to do a speech about France so I made a couple Buche de Noel to share with the class.” “A what?” “It is a cake made to celebrate the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It’s from the Celts.” I was very chipper of course I was it had to do with France. Anyway, I was proud of myself for knowing all this information about a simple cake. Since he hadn’t stopped smiling at me that made me nervous. A smile shouldn’t make you nervous, it just was the way he was smiling. I continued talking, which was my forte other than baking. I started baking with my mom when I was five since she started working outside of the house. I have gradually started to bake more and sometimes made dinner. I was getting better because we were eating more of it than our dog, Rusty, though when I started Rusty wouldn’t even eat it. “Anyway, a Buche de Noel is like a Swiss roll. Do you know what a Swiss roll is?” “How old are you?” he asked, almost laughing at me. “Twelve? Why?” I said it like I had done something wrong. “You sound like you are way older. Do you have any left?” I was a little worried because if everyone asked, I wouldn’t have any left for my dad and I promised him a piece of cake. I guess I could just make a new one. “Yes.” I said timidly. “Can I taste this Buche de Noel?” I laughed at him butchering the pronunciation. I was thankful he laughed, “You have a great laugh,” he said leaning over to my ear in a low tone. I turned red. In a similar low tone I said, “Yes, but please don’t let anyone see because I don’t have enough for everyone, and I want to save a piece for my dad.” In a hushed tone he said, “Okay.” I snapped off the lid on the side closest to him and lifted it just enough that he could get his hand in and out without losing the slice of cake in his fist. He carefully took a bite with his head against the seat in front of him trying to hide that he had something. I watched patiently to see what he thought. I didn’t have to wait very long, and he turned his head and with his eyes open wide, “You made this?” I nodded my head. “This is very good.” Frank turned around, “What’s good? Do you have food?” Chase licked his lips very fast and lifted his head to confront Frank, “Clean out your ears! I said, ``It is good that she is going to move when the little kids get on the bus.” He gave me a look and winked with the eye that Frank couldn’t see. We talked the rest of the way to the elementary school about all the things I could bake. When I told him I could make a very good cherry pie he let me know that cherry pie was his favorite. I told him I would make him one someday. While walking up our drive, Tina was talking about her new dress for the eighth-grade winter dance this weekend. Mary Jane would be so upset when she saw Tina with heels and a dress that mom actually bought for her. I barely listened because I was thinking of Chase and how he thought I was the best baker he ever met. I knew that was saying a lot because I had his mom’s baked goods at the church picnic. He told me I should become a baker. I had been thinking I would like to become a chef someday. I watched the reruns of Julia Child’s show all the time and it didn’t look that hard. Cherish or Cherry Pie In the spring when I got on the bus all the high school boys were needling Chase, saying they knew he was a jock, but they didn’t know he had brains, too. Everyone knew he was a jock. My dad said Chase’s arm was like a rocket launcher. The football flew out of his arm and landed on the money, which I assumed meant the player caught the ball. Chase also played baseball. He was not the pitcher because his dad wanted him to play professional football instead. I didn’t know you could choose. Chase’s dad and my dad were good friends. Chase was being heckled on the bus which surprised me, no one picked him. I finally heard what they were teasing him about. Come to find out he was named Valedictorian of his class, so he was not only a jock but very smart. When I got off the bus, I had the nerve to speak to him. “Congratulations Chase,” was all I could muster. He gave me his captivating smile and thanked me. At dinner time, I told my mom and dad about Chase being the Valedictorian. My mom said he was the whole package. I asked what that meant and she said he was good looking, smart and an athlete. I guess he was just that. I suggested that I make him a celebratory cherry pie. My mom said that would be a nice gesture. Saturday morning, I got all the supplies together that I needed and made Chase a cherry pie. Mom drove me over to deliver it. I wanted to drop it off and run but mom wanted to visit with Mrs. Richards. I had to sit there while the two of them had a cup of coffee. I was thrilled to find out that all the boys were out working on the farm. I wanted to be nice nevertheless I knew I would be teased if the younger boys saw I baked a pie for Chase. When my mom told Mrs. Richards that we wanted to congratulate Chase with a pie. I was happy that it didn’t come across as me making it for Chase but the Deigert family congratulating Chase. Monday when the Richards boys got on the bus, they told Tina to thank my mom for the best pie ever. It was better than their own mom’s pies. I smiled to myself, but Tina blurted out, “Oh, my mom didn’t make the pie, Tessa did.” She was proud of me. Well, that sent the boys into an uproar. They started to tease me that I liked Chase. They were sitting in the seat behind me tormenting me except Chase who went back to his seat. After a few minutes of taking a bunch of jabs I stood up and I turned around putting my hands on my hips. I leaned forward enough to look like I was going to spit fire and said, “I thought I liked all of you but not anymore. If any of you ever do anything that deserves a pie you won’t be getting it from me!” I was not quite yelling though my voice was higher than usual. I saw Chase sitting in the back and he gave me a thumbs up. I turned back to the front and said in even a louder voice, “Though I doubt any of you could even spell Valedictorian let alone be one.” I sat down with a thud. Well, that shut them up. When Chase got off the bus he stopped at my seat and thanked me for the pie. I was thankful that his brothers were off the bus by the time he got to my seat. He told me I did a good job of handling his brothers. I thought I had to because he was no help. To me this great guy that everyone looked up to was knocked off his high perch as far as I was concerned. The issue was I had put him there. I decided he was just another guy with a big ego. A couple of days later I received a card thanking me for the delicious pie. I couldn’t believe he sent me a thank you card. That was very nice of him. I put it in my treasure box with my arrowheads and my rabbit's foot. Maybe Chase wasn’t that bad . Good Riddance Mrs. Richards called me one day and asked me if I would make a cake for Chase’s graduation party and some cookies. It felt weird talking to an adult about what flavors she wanted in a cake and what kind of cookies. I asked her how she knew I made cakes and cookies. She told me that my mom and dad have been bragging about me for years and all this time Mrs. Richards thought it was really my mom’s baking not mine. “When the boys came home and told me it was you who made the pie, I knew your parents had to be telling the truth.” I stood a little taller that day. I made a black forest cake, chocolate cherry cookies, peanut butter cookies and lemon sugar cookies. The black forest cake was the biggest cake I had ever made. Since I knew Chase liked cherries, I thought he would like that cake the best. Mrs. Richards ordered a chocolate cake: well that just wouldn’t do. It had to be special. We got to go to his graduation party. We drove up their long driveway, up on top of the hill where this grand house sat surrounded by trees. Everyone around here had gravel driveways though the Richards was made from white rocks which really looked so nice against the green grass. Our house was a simple farmhouse with gables and a big picture window in front with a really beaten-up screen door and a wooden screened-in porch to the side of the house. The Richards house was a huge two-story white house with pillars in the front. They had a circular driveway that let you off at their front door. The parking area next to their garage looked out onto a lake. If you wanted to park in their garage, you would drive behind the house. I was in awe of that house though I felt uncomfortable in it when I had my work clothes on but today, I had on a party dress as my mother called it. We arrived before the guests to help set up some chairs and, of course, put my cake and cookies on the table. I was nervous that something might be wrong with the cake. My dad taste tested all the cookies, so I knew they were good…well, he approved. He loved the new cookie that I made up. It was a chocolate cookie base with a maraschino cherry topped with a chocolate glaze. He said I will have to start making those cookies all the time. Mrs. Richards asked me to serve the cake, so I had to stand by the cake table the whole party, which was a drag unless someone took a bite of the cake in front of me and told me how good it was. I didn’t tell anyone that I made it. I just smiled and said I was glad they liked it. Chase came by with some of his friends and they took some cake plus enough cookies that their plates were like pyramids. He smiled at me but didn’t say anything…he was knocked down another peg. After a couple of hours of standing on my feet I begged my mom to let me walk home. It was only a couple of miles, and it was a beautiful evening. I only had to beg a little bit before she told me I had to be careful crossing the creek not to get my shoes wet or dirty. Tina wanted to stay and make gaga faces at all the boys. When Andy heard me say goodbye to Tina, he asked me if he could tag along because he was bored. Andy was the sweetest of all the Richards boys. I didn’t think the middle three were nice at all. They were kind of rough and mean if you asked me. We saw Chase and some of his friends out front and the hooting and hollering that was done while Andy and I walked down the road pissed me off. I tried not to have it bother me, nevertheless it did. I would never understand boys and teasing. I took off my socks and shoes to cross the creek. Andy jumped across. I thought about attempting that but figured if I slipped and fell, I would have Andy laughing at me and I couldn’t stand that at the moment. I had a lot of pent-up frustrations, more like anger. We started cutting through the fields to make the walk shorter. We made plans that when we got to my house, I would change my clothes, and we would play on my tire swing. Well, that didn’t happen. While I was stepping through some tall grass a copperhead struck my ankle. I let out a blood curdling scream that probably could have been heard at the Richards if someone had been listening. I told Andy to go back and tell my parents what happened, and I would meet them at the crossroad. We both knew I had to go to the doctor. I had never seen Andy run so fast. It wasn’t long before I saw our car come speeding down the gravel road with dust flying everywhere. I was sitting in the middle of the road because I wanted to make sure that I could see a snake coming at me. Nobody was happy with me, not even me. I knew I was to walk with a stick in the grass. It took me over a week to feel better. Chase sent me a get-well card along with a thank you for the best cake ever. He said it was better than the Noel cake. I was sure he just remembered the Noel part and not the Buche. He said he was going away to college and if I wanted to send him cookies, he wouldn’t mind, especially the chocolate ones with cherries. He added the lemon cookies were a close second. The thank you helped but it still bothered me the way he treated me or the way he let other people treat me. He had another thing coming if he thought I would make him cookies and send them to him at college. Friends in Low Places The next time I saw Chase was at Frank’s wedding. Tina and I were pretty sure Frank and Candace got caught doing it in her bedroom and her dad said they had to get married, or he was going to send Frank to jail because she was seventeen. Frank looked so unhappy during the ceremony and got drunk at the reception at the Richards home. Chase got drunk too. He was home from college. I was in ninth grade and Tina was in tenth. She was in heaven because there were two boys to every one girl. She never stopped dancing the whole night. Tina got all the best genes when it came to the body. She had all the curves in the right places. I was always told by the sweetest of my aunts that if I would lose ten to twenty pounds that all the boys would flock to me instead of Tina. I didn’t want a guy that bad. If they didn’t like me the way I was then they could just move on, that was my mantra. My mom would say it was my baby fat that made me adorable. Again, I was hired by the Richards to make petit fours, mini lemon meringue pies, and mini cheesecakes. My mom said it would be our gift to them. I thought that cheated Frank out of a gift, but I really didn’t see the marriage lasting after watching them at the wedding. I kept all the recipes simple for me because it was such a big order. I always hoped that one of these kinds of events would get me more jobs but when they found out it was a fourteen-year-old girl that made the desserts, they lost interest. I was standing out of the way just watching the dancing. Chase came up behind me and whispered in my ear, “The desserts are very good. Have you picked out the culinary school you will be going to?” I turned around to the smell of booze. I could hardly stand being so close to him. I stepped back and replied, “I am not sure where I am going to school.” Chased stepped forward and leaned in very close to my face. I was a little scared, but I was not going to show it. He started to sway a little and asked, “Do you want to dance with me?” I did not like Chase the older I got. “No, I don’t dance.” Which was a little bit of a lie. I loved to dance but I only danced on my own or with my girlfriends. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He tried to pull me by the hand onto the dance floor. He bumped into some guy I didn’t know, the guy turned around and pushed Chase. Chase then fell into someone else and then all hell broke loose. A big fight ensued. My dad was just walking in from outside and saw what was happening. He grabbed my sister and me then shoved us at our mom. He ran back and started grabbing guys and tossing them to the side. My dad was a big guy and nobody tangled with him. Mr. Richard then took a shovel from the fireplace and started hitting guys over the head that wouldn’t stop fighting. It was kind of comical, but I didn’t dare laugh, though on the way home everyone in our car was laughing about it. A couple of days later I got a card from Chase saying he was sorry for his behavior. He just couldn’t stand how Frank was making the biggest mistake of his life and used alcohol to deaden the pain of the day. I didn’t know why he was writing an apology to me. He should be writing one to his parents. Teenage Dream In my sophomore year my life changed for what I thought was the best thing ever. In Biology class I realized that we were ruining our earth with all these pesticides. I begged my dad to let me have a part of our land between where I got the snake bite and the river to try my hand at organic farming. The field where Andy and I walked across was already organic. It was our hay field so I knew I would not have to worry about the pesticides floating over my organic ground. It wasn’t hard to convince him. He was thrilled I took an interest in farming. He told me that I would have to do everything myself. We had a discussion of what it would take to become an organic farmer. My mom took part in our conversation. Years later she told me the reason why she wanted to be a part of the discussion was she didn’t want my dad to make it out harder than it would be. She made sure I really understood what would be required of me. I knew it was going to take years to be certified as organic, but I could let people know I was not using pesticides or chemical fertilizer on my plants. I have worked on our farm since I was a little girl and loved it. I thought that was why my dad agreed to let me take on all the responsibility of working our land. My mom really got behind it and helped me do research on how to proceed. She even found a farmer’s market in St. Louis where we could take our produce. I made a sign that said we were in transition to becoming an organic farm and this year’s crop was not treated with chemicals. We did well enough that mom wanted to do it again next summer. She could tell I was already into it one hundred percent. I was in heaven as some people say. I loved planting and taking care of the plants. I took pictures of some of my fruit, like they were my babies. That was when my mom realized that this was my true calling. We met some lovely people there and got to try some great barbeque at a restaurant nearby. Mom and I saw what people were paying for organic berries so we decided we would plant some black raspberries, more blackberries and red raspberries. Organic farming was not for the faint of heart. I thought I was working harder than I was before. I joined the FFA, Future Farmers of America. In the spring our advisor coaxed me into making a presentation at the state fair. I felt so honored to be asked. Since I was going anyway, I thought I would enter a few baking contests. I entered my best blackberry cobbler, sour cherry pie and ‘The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie’ contest in which I added almond extract, dried sour cherries and chopped candied almonds to offset the sour cherries. I was pleased to win first place for my sour cherry pie and took third with my cookie recipe. I didn’t pack the house for my presentation, though the people that were there told me I did a good job. Even a couple of people asked me if I could point them in the right direction to become organic certified. That lifted my spirits because I was responsible for changing people’s minds. For a minute I thought I could do it for a living, trying to change people's minds about using pesticides. I got asked out more in my junior year of high school than any year. I got more form to my body the summer between sophomore and junior year. Tina gave me her old clothes to wear instead of wearing jeans and a jean shirt. I did something with my unruly hair, too. I also started wearing makeup. Tina was always on me to make myself look better. Her mantra was if you didn’t look good you didn’t feel good. Sometimes on the end of that she would add about yourself. I did feel better when I looked nice. The issue I had was working on the farm. It was hard to look good all the time. The one important thing I learned while I was in the FFA was that kids on dairy farms had it rough. I felt for those kids. My friend, Alison, had to get up so early to milk before school. I was glad we didn’t get into dairy farming because those people don’t have a life. You couldn’t take a day off if you just didn’t feel well. Those cows want to be milked morning and night. My vegetables didn’t require me to get up early. I had been known to pick my vegetables at night to make dinner. I found dating not worth all the work. My understanding of the purpose of dating was to have fun with someone, right? Well, that was what I thought. I was spending my time with a guy, and he would be telling me about someone we knew and how he was so much better than him, bragging how he was way better at whatever sport they were playing, or my date was trying to go all the way on our first date. None of that interested me and they were not interested in getting to know me. She’s in Love with a Boy My parents told Tina she had to go to a year of community college before they would allow her to marry her high school sweetheart Greg. My parents said Greg had to go to some sort of college, too. Tina visited the community college and after talking to a couple of teachers decided that she wanted to go away to college. My parents were thrilled that she fell in love with the idea of going away to school instead. She applied to several colleges in Missouri and got a scholarship that helped pave the way. That surprised all of us because it looked like she wanted to go to all four years to earn a degree. That was news to Greg and he didn’t like that idea at all. In fact, he was very upset with Tina. He told Tina if she went away to college he might not be here when she got back. As it turned out, Tina was fine with that because when the fall break came around, she brought home Scott. Scott was from St. Louis and had never been on a farm. It was love at first sight…Scott and the farm. It took a little more time for Tina and Scott to fall in love. He was so excited by everything. My parents were astounded by Scott, he seemed more excited about where Tina lived than he was with her. At the dinner table the conversation centered on what mom and I were doing. Scott was a biology major, and organic farming really interested him. Tina hung onto every word he said. The funny thing was she started to have an interest in what we were doing, too. It was like a light had gone on in her head about other things in life besides men and how she looked. When Tina and Scott left to go back to school all of us decided that this guy was a keeper. We didn’t know if Scott was the reason for Tina’s change or going to college. Either way mom and dad were happy. Dating my senior year really tapered off to just going out with a group of people and having a fun time. Really, I hung out with FFA people because we were all interested in farming. I even persuaded a few to try their hand at organic farming. Not everyone had a great support system like I did. I felt so blessed to have my family take an interest in what I did. So far dad hasn’t gone totally organic, but I haven’t given up hope that he would someday. My Girl Gab Richards got a girl pregnant, and the Richards had a quick wedding. Mrs. Richards hired me to make the wedding cake and some appetizers for the little reception they were having. It was my first wedding cake, and I was excited. It was going to be a simple wedding cake flavored with vanilla and almond extract with a butter batter. She wanted a raspberry filling. The frosting was a vanilla Italian buttercream with little pearls around the edges. The bride’s family was roasting a pig, so she wanted my appetizers to be a simple pick up with your fingers, kind of thing. I made stuffed mushrooms, mini cream puffs filled with chicken salad and mini quiche for the vegetarians. She was going to put out sliced cheese, salami, and assorted vegetables with a dip. The disdain in Mrs. Richards’ voice when she told me the bride’s family was bringing baked beans, potato salad, apple sauce and corn bread told me not to say “that sounds good” when she finished. I arrived early in the morning to bring the cake. I was surprised how they have added onto the house. I guess the only son to leave was Chase. Frank and his wife and their little brat were living over where the garage used to be. They made the garage into a large family room. They added a huge garage at the backside of the house. Six large vehicles could fit into that garage, it was so big. I was to set up the cake table in the new family room. I had everything looking just right when I turned around and saw Chase in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. “What happened to my little girl?” The former me would have turned red by that comment but hanging around a bunch of guys in FFA had taught me to blow off comments besides, I thought that statement was a little weird. I gave my best nonchalant smile, “Hi Chase. I see you have dressed for breakfast.” That made him self-conscious, which pleased me. “Sorry I didn’t know we were having company.” I said a little flippant, “I am not company. I am the hired help.” Chase put on a serious smile, “So where are you going to culinary school?” “I am not going to culinary school. I am going to Mizzou for an agriculture degree.” I was proud of my decision. “Tell me you are not going to hang around here?” He said, with a look of exasperation. “I love it here. I have started an organic farm on part of my dad’s property. Every year I add more land.” Again, I was proud to be a successful organic farmer. I had to stand up to what I believed in. “My parents told me about you. They think you are nuts.” Chase was such a smart aleck. “Well, I am not the Valedictorian that you were, but I did graduate last week fifth in my class and got a full ride to Mizzou. So, if I am nuts then so be it.” I smiled and walked past him. “Tell your mom I will be back an hour before the reception please.” Chase yelled after me, “You still owe me a dance.” I left feeling good and if Chase thought I would dance with him he was going to have a rude awakening. I returned at the said hour dressed in a classic black dress and a pair of high heels. After an hour of standing, I wished I had worn flats. Now Chase was in a very nice dark blue suit and starched white shirt. He came up behind me and whispered, “You are making a mistake not going to culinary school.” I answered flatly, “Thanks but I think I know what is right for me.” I turned to face him. This time he wasn’t drunk. “So, no drinking to Gab and him making the biggest mistake of his life?” I saw him cringe…good. “No, I have given up on my brothers. Well, maybe not Andy, he still has some sweetness in him. This time I think Gab is happy – just look at him. He is all smiles. Now, take a look at Frank, he is the poster child for bitterness.” My eyes moved from Gab with his arm around Amelia to Frank and saw the harshness in his eyes. It looked like Frank was looking at Gab and hating him for being happy. Well, that was what it looked like from here. Gab and Amelia were a good-looking couple and I bet they would have beautiful children together. Frank’s wife Candice was nowhere to be seen. I bet she was upstairs with their little one, Frank Jr. He was a little brat if there ever was one. Mom said when she came over here Frankie ruled the roost and was a little terror. Chase broke my train of thought, “How about that dance you owe me?” He smiled at me, then held out his hand for mine. “Well, the funny thing is there is no one dancing. Besides, I told you I don’t dance.” He took a hold of my hand and said, “Please come with me.” I didn’t know why but I didn’t resist. I knew why because he said it in a sexy voice. We walked outside where most of the bride’s family were gathered around the pig though some people were dancing to the music they were playing. “This is where the fun and action is happening.” He swung me around and pulled me towards him. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just a second,” the pout on his face was adorable. “I have to take these shoes off; they are killing me.” Oh, we had fun dancing with everyone outside. That was more to my liking. Someone called out, let's do a square dance and he started calling out moves. I didn’t think I laughed that much in a long time. Dancing barefoot in the Richards yard was a treat to the feet. I didn’t know how much fertilizer they used to get grass to feel like carpet. I hoped they didn’t eat the fish they pulled out of their lake. It was getting late, and people were going inside to eat dinner. I went to sit down (more like I flopped down) on the little hill at the edge of the woods. Chase followed with his suit jacket in hand. I started the conversation, “Where are you living these days?” “New York,” he said a little out of breath. “Wow, that is pretty far from this farm. You ran as fast as you could to get away from this place.” “I had to get away from this life to see what was out there. Aren’t you a little curious to see the world?” “Maybe to go on vacation but really the beauty of this area can’t be beat.” He made a huffing noise of disapproval. “Hey, I watch the travel channel.” “That is literally watching the world go by through a window,” he chuckled. “Well, in a couple of weeks I will be flying to Paris. Do you know about this city? It happens to be in France.” I said a little bit snooty. “Ooh la la,” he shook his hand to exaggerate how little he was impressed. “Have you been to Paris?” It made me curious a guy who wanted to see the world and I bet he had only seen New York. “No, but I could if I wanted to.” Chase sounded like a little kid. I stood up, “Then don’t mock me until you have.” I walked off with Chase calling after me. It was time to cut the cake and serve it. As soon as I was finished, I collected my trays and put them in my truck and didn’t look back. I didn’t think I would be doing any more business with the Richards. I knew Chase wouldn’t be getting married and Louis was too smart to get caught by someone wanting to get married. I was betting Andy would do it right where the bride’s family took care of the reception. In a couple of days, I got a postcard from New York saying, ‘New York has everything Paris has and more. Come visit and I will show you around, Chase.’ Mon Amour, Mon Ami (My Love, My Friend) I was so excited to go to Paris with my French class. It was my graduation present. My mom had promised to look after the garden and she would take the lettuces, the strawberries and the herbs that were ready to the farmer’s market the weekends that I was gone. I found myself in total awe of everything I saw and ate. I really needed to work on my pastry skills after eating my first croissant. We spent the whole day in the Louvre Museum. I lost count of all the paintings I had seen on my trip. I couldn’t believe I saw all those famous paintings in person. My favorite part of the day was eating. Who wouldn’t want to eat French food? I could have spent the whole day eating. I got the idea of raising goats while in France and started to do research in the hotel then I sent the information to my mom. The next day my mom sent me an email asking why was I spending all my time doing research when I should be sightseeing. The following day I sent her a picture of me at the top of the Eiffel tower. We spent a week in Paris and a week-long trip touring around the countryside. It was so beautiful. There were flowers everywhere and the smell of lavender filled the air as they were just starting to bloom. I took a selfie with the background of thousands of sunflowers at one stop. They were just starting to open up and the sun was in the right direction for them all facing my back as I took the picture. It was my favorite picture I took on the trip and put it as my screensaver on my computer. The part of the picture with me was covered up with all my icons that didn’t matter because what I really wanted to see was the sunflowers and that bright blue sky. When we went to the castles in Sant Malo and Brest they were a highlight of the trip for the guys. Knowing that the pirates had a base in Sant Malo excited them more than me getting to eat cheese and bread in France. I thought the castles were beautiful, especially the one in Sant Malo. The water was so clear and blue. What I found entertaining was that it took me to go over four thousand miles to see the Atlantic Ocean when I could have driven to see it in less than a thousand miles. Vegetables When I got home, I had a lot of work to do to keep the bugs and blight away from my plants. The weekly trips to St. Louis were a treat, literally a treat. We have one restaurant close by our farm, the Crow’s Nest was nothing to write home about. It was a greasy spoon, and the spoons were usually greasy. Mom and I made a big deal out of it finding somewhere special eat. We picked a new place for lunch which was our excitement for the week. We always brought back something special from St. Louis for dad, so he was loving my enterprise. Tina wasn’t into extravagant food as she put it. After the first couple times we stopped bringing her food because mom wasn’t happy that dad was eating what Tina didn’t want. That summer I expanded my entrepreneurship by adding bread to our stall. I had seen people pay top dollar for a good loaf of bread and I thought I could compete with the best of them when making bread. I made two kinds: a French baguette and a hearty whole wheat bread. The first time I brought a couple dozen of each, and I sold out in an hour. The truth was that the vendors around us bought most of them. They told me that I had to bring bread every week from now on. I bought a convection oven for our stall and brought enough dough to double the number of loaves and baked them in our stall. The oven was a pain to hall to our stall each week, but it was worth it. By the end of the season, people were coming up to us saying they would miss having fresh baked bread on Saturdays. Mom and I figured out that it would be too costly to bake bread and deliver it here each week during the off season, so that was out of the question. Plus, I was starting college and when I came home, I would need to attend to my garden. When you live in a farming community you hear about everyone personal business usually at the general store or the post office. We heard our neighbor Mrs. Preston had cancer. Mom suggested that I make her some chicken soup or some broth. She had heard Mrs. Preston was having trouble keeping her food down. The chemo was making her so sick. I went to work making Mrs. Preston both chicken soup and a chicken and vegetable stock. There were just as many vegetables in the stock as there were chicken bones and meat. I did a good job of straining the stock so if she just wanted something light the stock would fit the bill. I thought it tasted good, nevertheless I wasn’t sure if it would stay down. I made some cookies as well because Mr. Preston had commented on them when I made them for Frank’s wedding. I headed out very satisfied with my collection of organic soup, stocks plus nonorganic cookies. I hadn’t gone that far over on having everything organic yet. It was hard to find organic stuff at our grocery store. I thought it would be cool to get to that point though. When I was crossing over the creek and heading up the hill, I could just see the Richards’ massive home from the road. I definitely could see their green grass. It saddened me that I knew their runoff of chemicals was polluting our creek and river. Mr. Preston’s property was on the north side of the road from the Richards’ property and at the top of the hill his property was on both sides of the street. Mr. Preston did not have a huge production of corn and soybeans, but it was his farm, not a corporation. I detested that we had a couple corporations around here because they were ruining the land. The thought of what was polluting creeks and rivers would just rile me to the bone. Mr. Preston used herbicides and pesticides: all the stuff I was against, though when one of your neighbors was sick you helped them out or brought them chicken soup. It wasn’t a full forty-eight hours before Mr. Preston was at my house asking if I would mind making his wife more stock. It was the first thing she had kept food down in a month. I had seen she had lost weight at my visit and it was difficult for me to look at her when she talked. I told Mr. Preston that it was because it was all organic. I didn’t know if that was the truth, but I thought it was true or I wanted it to be true. Some of the reason could be that our vegetables tasted so much better than what you get at the grocery store. I knew our chicken tasted better than anything I had elsewhere. He sat in my kitchen and talked to me about what it took to become an organic farmer. I started to make enough soup to last a week for Mrs. Preston. She couldn’t get over how good it tasted, he said. Scott told him that it was because I made it. I assured him it was because it was organic. Scott had come for a visit and was listening to our conversation and would add a tidbit here and there. Scott was getting to know as much as me. After his first visit he started doing his own research on organic farming. He had even looked up some grants that I could apply for. I hoped and prayed that Tina and Scott would never break up. When everything was packed up, he laid two twenty-dollar bills down on the table and said he didn't know how much he should pay for the information he received. He asked if he had any questions, could he come by again? I told him the soup and the information were free and tried to hand him back his money. He wouldn’t take it and said if I didn’t take it, he wouldn’t ask us for help again. I pocketed the money. I felt bad for him because he felt that he was the one who made his wife sick. Their beautiful old farmhouse sat not twenty feet in any direction from the area where he sprayed all that poison. Their barn sat right up against the field. There was no wasted space. I bet their own home garden got some of the spray since it sat up against the field, too. The Freshman I was ready to go to Mizzou and everything was packed when Tina came into my room to talk to me about what to expect from guys in college. I didn’t think they were any different than they were in high school. She told me to always travel around campus with a couple of girls: the more the better. I thought it was funny and she told me to stop laughing she was serious. Our schools were not far from each other. A few hours were all, but I would miss seeing her. The past year I had mom and dad to keep me company, which helped. When I was missing her terribly, I would go in her room and call her…texting wouldn’t do. I didn’t know what we were going to do when she got married and moved away. I didn’t know if Scott was the one, but their relationship was the longest she had been with one guy. This past summer she would hitch a ride with us and spend the day with Scott then he would bring her home late at night. Sometimes when we woke up on Sunday, we found him sleeping on our family room couch. Mom finally told them that if he were going to spend the night that Tina should sleep with me and he could have her room. By August, he had pretty much moved in on the weekend, coming out on Friday and leaving Monday morning for work. He worked in his dad’s law office as a secretary though he called himself a clerk. His dad knew Scott didn’t want to become a lawyer, but I thought Mr. Turner was hoping if Scott hung around the office, he might want to become one. I knew Scott wanted to be a farmer. It was just that Scott didn’t know it yet. Scott talked about how he felt out here, and I knew that was the same feeling I got when I came back from St. Louis. Dad was showing Scott what it took to be a farmer, and mom and I were showing Scott what it took to be an organic farmer, which he loved. He helped me do all kinds of jobs from spraying the plants with pepper spray in hope of getting rid of the insects and maybe the bunnies would stop eating the produce. We might have one Mexican bunny because he keeps eating one head of lettuce that I keep spraying with hot sauce. Scott had helped me build tunnels for more than just the tomato and pepper plants. We have added some tunnels for my berries too. While I was in college, I went home most weekends to work on my gardens, or should I say my farm. I had a lot to do cutting out the old canes of black raspberries, raspberries and blackberries. I trimmed the fruit trees because I was training them in the espalier style. I wanted them to be flat trees like a trellis. It was an ancient way of producing more fruit and keeping the dead wood out. My dad only allotted me so much land, so I had to make the best of it. I was growing them along guard wires around the outline of the lettuce garden. The lettuce only needed five hours of light, and the trees would help to keep the lettuce cooler. Hot sun and temperature make for wilted lettuce. The only good, wilted lettuce was with bacon, vinegar and sugar. On a beautiful fall day, I stopped by Mr. Preston’s to see how his wife was doing and I brought a big pot of chicken soup. I was checking to see if he had any questions and to be honest, I wanted to check if he was getting frustrated with the process of changing over to being organic. We talked about his process of changing over his land. Mrs. Preston was doing better and was as interested in converting to an organic farm as well as Mr. Preston. She was looking so much better, and she had just finished having her chemo treatments. Now, she just had to get checked every so often. They both had a positive attitude that she was cancer free now. I prayed she was cancer free as well. I brought over a book that I had used in one of my classes for them to read. I was feeling good about what he had started to convert already. I really liked them, and they seemed to like me. I felt like our dynamic had changed. We sat and talked about my classes and what I was doing at the percent time on the farm. I knew I already had grandparents but maybe I could treat them like a great aunt and uncle. We had always seen each other at church functions, town festivals or neighbors’ parties but this experience of bringing Mrs. Preston soup and talking about what it meant to be an organic farmer had brought us to another level of connection. I was getting to know them on an adult level, and they treated me like an adult, which was so nice. I had decided to major in Agribusiness management and minor in Agricultural systems technology before I started college. At orientation, I talked to a great advisor then she sent me over to the departments to talk to a couple of professors. I wasn’t interested in doing an internship because I already had my own farm. I didn’t know what they said to all the prospective students but they both said they looked forward to having me in class. They both thought I had a good plan set up and were a little nervous that I was putting too much on my plate. I assured them that I was a serious student and wanted to get the most out of my college experience. I took a test to see if I could test out of any French classes. I was happy that I tested out of both first year’s classes. The person who gave me the exam said I was just points from testing out of the first three semesters. I might be getting ahead of myself, but I might have two minors, the second one being French. I loved everything French. Shoot my bedroom had a French theme with a picture of the Eiffel Tower hanging over my bed. I planned on decorating my dorm the same way. My mom bought me a bedspread with the Eiffel Tower, French stamps, the word “Paris” and all things French. I definitely was a Francophile. Sticking with my French theme I decided to take classes in the culinary arts and hone my skills on becoming a real chef. I had to learn how to make some of the food that I had on my trip to France. I was taking an overload and wasn’t worried about it. Cooking had become a passion. I loved baking but cooking the main dishes was so much more exciting. Our weekly honors meetings to discuss a book we were all reading was one of the highlights of my week. I wanted to do something besides studying which was the biggest percentage of my awake time. I knew I didn’t want to join the running group. That was too hard on my body. So, I took up walking with a group of walkers. Walking was fun and I could talk and meet people doing it. I met a young man who had gotten hurt his senior year in high school playing football and walking was the only activity his body could handle at this point. Jonah was a nice guy, and I thought we would have fun on a date so I finally asked him if he would want to go to a movie with me. We had a great time and started to see each other more often outside the walking group. By the end of the school year, he was able to start with the running group. Neither one of us said anything about getting together during the summer. I think we used each other for a fun time when we needed a break from our studies. Jonah was as dedicated to his studies as I was. I thought he would make a great doctor. He had a passion and a compassion that would make him an exceptional doctor. Plus, he had a sense of humor that would put his patients at ease if they got sick. The Sunday before the end of the year of my freshman finals, Mrs. Richards died of ovarian cancer. After she was diagnosed, she only lived for a couple of months. Her funeral was the day of one of my finals and I had to do a presentation, which was more or less a part of my final for the class. There was no way I could responsibly miss these finals for a woman that I only saw a few times a year. She always wanted to entertain at her house, so mom and dad went there. Mom was thrilled she didn’t have to worry about what condition our house was in. I used our screened in porch for plantings as well as our sunroom. Either way when you came into our house you smelled dirt unless I was baking, then the smells were something delicious. I wrote Chase a letter telling him I was sorry for the loss of his mom and apologized for missing the funeral and the reason why. I told him a couple of special stories about her that were triggered when I made a cherry pie or had vanilla cake. I wrote a nice note to Mr. Richards, too. I didn’t feel I had to write to all the brothers since they still lived at home. When I got home, I had a letter from Chase thanking me for thinking of him and the kind words I said about his mom. He understood why I wasn’t there, which made me feel better about missing the funeral. My first year of college I kept my scholarship, and I made the Dean’s list. I had heard of the freshman fifteen. Most freshmen came home having gained weight in the first year. I lost fifteen. My mom was so worried because I had lost so much but I assured her that I ate. I just never got used to the food and I talked too much while I sat with friends. Really they were my study partners who valued food more than studying. I was usually late for dinner so I ate what I could and left. I really didn’t feel like I had tried to lose weight, it just was a happy coincidence. At the end of her sophomore year, Tina had decided to become a teacher like mom. My mom was honored and happy that she finally decided what she wanted to do. My disappointment was she was behind in getting all the requirements fulfilled in two more years, so she stayed at school to do two summer terms. To my dismay, we only saw Scott and her occasionally until August. Then Scott almost moved in. My dad said we should just add his name to the mailbox. We teased dad on how old he was because nobody got mail anymore. The statement brought me to thoughts of Chase. He must have an old soul since he wrote letters. Power of Two Thinking Out Loud The day I arrived home after my freshman year, I was so excited I talked nonstop to my parents about what my exams were like and what I was going to start to do on the farm. Both of them begged me to eat something and I realized they just wanted me to stop talking. The both laughed when I told them what I thought and they said maybe. I slept twelve hours straight that first night. That would be the last day I wouldn’t set an alarm. I didn’t have time to relax because my garden needed to be tended to. I say garden but it was acres and acres of vegetables. My mom did as much as she could though my land needed more than one person to take care of it. It was getting so big I could use another person or two. I would hire kids around my area to help when it was crunch time. When I was in need of people to pick the fruits and vegetables before I went to the farmers market, I would hire a couple of kids from town who didn't have jobs. Our town only had a general store and a post office so usually kids had to drive to the next town which only has a few more job options, or some would ask farmers if they needed help. I had a few young kids who would ride their horses to my place when they wanted pocket money. I was happy for the cheap labor. I realized that if I wanted some of them to stick around, I was going to have to be willing to make working worth their while. My thoughts kept coming back to I needed to find someone who loved the land as much as I did. Life was so busy working I didn’t even know what end was up sometimes. I took an online class during the first summer session. I wish I would have thought to take another class during the second summer session because it would have made my life a little easier during the school year. I liked the online class because I could work at my own speed. I finished before the deadline and thought that was easy. I was sitting at the table with my laptop working on my class schedule for the rest of my college career when Scott plopped down next to me. I could tell he wanted to talk so I finished up my work and saved it. “What’s up?” I said looking at him dead on. “I don’t want to bother you, but I have been thinking about your plan with your business. Do you mind if we go into some detail about where you are heading?” “Sure, though I think we have really talked my plan to death. Scott just come out and tell me is there something wrong with my plan? You can tell me. I am a big girl and I can take it.” I leaned in to show him I was open to whatever he had to tell me. He has been nothing but helpful since the day we met. “I really think, if you want to expand what you are doing, that you need someone working for you besides your mom. Would you be interested in hiring me?” He hesitated a little, “You know that I graduate next year, and I think I have something to offer you in your business. Maybe you would be interested in a partner?” I was nineteen years old, and I had someone who wanted to be my partner because he liked what I was doing. The feeling I had when he suggested him being my partner got me all excited. I just said over and over, “YES!” My dad came in from the barn and my mom came down the hall when I was saying yes. I explained what happened very quickly and my mom was saying yes just as much as I did. Both my parents were so happy because they saw that I had the potential for making a good living being an organic farmer, but it was going to kill me before I got started. I definitely needed more than just my mom to help me. Since Tina was sleeping in as she did every Saturday morning in August, I was making breakfast for everyone else. If we waited until Tina got up, we would be eating lunch. We finished eating and were sitting around the table talking about my classes for next year and Scott was all antsy. Finally, he spoke up. “Mr. Deigert, I would like your permission to marry your daughter.” Mom and dad looked at each other and smiled. I guess they really liked him. “Scott, do you really love her?” “Mr. Deigert, I never imagined love could be like this. Yes, sir with my whole heart. The only issue I have is whether I will make enough money for us to live on. I want to farm like you. Well, more like Tessa. Sir, I think Tessa and I could take her ideas and run with them. We just need more land as I see it.” These were the words I wanted to say but had been afraid to approach my dad until I graduated. Maybe having a partner who spoke his mind was not a bad thing. “Well, Scott, I have been thinking about all the changes Tessa has made and thought I am getting too old to change all of my ways. Her mom and I have been thinking when Tessa graduates, we will give her this house and all of my acres and move in with my mom and just farm her land.” My mouth dropped and I was at a loss for words for a change. When mom and dad got married grandpa split his land and gave dad half of it. They still farmed together but mom and dad were responsible for the taxes and upkeep of their land. Dad’s sisters had no interest in farming and had moved away. Aunt May lived in Florida and Aunt June lived in California. We rarely saw them. “How about this? I give the land to Tessa and Tina will get the house that way you will always have a roof over your head. You will never be able to sell it though unless Tessa says it is okay. Of course, Tessa can live here until she builds her own house somewhere on this land.” “Mr. Deigert, that is very generous of you. Tessa, are you okay with this?” “Scott I can’t wait until you marry Tina and get her out of my bed. Just to warn you, she hogs the covers. Other than that, she is great. I think we will be great partners.” Scott got up and hugged me. Mom and dad, not wanting to be left out, got up to hug Scott and me. We were all hugging when Tina came into the kitchen. “What am I missing out on? Why are you all hugging?” I didn’t know what Scott’s plan was, so I spoke up. “Scott and I are becoming business partners.” “Scott, you finally asked her. Oh, Tessa he will be such a hard worker just wait and see.” Tina came up and gave Scott a hug and then turned and gave me a hug. I smiled at Scott, and he shook his head no like don’t worry about it. Then I saw him pull a ring box out of his jeans and he got down on one knee. I turned Tina around to face Scott. “Tina, I have thought long and hard how I would ask the love of my life to marry me. I thought she would want her sister and parents around and I hope I am right. Tina Louise Deigert, would you do me the honor of marrying me and making my life complete?” The squeal probably was heard all the way down to the Richards and Grandma’s. “Yes, yes, yes,” was all that was coming out of her mouth. I was so happy for them…for me too. I was getting a brother and a partner. I thought my life was pretty good. Tina on the other hand was worried about me. Later that night as we were going to bed Tina begged me to find someone so we could have our children together. “Aren’t you lonely? You don’t have someone to share your life with, Tessa. Please start dating, for me.” “First, I am not lonely. I don’t have time to be lonely. I am working my butt off at school and when I come home, I don’t stop. Second, I share my life with you. I don’t think I have gone a day without texting or talking to you. Don’t forget I went out on dates with Jonah.” The nudge I got from her told me she knew there was nothing going on between the two of us. “Okay, I will think about dating if it makes you happy.” Tina pulled the covers off me which made me take my pillow and hit her. That action started a pillow fight like we had when we were younger. We were making so much noise that dad opened our door to see if we were okay. He yelled to my mom, “Honey our girls have gone nuts.” Tina swung her pillow and hit him in the gut. Dad left the room and brought back his pillow, and mom came running in after him with her pillow not wanting to be left out of our family pillow fight. Mom finally said, “We give up.” Scott was leaning on the door watching us and we hadn’t even noticed him standing there. “I love this family.” As dad past Scott, dad hit him on the back of his head with a pillow. “Welcome to the family Scott.” Life goes on My sophomore year I decided I could graduate early if I took just one more class a semester and a few online classes in the summer. I could take the online at home as long as the internet didn’t get interrupted. I only had a few issues so as long as I stayed ahead of deadlines, I should be good. Maybe I could talk my dad into a better service. My advisor was against the overload, but because some of my classes could be credits for both my major and minor, I thought that would help me graduate earlier. I still wanted to take classes in the culinary arts, and I wondered if I could get my associate degree so I would have the credentials for being a chef. I really didn’t need the business part because I was already working on my business in agriculture. I really thought my culinary classes were my extracurricular activity. To be honest with myself everything was so easy for me. I just had to put the work in to get the degree so businesspeople would take me seriously when I talk to them about my products. Some weeks seemed to blend together. I didn’t know how I did it, but I was still making the dean’s list at winter break. I knew I was going to go home and sleep for a week. Tina and Scott came home for part of the break and spent a good deal with Scott’s dad. I apologized to Scott because I had missed his mom’s funeral. Mrs. Turner died after a massive heart attack. I had an exam that was a fourth of my grade and my parents told me that since I had never met her to just send Scott and Mr. Turner a card telling how sorry I was to miss her celebration of life. That was what they called it because she was always the life of the party. Mom and Dad invited Mr. Turner to our house for Christmas dinner. He and his wife had never come out to the farm before. Mr. Turner was always too busy to come. Well, Scott insisted that his dad had to at least come out to the farm for dinner. I thought it was my duty to make it the best Christmas dinner ever. I had picked up a few tips from my classes and was ready for a Christmas dinner gathering.My dad’s words were ‘my, you have put on a spread here.’ I went all out to make a fabulous dinner with table decorations and all. We started with a butternut squash soup. The butternuts were from my garden. I made a standing rib roast, garlic smashed potatoes and green beans, with a Caesar salad, homemade dinner rolls and for dessert I made a buche de noel. When I was cutting the dessert, I thought about Chase as I do every time I made it. I wondered what he was doing or where he was living? Mr. Turner was very impressed with the dinner. He suggested that I could open up my own restaurant if I wanted to give up the farm. Everyone laughed because they knew my answer…never. I would never give up on my farm. It hurt me to be at school and being away from it. We made a ton of food during the holiday. Mr. Turner kept telling me to call him Scott, which I couldn’t do. It was too weird. He called our Scott, Scottie. He was not a Scottie to me or anyone else. Mr. Turner was so happy to be with us, but you could see the strain on his face if someone brought up Mrs. Turner’s name. I felt bad for him. Since Scott wanted to live out here instead of staying with his dad that added to his pain. I knew being an only child had to be hard on Scott. I didn’t know what I would do without Tina. I knew my parents had us later in life. Dad always said he couldn’t get married because he was waiting for our mom to come to him. Mom came to our part of the world to start over. She had been married to a man who had died in a car accident. She met my dad at our church social because one of the other teachers invited her. It was love at first sight for my dad. It took my mom a little while to warm up to idea of getting married again. I was sure they would have had more children if they had met earlier. It was kind of sad because they were the best parents. My spring semester went by in a flash. My mom was so worried about me because I looked awful. She didn’t say awful, but I could see myself in the mirror and knew that it was true. If I didn’t come home on the weekends, I would never have sunshine on my face. I had not kept my promise to Tina. I did not have one date the whole school year. I saw Jonah once in the library and we talked for a half hour. Maybe I could say that it was a date. I promised I would do better in my last year. We all went to Scott’s graduation which was fun. My parents spent the night in a hotel, and you would have thought they were on their honeymoon. It was so cute to see them having fun and flirting with each other. I hoped I could have that someday. Flirting was so much fun. I just hoped you didn’t lose the ability to flirt if you didn’t use it. I slept in my sister’s dorm room. She was taking summer classes again so she could graduate next year. She was a little jealous that I knew what I wanted before I started college, and now I would graduate with her. I just hoped they were not on the same day because I didn’t want to miss seeing her get her diploma. We all went out to a fancy restaurant and Mr. Turner was so nice because he said my food was so much better. I was just glad he paid the bill. He didn’t like that we all ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. He kept saying, “I said I was paying for this dinner, and I want you to get what you want.” To make up for it he ordered a bunch of appetizers. Tina ended up with part of mine and mom’s dinner to take back to the dorm. Three little birds Scott and I came back to the farm after his graduation and started working on a plan for what we wanted to accomplish in the next five years. I told him I couldn’t plan much farther and we could revisit our plan in a couple of years if we felt like we were going in the wrong direction. I had to admit I didn’t like changing horses in midstream. It was one of my flaws. We decided to add a few animals to the farm. Scott wanted to add Pekin ducks to the mix because their meat was the preferred duck meat and he was confident that we could start supplying a few restaurants and if it were profitable, we could add a larger flock. We had a lake and a couple of ponds around the barn and since the cows were moved a few years ago to grandma’s property both of the ponds were looking a lot healthier. The lake was behind the house, so the cows never were bathing or doing other stuff in it. Scott professed, “Tessa, I have done my research I promise you. I think they will provide more income than expenses by far. There is some time that has to be spent when they are hatched and for the first three months but after that if we train them where their habitat is they take care of themselves.” “Train them? You want us to train the ducks?” “Oh, these ducks learn a routine and they want to stick to that routine. If I get everything set up, we won’t have a problem.” “You know I won’t be back full time until next year. Do you think you can handle getting everything ready?” “Yes, I can work on the pens and shelters for the emus at the same time.” “Did your dad look over the contract for the loan to make sure we were getting the best deal?” “I wanted to talk to you about that.” It was my biggest worry and now he was scaring me. “My dad said he is ready to sell the big house and move into a condo. He isn’t entertaining anymore, and he hates being in that big house all alone. As it is he doesn’t spend but about five hours at night when he sleeps. He wants to give me the money from the sale after he buys his condo. The problem is we don’t know how long it will take for the house to sell so we might have to wait a little while. Then we could be real partners.” I was flabbergasted and when I recovered, I shoved him in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you start with this! I really didn’t want to get a loan. I was only doing it because you thought we should.” “Well, I did want a loan, but dad didn’t tell me his idea until the night of my graduation.” I shoved him again, “I can’t believe you waited two days to tell me this.” I looked down at the table then looked up at him. “You know this doesn’t bode well with me, your keeping something this big from me.” “I have to tell you the truth. I was scared to tell you because the house is worth a couple of million dollars and all the furnishings are probably another million.” My mouth dropped and all I could muster was, “Oh.” “I promise I will never keep something this big or small from you again. I am guessing by your reaction Tina didn’t say anything about how much my family is worth. This really proves she loves me for me and not my money.” “Wow, she never said anything about you being from money. She did tell me you have a beautiful home and it was huge plus she would hate to have to clean it. She hates cleaning our house, so I really didn’t think it was that big.” I gave a nervous chuckle because of how much he was worth. Scott chuckled too, “Your sister is something else.” “Yes, she is. Look, by the way, I don’t expect you to Scott was shaking his head, “Since you have put in all the money for the land and prepping it, how about I put up the money for the fencing and shelters for the ducks and the emus.” I was shaking my head no. “Yes, you don’t realize how much you have already put in plus all your sweat equity has to count, don't forget. We have to come up with a new name for the bird’s part but we could leave the Deigert for the produce. You have been doing this for six years now and have a growing clientele. We could put up the bird's name under my name until we get big enough to have another company name. As far as an agreement I think my marriage contract will be enough for me. I plan on spending quality time with my wife so she will never want to leave me. I know I will never want to leave her.” “You two are almost as gross as my parents. I am glad you found her. Now, how about we name the bird part of the company Turner birds or something like that. I think it’s only fair that your name is a part of our company like mine. We could come up with a company that incorporates these two and we can draw a paycheck from them. I know it would be nice to stop putting every penny I make back into the farm. I would like to travel a bit. How about you?” “I know your sister wants a nice honeymoon. She says that after she graduates in May, she will need a rest, and she wouldn’t mind if it is on a beach somewhere.” “I know what she means. I have one more year of ball busting work. I don’t know if I will be able to come back much this fall because I have so much work to finish my culinary degree.” I gave a sigh. Scott looked at me with concern, “Why are you getting a culinary degree? You are the best cook I know. You don’t need a degree for that.” “I don’t need a degree for what I am doing now.” I was being a little shy but I really wanted to tell Scott my idea. “Touché. Do I have to worry that you will get tired of farming and want to be a chef?” He gave little nervous chuckle. Then looked at me with concern written all over his face. “Well, if I tell you, you will understand why you can’t say anything to Tina. If you don’t want me to tell you, tell me now. Though I am dying to tell you.” I was squirming in my seat, waiting and hoping he could keep a secret from Tina. “Okay as long as you know if she asks me about what you are going to tell me I won’t lie to her.” “Fair enough, I have been thinking about buying out The Crow’s Nest and making it a farm to table restaurant. I think my business degree will help with the running of the restaurant too. When you suggested emus, I was ready to jump on board. I learned about their meat in class: how it tastes like lean beef but is higher in protein with less cholesterol. As you pointed out, the fat pad on their back is a wanted oil in many industries so this investment is a good one. I know to make a profit the cost will be higher than beef. That said, we will have to convince the public that emu meat is better for them in all ways.” I saw how excited he was just by looking in his eyes though he hadn’t said a word. “So, what do you think, you aren’t saying anything.” “I am trying to get under control before I say anything! This makes me so happy, and I know your sister will be happy. I totally get why you don’t want to tell her yet, until you are sure.” “This is why I want a paycheck so I can save for the restaurant.” “Hey, I would so invest in your restaurant. I know my dad would love it if you would open a restaurant too. He has been telling me that you should be a chef not a farmer. This farm to table is so in. We could make it a destination restaurant. We will have to put up ads in St. Louis papers and radio stations.” “Hey, you are getting carried away. I haven’t said I was ready yet.” I liked how Scott was there to support me but it was too soon. Though with how excited he was it was hard for me not to jump at the chance. I had to have him take a step back. “Oh, right. See I told you I am so excited by your confession I could hug you. Hell, I am going to hug you.” He came over and gave me a huge hug. My dad came in just as he was hugging me. “Hey, isn’t one daughter enough for you.” “Oh, I am hugging my wonderful partner because she said yes to raising Pekin ducks and Emus. I am going to be The Birdman. We will offer free range chicken, duck and emu eggs. Though it will be a while before we have the latter two. We have to build up to that.” He smiled at me and kissed me on the forehead. Scott and I were now both going over to Mr. Preston’s to help him with his farm. We only went over there every couple of weeks to make sure he was letting the land come back to what it should be. The field that was across the road from the house he was letting become a hay field. This property butted up to Mr. Richards’ property. He was worried that some of their chemicals would come onto his land. I told him that we would get the soil tested to see how much spray came across to his property. We suggested that he let a strip of land become a natural barrier. He could plant trees and plants that are native to this area of Missouri. That suggestion made him feel better. Mrs. Preston was looking healthier than the last time I saw her; she has gained back some of the weight she lost and she had color back in her complexion. She wore a scarf with a straw hat like my grandma wears to garden in. I saw whisps of fine hair peeking out around her face so she hadn’t lost all of her hair. I was happy for her and Mr. Preston.

The site is about Kimberly Caristi's books, travel, recipes and photography. Welcome to my heart. Let me open the door. “Cooking is a caring and nurturing act. It’s the kind of the ultimate gift for someone to cook for them.” -Curtis Stone “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta “So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” – Paulo Coelho Kimberly's Bio

< Back Peanut butter cookies Prep Time: About ten to fifteen minutes Cook Time: 8-10 minutes Serves: 48 to 60 depending on the size of balls you make. Level: easy About the Recipe Ingredients · 1 cup brown sugar · 1 cup sugar · 1 cup butter · 1 cup peanut butter · 1 eggs · 3 cups flour · 2 tsp. soda Preparation Cream sugars and butter until the color changes to a lighter color. Add peanut butter mix well then beat in egg. Mix together the three cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of baking soda then add to the peanut butter mixture and mix until no flour streaks. You can refrigerate if you want or roll into one-inch balls and place on a baking sheet 2 inches apart. Use a fork to press in a cross hatch. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes Previous Next

Find pictures taken by Kimberly Caristi from her travels around the United States, Italy, Slovenia, and Greece. Charleston, SC Italy 2022 Greece 2022 Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park 2023 The beautiful Meteor Crater rest areas in Arizona Central Park, Chesterfield, MO Sunset Hotel in Moriarty, NM Lake Oconee, GA Lake Norman, NC Waterfalls in Franklin NC Slovenia Graz, Austria Italy 2025 Mims, Florida Hollywood, FL

< Back Garlic Bread Prep Time: ten minutes Cook Time: fifty minutes Serves: 3 loaves or pizzas Level: easy About the Recipe Ingredients 2 pkgs. Yeast 1 ½ T. garlic salt 3 c. warm water 2 T. cooking oil ¼ c. sugar 8 c. flour (approx.) Preparation Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, garlic salt and oil. Mix. Stir in enough flour to make fairly stiff dough. Cover bowl with damp cloth and let rise until double in bulk. Divide dough in 3 parts. Roll into rectangles on a floured surface. Roll up as for jellyroll and tuck ends under. Slit top diagonally 3 or 4 times. Place on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise until double, about 40 minutes. Brush with water and sprinkle with a little garlic salt. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Repeat brushing with water and sprinkle garlic salt. Turn oven to 325 and bake 35 to 40 minutes more. Remove from oven to rack to cool and brush top with butter. This bread freezes real well and yields 3 large loaves. Variation: I have been know to make thick pizza crust with this dough Previous Next

​Ellie hasn't had an easy life.  The one solace in her life is her art.  A promise that she made to a dying friend has her working very hard on her art.  Her life revolves around her daughter and her art and she doesn't know how to communicate well with people until she meets Lorenzo in Florence.  He shows her that life can be more than her daughter and her art. My Daughter thinks I ruined her life…I did my best to make her life better. Written by Kimberly Caristi Ellie hasn't had an easy life. The one solace in her life is her art. A promise that she made to a dying friend has her working very hard on her art. Her life revolves around her daughter and her art and she doesn't know how to communicate well with people until she meets Lorenzo in Florence. He shows her that life can be more than her daughter and her art. I did my best…learning to live without my dad When my dad died when I was seven and my mom and I were left alone. I mean very alone. My dad’s parents pretty much pretended we didn’t exist. My mom made the excuse that since dad was their only child we just reminded them of their loss. I did get a Christmas present a couple of times then we never heard from them again. My mom was an only child, too, and her parents had died in a car accident before I was born. Her only aunt Mary sent me gifts until she passed away when I was twelve. She lived too far away to visit but we wrote letters. Aunt Mary was the sweetest aunt, she never missed calling us on our birthdays and at Christmas. We were the smallest family I knew. Did I think I had the saddest life? No, it was filled with paper and colors. I didn’t know any better. It might have helped that I was young or I was happy being just with my mom. My memory of my dad filled me with joy. He was funny and charming at the same time. My mom made sure that I didn’t forget him by telling me stories of their lives together before I came along. I wanted to be like him but at a young age I realized I was like my mom and proved it when I was in my thirties. I was quiet like my mother and I wanted to be just like her though I failed at getting some of her traits like being organized. I have gotten ahead of myself… My mom took in laundry and did typing to make money. She kept me busy by giving me paper to draw on while she worked. I didn’t mind; I loved it. My aunt Mary was delighted that I loved to draw so she would send me colored pencils, pens and better paper. A couple of times great aunt Mary sent me art books that I still have to this day. Those were the occasions when the great part of her name really personified her. Someone other than my mother took an interest in what I really loved. A couple of times she would call me, and we would talk about the book she sent. I loved those moments. It was the two art lovers in the world alone with our book. I knew she read before she gave it to me because I would find personal notes in the margins. My mom and I were devastated when we got the news that she passed. Aunt Mary was our ray of sunshine in this world and our only connection to our past. My mom’s reaction was we had work to do though she cried while she worked for several days. It was hard to get past my grief to see that my mom grieved too. She knew this lovely woman who took an interest in me from afar. My mom had grown up with Aunt Mary being there for her in person at all the important days in her life. My great aunt Mary was a tangible person who hugged her and did more for her than called her a few times a year. I did learn that we, my mom and me, grieve by getting to work and providing for your family. At first my mom loved that drawing kept me busy then she would get mad because I wasn’t doing my chores. To be honest, drawing would take me into another world where I could imagine anything. It allowed me to live in a magical place that I created. I turned my cat into a purple cat…purple was my favorite color. I would beg kids at school for their purple crayons because mine were usually down to this little, tiny piece that was the size of the piece that kids broke off the tip of their crayons. I never abused any of my crayons, pencils or pens. I would ask everyone who would bring laundry or pick up manuscripts if they had an extra pen or pencil I could have. My mom hated me asking for a handout though she never said, “Don’t ever do that again.” I thought she secretly was thankful, so she didn’t have to buy them. When I got to middle school my art teacher saw something in my drawings and tried to teach me some techniques that I still used in some of my art. Ms. Inmann was in the wrong place; she should have been a college professor. She couldn’t draw or paint very well because she had shaky hands. Still, she taught me to draw with so much finesse that I started to sell my drawings. My mom said I had to start making money to help pay for my addiction of wanting all these pencils and paper. I started babysitting and drawing the kids I watched. I wanted to get down drawing faces. When the parents came home and saw the drawings I would be working on at their kitchen table, they would ask for them. I would tell them that I was going to use the back because I didn’t have much money for paper, then they would offer to buy them. I wasn’t totally lying; I would have used the back. The better I got the more I could ask for my portrait work. I would ask Ms. Inmann how much I should sell them for. Soon I was making more selling my drawings than babysitting. That snowballed into me being called by friends and families of my babysitting clients asking me to draw their child, parents or a beloved pet. When I got into high school I got into paints. I had another good art teacher, Mrs. Plank. She was a beautiful woman inside and out who was always covered in paint. I wanted to be just like her. When I first met her in ninth grade, she told me that I should be a model not an artist. She told me that I could make a lot of money as a model. A couple of weeks after I started her class Mrs. Plank talked my mom into letting her take me to a couple of modeling agencies. No one asked Elli if that was what she wanted. No one even thought to figure out if this was something Elli could handle. No one thought if this was in Elli’s best interest. After all the interviews I got asked to be added to two of the three agencies that we visited. I thought the one that declined me was the only one that saw it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t the one actively trying to get into modeling. One month every weekend I went to modeling school to learn how to walk. Who knew you had to learn to walk a certain way? I didn’t. I learned great posture though my teacher said I was a natural at holding my body correctly, even though I was tall for a girl and had a nice figure for a fourteen-year-old. I learned to put on makeup that made me look older. I learned how to take care of my thick massive curly red hair. I had tried to cut it one summer when I was in second grade. My mom thought it was because I was upset that my dad had just died, and I was acting out. I just thought it was because I had fallen asleep with gum in my mouth, and I didn’t want to get in trouble for it, so I cut my hair. I had to go see the school counselor for the rest of the year and play with puppets. I suffered through modeling for almost a year. I hated it. I was thankful that Mrs. Plank noticed that modeling was not my passion. Finally, Mrs. Plank really saw that I was better and more passionate about my art than I was about modeling. When she would ask me how my modeling was going, she didn’t see me excited. She thought a young girl asked to model should be floating on cloud nine. On the other hand, when I talked about my art, I was so excited and happy she realized my true passion. One spring day she took me aside in the classroom. “Elli, you need to speak up for yourself. You have talent in front of the camera though your art supersedes it by leaps and bounds. If you wanted to, you could earn more money as a model for a while then you can paint for the rest of your life.” “I don’t want to do that,” I don’t know where I got the nerve to tell her what I was feeling. She agreed with me after a long discussion, “I guess modeling is not for you. Let’s work on your art. I will talk to your mom.” I was nervous because I knew my mom loved the money and the clothes I got to keep. I had never hugged a teacher before or since but that day I just squeezed Mrs. Plank. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will do whatever you want me to do in the classroom. I will clean your paint brushes, scrub the floor, sharpen the pencils. Whatever you want.” “Okay Elli you might regret your offer,” she smiled at me. I didn’t know if it was the smile or knowing I was not going to have to model anymore that made me feel wonderful. I didn’t care because I could just work on my art. It wasn’t long and Mrs. Plank came over to our house and had a lengthy conversation with my mom. I sat in the hallway trying to hear their discussion. Both of them were soft-spoken like me and all I heard was that Mrs. Plank thought I should give up modeling. They had to talk about more than me because they started to talk on the phone in the evenings every once in a while. My mom called me in the family room after Mrs. Plank left. It was awkward at first, my mom kept twisting a napkin in her hands then she opened up to me. She knew I wasn’t really happy doing modeling. She apologized for not telling me to quit earlier. Come to find out she thought I would fall in love with it soon because what young women didn’t like clothes and attention. She was thankful that I really never got into wearing nice clothes. Our relationship got closer that day because we started to talk about everything. She stopped worrying that she wasn’t providing all the best clothes that most teenagers wanted, and I was willing to talk openly about what I was feeling and thinking. I promptly stopped doing everything I learned in modeling school except keeping my shoulders back. Martha, my modeling coach, said it was good for you whether you were a model or not. She said I would thank her for this when I got older. I learned that if I don't keep a good posture when I draw or paint my back would hurt. When I wanted to dress up for prom and go out on a date, I did use some of the makeup skills I learned. Well, when Mrs. Plank started to just teach me how to paint it opened a whole new world for me. I loved it. Mrs. Plank was thrilled that I took to painting so fast. Freshman year we were learning how to draw with pencils, chalk, charcoal, pastels and at the end of the year we started watercolor. I was ahead of all my freshman class, but Mrs. Plank couldn’t let me advance. I just worked on better techniques. Painting with watercolors was okay but in our sophomore year we got to move into acrylic and oil paints. I was in heaven. We learned all kinds of ways to paint from abstract to impressionism to realism to pointillism and the list went on. Like I said, Mrs. Plank was a great teacher. Mrs. Plank was a champion of mine, one of the things she did for me was enter my paintings into competitions. We were always shipping this piece or that piece to somewhere in the states and a couple around the world. I won enough money to buy me canvas, new paints and good brushes plus lots of turpentine. My mom was not as impressed with the painting money coming in, it wasn’t like the modeling benefits. She was thrilled I was happier. She was always in my corner telling me how proud she was of me. The only thing that drove her crazy was I never got the hang of watching the clock. She lived by the clock. Her customers expected their clothes or papers to be ready on time. As all mothers did, she wished for me to have a normal teenage life. My mom couldn’t get past the fact that I didn’t want to go out on dates more often that I was more excited by my love of art. I read everything I could on the subject and tried to copy the best artists, trying to figure out their techniques. My English teachers commented that they wished I would find something else to write about or do a book report on. I guess it was a rare subject for them to not have read the books their students wrote about. I thought they got bored with the subject too. Mrs. Plank told me not to listen to them. She was proud that I could write as well as paint. My senior year my mom was getting nervous because I kept getting information about art schools from all over the country. I thought she was worried I was going to leave her. I kept telling her I wouldn’t leave her and that I must be getting these applications because of all my art competitions. I didn’t ask for one of them. Secretly, I thought it would be nice to get out of Missouri, but I couldn’t go without her. She was my everything. I had no one else. She worked so hard to keep us afloat. After my dad’s death things were so hard on us. I remember rubbing her shoulders as she typed. I could feel the tightness in her muscles. I did lug in the laundry detergent and the spray starch from the car. Once in a while I would throw things into the dryer for her if I weren’t covered in paint and she didn’t have to worry about stains. Anytime I earned a penny I handed it over to my mom. She usually handed it back when I needed new brushes though. She would laugh at me because of how hard it was for me to ask for money. “You know you have earned this money. Why all the anxs?” Mom said, shaking her head. “Because I am not sure we have the money at this time for the brushes.” “Silly bean, you are the reason that I am not doing as much as I did. We are a team, remember?” She put her forehead on mine. “Yes, a team.” Every once in a while I would forget and fidget trying to ask for money for paint or brushes. I did my best…to stay close to my mom I applied and got accepted to Central Missouri State University. My mom was so thrilled it wasn’t that far from home. Just before school started my mom decided to move to Warrensburg with me. I was a little surprised…well, really surprised. She thought she could get more work in a college town. We packed up our little house into a fifteen-foot moving van and had room to spare. Mrs. Plank had helped me sell all of my paintings in a show that a friend of hers had for me in her Kansas City Art Gallery. I was so nervous standing around trying to be polite to all the people who wanted to buy this up-and-coming artist’s artwork. That show paid for the moving van and the first and last month’s rent for my mom’s little house plus gave us a little nest egg. I wanted to live in the dorm and my mom was fine with that, but I was worried about having enough room in my dorm for my paintings. I knew I had my mom’s house to use if I needed the room. To help pay my bills I got a work-study job in the library. It was my first job that I got paid weekly. This was a first for me. My problem was my issue with time. I was constantly late. My boss was going to fire me after my first month, but he soon realized that I would work later than I was scheduled by way more than I was late. He finally agreed that I would work when I could. I liked working in the library because I met a bunch of people. I would never say I was shy because I could talk to anyone, but I liked it better when I was approached instead of the other way around. I was doing better not shutting people totally out of my life. I knew I had issues after my dad died getting close to people. It was very hard on me and Mom. We really clung to each other. I learned at an early age that a person you loved could be gone in a flash. I never went to bed without saying I love you to my mom and giving her a hug. Even when I was upset with how she was dealing with my dad’s death I still hugged her and said, “I love you.” I showed my friends that I cared for them every day by ending our time together with a hug. I really never had a boyfriend in high school because I couldn’t devote that much time to them. I would rather go out with my friends. I didn’t care if they had boyfriends because that just gave me more time to paint when they got preoccupied by their relationships. I used painting as my way of keeping people at a distance, never really letting them get too close to me because I knew friendship was always iffy. When my dad died, I lost several of my friends because they couldn’t handle that he was gone and how sad I was. My dad was the life of the party, and all my friends loved my dad. He always made them laugh and feel good about themselves. I learned all about it in my psychology class in my junior year in high school. I self-analyzed myself and my mom. I came to terms with my dad’s death that year, but it took me a couple of years to let people get really close to me. That was when I met Russ. Russ was a very good-looking young man with great manners and knew how to make me feel special. He would wait for me to get off work and walk me back to my dorm. He would meet me in the cafeteria and carry my tray of food over to his table where his food was getting cold. We would sit with his friends who became my friends. He bought me new paint brushes for every occasion. My sophomore year my work study was in the first-year art room. My teacher asked specifically for me. Ms. Adams saw my work in Kansas City and was excited when she saw my name on her class list. She hoped I was one-in-the-same Elli Wright. After my first drawing she knew I had to be the same artist she saw in her favorite gallery. Raven became more than just a teacher in my sophomore year. She became my mentor and advisor but most of all a friend. Raven had won several awards for her art. She was known for her paintings of people in Harlem, where she was from. I asked her once why she moved from New York to a small town in Missouri. She had followed her heart. He was the assistant baseball coach. Sometimes she wonders if she did the right thing because half of the year, she was a baseball widow. She hardly saw him. I went to some of the games with her and both of us talked more about art than watching the game. Russ came a few times and asked if we even knew what was going on. We said together “No.” Russ didn’t know anything about art. He didn’t understand why I had to draw so many things over and over. Why the painting I was working on would change from one day to the next. He would comment that he liked the yellow flowers and why did I make them purple. After a few months he stopped asking why I changed things. My work kept getting noticed by other professors. The department secretary called me Star instead of Elli. I finally told her one day, “I am sorry that I haven’t corrected you Ms. Barnes. My name is Elli.” She laughed, “I know, I call you star because you are the star of the department.” I must’ve turned as red as my hair. “Oh,” was all I said. I was so embarrassed. I did feel a little pride that someone thought I was a star of the department. My paintings were going to more competitions. I got to travel all around the United States, Canada, a couple times to Europe and once to Hong Kong. I was never so nervous in my life. Raven said if I really wanted to be an artist I was going to have to learn to talk to people and put myself out there so people would get to know me. I never asked to put my paintings into competitions. My professors were the ones to tell me I had to do this or that. I kind of liked it that way. Raven kept telling me I was falling into being a real artist instead of making myself an artist. She would get so mad at me. “You are not pursuing your art. You are letting it happen.” “I don’t know what you mean. I am taking all the classes I can. Trying everything to see what I want to do.” “If you want to get known you have to enter competition after competition. Put yourself out there and do juried competitions. Make business cards and a website for heaven’s sake. You can paint all you want but if you want to make a living you have to sell, sell, sell. One of those sells, is yourself. You have to let people know about you.” Raven was almost yelling at me. She was an intense woman for sure. “I enter competitions,” I said with conviction. “Only when one of us comes to you and says do this.” “Well, I do it. Don’t I?” “You need to do the research. Get on a computer and find things for you to enter.” “You know I hate computers.” “Well, then you are just going to be one of those local artists that could have made it big.” She gave me one of those looks that drove me crazy. “Don’t look at me that way. Do you really think I can make it big?” Raven actually flicked me on my forehead. “Why in the hell do you think everyone is telling you to enter all these competitions? Get it through that thick skull of yours,” she said with great exasperation. “You could be the next Picasso, Pollock, O’Keefe or Thomas Hart Benton if you wanted it badly enough. You just have to go for it. They are not going to hand you this accolade without you putting yourself out there. You have the work ethic; now show people you are worth it.” That speech came at a time when I was letting Russ get into what I called my inner circle. So far, my mom was the only one I let in that circle. I started to let myself really love him. I had only one example of what love was and that was my parents. My mom gave up everything to be with my dad. She moved away from her home. She had started college when she met my dad but when he was offered a job in Kansas City, he took it. They were married by the justice of the peace near my mom’s parents. They were their witnesses. That was probably why my dad’s family didn’t want anything to do with us. I was totally guessing this because my mom really didn’t want to talk about them. She would tell me all about my dad though. How wonderful he was, how good-looking he was and that I had his looks but way prettier. She always told me how pretty I was and would touch my face then pull back my hair. He was smart too. When I introduced Russ to her, she thought Russ reminded her of my dad. I thought about what Raven said for a couple of days. I decided I would do what she was doing. I was going to teach art and do art on the side. That way, I would be able to have Russ and my art…I thought. At the end of my junior year and the night before Russ graduated, he asked me to marry him. I was so surprised I felt like I was in love, so I said yes, especially since my mom really liked him. She knew he would make order in my life. That was the only thing I didn’t understand: why everyone got so frustrated with me. I did my best to keep everyone happy. I worked late at night when I was not needed. I lost sleep because they wanted me to be there for them. Why couldn’t they accept that when I was having a show, I needed to finish what I had started. I had lost all my friends because I didn’t have time for them. I only made time for Russ and my mom. So, what if I was a little late and I had paint all over myself. Russ had been offered a job in Kansas City at a financial firm doing budget analyst stuff. He tried to explain it to me, but he said he could see my eyes glazing over. He just wanted me to be there for all the social events because he wanted to show off his beautiful bride to be. I tried to be there for everything but several of my paintings had won some competitions and I had to travel with them. If I had to pay for all my travels I wouldn’t have gone. My professors were nice enough to not dock me for missing my classes. To be honest they let me, and some other students work at our own pace. A couple demanded things to be done on a certain date, but the rest said as long as they were done by the end of the semester it was okay if I missed classes here and there. My senior year I took my first sculpting class. I had a new love. You could give me anything and I could make it into something. I literally went out to the dump to find things to weld together. I made friends with a woman named Emma in my sculpting class. We would dig through the trash at school, or we went to junk yards together to find things. Some Saturdays we would go to garage sales at the end of the day to see what people wanted to donate to our art class. Emma and I became inseparable especially since Russ was living close to work. He was saving for our house; he would tell me. I was thrilled I had more time to get more work done. Emma was now in my inner circle. I think she was in my heart before I even knew it. She was so full of life that I was sucked into her inner circle too. I didn’t know I could feel like this. Our friendship was something very special. She got me and I her. My mom would cook for Emma and me on Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes during the week she would call us in the afternoon to see if we wanted to come over for dessert or breakfast for dinner. We were thrilled when we would come over and find a cool piece of trash, she found on the side of the road thinking we could do something with it. Emma was an expert welder if you ever met one. She had real skills when it came to welding. Her favorite place to go was car junk yards. She would climb all over things to get to something she just knew was there. We were both working on our Senior Show our last semester. Hers were all sculptures while I had paintings, one sculpture and chalk drawings in mine. Emma went out late one evening when I was too busy to go with her and when she didn’t show up around midnight, I knew something was wrong. There were a couple of guys working in the welding room and I asked them if they would go with me to the junkyard to see if we could find Emma. When we pulled up, we saw Emma’s car, so she had to be there. Of course, the gate was locked, which didn’t stop Josh and Tony from crawling over the fence. I called the number on the gate to see if they knew anything. No, they hadn’t seen her come in or leave. That was when I got scared. I called the police next. While I was telling them the situation Josh yelled for me to call an ambulance and a tow truck because a car was on Emma. Well, that changed how the police were talking to me. Everything seemed to be in slow motion or so fast I couldn’t keep up with what was going on. I had climbed over the fence before the police, ambulance and fire department got there. I was talking to Emma trying to keep her calm while I was a nervous wreck. I rode with her to the hospital, and I watched as the EMTs, then the doctors, worked on her. I was ushered out to the waiting room. I had never been so scared in my life. Josh and Tony came to the hospital and sat with me. We four had worked together all year and helped each other when someone needed a third or fourth hand. When the doctors were getting ready to take Emma to surgery to try to stop the bleeding they came out and told us that she wanted to talk to me. I just knew that meant they weren’t sure if Emma would survive. The guys looked at me and I knew they were thinking the same thing. I definitely wanted to go to her though it was just that my feet were glued to the floor. I was able to free my right foot then my left and it was the most difficult walk I had ever taken. It was Emma that did all the talking. She wanted me to know that she loved me more than her sisters put together, which was a lot. I was to tell her parents that she was sorry for taking one too many chances. She wanted me to sell all of her art and give the money to her parents. They didn’t need her art to sit around and collect dust, they needed a new car and to pay off her bills. She had my wedding present hiding under her mattress. It was supposed to be my something new. It was a locket, and she already had a picture of my mom and Russ in it. I listened as she told me all these things as tears ran down my cheeks. It was so hard for her to talk but she wanted to tell me, no she had to tell me all these things. I finally stopped her when I saw the nurse come in. “Emma, my sweet Emma, I will be waiting right here for you. You, my sweet thing, will be okay. You have to be okay. We have a lot of art to make together.” The nurse started to interrupt. “I love you, Emma.” It was the last thing I said to her. She didn’t make it through the surgery. I was devastated. My mom came to the hospital to pick me up. I didn’t call her, Tony did. I was a basket case. I curled up on my bed at my mom’s house and cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t go back to school. Russ drove to Warrensburg the next day when he called my mom to find out why I wasn’t calling him back. He knew that Emma was very important to me. I wouldn’t talk to Russ; I didn’t want to see him. I thought I should call off the wedding. I couldn’t get married in a month. I hadn’t showered in a couple of days, and I was still covered in paint. I only ate a couple bits of food that my mom made me eat. I had my back to the door when I heard a knock, then the door opened. “I said, I don’t want to see anyone. Please go away.” I said in the saddest voice I have ever heard come out of my mouth. “I don’t care what you want.” It was Raven. “Get your sorry ass out of bed and into the shower now.” I turned and looked at this very mad woman. “You heard me, get your butt out of bed now.” “I can’t.” “Yes, you can, and you will. Emma’s parents are here, and they need to talk to you. I can smell you coming down the hall, so get your butt into gear and get in the shower.” “I can’t talk to them. I am the reason their daughter isn’t here.” “You pushed the car onto her?” Why was she talking to me like that? I just lost my best friend, my sister. “I should have gone with her to the junkyard. If I had she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” I couldn’t believe I was crying again. How much water could come out of you before you shriveled up and died? “No, you shouldn’t have. You had your own stuff to get done. Emma took a chance to find something she thought she just had to have. She had enough pieces finished for her project; she just wanted to do more. She made the unwise decision to climb on something not safe.” “But.” “No buts. Shit happens. We don’t always get to choose how things go down. Like right now. I have two parents waiting to talk to you. Their hearts are broken. It is a terrible thing to bury a child. The least you can do is talk to them.” I got up off the bed and started to walk past her. She grabbed me and gave me the biggest hug. Oh, how I needed that hug. Finally, she said, “And brush those pearly whites while you are in there,” as she pushed me off of her. I couldn’t help it. I blew out my breath into her face and laughed. She play swatted my behind as I walked past her. Russ was in the living room when I came out. He came rushing towards me and gave me another great hug. “Elli, I am so sorry.” “Please, not now Russ. I just got my crying under control, and I am right on the brink of crying again. I have to go see Emma’s parents.” “I know. I can take you.” “That would be great.” “You should tell them that we will name our daughter after Emma.” That promise made me laugh, “So you think we will have a daughter?” “We have to. It would be a shame to waste all your beautiful genes on a boy. I figured that we would have a couple of each.” I should have called him. He had brightened my mood. “We never talked about having children or how many we would have. Four children means a lot of diapers and midnight feedings. Are you sure that is the correct number?” “We can have as many as you want. I have a stellar job, and I know I will be promoted sooner than I thought I would. My boss loves me.” He was very proud of himself. “I would love a large family. I think I missed out on being an only child.” “You think you missed out on not getting to sit where you wanted to in the car, the living room or kitchen table? You missed out having fights over what to watch on tv?” I stopped him. “Okay, I get it.” Seeing Emma’s parents was hard. I told them what Emma told me to tell them. It broke my heart to see them cry. Russ ended up coming in with me and I was glad he did. He comforted me then told me to go comfort Emma’s parents. I didn’t know if I would have the wherewithal to do that. They gave me the locket that Emma had made for me. It was beautiful. She didn’t tell me she made it. Just looking at it I could tell. Raven was there as well as Dr. Mullens, the head of the department. It was a difficult meeting, and I was glad Raven made me do it. When Emma’s parents left Dr. Mullens called me into his office. I was so nervous. I had never been called into a principal’s office before, and that was what it felt like when Dr. Mullens called me into his office. I looked at Russ and he said he would be by the car when I was finished. Dr. Mullens sat in his chair and motioned for me to sit in the chair across from him. My hands were all sweaty and I wasn’t sure what to do with them. Since the chair I was sitting in was a fabric chair I started to rub it like I was wanting to know what the fabric was made from doing so I dried my hands. “Ms. Wright, I don’t know if you are aware that Mr. Pembrook will be taking a leave of absence to work on his PhD. We were wondering if you would be willing to take his place while he was gone. He teaches first year art students mainly and art appreciation which is a core class. You have shown great promise while you were here. Pembrook and Adams think you are an excellent choice to fill in while he is away. If we can get another line when he gets back, we can have you apply for the job, but it will have to be a national search. What do you think? Wait, don’t answer me now. Think about it while you are finishing up for your senior show. I will expect an answer by the end of next week.” “Will I be paid?” He chuckled, “Yes, you will be paid standard adjunct faculty pay. Though you will have all the studios open to you for your own work plus some of the standard supplies.” “I don’t have to think about it. This will give me the experience I want to see if I would be any good at teaching. I know I should have figured out what I wanted to do besides painting all day. Thank you for giving me a chance.” “Come in next week and I will have a contract ready for you.” “Thanks again, Dr. Mullens.” “Thank you, Ms. Wright.” As soon as I walked out of the main office Raven met me with a shove. “I told you to stop letting things happen for you. You took the job without thinking about it didn’t you?” “Well, yes.” I didn’t get a chance to elaborate. “When will you take charge of your life? Well, I am glad you are sticking around so I might beat some sense into you.” She gave me a hug then played smacked me on the back of the head. “Your split personality is showing through.” I gave Raven a shove in the shoulder. “I have to go tell Russ.” I did my best…I got a teaching job Russ was pleased that I came out smiling. He wasn’t sure about me taking the job though. “Where are we going to live? I thought we would get a condo near my work until we started a family in a couple of years.” “Russ, didn’t you think I would want a job?” “I make enough money for us to live on. I just thought you would want to paint for a while until the children come.” “Seriously, you thought I would give up my work to have children?” I couldn’t believe he thought I would do that. “I just thought they would take up so much time that you would want to be there for them. I know you can go back to work when they are older.” “What century are you from? What about you giving up your job to take care of all these children you want?” “Don’t get mad. I just thought that is what you would want to do. We can play it by ear.” I looked at him and wondered if he really knew me. “You do know that my art is not a hobby. Don’t you?” I stared at him and wondered if he understood me. “Hey, who set up your website? Who is keeping it up to date? Who replies to the comments? You haven’t even learned to upload pictures to it. I am being supportive here.” He had turned the table on me, it was his turn to be upset with me. I gently touched his shoulder and leaned into him and kissed him softly on the lips. “You do all this for me. Do you think we are ready to get married? We hadn’t even talked about how many children we wanted. What else have we not talked about?” “Well, I know I am ready. Do you have second thoughts about us? Has Emma’s death changed things for you?” I cringed when he said her name. Maybe it had woken up my dreams of who I really wanted to be. Her words and her parents’ words came flooding back to me. ‘You are an amazing artist. Honor Emma by being the best you can be.’ He was searching my eyes with so much concern. “Don’t you love me? I know I love you.” “Of course, I love you.” “Then it is settled. We are getting married in less than a month.” Russ kissed me and gave me a warm embrace. I went home and painted a sign ‘Be the best you can be.’ I would keep the sign forever as a memory of this time in my life. My Senior Show was a success, as was Emma’s. Everyone chipped in on their sales to be able to send Emma’s parents $100,000. I got back the nicest letter of appreciation from them. They were giving a scholarship to any student going into art at her high school. With all the money left over after paying her bills, they were able to buy a nice used car. I saw where Emma got her huge heart from. I reached over to touch my sign. “Emma, thank you for being my friend. I promise you I will work my butt off to be the best artist I can be.” I had made enough money to pay for my part of the wedding. When Russ asked me to marry him, I told him that I didn’t want a big wedding. My mom didn’t have any money. She still took in laundry and typed up theses. She indeed had more work living here next to a university. He was okay with a small wedding and said he would talk to his parents about paying for the reception. I didn’t think they were thrilled with the idea. Since he was the only boy in the family, they thought they would get one wedding break. After my show I was able to give them some money. Well, I tried to give them money, but Russ’s dad wouldn’t hear of it. He told me to put that money to good use like more paints, brushes and canvases. Mrs. Shaw didn’t seem happy about it. She did add that some furniture would be nice too. I thanked them for their support. Mr. Shaw came over and gave me a big hug. I knew it was going to be difficult to win over Mrs. Shaw, but Mr. Shaw was another story. He was one of my biggest fans. Since Emma was gone, I had my mom stand up for me. She was taken aback when I asked her to be my maid of honor. “Are you sure Elli? You can ask one of your other friends. I am an old lady.” “Mom, you aren’t that old. You have always been there for me. Who better to stand up for me at my wedding?” I reached over the kitchen table to grab her hand. “Mom, I want us to walk up together too. Come, I don’t think you want to wear Emma’s dress, so we need to pick you out something beautiful to wear on my special day.” “I don’t know how I got so lucky to have a daughter like you.” “I don’t know how I got so lucky to have a mother like you.” Our wedding was small, and we got married in Russ’s church to make his mom happy. My mom and I didn’t go to church after my dad died so I was fine with it. I really liked the minister who performed the wedding. He had everyone get out of the pews and encircle us as he performed the wedding. It made it feel so special. After the wedding ceremony we walked across the street to the church hall. We had a lovely dinner and the best wedding cake I have ever tasted. I hoped there would be leftovers. My hopes were dashed because everyone else thought the cake was as good as I did. Russ didn’t have time to go on a honeymoon so we went to the nicest hotel we could handle paying for. I just couldn’t justify paying several hundred dollars for one night in a hotel. We compromised on a hundred and fifty. I had never paid that much for a hotel and if my mother knew how much it was, she would have gone crazy ranting on how much we could have bought at the grocery store for that much money. When I paid almost that much on the dress she wore in the wedding, she threw a fit until I said I guess I will not get married then. I wished I could say our first few months of married life were wonderful times, but they were not. We had to get used to each other’s habits. I felt like I was doing a better job of adjusting than Russ. I knew he liked things a certain way, but I thought that would change when we got married. Aren’t you supposed to think of the other person when you get married? We had decided to live halfway between our jobs. Well, when it came time to find a place to live the couple of places in Lone Jack were not up to Russ’s standards. We settled on a place in Lee’s Summit. Russ wasn’t really happy about it, and he made sure I knew it every time he got stuck in traffic. I tried to tell him that I had to drive farther so stop complaining. When classes started up in the fall, I would stay with my mom a couple of times a week. I started keeping more clothes there than I did at our apartment. Russ hated that I was always covered in paint so I would go to my mom’s house to shower and change before going home. Then he wasn’t thrilled that I spent so much time at my mom’s house. He thought it looked wrong. “I work late, I have to shower before I come home and then I have over a half hour drive to get here. On days when I teach the next morning it gives me less than six hours of sleep. We could live in Warrensburg if you want me home every night.” Well, that shut him up for a little while. Our communication skills left something to be desired. I would swear I told him something and he would yell that he told me something. Russ started somewhat calmly then it crescendoed into an ear-splitting scream, “You never listen to me when I talk. You are always thinking about the next thing you are going to paint or what you are going to be teaching the next day.” I said through gritted teeth, “Why can’t you understand that I have never taught before! This is using a different part of my brain. I am exhausted driving back and forth, teaching four classes and I have to produce art to stay active. You are the one who wants to live in an apartment that has no natural light. We live in a cave. I have no room to paint in this place even if there was light. I told you that, then you went and signed the contract without me.” My last sentence must have gotten to him because he changed his tactics. He almost sounded like the loving husband I thought I married, “I have to drive too. I work hard all day. I would like to come home to my wife and have a nice dinner.” Yes, he worked all day at a desk. Oh, he played racquetball three days a week during his lunch hour with friends. Who gets an hour and a half for lunch? He worked late almost every day, so he didn’t have to deal with the traffic. I would like to come home from work to a husband and a nice dinner too. I didn’t know who he thought he married. I had never made dinner for him before. I really didn’t cook. I had never had to cook before. My mom would cook between doing laundry and typing to use another set of muscles, she would say. She did give me her favorite cookbook when I got married and wished me luck. Why did everyone expect me to change when I got married? Was that what I was supposed to do? I talked to Raven about my situation. She said marriage was a give and take situation. If no one gives and always takes, marriage becomes a losing battle. Okay, I decided that I would try to have dinner on the table on Fridays and Saturdays, and we would go to my mom’s house on Sunday. I was happy with myself that I actually accomplished my plan. That worked for a while. Mom made enough for Russ to take some leftovers home for a couple of nights that I wasn’t there. Russ liked my mom’s cooking so that helped too. Two years went by in a flash. I was getting known around the United States as an up-and-coming American artist who could paint in many styles. Usually, an artist picked one way of painting, but I loved to change how I painted. Dr. Mullens had several talks with me about picking one style or technique of painting many times. He thought one way would be best for my career as an artist. I was thrilled that he thought I could have a career as an artist but I just couldn’t pick one. It was what drove Raven mad many times too, though Dr. Mullens never got mad or yelled at me. Raven did. I was making almost as much money selling one of my paintings as I was for teaching one of my classes. Some of my sculptures would bring in a pretty penny too. I didn’t see what was wrong with what I was doing. Dr. Mullens called me into his office one spring day. “Ms. Wright.” “I’m sorry Dr. Mullens, I did change my name to Elli Shaw,” I said with some apprehension. “Don’t you sign your paintings, Wright?” Russ wasn’t happy that I signed my paintings Wright, so I changed to Shaw. He made a big deal with it on my website that I was now Elli Shaw. He sent out flyers to all the galleries that had my paintings to let them know that I was now a Shaw. “Sir, I just changed a couple of months ago to signing Shaw. It was easier to hide the smaller name.” I felt I had to give a reason why I changed besides that my husband wanted me to use his name. “Why do you hide your name anyway?” “I hate to distract from the painting.” “Don’t you want to be known?” The furrowed brow was telling. I needed to stop hiding behind my paintings. “Yes sir.” I gave a huge sign more than I intended because I knew what was coming. “Then sign them with a flourish Ms. Wright.” Why did everyone know what was best for me? I was doing pretty good here. “Your contract is ending soon. Dr. Pembrook is coming back in the fall. I am sad to say I didn’t get another line to hire another teacher. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind teaching a couple of classes still as an adjunct. You can use the studios still,” he added like it was a selling point. It was a selling point. I didn’t have anywhere else to paint or do my sculpting. “Yes, I would like that.” Raven wasn’t pleased with me again. I disappointed Raven more than Russ, I thought. I wanted my marriage to work but Raven thought I should either paint full-time or teach full-time. My evaluations from students were some of the highest in our department. Apparently, I had not pissed off any of my students. That was my assumption why I had a high ranking in the department when it came to evaluations. I thought Raven was a great teacher. I haven’t had a bad art teacher, and everyone has been so supportive. I had avoided the teachers that I heard weren’t that great. I knew of professors who shouldn’t be teaching. I had some of those in other departments. I had just been lucky, I guess. I came home one August day and actually made dinner. It was a weekday so this would be a surprise for Russ. Well, he surprised me. He was so excited that I had the table set, I was not covered in paint, dinner was ready, and it was a weekday. He came running at me with the biggest smile and swung me around ending in a passionate kiss. He pulled back from me, “Do we have time for some action in the bedroom before dinner?” I laughed, “I should surprise you more often. I think so.” He picked me up and carried me to bed. Russ was laying on his back and panting. “What a great way to end a perfect day!” “I’m guessing you don’t have much hope for dinner,” I looked over at him. “No, no I trust dinner will be wonderful. I have great news.” I turned on my side resting my head on my hand. “I have been promoted. I start in a couple of weeks. They told me to take a vacation before I start because I won’t have time for a while. You aren’t teaching right now, it's perfect.” “I guess I can finish my work when we get back. Where do you want to go? How about…” I was interrupted. “I have the perfect place: Destin, Florida. We used to go down there when I was a kid.” “I was thinking New Orleans, there is so much to see there.” “I want to relax because I have to hit the ground running when I get back. I want to lie on the beach and chill.” “Okay,” I said with disappointment. I really hated his idea, but he seemed so happy about it. We drove down on the weekend and found a cheap hotel near the beach. We did have fun, and I had time to prep for my classes in the fall. Russ couldn’t believe I still used a legal-size pad of paper to plan my classes. I love how they come in different colors so I can have one color for each class. He said we could afford a computer for me, but I said I was fine with my paper and pen. I had forgotten my birth control pills but it wasn’t the first time I had done that, so we weren’t concerned. We should have been concerned. We had the distraction of being so busy when we got home, we didn’t have time to think about each other, just our own work. I went to stay with my mom for the week and he put in tons of hours at the office. He had to work over the weekend, so I was free to stay another week with my mom. It was a little bit of a misnomer saying I spent the week with my mom. I might see her in the morning. Often, she tried to make breakfast for me though I tried to pass on it until I got a pouty face. That was when I knew I was going to have to have breakfast with her if not today, definitely tomorrow. For fall break I asked Russ if he wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Hermann for a quick getaway. We needed to reconnect. It was all set. I went home that Friday and got out our suitcases and started to pack. I came across my old pill container in the bathroom and thought, damn I hadn’t been taking my pills. I thought about it for a moment and realized that we had only had sex a couple times in the last two months. This was not good on many levels. Aren’t young married couples supposed to have sex all the time? All of a sudden, a huge light bulb went off over my head. Our life was so busy the first couple of months we got back that I didn’t even notice that I had missed my period not once but twice. I dropped everything and ran to the closest store and hoped that I would beat Russ home. I didn’t want to have him see what I was about to do…take a pregnancy test. I sat there staring at the stick. How were we going to take care of a baby when we barely took care of ourselves? Our house was a disaster area. I was hardly home so most of the mess was Russ’s, though he expected me to clean it up. Well, he had another thing coming if he thought I was going to pick up after him. We were both so busy working on our careers that we barely talked anymore. How were we going to do this? I stopped asking questions I couldn’t answer and just stared at the stick. Russ came home all excited and ready to go on our mini vacation. He found me sitting on the couch with the stick lying on a napkin on the coffee table. I was tired of holding it. I thought for a moment if I ignored it, would the whole thing disappear? I wanted to have children but not yet. I thought maybe when I was thirty and was well established. “Do you have all my stuff packed too?” he said as he walked past me into the bedroom. “Elli, I thought you wanted to get on the road as soon as possible. Why is everything just lying on our bed?” He came back in and looked at me. Well, he could at least see that I was upset. He rushed over to me, “Elli, what is it? Your Mom or one of my parents?” I looked him in the eyes then I looked at the coffee table. “What’s this?” I could see the realization cross his face. He got the biggest smile on his face. He grabbed me and kissed me all over. It was hard not to get caught up in his excitement. We made love right there on the couch. It was the first time we had done it someplace other than the bed. Russ probably thought the bed was covered in clothes, so this was the neatest place to do it. He was good though I have no references, but he was nothing like what I saw in the movies or on tv. “I take it you are happy that we are having a baby?” “More than you know, aren’t you?” “I just wonder how we are going to do this. We barely see each other now. How are we going to take care of a baby and when will we see it?” “Don’t be silly. We will make time. You don’t have to teach anymore. Don’t look at me that way. I didn’t say you had to give up painting. Instead of going to Hermann, why don’t we start looking at houses? We can get a house where you can paint all you want.” “I can just paint when the baby doesn’t need me, is that it?” “No, we can work something out.” I had a bad feeling that Russ’s ideal world wasn’t a realistic one. I went along with it because I wanted it to be perfect. We started looking at houses in the morning, then the afternoon and all-day Sunday. Finally, we talked to a realtor that we both liked at one of the open houses. We gave her our criteria of what we wanted in a house. We didn’t feel we had to get out of the apartment right away since we still had a lease until May. For the first couple of months, we saw a ton of homes that didn’t fit either what Russ wanted or what I needed. Then she would call us every once in a while, when something new came on the market. One day in March, Russ called me to tell me that he had just bought a house in Liberty. “Russ! How could you do that? I haven’t even seen it!” We haven’t even looked at homes in Liberty. It was too far away from Warrensburg. “Don’t get mad. I think you will love it. It is such a hot market there that I was afraid we would lose it.” “Why didn’t you call me to come look at it?” “I knew you had class and would want to wait. Cheryl called me this morning and said she just did a walk through with the realtors and knew that we would love it. You can see it this weekend. I promise you; you are going to love it. Wait until you see the kitchen, it is beautiful.” “Like I love to cook!? What about the light? Where will I paint?” I was so frustrated. “There is a three-car garage that has room for you to paint.” “Is there heat in there? How about air-conditioning for the summer?” “We can get a space heater, and you can open the garage door in the summer.” Great! I can sweat my pants off in the summer and freeze to death in the winter. “Is there any light in there?” “Of course, there is light in there.” “Russ, you know what I mean. Am I going to get enough natural light to paint by?” “I think so.” He wasn’t sure, I could tell. Why did he do this? “The best thing is we don’t have to use your money to afford it. We can just do it on my salary. I hear the silence on your end. This makes it so you don’t have to worry about painting after the baby comes for as long as you want.” I told myself over and over you have to give and take to make a marriage work. My pregnancy had been more than I could have asked for. I had very little morning sickness and I was lucky I was carrying all the weight in front like a little basketball. I had a couple of months to go, and I was crossing my fingers that the delivery was as easy as carrying her. Last month the doctor did a sonogram, and she was pretty sure we were having a little girl. Russ was standing there crying and holding my hand as we looked at the screen. “Look Elli that is our little Emma.” It was times like these that my love grew for Russ. I could be so frustrated with him, and he would be so sweet the next minute that my frustration would float away. When I went to look at the house my heart sank. There was a lot of natural light everywhere except the garage. Oh, the garage had some natural light, and it was big so I knew I could get some nice size canvases in there and I could use my blow torch for metal work. It was a lovely home, and it had an inground pool. I felt rich. My mom was going to love the place. I was wondering if she would move here to be close to us and Emma. I was learning that you can’t plan everything or things for Elli always change. Well, my mom had met a couple of widows who worked at the university. She first met Sheila, mom was typing up Sheila’s papers and mom transcribed her book. Mom thought Sheila’s book was interesting and they started talking. Sheila was the first real friend I had seen my mom have. I never thought about it. I was an awful daughter, was my thought, when this realization overtook me. Sheila, Lois and Mom started to share expenses in a cute home near campus. Mom had stopped doing laundry for anyone else but who lived in the house. They were thinking about getting someone else to move into the fourth bedroom. They all agreed that it had to be someone who fit their little group. I was worried that I wouldn’t have a place to stay when it was a late night. Lois and Sheila thought I fit into their little group very well and left the bedroom empty for me. I was happy that my mom had these new friendships. Emma came the week after finals. I didn’t know how lucky I was to get all my grades in, and I was able to take about a half a dozen paintings downtown to the art gallery to sell. Max, the new director of the gallery, said I needed to get an agent. I had been taking paintings to the gallery since Ms. Plank took me there. He said, “You could have your paintings all over the States if you had someone working for you to get your name out there.” I was pleased and a little embarrassed by his gushing all over me. We kept walking back and forth in front of my paintings and he finally asked me if I would mind if he worked on getting me known. He would only take a small percentage of the sales. I thought why not. We never wrote up a contract, but we shook hands and that was when my water broke. Max drove me to the hospital. I told him I could do it on my own, but he insisted. Russ met me there and Emma came into the world two hours later. My mom came to the hospital and was so excited to see her baby have a baby. She couldn’t believe how easy this pregnancy was for me. That was when I heard her horror story about having me. Why didn’t I ask her how it was to have me before? I really was not a great daughter. She was in labor for days with me. The doctor thought her labor would stop because she wasn’t progressing. She had morning sickness the whole nine months, so she was begging the doctor to take the baby. Finally, on the third day the doctor said it was time to decide about having a c-section. Mom didn’t have any help after the baby was born, which made Mom not excited about having another baby. My parents had just started talking about having another child when my dad died. I couldn’t believe my mom’s confession at my hospital bed. Why wasn’t my mom mad at me? She ended by saying she was lucky to have just me because she just barely made enough to take care of the two of us. I made a vow to myself when I sold my next painting, I was going to do something really nice for her. My luck continued as Emma was the perfect baby. I could paint with her in her baby carrier, and I got a lot of work done. Once Russ came home and went ballistic when he saw paint on her head. I hadn’t even noticed it. We went out to buy a playpen that night. That didn’t help much because she was happiest when she was in her carrier. To be honest, so was I; I couldn’t get enough snuggles in. I didn’t know I could love someone that much. When she got too big to be in the front, I wore her on my back. She loved it when I would paint big paintings because I would be moving all over the garage. I sold two large paintings thanks to Max. One on each side of the country. I was able to buy my mom a new car. Nothing fancy but it was new and paid for. It was small so she could see over the hood, and it had the best safety rating in case she got into an accident. She was very proud of the car and her widowed friends didn’t worry about her coming to visit me. She couldn’t believe me when I handed her the key and said it was hers. “Honey, I can’t take this. It is too much.” “Oh, yes you can, and you will. You have been very good to me. Besides, I wanted you to be able to come visit me without worrying about you on the road with that old junker. Besides, Russ has already ordered someone to come and take your car to sell it for parts.” With the leftover money we put windows all along the side of the garage to give me more natural light. I was glad there weren’t any trees along this side of the house. I would have to wait until the next painting was sold to insulate the garage. I decided not to go back to Central to teach. Raven wasn’t sure about my plan even though she supported me. I decided to paint full-time for a year. I didn’t think I could leave Emma with a sitter just yet. Max was working on selling my paintings or trying to get them into museums. I was feeling pretty good about everything. I just wished Russ were feeling good about the situation. He was thrilled I wasn’t going back to work though he thought I would put more effort into the house. Of course, I painted Emma’s room. It was so adorable in my opinion even if I was the one who designed it. I painted all kinds of butterflies flying all over the room. Russ thought I should paint the rest of the house because it was all white. He thought I would want to decorate it too. I wanted to paint. The only way I knew how to decorate was with my paintings. I felt like we didn’t have money to buy anything that was decorative. We used our money to go towards house payments, house bills, and buy food and clothes. Russ’s clothing bill was huge while I was happy with wearing what he called workout clothes. My mom would let me paint the walls when I started to earn enough money for my own paints. When I would go to the hardware store for paint, the clerk finally asked me one day what I was painting with these small amounts of paint or paint that was on discount because the color wasn’t mixed right. I told him I was an artist, and I used anything I could find cheap. I just needed to paint. From then on, he would keep paints for me behind the counter and sell them to me cheaper if I would show him a picture of what I painted. One day I went in to sketch him behind his counter and brought him a painting I did of him on a piece of wood I found in the trash behind the store. This simple gift actually got him all teary eyed. He had me sign the back because when he died, he wanted to leave it for his children to sell because he knew I was going to be famous one day. I was so touched by him that I got glassy eyed too. I started to put paintings that I just wasn’t sure if they were finished around the house. I thought if I saw them in a different light or a quick glance, I would see what was missing. I had to admit I got a little carried away. One day Russ came home. “Elli, I feel like we live in an art gallery. Plus, I see all these little handprints all over the furniture and floors. Can’t you at least wait until they are dry before you bring them into the house, so Emma won’t mess them up and in turn make a mess of our house? It can’t be healthy for her anyway. She sucks her thumb and half of these handprints around here are missing a thumb print.”

The Diner tells the story about a young hard working woman who usually thinks with her head instead of her heart until she meets Dante when she travels to Sicily. Written by Kimberly Caristi Life is hard and worst of all lonely for Sandra. You wouldn't know it because she doesn't let the struggles she has define her. She has a smart and level head on her shoulders. When Dante comes along he tries to make her think with her heart instead of her head. Sitting on a plane with an almost one-year-old on her lap made Sandra nervous. How was she going to manage a day of traveling with Carinu? She thought she had enough food and toys to keep him busy when he wasn’t sleeping. Who knew what would keep a busy one year old occupied on his first trip out of their small town? They rarely got in a car so she wondered if he would sleep in his new car seat. The woman seated on the other side of his car seat seemed to be tickled pink entertaining him. Carinu was used to strangers so he was flirting with her and enjoying the attention he was receiving. Sandra’s life was made of one change after another. She was getting tired of having to readjust her life. Why couldn’t she have a "normal” life? Poor Carinu has had such a sad beginning and to be saddled with a name like Carinu in a small midwestern town, his life was going to be a challenge. Children are mean, Sandra knew that through her own experience. Having a name that children could make fun of was a noose around your neck. Sandra vowed Carinu wouldn’t have her life. She would make sure of that. A New Experience She thought she was crazy taking on this challenge, but she had made a promise and she had put it off long enough. She assumed the money was coming from his father but there was only a bank’s name on the checks. She needed whoever it was to stop sending it. Carinu and her were doing well enough on their own. The woman sitting next to Carinu said, “Excuse me but we are about to take off. Do you have something for your baby to suck on?” Flustered, I said, “Oh, Mrs. Miller told me to make sure he had his pacifier. Thank you for reminding me. I have never flown before and my head is elsewhere.” Sandra dug in his baby bag and pulled out the pacifier. Carinu grabbed it with his chubby little hand quickly and stuck it in his mouth. She had been trying to wean him of his fi, as he called it. Sandra was worried about his teeth. They were a challenge breaking through his gums so she didn’t want to cause anything to go wrong with his teeth now that he had eight little white buds sticking out of his pink gums. They were adorable. Mrs. Miller told me not to take the pacifier totally away until after our trip to Italy. He hadn’t made a fuss being put into his car seat. That action made Sandra have one less thing to worry about. Everything was new to Carinu so he was being entertained just looking around. I was really a nervous wreck. Leshay introduced herself. It was easy talking to her. She was very motherly and pulled out my whole life story on our flight to New York. Lenape, Indiana “Hi, I am Sandra Penny.” That was the only thing I wished I could change out of my young life. Kids were mean when they teased me about my last name. I didn’t have much, so with a last name like Penny they would either joke that I didn’t have two pennies to rub together, or they would find a penny and give it to me telling me now I had a penny to my name. I have no idea what my dad’s name was and I didn’t care unless he had a really cool name. My mom had followed him here with the promise of marriage as soon as he made it big. As soon as he found out my mom was pregnant with me, he left for some cigarettes and never returned. I thought if he didn’t care about us enough to stick around, he wasn’t worth my time to wonder about him. My mom quickly found a job at an insurance company as a secretary when she had moved to Lenape. When she realized that my dad wasn’t coming back she told herself she would raise me on her own. Anytime I would ask about my family my mom would say we were family enough and didn’t need anyone. Once when I was ten, she did admit that this small town of Lenape, Indiana was not enough for my father. The town was not the prettiest place in Indiana, but it was all I ever needed. My mom made sure I felt loved and not alone. On payday we would go to Sanders’ diner three blocks away from our house for a treat. The minute you walked into the diner, the first thing you smelled was cinnamon and vanilla…the smell of cinnamon rolls which had to be their big seller. Nothing smells better in my opinion. If nothing came up that cost money during the month, we would have a real meal there. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders were so sweet to us. On those occasions when we had dinner, they would give us a free dessert. Mr. Sanders often joked that he needed help and looked forward to the day when I would be able to work for them. I always asked, “Would Mrs. Sanders show me how to make those cinnamon rolls then?” One day Mrs. Sanders said, “You know when you are big enough to come here on your own, I will teach you how to make the cinnamon rolls.” I jumped up and with my hands in the praying position, I said, “Do you pinky promise?” My mom and I would always make pinky promises. My mother usually kept those promises. I knew sometimes I had asked too much and before my mom had to break the promise, I would say I didn’t want it anymore. I wasn’t always that good about realizing what our situation was. As time passed, I noticed how worried my mom was when she paid our bills. I didn’t want to add to her burden, so I stopped asking for things that cost money. Truth be told, we were pretty good at having fun without spending money. We started the tradition of going to the library on weekends after Mr. and Mrs. Sanders would ask me what I was reading when we visited. When we got home, we would curl up on the couch together and read our book. When we went back to Sanders, I would tell them all about the book I had picked out at the library. They would ask me questions that made me think. Mom and I were falling in love with the Sanders more each time we saw them. How could we not? They were the nicest people and made mom and me feel like we mattered. Sad to say no one else made us feel that way. My mom’s boss was the worst. Mr. Malcom treated my mom with so much disdain. When I would have to go there if we had a day off from school, he treated me like I was the stupidest child he knew. I was scared of him. He was bald with these big bushy eyebrows that almost connected. The way that he looked at me made me so nervous he would make me stutter when he asked me a question. When he came to our house my mom would tell me to go to my room and lock the door. That didn’t help my being scared of him. Sometimes he would hit my mom while he was there. It was hard for me not to come out and yell at him but my mom made me pinky promise that I wouldn’t come out. When I got older, I asked my mom why she didn’t work somewhere else. Her reply was always the same. “Nobody would want to hire me. I don’t have an education.” That conversation would lead us into talking about me going to college and getting an education so I didn’t have to work with a Mr. Malcom type. Truthfully before I was old enough to legally work Mr. Sanders hired me to bus tables and do light cleaning. It was the highlight of my day. I loved school but going to Sanders I loved the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Sanders. The clientele of the diner were so nice too. They were mainly college people, administrators, professors and students and such a variety of colors and races. I cherished the days that I got to be at the diner. Everyone was welcomed and everyone got along. I couldn’t wait until I got to go to the university so I could belong to something besides my small world; a little home, a couple of friends, and a mom who loved me dearly. My mom loved to give me hugs when I came home from work. “I love you smelling like cinnamon and vanilla. It’s so much better than smelling like copier ink and paper.” She would pull me in and take a deep breath. She hugged me all the time but on workdays she would hold onto me longer. I loved it. I wanted more for my mom than just work and the little life she led. She didn’t get to go to Sanders and listen to people talking about everything in the world. I overheard people talking about where they lived in the world or where they traveled for business. I kept a pad of paper in my pocket and would write down the places I heard about, then I would go to the library to learn all about them. I found it so interesting when I heard about politics and not in the way you do on television. Real debates that were interesting and there were no fights. Once I heard a couple of people talking about the sculptures at the art gallery on campus. I made sure that would be our next trip with my mom. I just had to see what they were talking about. My mom loved walking through the art museum. We would talk about how we would feel if we were walking in a particular painting. It became our favorite game to play and when I started adding money to our income we could visit more often. The museum was free. I had added enough money to our household that my mom didn’t have to bring work home and Mr. Malcom didn’t visit us as often. I started helping manage the house so my mom and I would have more free time when I was in middle school. I would get books at the library to help me know how to clean, cook and organize our little life. We shopped at thrift stores to find bargains galore. My mom made friends with one of the workers at our favorite place to shop and she would call my mom when a particular woman would drop off her business clothes so my mom could get something beautiful to wear. Mom worked very hard to keep them looking lovely. Even though they were dry clean only, mom washed them very carefully and pressed them on her own. Once we even got a new couch for my mom to sleep on. We couldn’t figure out why someone would throw away such a beautiful couch. I knew my mom was sleeping better when she didn’t make such awful sounds when she got up in the morning. When I was old enough to work as a waitress I was in heaven. When I got my first paycheck, I took the bus to the store to buy paint. Our house was in need of painting in the worst way. I learned how to prep the walls, apply the paint and how to clean up or better yet make sure I didn’t make a mess while painting. My mom made sure that I learned about that first. I started with painting the family room. I thought my mom deserved to have her room painted first. She needed to feel better about our place. Mom would make comments all the time about how she wished that our house were nicer. I always commented that we didn’t need anything more than what we had. We had already pulled the carpet out of the house a couple years ago when my mom came home from work all mad. The stain in the middle of the carpet that had been there all the time I could remember pissed her off. She pulled back the corner of the carpet and saw we had hardwood underneath it. She had me pull all the furniture into the kitchen while she got busy pulling out the carpet. When we finished the family room we started in my bedroom. Boy was it dusty in there. Mom made us wear scarves while we did it. I was glad it wasn’t in the middle of summer or the yarn from our winter scarves would have been unbearable. We washed down the walls and the floor when we were done. It looked like we had a whole new place. Yes, the floors needed more work but it made the place look bigger somehow. The next paycheck mom bought stuff to rejuvenate the floors to their former glory. That was how I got the idea that when I had enough money to buy paint I would. I got pretty handy taking care of the house. It impressed my mom. I was getting so good my mom thought we were more like partners instead of mom and daughter. I was preparing myself to take over everything and I didn’t know it. I knew my mom was moving slower my senior year of high school. She wasn’t that old but I could tell something was wrong. A couple of times I took her to work because she thought I should have the clunker that we called our “car.” We had pooled our money for the last couple of years to buy a used car. My mom thought I should learn to drive and you need your own car to do that. Usually, my mom would walk to work but that year she asked if I minded if she drove. My mom’s last day of work I went to pick her up and I had to help her out to the car. I hated that Mr. Malcom made fun of her, “If your worthless mother doesn’t shape up, I am going to have to fire her.” I couldn’t say anything. My mom just mumbled she was sorry. I wanted my mom to go to the doctor and she said they couldn’t help her. While I made her a bowl of chicken soup, we argued about it. She pinky swore that if she didn’t feel better in the morning, she would go see a doctor. When I got up in the morning she was gone. I tried desperately to wake her. It took a minute of shaking her before I gave up and laid my head on her stomach and cried. Finally, I ran down to Sanders, instantly they knew something was wrong. Mrs. Sanders came back with me while Mr. Sanders called 911. It was a sad goodbye. Everyone at Sanders pitched in for the burial. The day of the funeral Mr. and Mrs. Sanders stayed for dinner. There was a knock at the front door and Mr. Sanders brought in Mr. Malcom, he came by to deliver a check. As one of my mom’s perks for working for him he gave her a small life insurance policy. He was a sleaze ball but he was nice enough to give me the policy money. He tried to tell me I should take my mom’s place at his office and Mr. Sanders happily pushed him out the door telling him I was in mourning and thanked him for the check. Mr. Sanders yelled at Mr. Malcolm as he was walking down the stairs to the sidewalk. “Sandra will never work for you as long as I am alive to prevent it!” Mrs. Sanders just laughed. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders were commenting about how cute the inside of my house was. Mom and I never had anyone over. If you walked by the house, you would think it would be a mess on the inside. We just didn’t have the energy to take care of it. We tried our best but it still looked rundown. It was our next project to tackle, we would say. “Okay Sandra what is your next step?” “What do you mean?” I had no idea what Mr. Sanders was talking about. “Can you stay in this house?” “Yes.” “Can you afford the payments? Do you have a landlord?” “Oh, we almost have it paid off. The only thing my mom said that my dad did right beside me.” Just saying those words made me smile for the first time since I found my mom. My mom would give me a hug when we talked about how little we had left to pay off the house. “He had put a large chunk of money down on the house when he moved here. My mom just took over the payments. My mom talked to the bank about it and they took off my dad’s name. We have two payments left and it will be all mine.” I started fiddling with the napkin in my lap. “My mom must have known she was sick because about a year ago she changed the title of the house to my name. She said she didn’t want me to have to worry about having a place to live.” A tear started rolling down my face. “She made me pinky swear that she could live here as long as she wanted when I started asking her about why I have to worry since the house would be hers. She made a joke about it.” I stood up. “Thank you for all that you have done and for all the food you brought me. I don’t know how I will eat it all but knowing me I will give it a good try.” I gave a weak smile, wiped away a tear that had dared to escape from the corner of my eye then I excused myself. When I came out of my room Mrs. Sanders was still in the kitchen organizing the leftovers into storage bags and containers. She must have gone down and got them at the diner. We sat and talked about where I was going from here. Mrs. Sanders made me promise that I would go to the school counselor for help with planning my college career. It was hard to go back to school after my mother died. Everyone knew, somehow. My teachers were all very nice and lenient. I only missed a week. Instead of getting a job I went back to school because Mrs. Sanders reminded me that my mom always talked about me going to college. Yes, I would fulfill my mother’s dream of me graduating from college. Visiting the counselor the day I went back to school was another something I shouldn’t have had to go through. Talk about someone who shouldn’t have this job. She made assumption by the way I was dressed. In her opinion, someone poor shouldn’t be in honors classes or have straight ‘A’s’. The question about who was in charge of me got under my skin and my reply made her stop and call a social worker. I left the counselor’s office with a pamphlet worth of papers for applications for scholarships, financial aid, and an appointment card with sheets I needed to fill out for the social worker. I informed her that there was no better place to go to college than the one in our town, my father was out of the picture or wouldn’t I have moved in with him when my mom died and as I closed the door said she shouldn’t judge people by how they look. I was still filling out all the paperwork my counselor gave me when the social worker arrived to interrogate me. Interrogate might be a strong word for what transpired while she was there, nonetheless that was what it felt like. She was surprised that the inside of my house looked way better than the outside. What can I say? I hate yard work! I liked polishing the woodwork because it brought things back to life. Mowing and trimming did not. I would like to paint the house but we didn’t have a ladder to get to the high places. Seriously, all the scraping to get off the peeling paint seemed too daunting. I have learned from her death that putting things off was not always the best plan of tackling unpleasant tasks, though I still did it. After the social worker looked around the house we sat and talked about my future. Not the distant future but the next few months until I graduate from high school. I was glad I was already eighteen because that kept me from going into foster care. I showed her the few bills I had, our bank account information. She told me that I would get a puny lump sum from the IRS then start to get social security money but she wasn’t sure it would be enough to live on. I saw the concern on her face. It was a little unsettling, nevertheless I thought I had this. When I worked, I got a meal. I got free lunches at school though I knew that would end soon. The more I thought about it I was sure I was going to have no problems. The life insurance policy would pay for the property taxes and any surprise expenses for at least fifteen years. Looking at the paperwork from the school counselor, I was going to have to work harder on getting scholarships. I had to write five scholarship essays. I was glad I could write about myself but one wanted me to write about if all the people in the world were blue and I was green what would I do. I still used the essay about myself. Working at the diner would keep me afloat and I always got good tips. The Sanders’ other two waitresses, Judy and Gail, had been at the diner since the beginning. Judy kept saying she should retire and move where her grandkids were living. Her husband passed away about ten years ago. Gail was still married to the same man for almost forty years. They talk about retiring in Florida someday. I hope they made it to retirement because they looked old. I would hear all about her resting bitch face when I would take her shift. People at the dinner didn’t complain much except about Gail. She wasn’t a bad waitress - it was just that she had nothing nice to say to anyone. Every time I got a scholarship, I would run down to the diner to tell Mr. and Mrs. Sanders. We would add things up on the chalkboard in the kitchen. When my counselor told me how much aid I would be getting because I was low income, Mrs. Sanders put that amount on the board. At the top was the cost to go to the university and we just kept subtracting. The day I got enough money we celebrated with pie a’ la mode. Mrs. Sanders and I made faces when Mr. Sanders wanted his apple pie with mint chocolate chip ice cream instead of vanilla. Graduation day came and I didn’t have anyone there to cheer me on. I tried not to cry as I sat down after receiving my diploma. Rose was sitting next to me and she handed me a tissue, “Here, I thought I might cry too. I think I surprised my family that I actually graduated.” I took the tissue gratefully as the tears couldn’t be stopped. “Thanks,” squeaked out of me. “What are you going to do now? I haven’t decided. I want to go somewhere other than this stupid town. I might just go to Indianapolis and work in a nice shop so I can get a discount on clothing.” A teacher I didn’t know came over to tell Rose to be quiet. I was glad not to have to answer her. As it was, my classmates weren’t friendly with me and I was afraid to tell Rose I loved our town. I had plans to live out my life here and be buried next to my mom. I never dated. The curse of being teased during my elementary years continued all the way through high school. The only time a guy was nice to me was when I volunteered to answer a question he had on a paper we were assigned. Sometimes I thought a new guy would ask me out but I was too self-conscious to talk to them. My mom told me to stop worrying about what people thought about me but I had to say it was easier said than done. Judy told me that I should reinvent myself when I started college and put myself out there. I needed to date she would say over and over…again, easier said than done. Creative writing? I decided to study creative writing in college. I loved all the books I read and I wanted to transport a child to another world by books like I had been. The problem was I was not a very good writer. I couldn’t come up with ideas unless someone told me what to write about, and it was hard for me to make it to the required number of words or pages. I could talk to strangers but writing about a stranger was difficult. The one thing I learned after halfway through my second year was, I was a very good editor and all the students that sat around me would ask me to check their grammar, tell where they needed to expand on a story or what to cut out. One student told me I should work on the student newspaper. I still wasn’t dating but a couple times at the diner a guy would flirt with me. Judy said I needed to learn to flirt back. I was nice enough I just needed to toss my hair and compliment the guy. Oh, I was bad at it. I could talk about books I had read but having a meaningful conversation was embarrassing. The first time I tried to flirt I ran back to the kitchen and wouldn’t come out until he left. I tried to flirt into the mirror at home and after five minutes of trying I gave up. I was as red as a tomato and glad my mom wasn’t alive to see how sad her daughter was at flirting. A middle-aged man came into the diner often and if I had the time I would sit and talk to him about his travels and the books about traveling I had read. I knew it wasn’t the same but I desperately wanted to share what I had read. Once he thought my conversation was so interesting, he took the trip I planned for him. I really didn’t plan it for him, it was something I read about and told him if I could, I would do this and this and this. He was having a hard time trying to decide what trip to take. It was between Slovakia and Slovenia and I had read a couple books on Slovenia. I wanted to go to a couple of the caves they have plus a couple of lakes I wanted to see. Two lakes that didn’t allow motorized boats on and I wanted to see the clear water of Bohinj. It was at the base of the mountain Triglav, the symbol of Slovenia. Glenn came back all excited. “Sandra, thank you for the most interesting trip I have taken. You should be a travel agent.” Mr. Sanders wasn’t happy with that statement. “Sandra is going to finish college.” I put my hand on Mr. Sanders’ arm hoping to calm him down. “Yes, I am going to finish college. You don’t have to worry. I just think Glenn is happy that I gave him a great idea. Right Glenn?” I looked at him, willing him to agree with me. Glenn didn’t want to upset Mr. Sanders any more than I did. “Yes, Sandra is right. Her knowledge of Slovenia was so dead on, even what food to eat. I guess I should have said that Sandra should share with us travelers all her insights to different cultures. Speaking of which, I brought you back a beehive board.” Glenn handed me a gift-wrapped little package. It was so pretty I didn’t want to destroy the lovely wrapping. “Oh, this is so pretty, do I have to open it?” I said half joking. I really wanted to see the painted board that they put on the beehives but I thought the wrapped package was beautiful. Glenn was a tad upset, “No, you’d better open it. I want to see your expression when you see the painting.” I carefully unwrapped the gift and saw the board and smiled. I had no idea what to say. I wanted to say why did you get it for me but instead said, “Thank you very much. You didn’t have to get me a gift.” “That is you milking the cow. While one guy is saying the cow is mine and pulls the horns, another guy is pulling the tail saying the cow is mine. You are saying I don’t care; I will just milk it. I watch you with the customers fighting over things. Granted you are being nice but they think they are right and you come in and tell them how it is. I saw this and wanted you to have it. Besides, I could get it home without breaking it. I am glad you talked me out of over packing but that didn’t leave me much room for gifts.” “Did you bring old clothes so you could leave them there?” I told him if he weren’t going anywhere nice, he could bring clothes that should be thrown away and just leave them there so he would have room for souvenirs. He looked down, “No, I brought new clothes, and I couldn’t part with them. As I was packing to come home, I thought of your words and wished I had taken your advice.” On my break I looked at his pictures. Oh, how I wish I were the one that took them. Judy and Gail both think he had a crush on me. He always wanted me to wait on him. I thought he was a nice man who liked me as a person. He was over twice my age and I didn’t think I wanted someone that old to date. “You have some beautiful pictures there.” I handed him back his phone. “You should print a couple of them.” “You know I almost got you a panel with two women trying to get their legs into a pair of men’s pants. Whoever got them on got to marry him. I didn’t think you were the type who would fight over a man.” He was looking at his pictures on his phone. I didn’t know what to say. I had no one to fight over. “Yes, that seems silly. I like the one you gave me. It made me feel good when you explained it to me.” “I wanted to get you a dove that was carved out of one piece of wood with his wings splayed out. I couldn’t figure out how to get it back without breaking the wings off. I stood in front of the man who carved it looking at it and thinking that it is beautiful but how could I get it home.” “It sounds beautiful. Again, thank you for thinking of me.” “How is your creative writing class going?” I was glad he changed the subject. “Oh, I must have forgotten to tell you. I changed my major last semester to journalism. I am the assistant editor. I am better at editing than I am at writing.” “Don’t sell yourself short. Your paper about the candle wick was good.” “Thanks, it’s just that it was a short paper. When I have to draft a story, it is like pulling teeth…painful and slow. So far, I am liking journalism. Mrs. Sanders said that it might take me a little time to find my place in this world. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders have faith in me.” “We all have faith in you Sandra. You are a smart woman. You will find your way soon enough. You take all the time you need to find what you love.” He patted my hand. I slipped my hand off the table. “I think my break is over. Thank you so much for the bee panel and for letting me see all your pictures. I am glad you had a good time. I would have felt bad if you didn’t like it.” “I loved it. The country is so beautiful. More than my pictures can convey. I hope you get to go sometime. What new place have you been reading about lately?” “Have you been to Türkiye? I have been reading about Istanbul and Ephesus. Just yesterday I picked up a book on Greece. You want to talk about beautiful! Hey, I have to go or Judy will be mad at me.” Maybe Glenn liked me as a daughter he never had. I didn’t know why he hadn’t married. He was pleasant to look at and had a nice personality. I have no idea what a professor in history made but he had money to travel so to me he made enough. The Newspaper Working on the newspaper was a little more stressful than I thought it would be. Deadlines were real. I thought getting ready for opening the diner was stressful. They didn’t even compare. I wasn’t sure if I was made to be a journalist because of how they write. It’s like the reporter works harder to write less like I worked harder to write more. I spent too much time writing and putting more information into my stories and the editor, my boss, said we had to cut part of the story. No one seemed happy with my style so I was demoted to just checking the spelling and grammar. I walked into the diner and Mrs. Sanders knew there was something wrong. It didn’t take long and I confessed that I wasn’t really happy with journalism. Mrs. Sanders called over Mr. Sanders and the three of us sat at a table to discuss what was going on. “Mr. Sanders,” and he stopped me from going any further. “Don’t you think it’s about time you call me Bob and you can call her Maureen or Mo for short.” My shoulders just sagged. “We can’t do anything about our names, it’s what our parents gave us.” He smiled a brilliant smile. “It’s not that. My mom always called you Mr. and Mrs. I think she would want me to respect you and call you by your titles.” Mr. Sanders elbowed Mrs. Sanders, “Looky here Mo, we have titles.” “You know what I mean.” Mrs. Sanders said, “Sweetheart, you show us respect every day and it’s not by calling us Mr. and Mrs. Bob, here is starting to feel old and he feels that the more people that call him mister the older he feels.” “You feel the same Mo; you can’t deny it. Look Sandra, it’s okay if you call us Mr. and Mrs. or Bob and Maureen. We just worry about you and want you to come to us if you are having trouble. We feel like we are your family. If you want to call us aunt and uncle, we would be happy with that too.” He reached over to pat my hand. I got a little bit glossy eyed. They were my family. I was lucky that they stepped up when my mom died. I knew I could talk to them about anything. It was nice that they felt the same way. “Thank you for being here for me. I have to tell you that you might get frustrated with me.” Both of them said “Never,” and each of them grabbed my hand. I shared with them about getting demoted on the newspaper. I felt so lost and they could tell I was getting frustrated. I had a feeling that they were worried that I was close to quitting. Maureen patted my hand, “Sandra do you know what you want to do with your life?” I had no idea what I wanted. “If you could wave a magic wand and you would have the life you wanted, what would it be?” I sat back in my chair and fiddled with a hangnail. I thought for a minute trying to block out what was going on around me, with little effort. Bob nudged me with his foot and I smiled. I gazed back and forth between the two of them. “If I could wave a wand first, I would wish my mom back then I would wish to be a writer.” Maureen said, “Okay, well, the magic wand doesn’t work that well. Think again.” “I really don’t need to think that much because if I can’t write I want to give kids the experience that I had with the library. I would like to own a bookstore/coffee shop where I could make pastries like you taught me. It would be nice to showcase local writers, too. Do you know where I can get a magic wand?” They both chuckled. Bob stated, “You should take some management classes to see what it takes to run a business. See if you like it,” tapping me with his foot. “It wouldn’t hurt to try it. I know I make it look so easy but it’s not. You don’t see us upstairs trying to balance the budget, ordering supplies, trying to figure out if we have made a profit and what we are going to fix or update in the coming year.” Maureen was nodding her head while Bob was talking. “Yes and buy stock in aspirin for all our headaches and body aches which are superseding the headaches these days.” It was Bob’s turn to nod his head. “I will go visit my advisor. Thanks for being such great sounding boards.” I didn’t know if I would have ever thought about trying business classes. I had managed my life from a very young age. This could be my niche. Sad thing was each area that I tried. I thought that one was my niche. The first classes I took I enjoyed thoroughly. My professor had been in business and wanted a less stressful life so she decided to try teaching. She fell in love with teaching, and she was very good. She made me feel just as important as the other students in the class whose majors were business. She asked for volunteers to work on a project with her. Nobody volunteered and I didn’t know if it was the pressure that no one was raising a hand or I wanted to work on the project with her that made me slide my hand up. “Thank you, Ms. Penny. I appreciate your willingness to collaborate with me. It might lead you to a job down the road.” With that said several more hands went up. We were working on writing business plans for a couple hand-picked businesses in town. I wanted one to be a bookstore. That would help me down the road more than a nonprofit and a soap store. It was fun and nobody knew me and that didn’t matter to them. I was considered a peer. I was eating up my new area like it was chocolate covered cherries, my favorite candy. I was volunteering to the point that my job at the diner was working before the diner opened, making pastries, then doing the early morning shift. I didn’t mind smelling like the cinnamon rolls but when someone in class asked if I had eaten a pound of bacon for breakfast, I realized that I’d rather work with the customers instead of helping Maureen in the kitchen. Plus, I made a little bit more money with tips if I took orders and poured coffee. I made sure I had time to shower before class if I was working in the kitchen. I did bring in more customers when I told them I worked at Sanders Diner. My professor Ester would come in and work on her laptop during my shift. The diner wasn’t far from her office and she loved the cinnamon rolls. I gave her a little more icing because she loved it. At first, I would come back to clear her plate and you wouldn’t have known she had anything on that plate. She must have taken her finger to get all the icing up. One day I introduced her to Glenn who was sitting at the next table. He was sitting alone as usual. During my break I sat down at Esther's table and asked Glenn to join us because Ester and I were talking about Slovenia. I found out from her screensaver on her laptop that she had been to Slovenia. She was talking about Lake Bled. I could tell Glenn was eavesdropping, so I asked him to sit with us. The two of them were enjoying talking about the places that each had been and when they started to talk about different places, I knew I could leave them alone. I wasn’t needed to glue them together; they had the love of a foreign country that took care of it. From then on when one would come into the diner, they would search the tables looking for the other. If one was there a large smile would appear if not you saw the disappointment. Gail said I lost my gravy train. I just thought I connected two people who had a liked interest that they were eager to share with each other. I was not fooling myself. I wasn’t sure if it would lead to a romance but for the time being, they had a new friend. Nobody should be alone. I know I wasn’t a fan of being alone. When I went home to an empty house, I felt like I was the only person in the world. I haven’t gotten the nerve to ask someone out and no one has asked me out. I had hoped college would be better. The problem was I was inept at making anything but small talk. With my older customers I could carry a little more conversation. They helped because they were very free with their life stories. It was easy to ask them about their family, work or pets and they would carry the conversations. Management, the Key I declared my major as management in what should have been my junior year. One day, the diner was pretty empty and I asked Maureen and Bob to sit with me. “I don’t know what to do. I know my mom wanted me to graduate but my scholarships will only last one more year. I would have to dip into my mom’s life insurance policy, and I don’t want to do that. I think I am going to look for a full-time job.” Maureen was upset, “No you can’t do that. You need to graduate.” She called over Suzanne, who was an academic advisor. “Suzanne, can you pull up Sandra’s transcripts and see if she could graduate next year?” Suzanne moved things around to see if I could graduate in Business, Business Management or get a general degree. If I got the college of business to adjust my requirements, I could just take a couple classes this summer and graduate with a business degree. I didn’t have to take more classes for a general degree and have a minor in management. I opted for the general degree. If I wanted to or needed to get my masters in business I could do it. I will graduate with honors since I only have one ‘B’ in creative writing. The only reason I let myself get that ‘B’ was I was tired of rewriting my paper. It still haunts me to this day that I didn’t rewrite it. Suzanne was very impressed with my grades; she tried to get me to stay in college and get my masters. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Opening a coffee shop and bookstore would take a chunk of money and credit, and I have no credit unless you count my house. I would hate to put my house up for collateral. I would be scared to lose it. My senior year was a breeze, which made me appreciate that I kept what I thought would be easy classes for my last year. My stress was lessened by being on track to graduate on time. I had started calling the Sanders Aunt Maureen and Uncle Bob. I just had a hard time calling them by their given name. Giving them the titles of aunt and uncle made it easier. A couple of times I slipped and called Aunt Maureen Mom; I was embarrassed. Aunt Maureen came over to give me a hug. “I feel honored that you called me mom. Sometimes I feel like I am standing in for your mom. It makes me feel all warm inside when you slip up. You know we were never blessed with children, and you are as close as we got.” I gave her a hug back. “Oh, you are my special mom. You didn’t have to go through the terrible twos with me or the teenage years when my hormones were a little out of whack. You do know that everyone here loves you as a mom, especially me.” We hugged again. I honestly did feel like I was their adopted daughter. They watched out for me, got upset and yelled at me if I screwed up, and most of all I could see they cared about me. At first, when I was feeling like they were my parents I felt melancholy. I thought my mom would have been hurt. I walked around my house talking to her and looking at the three pictures of us together. The more I talked to her, the more I thought my mom would be thrilled to know that someone was looking out for me. I had so many emotions going through me on graduation day. The Sanders had said they would come to my graduation but I didn’t think they would. I knew they would be busy that day. Why would they take the time to walk over to be bored? I was sad that my mom wasn’t there to see I fulfilled the pinky promise I made to graduate. I was proud of myself because I did it in four years and with honors. My biggest emotions were being scared at what I was going to do next. I didn’t do any internships because I had no idea where I would go. I still had our clunker of a car which I took to the store and back. I didn’t think it could have made it to Indianapolis for three months and if I had gotten the internship, would I have the money to pay for gas? I was thrilled to see the Sanders up front. They had to get there early to get those seats. They were wonderful stand-ins for parents. They couldn’t be more supportive than biological parents. In the sea of black gowns and hats they found me too. As Aunt Maureen hugged me, she said “Sandra, do you have any plans now?” “I was just going home until I had to work.” Uncle Bob put his arm around my shoulder, “Then you are coming back to the diner with us and having a meal before you have to work.” “I will go home and change first then I will come over.” “No, you look so pretty, you will add some class to the diner today. Shoot, we all will add some class to the dinner. I don’t think anyone has seen me in a suit before. I look pretty good don’t you think?” Uncle Bob was pulling on his lapels. “Oh, Uncle Bob you look so handsome and Aunt Maureen you look so beautiful in that dress. In all these years I don’t think I have seen you in anything but white clothes.” Not to let Uncle Bob get away with making a joke about their uniforms of white pants and shirt I had to add something. “You both look good in white but seeing you in colors is a lovely change.” I had to try to make them feel that they looked good because both of them were fiddling with their clothes. We were walking over to the diner and I was pleased to see classmates wave or say good luck. I was glad that I was able to say something back instead of just smiling. I thought I didn’t make an impression but I guess I did. I felt pretty good when we got to the diner. I saw that the lights were off at the diner. I felt bad that the Sanders closed on one of the busiest days of the year? They walked in first and when I walked in the lights went on and a large bunch of people yelled “Surprise.” I was in total shock. After the initial jumping back against the door I bent over in what was half laughing and half crying. All the regulars were there with some spouses thrown in. The place was been decorated in my school’s colors. There was a buffet with all kinds of Aunt Maureen’s special treats and sandwiches. I thought I was hugged by everyone there. I was glad I didn’t wear makeup because it would all have down my face from all the laughing and crying I did that afternoon. I was dumbfounded by all the people I saw and all the cards I received. I would put them up around the house to remind me that people did like me and I was not alone. When everyone had left and I was helping clean up the party, Aunt Maureen called me to a table in the back that was all cleared and cleaned. Uncle Bob ushered me back telling me I wasn’t cleaning up the party that was for me. When we were all seated, I could tell that they were a little nervous which made me very nervous. I was afraid they were going to tell me I was fired so I would find my niche in life. Uncle Bob started, “Have you figured out what you are going to do now that you graduated?” I couldn’t look at them, “I thought I would work here while I try to figure out what I want to do.” I could tell that they seemed unhappy with my idea. I could be reflecting my own thoughts on them. I couldn’t look at them. I was nervous about what they were going to say and I started sweating down my back, under my arms and between my legs. I wiped my forehead with my sweaty hand. “Well, your Aunt Maureen and I have a proposition for you.” These words calmed me down. “We would like to retire. Actually, everyone working here, but you, would like to retire.” He gave me a little chuckle. I didn’t understand what was so humorous about that. “We were wondering if you would like the diner?” I just looked at him in disbelief. “You know I don’t have the money for this place. I don’t think if I kept this place running with a couple workers, I could make the payments and keep this place running.” “Your Uncle Bob wasn’t clear. We want to give you the diner.” I looked at them with incredulity. “What! You can’t do that!?!” Uncle Bob sat up straight and with a broad smile said, “We don’t have children, and we desperately want to retire in a cute little bungalow where we have a yard that we can work in. We thought this would be a perfect swap. You sign over your house to us and we sign over the diner. Upstairs is a nice size two-bedroom apartment. It could be a three bedroom if you clean up the place.” “Bob, be honest with her. We have put all our energy these last ten years into the diner. We have kept the dinner and the outside of the building looking great. Our apartment upstairs has been a catch all for everything. Now, the basement would have space again if you cleaned it up. To be honest we are a couple of pack rats and everything but the diner is not that nice. We just haven’t had the energy that it would take to clean everything up. The building is in great condition. The basement is dry, which is a huge deal in this area.” “She is right. I made sure to keep everything that mattered in good condition. Of course, we have paid for the building to be in good condition. I just didn’t want to pay for the rest of it to be in good condition.” I could tell that he was embarrassed with the condition of everything but the diner. I was just as embarrassed about the outside of my place. I really was going to tackle it this year. Without the stress of school, I thought I would have the time and the energy to put into the yard. “You two know how my yard is not in the best of conditions.” I couldn’t look at them. “What am I saying? The yard is a mess but the inside is clean.” I looked up at them with some excitement which faded fast. “You know this is not an equal swap.” “We know that but like we said we have no biological children to leave this to.” Uncle Bob patted Aunt Maureen’s hand. “Mo and I think of you as our child.” Then Uncle Bob started patting my hand. “Sweetheart, we are tired of working here and when we saw your place we thought it would be perfect for us. The yard isn’t too big, and the inside is picture perfect. We will still be close enough to you that we can walk over here to have a pastry and coffee while looking at the books.” He shook my hand trying to get my eye to meet his. I just couldn’t believe it. “We want to see you have your dreams while we are still alive. If you need us, we will be here in a minute, too. Though I did promise Mo, here, a vacation to Florida when it gets cold.” Aunt Maureen had the biggest smile on her face. “We haven’t been on vacation since before you were born. That was when we had all the new plumbing and electrical work done, so we took what little money we had left and went to Tennessee to visit my sister, bless her soul.” I looked at her in disbelief. “That was before she moved back here when her health got bad.” I remember her living upstairs and helping her down and up the stairs when I started working here. It was so sad when she passed because I didn’t know how to comfort Aunt Maureen. “What do you say? Do we have a deal?” I looked at Uncle Bob with so much uncertainty. I had no clue what to say. “Shall we look at our books so you can see what you are getting into. I know you want to put a bookstore in here too so you will be losing some seating and income. Maybe you can be more creative with the space than we were. Not having a full meal, you might lose some income that way too.” Then he looked at me with uncertainty. “Really, I am not sure what you are going to want to do.” “Are you sure about all this? I feel like you are losing on this deal. I don’t want to take advantage of you.” It was my turn to pat their hands. Uncle Bob had the stern look of a father, “We have talked to our lawyer and our financial advisor about all this. Both of them say since we were leaving all this to you, this is better for you. Mo and I think this is best for us. We might be able to live longer without the stress on our bodies. Honestly, we are excited to watch you live your dreams.” “Almost as excited as if we could watch you go on a date.” I couldn’t believe Aunt Maureen and her worrying about me dating. “Now, Mo, she might be too busy setting up her new place to date yet.” “You two are too much.” I smiled at them both. “Mo is sorry about saying anything about the date thing.” He patted my hand. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it. “No, not that. I am talking about giving me this place.” “Remember dear, we are getting your place.” I looked at Aunt Maureen. She seemed so happy about this arrangement. I looked into Uncle Bob’s eyes next. He, too, looked happy. “Are you sure?” I looked at both of them with such gratitude and love. I saw it reflected in their eyes. We looked over their books, seeing them through the eyes of someone who just graduated with a “business” degree. I didn’t care what my diploma said. I thought I had enough credits for a business degree with a minor in management. They told me we would go over the books with their CPA and lawyer on Monday. When we went upstairs, I saw what they were talking about. It did need some cleaning up. Every decoration from years past was stacked or boxed up there. I thought that was true until we went downstairs, and I saw more boxes of decorations. It made sense why employees were not allowed to go downstairs. I thought the staircase in the front of the diner area would be closed off so I would have more floor space. After going downstairs, I could see that space as extra seating. The ceiling was high so I could see it was usable space. Yes, there was work to do, and I was anxious to get started. I went home and drew up a plan and started packing. I decided to donate my mom’s things I didn’t want. I had kept all of her belongings, books, and trinkets since her death. Since I was moving, I thought maybe it was time to get rid of things that I didn’t think I wanted. As for her clothes, I kept the few dresses that I liked. We wore about the same size. I was a little taller than her, but she wore them a little longer than me. My mom dressed like an old maid. All her clothes were baggy, maybe because she didn’t want Mr. Malcom to see her beautiful body. That was beneficial for me because I was bigger all the way around. She had a couple of beautiful classic dresses. The kind that never went out of style. Well, at least in my mind they would never go out of style. I kept all the books that were important to her. She didn’t want to get rid of books for the sake of getting rid of them. I took them down the street to the little library and donate all the paperback books that my mom got at the library on their dollar for a bag of books sale. Our favorite day to go to the library. I would keep all her trinkets and put them in a shadowbox. If anyone knew us, they would know that it was a pun. Of course, no one really knew us so knowing that she said “she would always be my shadow” would be lost on everyone. She didn’t have many trinkets, so I knew they were important to her. Since it was all I had of her, I thought it was the least I could do to showcase them. Boxing up the kitchen was easy because it was a waste of money spending on things we didn’t need. All the baking experience I had was baking at the diner. Aunt Maureen taught me, then let me practice at the diner. Spending money on treats was always at the diner. In high school I was making more of the baked goods that the diner offered. I loved making them and Aunt Maureen was happy to hand over the reins to me. When I had to make pastries at five in the morning after studying for an exam until late at night I began to question my love. Seeing people enjoying my baked goods was all it took to know I was doing the right thing. That was when I started practicing new pastries and adding croissants. I started having a following when I perfected them. Uncle Bob had to order boxes because people would order a dozen or more at a time for meetings or celebrations. After the meeting with the lawyer and the CPA when we signed all the papers, we went back to my house. I showed them all the essential things people wanted to know, where to turn off the water and the electrical box. Aunt Maureen was looking at all my stuff like she was trying to decide if she was going to make an offer to buy them. “You know what Sandra, your furniture is just as nice as ours. Why don’t we leave our furniture in our respective homes since they fit? We have too much to fit in here and yours wouldn’t have enough for our space.” I could not believe her. My stuff isn’t that great though when I saw theirs, they were probably from the same period. Moving day was a breeze for me because everything fit into my car. It was cool that I had a marked parking space in the parking lot behind the diner. When I got out of my car, I had to touch the sign saying Sanders Diner Owner Space. Yes, I owned Sanders’ Diner. It was hard to believe that I owned Sanders. Mr. Travis said he would be happy to stay on as my financial advisor. I thought it was interesting that he has two first names, Ralph Travis. I bet there was confusion when he was introduced to people. I knew I was confused. Mr. Jae Kim was another confusing name when I saw it. Mr. Kim said he would be pleased to stay on as my lawyer. Since both of them were in agreement to stay on I was happy I brought along my business plan for my new place. Both of them thought it was a good plan but were worried about how much business I was going to get with taking a third of my floor space for the bookstore. I told them about cleaning out the basement’s front room for customers to go down there to sit. I was making it a self-serve since I didn’t have people working for me yet. They thought I would have to get a loan for buying the books. That part stressed me out. I had never gotten a loan before. Mr. Travis said that I had collateral in the store so there should be no problem in getting a loan. Since I had the only place where people could get good coffee and a pastry off campus we had a niche. Many people who had gone through the university and stayed in town still came to our side of town to come and get breakfast or lunch. While my aunt and uncle closed at six after they offered a simple menu for dinner and I was forgoing that, I thought I would not stay open that long. Dinner wasn’t a big sell I noticed and thought I could get away with just offering lunch souffles and some kinds of bagel sandwiches. I might add it to the menu later on. I had no idea what my future offerings but at the beginning I thought it would work. I decided I would keep some of the regular items and slowly convert over to what I wanted to do. If my regular customers got upset, I would add stuff back. I had so much to do cleaning out the basement and apartment I might have to hire someone part-time right away. Aunt Maureen and Uncle Bob would stay on for a month to help out. They wanted to help me succeed. I was very appreciative. A New Business I found a large old chalkboard to put the new menu on and some other items upstairs that I wanted to add back into the diner. Going through the boxes was better than any Christmas I had ever had. I was finding all kinds of gems that needed some cleaning up or fixing. It was a big deal going through things, deciding if I wanted them, donated them, try to sell them or throw them away. I had piles everywhere. A couple of times I thought I got the raw end of the deal having to clean out the Sanders’ place then I would see them come in with cuts from all the work they were doing in the yard. We each had our crosses to bear as my mom would say. I had put an ad in the window for some part-time help. A nice Italian young man who had been going to school at the university needed some work because he didn’t want to tell his parents that he needed more money to live on. He would tell me his family had the money, but they didn’t want him to come to America to study because of all the violence we had here. I couldn’t hire him legally so he begged for the job and would take the cash. He convinced me that neither one of us would get caught. He had been coming in for coffee for a while and made a big deal about how good the Sanders’ coffee was compared to the university coffee. He had helped clear tables for me before he even thought about asking for a job. I knew he was a good worker just observing him when Aunt Maureen and Uncle Bob were running the place. We all commented on how nice he was to help out. At the end of the month that Aunt Maureen and Uncle Bob had promised me, I hired Vincenzo and was going to pay him under the table as they say. I didn’t know who “they” were but that was my understanding of our situation. Vincenzo would come over when his classes were over and help me. If he had an hour, he would come over to do some dishes. Anytime he would curse the situation he was having with the dishwasher or cleaning up a mess that people left at their table, he would speak Italian. I have too much curiosity and I kept asking him what he was mumbling about. Apparently, I have a good ear for Italian and was picking up the language to the point he decided to teach me. I loved it when Vincenzo would show up unannounced to help. Anytime he would show up I was filled with joy. I was only a couple years older than him and treated him like my brother. Ester would try to convince me to ask him out since we got along so well. “I couldn’t date my brother” I would say over and over. He treated me like a sister, too. Teasing me to the point of us both laughing about whatever was going on, mostly about me picking the wrong word in Italian. I was learning so fast that I would get words mixed up. I knew I was mixing words up when he would look at me funny then I knew I needed to find the correct word. One day he came in and I was so excited to tell him I had dreamt in Italian. He was just as excited as I was. He remembered the day he dreamt in English and there was no one who understood what that meant. He was understanding English enough and he was surrounded with people who spoke English, he watched television in English plus he had to read in English. His teacher who was assigned to him to work on his English was the only one who understood and all she said was she thought he was ready to go to university full-time. I had been playing Italian music since I had internet. A plus with getting the diner was getting internet because everyone expected it these days. Someday I will celebrate by buying a cellphone. I had a landline phone connected to the internet and was looking forward to making enough money for a cellphone. People were always asking for my cell number and I would have to say sorry, then the dreaded questions would come…why? How can you live without a phone? The other question was would you let me buy you a phone? I knew there would come a day I would get one but for now I didn’t want to spend the money. Some people couldn’t understand why I felt the need to decline their offer when they were offering me a free phone. Until you experience not having much and the joy you get when you buy a new shirt instead of a used shirt, you will never understand. I had other expenses that were looming over me. I was looking into getting my little bookstore set up. I had contacted all the local authors asking if they wanted to have their books on display here for a small percentage of the cost. It was a good partnership. I was looking at some corporations that would let me have the books on consignment. Vincenzo said he would build me bookshelves if I bought him some wood. I found a couple of people willing to lend me some tools. We had cleared out a section of the basement for his little workshop. He was handy at building things, cleaning and teaching me about all things Italian. The favorite section I wanted to set up was travel books. I have been using my knowledge of places to visit to further the travel of the people that came to the diner. I was decorating the diner with the trinkets that people brought back for me as a thank you. The first big item I bought was an “A” to change the name of the diner from Sanders’ to Sandra’s. No one admitted to noticing but I noticed. This place was mine and I wanted to show the world. New people were coming in for my advice on travel, buying books, and my pastries. All were unexpected nevertheless it was exciting to see I had increased my clientele. I was happy my idea of adding books to the diner wasn’t futile. There were still people who liked to hold a book just like me. I was doing so well that I had the place looking like I wanted, and it only took two years. I still was in debt for some of my travel books. They were the only ones that I actually had to buy but I thought they were some of my best sellers. Everyone wanted me to put out a cookbook because they thought my pastries were amazing. I was glad people stuck with me because after all this time I thought I had finally gotten to where I wanted to be. I agreed with everyone that they were amazing. If they weren’t I wouldn’t have people coming from an hour away to buy my “works of art” as someone called them. I have never admitted to anyone that I thought they were amazing because I was afraid that I would get too full of myself. I probably put ten pounds onto my customers. Half of them admitted that to me then said they didn’t care because my pastries were worth the calories. I felt like I could take an evening walk around the neighborhood and not feel guilty that I wasn’t working. Aunt Maureen and Uncle Bob were so pleased by my progress and rarely stopped by because it was hard to find a seat, they said. I think they were just enjoying their retirement by traveling and working on their house. They had made the yard come to life with all kinds of flowers and plants. They put a new roof on the house that came out front farther so they could have a porch. That was where I found them these days in the evening if they weren’t traveling. One day they were so excited to see me. “Sandra, you have to come in to see what we have done lately.” Both of them were talking over each other. They were so animated. I couldn’t wait to see what they had done. I knew that Vincenzo had come over to do some work for them. I noticed the difference right when I walked into the house. “Oh my gosh, you widened the bedroom!” I couldn’t get over the change. “Yes, come in and see. Now more than a full-size bed fits in the room. We knew when we saw your room with the single bed, we would never fit it that.” Uncle Bob laughed. “We were so grateful that you didn’t mind us exchanging with one of our full-size beds. We had lived scooting around the bed long enough. Look, we even got a queen bed to fit in here with a dresser. We have a bigger closet. I think Mo is happiest with that change.” Uncle Bob confessed. Aunt Maureen finally got to talk. She had been about to say something a couple times but Uncle Bob wanted to finish his thoughts. “We haven’t really entertained but thought if we wanted to we should have Vincenzo make us a table with a bench on one side. We thought this size would be enough for us. We just push the table over the bench, so we have more room to walk. That Vincenzo was a real find, he is so handy. Isn’t the table beautiful?” “Aunt Maureen, it is beautiful.” She was so proud of the table as she ran her hand over the top. You could tell they used nicer wood than the pine we used to build the bookshelves. People always talked about how cool they looked. I knew he had gotten a few jobs from our clientele when they found out that he made them. I knew I was underpaying him but he insisted that he was getting more out of our deal than I was. It was hard to believe he felt that way. We didn’t even keep track of his hours. I just paid him a flat rate every week. Sometimes I got more hours and sometimes less. I insisted he had to keep his grades up. He was thinking about getting his master’s here. I hoped he would, but I didn’t want our connection to influence him. I knew we would keep in touch wherever he landed. He was my best friend and if I was honest with myself, he was my first real friend. I could be myself around him. I was running my hand over the table and Aunt Maureen took me out of my thoughts. “Are you okay?” “Yes, I was just thinking that Vincenzo does exquisite work.” “You always come up with the correct word.” She reached over to give me a sideways hug. Oh, how I miss having those daily hugs. “If you like this table you should see the kitchen table he made. Come.” We walked into the kitchen and Aunt Maureen had finally painted the kitchen her favorite color…pink. “OMG, he made this table?” It was just an ordinary table that fit perfectly in their kitchen. It was just perfect for two. He had used several kinds of wood and varnish on the wood and it was so shiny you could see yourself in it. “Yes, Vincenzo is a very talented man. I am sure he told you that his grandfather taught him all he knows.” Uncle Bob sounded proud he knew something about Vincenzo. “Yes, did he tell you that his parents don’t like that he loves to work with his hands. That is why he is here to get a financial degree so he can take over the business that his father started.” I could tell he didn’t divulge that bit of information to them. Aunt Maureen put her arm around my shoulder, “Oh, that is so sad. While he worked here, he seemed so happy. It’s a shame you two don’t have something romantic between you.” There she goes again trying to get me to start dating. When the time was right, I would find my person who completes me…one of my favorite movie quotes. “Oh, Mo how do you know there isn’t something going on between the two of them? They are always together.” Uncle Bob elbowed Aunt Maureen in her ribs and looked at me. Aunt Maureen pushed his arm away. “Because if you watch them together or when they talk about the other you only see respect. Almost like siblings but better because they admire each other. “I wish you two wouldn’t get so caught up in my lack of a love life. I promise you there is someone out there that will make me fall in love with him. I am too busy right now to search for him. I am still young; besides if I am not worried about it, you two shouldn’t be. I have a very fulfilling life. Look at me. I am truly happy.” “We just don’t want you to miss out on being in love.” Uncle Bob put his arm around Aunt Maureen and gave her a squeeze. We finished the evening on the porch eating a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream, talking about their trip to Türkiye next month. I told them about the mosque that Sultan Ahmet I’s mother had built for his brother on the Asian side of Istanbul. I would get them the name of the mosque later. I couldn’t think of it at the moment. It was way smaller than the Blue Mosque nevertheless it was very tastefully done. I knew it was not in the touristy area, but I thought they should see what she built for the lesser of her two sons. Also, they could see how Turkish people truly lived. It is hard to believe that the Blue Mosque was finished just a year before Ahmet’s death at 27. I got home just before dark. That was something that bothered me about myself. I didn’t like to come into a dark building. I could work all night in the basement, dining area or my apartment but coming off the street in the dark spooked me. I knew I was silly nonetheless it was one of my many flaws. I had pretty much gone through all the boxes the Sanders left me and labeled the ones I was keeping stored in the basement. Vincenzo and I were ready for people to go downstairs. We had painted the walls a pearl white and had local artists hang their paintings for sale down there. I had had a few books stolen so I thought painting would be a better choice down there and make the room not feel like a dungeon. That was what it looked like when we started cleaning it out. Vincenzo took out the door and opened the walls around the steps so more natural light went down there. I found a good-looking second-hand couch with a couple of overstuffed chairs and some floor lamps to give it a cozier look. We had several dinette tables and a bookshelf full of games and cards that I found at a thrift shop. Down the middle of the room Vincenzo made a long table with benches on each side. Hanging from the ceiling were pendant lights with USB ports so people could charge their phones and computers while working. We were happy with the look. I have to say a few of the paintings I would never buy while others I hoped would never sell. I kind of wanted to put those on the main floor so I could look at them all day. The Day of Eva I had put up a sign in the window that I was looking for a part-time worker. I was going to have to pay that person above board unless they were another international student who couldn’t work. The second day the sign was in the window, a beautiful young woman came in the shop looking for a job. I could tell she was hesitant so I thought I would start with a simple question “What is your name?” I hadn’t seen her in here before. I was very good at remembering faces and names. Quietly she said “Eva.” “And your last name?” She started to stammer then said “Sheboygan.” “Like the city?” I said with a furrowed brow. She made a face then confessed her last name was, “Stanford.” “Like the University?” This kid was confusing me. “No, like the mayor.” “Oh” I let out the word like air let out of a balloon. “That’s okay I will leave.” “Don’t go.” I saw the sadness on Eva’s face. In rushed Mrs. Miller, my favorite customer who bought at least two books a week. She didn’t like eBooks. She loved the feel of the paper as she turned the pages. She wasn’t a fan of the library because so many of the books had been used and didn’t smell like new, another thing she loved. She would help me unpack books when they came in. Her husband was a fan of my chocolate cherry cookies and every week she took home a dozen for him and snickerdoodles for herself. When I made baklava, she would buy half the sheet to take to her dad and mom plus a section for her son and his family. I had quite the following for my baklava. Once a man from Crete cried right in front of me when he took a bite. He said it tasted like the baklava that his mom made. Every Thursday when I made a sheet, he would be the first in line to buy a couple of pieces. Mrs. Miller was all abuzz with excitement, she was carrying a bag of groceries. “Oh, Sandra, do I have something for you and me in this bag. Oh, I love it when I confuse you.” She turned to Eva, “Isn’t she adorable when she looks at me like, what’s going on here?” Eva agreed with her though somewhat reluctantly. Anyone would agree with Mrs. Miller because she was always so enthusiastic you couldn’t help but get excited. “I brought you honey from Greece, actually it came from Rhodes. You were so right; Rhodes was worth going to. It was so lovely. It has such a different feel than so many of the other islands we visited.” Again, she turned to Eva who was backing away. “Anyway, I was told that Rhodes honey is the best in the world and she” Mrs. Miller turned and pointed at me “was right. I am spreading the word that if you don’t know where to go just ask Sandra. You should open a travel agency here, too.” Eva was backing up more and I could see she was leaving. “Please Eva stay and try this honey.” Mrs. Miller turned to her, “Yes, you should try the world’s best honey.” “Mrs. Miller, I am sorry you misunderstood me. I said it was considered one of the best affordable honeys in the world. New Zealand has what is considered the best honey in the world.” “Well, we will just have to see about that on my next trip. Will you help me plan it too?” “Of course. I have some great travel books on New Zealand, and I can check some travel blogs to find what you and Mr. Miller like to do.” “I wish you would call us Mike and Donna. Anyway, I have bought you some treats as well plus,” and she pulled out an evil eye that is probably the most beautiful evil eye I have ever seen. Then she pulled out a beautiful ceramic sailboat. “I thought you could hang these because you have had enough evil in your life, and you need all the luck you can get.” She had one in each hand, and she looked back and forth between them and said. “You don’t think these counteract each other, do you?” She looked at Eva then me. Eva and I both respond “Oh, I wouldn’t think so.” We looked at each other and for the first time I saw Eva smile. I said, “Do you think we should try some good honey?” I could see that Eva was in for tasting some honey. I grabbed a couple of bamboo stirrers and one of the jars that Mrs. Miller had pulled out of the bag. “Sandra, I don’t want you to be hurt that I am asking you to make a baklava with this honey for my family.” She held up the other jar. “Don’t be silly, my mind is already going through what I should bake with this. I thought I could make my baklava and my honey cake. Oh, I have been wanting to try this honey spiced bread that is more like a cake. Now, I have some honey to experiment with. I will make sure you get some of the bread too.” Eva was about to leave with Mrs. Miller. I stopped her and asked her to sit down with me. Eva had been trying to get a job for a couple of months, and no one would hire her when she told them her last name. The mayor hadn’t been popular since he was elected. In three years, he did nothing for the citizens, just did things for his friends and family, which was a huge amount. He was being investigated for some wrongdoing. Vincenzo was handling the few customers in the shop so we had time to chat. Come to find out Eva loved books but was worried about serving people. No, she didn’t have a problem serving people, she was worried that when people found out her name, they would not want her to wait on them. I told her hardly anyone would ask her last name. Sandra looked at Eva, “How about you go without makeup, pull back your hair and braid it so it hides your curls. I bet no one would recognize you.” Eva seemed thrilled. I took pity on her and hoped I hadn’t made a mistake. I knew what it was like to be judged without people knowing who I really was. I wanted to give her a chance.

< Back Blueberry Scones Prep Time: 40 Cook Time: Serves: 8 Level: About the Recipe Ingredients 16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), frozen whole (see note above) 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries (about 7 1/2 ounces), picked over (see note) 1/2 cup whole milk 1/2 cup sour cream 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces), plus additional for work surface 1/2 cup sugar (3 1/2 ounces), plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon table salt 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest Preparation It is important to work the dough as little as possible—work quickly and knead and fold the dough only the number of times called for. The butter should be frozen solid before grating. In hot or humid environments, chill the flour mixture and work bowls before use. While the recipe calls for 2 whole sticks of butter, only 10 tablespoons are actually used (see step 1). If fresh berries are unavailable, an equal amount of frozen berries (do not defrost) can be substituted. An equal amount of raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries can be used in place of the blueberries. Cut larger berries into 1/4- to 1/2-inch pieces before incorporating. Refrigerate or freeze leftover scones, wrapped in foil, in an airtight container. To serve, remove foil and place scones on a baking sheet in a 375-degree oven. Heat until warmed through and recrisped, 8 to 10 minutes if refrigerated, 16 to 20 minutes if frozen. See final step for information on making the scone dough in advance. directions 1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Score and remove half of wrapper from each stick of frozen butter. Following photo at left, grate unwrapped ends on large holes of box grater (you should grate total of 8 tablespoons). Place grated butter in freezer until needed. Melt 2 tablespoons of remaining ungrated butter and set aside. Save remaining 6 tablespoons butter for another use. Place blueberries in freezer until needed. 2. Whisk together milk and sour cream in medium bowl; refrigerate until needed. Whisk flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest in medium bowl. Add frozen butter to flour mixture and toss with fingers until thoroughly coated. 3. Add milk mixture to flour mixture; fold with spatula until just combined. With rubber spatula, transfer dough to liberally floured work surface. Dust surface of dough with flour; with floured hands, knead dough 6 to 8 times, until it just holds together in ragged ball, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. 4. Roll dough into approximate 12-inch square. Following illustrations, fold dough into thirds like a business letter, using bench scraper or metal spatula to release dough if it sticks to countertop. Lift short ends of dough and fold into thirds again to form approximate 4-inch square. Transfer dough to plate lightly dusted with flour and chill in freezer 5 minutes. 5. Transfer dough to floured work surface and roll into approximate 12-inch square again. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over surface of dough, then press down so they are slightly embedded in dough. Using bench scraper or thin metal spatula, loosen dough from work surface. Roll dough, pressing to form tight log. Lay seam-side down and press log into 12 by 4-inch rectangle. Using sharp, floured knife, cut rectangle crosswise into 4 equal rectangles. Cut each rectangle diagonally to form 2 triangles and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheet. 6. Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with remaining tablespoon sugar. Bake until tops and bottoms are golden brown, 18 to 25 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes before serving. To Make Ahead: After placing the scones on the baking sheet, either refrigerate them overnight or freeze. When ready to bake, for refrigerated scones, heat oven to 425 degrees and follow directions in step 6. For frozen scones, heat oven to 375 degrees, follow directions in step 6, and extend cooking time to 25 to 30 minutes. Step-by-Step: Grating Butter Use the wrapper to hold the frozen butter while grating it on the large holes of a box grater. Grate 4 tablespoons from each stick of butter. Step-by-Step: Folding and Shaping the Scones 1. Fold dough into thirds (like a business letter). 2. Fold in ends of dough to form 4-inch square. Chill dough. 3. Reroll dough into 12-inch square. Press berries into dough. 4. Roll dough into jellyroll-like log to incorporate blueberries. 5. Lay log seam-side down and press into even 12 by 4-inch rectangle. 6. Cut dough into 8 triangular pieces. I make them with whatever frozen berries I have. Previous Next

A shy 15-year-old girl finds an unwanted visitor in her tree house.  The stranger opens her eyes to see that she is lucky to have her family. Written by Kimberly Caristi A shy 15-year-old girl finds an unwanted visitor in her tree house. Something in Ned makes Sam want to protect him. The two bond over the love of art and poetry. My Summer Adventure is a coming-of-age story about love, loyalty, and the courage to protect those who matter most. Dear Mrs. Ida: I hope you and Mr. D are doing well. First, you might notice that my penmanship has gotten bad, though I can explain it. Second, I know it has been a long time since I wrote to you, I can explain that too. Lastly, it has been a very unusual summer, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I set my pen down and I started to think where to begin to tell Mrs. Ida what happened to me. In the past couple of months many bad and good things have transpired. Thinking back I realized that there have been so many good and terrible things that have happened to my family in the last couple of years. Starting with the last of my family moved to the country two years ago. My mother gave my dad an ultimatum: either he had to sell the farm or the house in St. Louis. Mom was tired of being a weekend widow. Dad and I went to the farm every weekend. We left Friday night after dinner and came home just before Sunday dinner. My mom underestimated my dad’s interest in moving away from St. Louis. She knew he worked downtown and would not retire for at least fifteen years. Mom was shocked and upset the next day when a for-sale sign went up in our front yard. My parents had a huge fight that night. My bedroom was next to theirs and the screaming, shouting and door slamming was a little more than any thirteen-year-old’s mind could swallow. My dad left without saying a word to me. I was his right hand. I went wherever he went. I knew this move was going to put a strain on our family dynamics. I felt like our family was always changing. I had one brother; he was the oldest. Two sisters followed him, then me then came the cherished baby sister. From start to finish there were sixteen years that separated us. My parents both worked at jobs they loved but us kids kept popping up as accidents. When my mom went back to work full-time my brother oversaw my care. My baby sister was under the care of my oldest sister. The number two sister loved dressing my baby sister up as a doll and saw me as more of a nuisance. My brother taught me how to wrestle and get dirty. The two older sisters did not like to get messy or anything that had to do with dirt, so they made sure the baby sister was a little prissy as far as I was concerned. I was not sure if I was a handful but when my brother left for Vietnam my charge became my dad when he wasn’t working. Though I do remember going to my dad’s work when school was out. Not every day, I would guess it was when the complaints of my oldest sister about me got too much for my parents. My dad could have used another son so that was what he turned me into. I went to work on the farm every weekend. In the summer, when we were baling hay, I was right there with the other boys doing my part. First, I pulled the bales on the flatbed truck to someone big enough to stack them in a crisscross pattern so they would stay on the truck as it moved. When it was time to put them in the hayloft I pushed them in the loft to someone who would stack them there. When I wasn’t needed to push, I had to follow along behind the people throwing the bales up on the truck trying to stay out of the way. I liked this time because I could look for arrowheads. I knew it was a lucky day when I found one. When the truck was full, I had to run up to the barn through the lower pasture and follow the cow path through the woods to the barn. Once my dad gave me a look when I wasn’t there waiting when the truck came down the road. It only took that one time and after that I made sure I was there. I never wanted to disappoint my dad. As I got older, I was the one carrying the bales of hay to be stacked then I started to throw the bales up to be stacked. I did not let any boy my age beat me at anything. Of course, my dad would have me make sandwiches for the workers because you know I was a girl. I was only a girl when he needed me to be one. I was as dirty and stinky as any boy. I helped everywhere on the farm from watching for birthing calves, with castrating, feeding the animals in the morning and night, mucking the stalls, moving the cows to the different pastures, walking the fence line checking to make sure they were intact, catching fish, cleaning and cooking them for dinner. In my mind, I did it all. From five until I was ten years old, in the summertime, we stayed in the treehouse my dad and brother built. It was cool because it had hot and cold running water, a hot plate, an under the counter refrigerator, a full bed, a camping cot, table with four chairs, tv and stereo. I was the only person I knew who had electricity in their own treehouse. This sizable treehouse was built into two trees. Ben and Dad poured a concrete floor underneath the treehouse essentially giving us a porch. On the west side of the porch, they had to build a foot-and-a-half wall and on the east side there was a two-and-a-half-foot drop. This was necessary because of how steep the hill was where the trees were living. The gravel driveway was alongside the drop edge of the porch. Dad made a concrete sidewalk around one of the trees then across the front of the treehouse. The stairs that lead up to the treehouse were set in concrete. This way you didn’t have to walk in dirt to go from the porch to the stairs. This created a flat area for walking and sitting. I was surprised that my mom hadn’t made him pour a sidewalk out to the outhouse. My dad had put an open-air shower underneath the treehouse, too. The treehouse was located just inside our property about thirty feet from the edge of a cliff. At the base of the cliff was a creek with a road that ran alongside it. The creek was our water source until my dad dug a well. In the early years, the three youngest girls would go out to the farm with my mom and dad each weekend. Once or twice, we would stay a whole week. The sleeping arrangement was an orchestrated event. We all stood outside the outhouse waiting for our turn to go and my dad was the last one. He had to walk back without a flashlight. We would finish brushing our teeth by the time he got back to the treehouse. My dad would climb into bed first. My mom would get my little sister tucked in her sleeping bag at the foot of my parent’s bed, then she would climb into bed with my dad. Laurie would be reading on her cot waiting for me to turn off the light. I would stand at the corner of my parents’ bed waiting until everyone was situated. It was my job to pull the string hanging from the fluorescent light in the middle of the ceiling. All I had to do was take one step and I would be on my sleeping bag. I was sandwiched between my older sister on the cot and my parents’ bed. My mom was thrilled when my dad put in the shower because she couldn’t stand another weekend with a bunch of stinky people. My sisters and I would stay upstairs while my dad showered, and he would stay upstairs when we showered. If us girls were taking a shower and a car came along, we would yell ‘hit the deck.’ I had scraped a knee or two during that exercise and sometimes my toes. The truth was it would have been exceedingly difficult for anyone in a car to see us up on the hill. We could only see about five feet of road from where we stood under the shower. We were girls who desperately didn't want to be spotted showering outdoors. When the weather was perfect, we would sit downstairs as we called it. My dad hung a porch swing and made a table out of a third tree using it as the table pedestal and cut off part of a spool used for cables for the top. To cover the holes my mom made a tablecloth out of army green vinyl. My dad was an electrical contractor, though in his spare time he made us all kinds of trash as my mom called it. Mom wasn’t happy with dad when he said he was going to get a warehouse in St. Louis. Not one to use in St. Louis but to be transported to the farm. The warehouse was in his way for an intersection he was putting in for the city. Dad said he was going to take it out to the farm and build a barn out of it. He would make part of it into living quarters for us. I overheard my mom telling our neighbor that he was nuts. Dad painstakingly took apart the warehouse labeling everything and took it out to our farm and rebuilt it. My mom was impressed…sort of. She complained that half of the warehouse was a barn, and he took the other half and divided it. A fourth of the space was a living room, kitchen area, one bedroom and a bathroom. The other fourth he made into a garage that he used as his workshop. When it was completed, my dad was excited to take us all out to the farm to see it. Well, they had to drag Laurie out there because she had a boyfriend. Truthfully, that really didn’t have any influence, she never wanted to go to the farm. We brought two vehicles because dad and I were spending the week. My mom and my sisters were going back on Sunday. My dad and I were the first to cross the dam to see that big gray monster standing there against the green of the trees that was its backdrop. You could see the reflection of the building in the lake. It was a pretty picture. My dad was happy about my reaction. I was there when they poured the concrete for the garage and the apartment. The last thing I saw was the frame put up. I guess I should have looked out the back window when we left so I would realize how big the barn really was. I was excited about everything until bedtime came. My youngest sister and I were still sleeping on the floor, and my older sister got the couch. Even at eleven I thought why didn’t he make two bedrooms, and he would still have space for a workshop. When dad decided to move to the farm it was just going to be my little sister and me living there. The number three child, Laurie, was going to college and when she came “home” she lived with my oldest sister Sara in St. Louis. I was the only one excited about moving to the farm besides my dad. I loved it there and I was the happiest when out on the farm. I explored all eighty acres and more. I found so many cool places off our property as well. Since I was excited about the move my dad had me pick which house to build. He had brought home a half dozen plans and had me pick which one I liked best. I picked the red and black brick ranch with a black and white trim. When you would drive up our driveway you would see a porch that was the length of the house with two sets of French doors one for the family room and one for the dining room. A large kitchen window was between the two doors. The large garage was on the left. It reminded me of a Spanish home. It ended up being the one my dad liked best. He told me that great minds think alike. My dad was the best dad at making you feel special. When time was getting close to moving, I asked my dad where my little sister Missy and I were going to stay while he built our house. I was hoping he didn’t intend for us to sleep on the floor until we moved into the big house. He said he had already figured that out, he was going to build a little room off the living quarters (a.k.a. in the garage) for us. He was putting in a skylight so we would have a small amount of light come in from the garage light. He promised it would be for three or four months at most. We would be sleeping on a pullout couch. We had a little bookshelf, a console television and a piano. Missy and I had started to play the piano a couple of years before we moved. She was exceptionally good, but I would never tell her that. I was an okay player. When the bed was open you couldn’t walk around the room. Missy slept next to the door because my mom still tucked her in. When I went to bed, I carefully stepped over the corner between the tv and the bed. The TV, bed, closet, and piano formed a three-foot square area. That was where we dressed and where I climbed up the bed to get in it. I hated it when I would get under the covers, look up at the skylight, and see that I forgot to turn off the garage light. I would have to reverse my actions to turn it off. I became rather cat-like, as I got quite good at seeing in the dark when I refused to turn on the garage light and not have the closet light on. Our closet was the length of the room. The sizes of our clothes were so different I thought they looked silly next to each other. Missy insisted that half the closet was hers, so we put tape down the back of the closet wall. She shoved my clothes off her side, and I kicked her toys back over onto her side. Our stay in that little room didn’t turn out like dad planned. Dad fell off the new house roof one evening when he was working late trying to finish the shingling before the rain hit. I was never so scared in my life. Mom drove dad the hour and a half to the hospital and he didn’t come home for a month. We knew our lives wouldn’t be the same. After getting out of the hospital my dad couldn’t go back to work for another four months and when he did my mom would sit looking down the driveway until he got home. This made me more nervous because I could tell she was nervous. It was never a good feeling when you didn’t feel secure. I became more glued to my dad than ever and never left him alone. I took on more jobs around the farm so he wouldn’t have to do them. That year of recovery for my dad changed all of our lives. The four of us were living in a ridiculously small place and we did everything together. We started doing fun stuff together. We went out to eat more, went to festivals around the area, played cards and games together. We never made time for these simple things before. We became a tv family, the kind you see on tv. It was wonderful. My dad and I finished building the house with some help from a hired hand. I learned how to put up drywall and mud it then sand it smooth. I helped run electrical lines and connect pipes though my dad always did the final tightening. I helped my dad look for rocks along the roads to make a retaining wall next to the house. It was rigorous work, but it was fun looking for the right size of rock and placing them in the correct spot. It was like a puzzle putting up that wall. Of course, I planted the garden under the watchful eye of my dad and mom. It surprised me that my little sister and I didn’t fight as much. We were both changed by what we referred to as the event until we moved into the big house. Living in the new house was great but we started doing our own thing again. My mom went back to work nights as a nurse in a small community hospital in Washington, about thirty miles away, and my dad was still driving to St. Louis during the week. When I got home from school, I had farm chores to do plus my homework. My freshman year in high school I took an art class. I had always drawn but taking a class really awoke my talent. It didn’t hurt having a fantastic teacher. My parents agreed that I could use the treehouse as my own art studio, but I had to get the farm chores done first. I was in heaven having my own place. My sister was back to being a pest. If I was in the big house, she would always be bugging me. She thought it was funny to put her hand in front of my face and say, “I am not touching you.” If I pushed her away, she would call mommy and said I hit her. Thank goodness that my parents told her that she could not go into the treehouse. I had to stop daydreaming about what Mrs. Ida already knew, and I got down to business writing my letter. I was a very good procrastinator, though I really had a lot of things I had to figure out how to tell her. My brother, his wife and their two little boys finally moved home. I had to tell my two cute little nephews that the treehouse was mine and they were not supposed to go in it. Of course, the little boogers wouldn’t stop trying to come in… all the time. My mom said they would get tired of it soon enough. I hoped she was right. Ben is working for my dad now. He oversees maintenance of the vehicles. That was what he did in the Navy. They are living in the barn until Ben saves enough money for a down payment on a house. I don’t think they know where they want to live. If Ben stays around here it is a long commute to St. Louis and if he lives in St. Louis, it will take a while to save for a house there. It is cool to have my brother back home. I just wish the boys were better behaved. Benny is now seven and Toby is five and a half. He reminds everyone about the half. I paused, how was I supposed to write the next part? It was so hard to try to put all of this into words to really show her what transpired. “Think Sam, think.” I knew it was hard, but I had to try. I knew this summer was going to be great. The house was complete, after I did my chores, I was free to draw or paint. When Missy and I got off the bus we began our summer break by racing up the hill to the big house. I just had to go check on the calves born these last two months and feed the chickens and pigs. Then I was off to draw. The treehouse didn’t have great lighting, being that it was in the trees, but it was my own place. I didn’t have to make dinner tonight because my mom was making burgers. My mom let us pick out the beginning and the end of the year dinners, it was Missy's turn to pick. I didn’t know why my mom even asked her what she wanted because it was always the same hamburgers and French fries. I flew through my chores and ran the mile to my place. How many fifteen-year-olds have their own place? My dad had made real stairs to the treehouse when my mom said she wouldn’t climb the ladder. This made it easy for me to run up the stairs. My dad had put a nail in the tree to hang the key on, so we didn’t have to remember the key every time. He hid it behind the tree next to the door at the top of the stairs so no one could see it. Having the key so high from the ground made it impossible to see. The tree was so large that my arm could barely reach around it. If someone was watching me get the key, you would have thought I was hugging the tree. That day changed my life as I knew it, forever. I will never forget to lock it again. I tried to open the door. I was shocked that it was locked. I didn’t remember locking it. I probably did it because I saw the boys trying to spy on me. I reached around the tree and found the key. I was thrilled I had put the key where it was supposed to be…not always the case. I unlocked the door and put the key back. I stepped into the room and before I could shut the door someone put his hand over my mouth and grabbed my left arm and pulled it up behind me. I tried to scream and pulled away from him. The harder I fought to get away the higher up he would push up my arm and it hurt. I stopped struggling. I smelled his dirty sweaty hand over my mouth. This wasn’t good. I could tell he was bigger than me, another negative. He told me he would let go of me if I wouldn’t scream. I had so many thoughts going through my head and the first one that stood out was I was a dead person. “You promise you won’t scream?” He didn’t have the sound of an older man, so I didn’t think he was a hunter who found my treehouse. He sounded like a young guy. I shook my head yes and he shoved me into the cot that was still in the place. The bed had been moved to the barn. I was lucky enough to catch myself from falling face first into the cot. I turned around and sat down, dumbfounded as to what had just happened. The fear in me rose when I saw the guy. There stood a severely beaten teenager with blood all over his ripped clothes. One of his eyes was so swollen I couldn’t imagine that he could even see out of it. His appearance scared me more than him putting his hand over my mouth. All I could think of to say was, “Who are you?” My voice sounded foreign to me; it was so low. “It doesn’t matter. Who are you?” I saw the irritability in his mannerisms as he paced back and forth. He was doing everything he could not to look at me. “This is my place, so you have to answer first.” I didn’t know where the nerve to say this came from but maybe it was years of dealing with my little sister. “I am Ned.” He said reluctantly. I couldn’t believe he told me his name. “Ned what are you doing here?” Where was this coming from? I didn’t question people, especially strangers who kept me from leaving. “I’m running away from home. My dad and I had a big fight. I found this place to hide.” He stared at the floor like it had the answers he was looking for. The statement relaxed both of us to some extent. He looked at me for the first time. He seemed relieved when he saw my fear go out of my eyes. I had never been hit, but I was scared of my mom. She was a yeller and that unnerved me. Her words could hurt more than any fist, I thought. I decided I should keep him talking. This was something I had seen on TV. “What is your name?” He asked me more like we were meeting for the first time in school than what was really happening to me: someone was holding me hostage. “Sam. I think I should go.” I looked at the door. “No, I don’t think you are going anywhere until we have a talk.” That statement scared me again. When I looked back at him, he looked more frightened than I was. “What do you want to talk about?” My voice sounded so shaky. “Are you going to tell people that I am here?” He sounded so intimidating but there was a little nervousness around the edges of the question. “Should I?” What a stupid thing to say! I should have said no. I thought, Sam, you have an attitude problem. “I was hoping you would say no.” He said with a little bit of anger, but I could tell some disappointment in it, too. “I don’t understand why you are hiding.” “I came home from school yesterday and found my dad beating my mother to a pulp. I was tired of my dad using my mom and me as punching bags.” He said it as if he were letting air out of a balloon rather quickly. He went from standing up rather straight to his shoulders slumping. He paused then I saw the anger come back. He continued, “I just went crazy punching him. We fought forever until I hit my dad so hard, he fell and hit his head on the hearth. There was so much blood.” He just looked at the floor like he could see it all over again. I felt bad for him, but I was a little scared that he could hit someone so hard they fell. “Did you call the police or someone?” “No, my mom and I had called the police before, but they said it was a family matter. I did call the neighbor and asked them to check on my mom. Then I packed a couple of things and ran. I came upon your barn, but I saw two little boys playing there. I followed the line of woods around the first dam when I saw this treehouse. This is cool.” He looked around the room. “Thanks.” was all I could think of to say. I would have liked to tell him all the things that used to be in the room because I thought it was cool, too. I just didn’t think it was the time or place to get all chatty. “Are these your drawings?” I hung them all around the place. If I liked them, I tacked them on the wall and the ceiling. If I was still working on them, I stacked them on the table. I had some hanging from clothes lines with clothespins. I knew they ruined the corners but I hung them so I could look at them longer and maybe get inspired. I might work on them again. Besides, I had run out of spaces on the walls. “Yes,” still trying to think of what I should say to this guy. “You are a very good drawer.” He was looking at them very closely now. “Thanks. Can I draw you?” He turned and looked at me like I was crazy. I was not the crazy one. I might not have gotten away but I would have a picture of what he looked like. It wasn’t until later that I thought if he hurt me, he could have just taken the drawing with him. “You want to draw me? Why?” Now he seemed a little shy. I knew shy. I never talked unless someone asked me something. Of course, I fought with my sister but at school I rarely talked. When I moved here there were a couple of girls that decided that we were friends. They started to talk to me one day and haven’t stopped. I was glad they liked me enough to approach me. I wished I had the nerve to step out of my comfort zone and talk to people. It was nice to have friends. “Well, you are in my studio. I am tired of drawing nature,” which was a lie, I would never be tired of drawing any kind of nature. I had numerous pencil and charcoal drawings all over the treehouse. “I guess you can.” He pulled a chair in front of the door. I walked around the table and took the seat opposite him. I was glad my parents left the table and chairs in here, so I had a place to work. I decided I would do a pencil drawing. I picked up my large pad and turned to a clean sheet. “What do you want me to do?” he said with so much apprehension in his voice that I felt more confident that he wasn’t going to hurt me. “You can just sit comfortably, and I will do the work,” I smiled for the first time since I walked into the place. Now I was in charge. I was in my element. I had done a few portraits in school and got all “A’s” so I knew I could do a respectable job, but I had never drawn someone with so many bruises. This would be a challenge. After I drew his silhouette. I was seeing him more clearly. It was possible that he was a cute guy underneath all the bruises. I could see he had muscles so he could have really hurt me. I bet I was the strongest girl in my school. I have muscles. Last summer I was throwing 65-pound bales of hay four bales high. I kept up with the boys. There are four families that live out in this area, and we help each other to bale hay. It was a hard and sweaty job that required more than three people to work. My poor dad only had me, but the other men have a couple of sons each. The sons were around my age and one in particular was so cute. I have had a crush on him since I was a little girl. All the guys treated me like I was one of the boys. The problem was I was not a boy. I had breasts, but if they noticed they didn’t say a word. I was pushed around like they did each other. Oh, how I wished Richard would notice that I was a girl. He interrupted my thoughts, “Do you go to Union?” “Yes, where do you go?” “Sullivan. What year are you?” “I just finished my sophomore year. I will graduate in ’79. You?” “Junior. Are you going to be an artist?” “I don’t know if I am good enough.” He moved in big gestures with his arms opened up big and wide. I saw pain in his eyes, but his voice was excited. “Oh my God, you are an amazing artist. It is unreal that you don’t think you are good enough.” “Thanks, but are you an art critic? Please hold still though you can talk.” “No but anyone with eyes could tell that you are good.” “Are you going to go to college?” I saw the sadness take over in his good eye. “I doubt it. No money.” I felt sorry for Ned. “Would you like to go to college?” Maybe if I kept talking about everyday stuff, he wouldn’t hurt me and even let me go. “Yes.” Sadness was overtaking him. He just looked down at the floor. He was still searching for something, but I was not sure what it was this time. “What would you study?” I asked. “English.” I crinkled my nose at that. I hated English. I was not particularly good with words but given a pencil I could draw you a whole story without one word. You would understand what it meant by just looking at it. It might not mean exactly what I was intending it to be, nevertheless if that was what you were taking away with it then it was your story. Ned asked, “You don’t like English?” “I know I don’t like diagraming a sentence,” I said flippantly. Ned went on like he didn’t hear me. “What I really want to do is write poetry.” “That is worse than diagraming a sentence,” I shook my head in disgust. “It is just like your pictures here.” I must have given him a look of not understanding because he continued answering the question in my head. “Take that drawing you made of the grass next to the pond. Were you trying to convey the pond or the grass? Were you really conveying what is underneath the water? I see little ripples in the water. Did a frog just jump in or did a fish poke his head out? The flat area that is next to the tuft of grass. Was there an animal lying there minutes ago? Was there someone sitting there? Is someone hiding in the tuft of grass?” I heard the excitement in his voice. He would be a good poet. “Okay, I get your drift. So, you like poetry. You write about one thing, and someone might think it’s about another thing and you are okay with that? “Yes, I made you think. I love that.” His one eye had some hope and excitement in it. Maybe I should ask him about the fight now that he didn’t look upset. I decided I needed to finish my drawing before I got to that question. “Can you make a living writing poetry? My parents keep telling me that I have to think of something else besides going to college for art. They say you can’t make money drawing for a living.” I hated that statement because it made me feel my art wasn’t good enough. I thought I was rather good, of course I couldn’t say that aloud. “Your parents are crazy. You are really good.” “Thanks again.” I couldn’t look at him when he said that. I concentrated on his clothes. They were farm clothes. My mom made the rule that we had four sets of clothes: church, school, play, and work. Some overlapped: if I wanted to wear church clothes to school it better be an important occasion. Sometimes I could wear play clothes to take care of the animals, but I better not get them dirty. Work clothes were for getting dirty and only work clothes. My mom was a fanatic about dirt or any kind of mess. She left me notes on my desk saying my desk drawers were not neat enough. Sometimes she pinned a note on my clothes that said my closet wasn't neat enough. This could mean my shoes were scattered and should be in a straight line or my clothes were not neatly hung. I knew I was going to hear about it at dinner. Every day I had to make my bed with hospital corners. My dad inspected our rooms before he left for work. If our beds didn’t look right my dad would check to see if a quarter would bounce on them. My sister, at age nine, was a perfectionist, especially at making her bed. She rarely had to remake her bed. Unlike me, I had to remake my bed, at least once a week. No matter when I got up in the morning, I was always late and, in a rush, to make my bed before the inspection. I thought my dad took pity on me on more than one occasion. We both hoped my mom wouldn’t notice when she got home from work, or all my sheets would be off my bed when I came home from school. It was not like I did it on purpose, my mind was always on something less important as she would say. The stranger pulled me out of my thoughts. “Do you come down here every day?” “Since school is out, I have plans to come down here after my chores during the week. On weekends, my dad and I work all day doing things around the farm.” “You do chores? Like what?” “You are wrong if you think because I am a girl I don’t work around here!” I took offense when guys didn’t think I could do what they did. “Feed the animals, mend fences, this summer we will be finishing the dam on the second lake. My job is to pull all the sticks and rocks out of the dirt and mud that my dad piles on the road with the Caterpillar.” I was pissed. “Sorry I didn’t mean to upset you. I just never, uh, never...” He was so cute trying to think of something to say. “Girls can do anything that boys can do.” This was always my smart reply. You could tell he was trying to think of something that only boys could do. It showed on his face when he thought of something. He should really have kept his mouth closed. No, instead he blurted it out, “Girls can’t pee standing up.” “Well, yes, they can but it’s not a pretty sight.” I smiled at him. He chuckled, realizing he was out of trouble, though the laughter caused him pain as he grabbed his side. To take the attention off him he said, “You have a pretty smile.” I could feel the heat rising in my face. I look down and pretend that I was really getting a detail done on the drawing. The comment made me frustrated with my crooked smile. I had been told that more than once, plus I had tried to do a self-portrait, and I saw these things. My older sisters had braces, and my baby sister would, too. Her teeth were awful. I didn’t need braces. I thought I was lucky, but I would rather have a smile that didn’t go higher on one side. Looking down at the drawing I was doing a rather decent job on his bruises. I thought the cut on his lip and eyebrow needed some stitches. He was going to have some scars. I felt so sorry for him as I worked on my drawing. Drawing lets me really look at people. When you take a picture, you make sure you are in focus but when you draw you look at every wrinkle, blemish, hair and fleck of color in the eyes. He had steel blue eyes with white flecks. Even though he had long dirty blonde curly hair his eyelashes and eyebrows were brown. I bet his hair was like my sisters’ during the summer; when they are outside and in the pool their hair turns almost a whitish blonde, and their hair was as straight as could be. Unlike anyone in my family my hair turned red in the summer, but during the winter it was auburn. Because of that, my sisters have said I was adopted but my dad told me I had the same hair color as his dad. I just saw my grandfather’s hair as wisps gray hair on the sides of his head. I had a long way to go before I looked bald; my hair was so thick you could hardly see my scalp. Sometimes I didn’t think I belonged to my family. I lost track of time which got me in trouble with my mom all the time. I really had forgotten Ned had trapped me in the treehouse. I was concentrating on the drawing. He was no longer a guy but an object. I had his broad shoulders set back with his head tilted to the side with his good eye looking down. I looked at my watch and I saw it was almost five. My mom would be wondering where I was. “I am finished except for the background. I really have to leave, or my mom will send my sister down here to get me. Do you want to see it?” I slipped my sister and mom in the middle. I thought if I acted normal, he would let me go. I turned the drawing around for him to see. Instantly he reached up to his swollen eye. “Is that what I look like?” “Well, I hope it looks like you. Does your eye hurt?” “I hurt all over.” He pulled up the side of his shirt and showed me his ribs and I couldn’t help it, I reacted. Grimacing, I said, “Wow, that must really hurt. How did that happen?” Looking away from me, he replied, “My dad hit me with a chair when I went to check on my mom. I thought when I pulled him off of her that he would just go away. No, he just started hitting me. I fought back. My mom always stepped in when he started hitting me, but she wasn’t moving. When I left, I saw that she was breathing, that is why I called my neighbor.” I saw a tear rolling down his face. He got up and walked across the room. He bent over, putting one arm over the window and was looking out. The sides of the walls came up to my eyes as did the top of the window frames. My dad had built shutters on hinges so you can hook them up to the ceiling. When the bed was in here, we had to move it to open or shut the shutters on that side. The bottom of the windows started at my knees. I watched him as he looked out at the creek. I turned to look at the door then I heard him make a noise. I turned back to look at him and he was holding his side. That was when I saw him as the wounded bird, he was instead of the guy who scared me. I got up and walked over to him. “Are you ok?” “It hurts to breathe. If I hold my arm like this it helps,” he held his arm to his side. “I bet you have a broken rib or ribs after looking at your side.” “What are you a nurse?” “No, a couple of years ago, my dad broke seven ribs and fractured eleven. I remember he had a difficult time breathing for a long time, a month or two. I watched my mom bandage his sides. His wounds had cuts too.” I shook my head to get those thoughts out of my head. “You must keep taking deep breaths, so you don’t get pneumonia. I can get you some aspirin if you want. You know, for the pain.” “You are going to help me? Why?” He was searching my face to see if I was telling him the truth. “Well, yes, because you need help.” I looked down at him holding his side. I continued, fast, trying to get all my thoughts out. “Everyone knows that the treehouse is off limits but that doesn’t keep them from trying to see what I am doing in here. My nephews have come in here before without me being here. My dad and brother get home around 6:30 so be careful walking around outside then.” Moving my attention from Ned’s one wrist to the other I noticed he didn’t have a watch. “Here, take my watch so you know what time it is. That would drive me crazy not knowing the time.” He took the watch, and I could tell he was wondering about me. “What?” “I can’t believe you are wanting to help me. Especially after I told you what I did.” I couldn’t lie, it hurt me to look him in the face. I tried to look at his one good eye and fixate on it. “Well, I can see you are seriously hurt, and I believe you that you didn’t, you know, want to hurt your dad, you know, on purpose.” “I don’t want to cause you any trouble.” “Does that mean you are going to stay?” He nodded. “Okay, I will try to get away tonight and bring you some food and stuff to clean your cuts. My mom leaves around 9:30 and my dad goes to bed soon after. When my sister goes to bed I will come back. Make sure all the shutters are closed before you turn on the lights.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Just a little over an hour ago I thought he was going to kill me, now I was helping him. “Is there anything else I can get you?” “I forgot my toothbrush.” “Okay, I know I can get you one and toothpaste. Do you have any other clothes?” “I didn’t think about clothes either.” “What did you bring?” I looked at his knapsack. “I brought my book on poetry my mom gave me, my bible, tape recorder and some of my cassette tapes.” I must have had a look of disapproval on my face. “Hey, look, I wasn’t sure if I just killed my dad and if my mom was going to live.” “So, you thought, I better get my tapes of Captain and Tennille, Elton John and Glen Campbell and run.” “Glen Campbell?” He said it like it was a dirty word. “My dad likes him so don’t say a word against him,” I said with a smile. I started to laugh when he put his hands in the air and stepped back. “I really wasn’t thinking.” “Duh! I know you won’t fit into any of my clothes. I might be able to get you a T-shirt of my dad’s for you, but I will have to figure out how. I have to go or like I said, my mom will send my sister for me.” “Thanks Sam. I really appreciate this.” “Get some rest and don’t forget to breathe deep.” He frowned. “Well, every once in a while, take a deep breath.” I walked out the door and down the stairs. I heard him lock the door behind me. I walked up the hill through the wooded area to the road that led to the barn where my brother, his wife and his two little boys lived. I saw the boys playing in the yard. I was glad they were not spying on me today. I looked up the hill to our house and I saw my little sister coming out the French doors. She yelled something but I couldn't hear her. I hate that because I didn’t know if I was in trouble, or she was trying to get me in trouble. I started running up the hill. The front yard was not landscaped yet, which made running difficult. When I reached the porch, I had to hoist myself up. Suzy, our dog came running off the step from the house to lick my face before I could get out of her reach. After I stood up, I reached to scratch her behind the ears, her favorite spot. I said, “Sorry girl, next time I will take you with me. I know you missed me today. Were you sleeping with mom again?” Suzy was my mom’s dog. We found Suzy hurt, dirty and as cute as could be. The veterinarian thought she was a purebred pointer, though she was only good at pointing out grasshoppers and butterflies. Suzy attached herself to my mom and was her protector, though she did like to roam with me on the farm when my mom shooed her out of the house. I heard from the door, “Mom isn’t happy with you.” “What’s new?” I walked past her into the house. “Mom, sorry I lost track of time. What do you want me to do?” My mom looked at me, “Where is your watch? If you don’t wear your watch, how are you going to know what time it is to come home?” I looked at my wrist, “I forgot it. I will try to remember to watch the time.” “Samantha, how many times have I heard that?” That question always made me wonder if I was supposed to answer it or not. Sometimes I did and the response could go either way. Sometimes she laughed and sometimes she started screaming at me. She didn’t use my full name, just my first, so I thought I wasn't in huge trouble. Did I feel lucky today? Well, I just got out of a terrible situation, so I was going to go for it. “Well, I am almost sixteen and I have been able to tell time for eight years now. There are 365 days in the year.” My mom was putting her hands on her hips. This wasn’t telling. I continued, “So eight times 365 days is,” I tried to think fast, “2920 but that doesn’t count leap year.” “Okay wise guy, get in the kitchen and wash the lettuce and clean the carrots.” Good, she wasn’t in a bad mood. I got to work but my mind was distracted by what I saw out the window. I could barely make out the bottom of the treehouse through all the trees. I needed to take Suzy with me when I went back so she could become friends with Ned. That way she wouldn’t bark or growl when she was outside. I was so anxious the whole evening. My anxiety levels were through the roof. I was very fidgety in my chair. I could tell I was driving my mom nuts. Finally, she said, “Samantha Jane, what is the matter with you? You can’t sit still. Either find a place to sit and stay seated or go to your room.” “Sorry, I keep thinking about what I am going to start working on tomorrow.” Adding, “After I finish my chores, of course.” I got up and went to my room. I was thrilled I didn’t have to sit and watch something I wasn’t paying attention to anyway. I had cleaned up the dinner dishes, so I knew what we had left over. I wondered how much food I could get out of the house without anyone noticing it was missing. My mom was incredibly good at knowing what food was always in the house. These thoughts made my anxiety rise. My mom came into my room just before she left for work to tell me everything I was supposed to do before I could go down to the treehouse. She reminded me that I was not spending all my free time in the treehouse. I told her I planned on drawing all around the farm. That seemed to make her feel better. When I saw her driving past my window, I went out to the living room to see if my dad and sister had gone to bed. Dad was getting his things ready for the morning. He usually made his lunch and put it in the refrigerator. “Sam, I need you to walk the fence line across the road tomorrow. I want to move the cows over to that field after we bale hay next week. I don’t want you to ride Jan while doing it because you will have to keep getting off of her. I do want you to brush her and take her for a ride. If you want another horse, you are going to have to take care and ride the one you have.” “Dad, you can’t gallop with Jan. When I ride with the guys I look like a prissy, foxtrotting along while they are running their horses,” making a motion of bouncing up and down. This made my dad smile. He had gotten Jan in trade when he did some work for a guy. I thought the guy got the better deal. He probably wanted to get rid of Jan. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jan and just riding her through the woods was fine but if I was in an open field I would love to run with a horse. The guys that I ride with tease me all the time when we run. I never win a race. “Never mind the guys. You still must take care of her and ride her.” “Okay. Anything else.” “Yes, you need to clean out the pool and scrub the sides. It is getting warm, and it is time to open up the pool. Tomorrow night I will put in the pump to get all the water out. I don’t want any leaves in there. They will clog up the pump.” He paused for a second then added, “Do you understand?” “Yes, I understand.” I would never roll my eyes at my dad, but I really wanted to. I have had several lectures about that every year when it was time to get the pool ready for the season. They bought the pool for me before we moved out here. I had been on a swim team since I was five. I had won many awards and ribbons. This was the only thing I missed about moving here. I loved to swim. Our pool was an above ground pool though my dad made a deep end on one side. The leaves would collect in the deep end. I liked how there was a ledge that you could walk all around the outside of the deep end. He had dug out a spot on the hill near the warehouse so you could walk right into the pool on one side. It was the biggest above ground pool they could find. It was my job to keep it clean and test the water to keep the water sparkling clear. I did an excellent job because who wanted to swim in an over chlorinated pool or for that matter an under chlorinated pool? I checked the pH levels daily. I vacuumed it every few days and backwashed it because I would get in trouble if it ever looked dirty. I looked forward to teaching my nephews how to swim. I had taught little kids how to swim since I was eleven. Dad continued, “I don’t care when you do this, but it must be completed this week. I want all the old hay to be cleared out of the loft and stacked along the back of the barn. Sweep the loft and put all the loose hay in the feeders. You can also see if Nancy needs help with the weeding in the garden.” “Then am I free to do anything I want?” “I don’t know what your mom has planned for you; did you check her list?” “Did she leave one? She came into my room before she left and told me the stuff I needed to do tomorrow.” I hated it when she left a list because that meant I didn’t have any free time. Sometimes she left me a list because she didn’t think I was paying attention when she gave me my orders. I was hoping that was the case tonight. My dad walked over to the counter and pulled off a sheet of paper. “Here you go. It doesn’t look like much.” I took the list with no enthusiasm. Good it was a reminder; I had to dust and vacuum the floors and the furniture. So, either I got up when my dad left to get it done before she got home at 8:00 tomorrow morning or I had to do it after she slept. She might sleep six hours on a good day. I was not sure if it was good for us or her. Sometimes I wish she would sleep longer so she might not be as crabby, and we would have a longer time not worrying about what else she wanted us to do. Missy didn’t have to do as much work as I did at her age. I thought she was a spoiled brat. I was thankful that I had the treehouse as my studio so I could get away from the brat. Now I had two very nosey little nephews plus a sister who made it their mission in life to drive me crazy. Once I taught the boys how to swim it would be better because then they would be able to play in the pool together and maybe leave me alone. When my dad went to his room Missy had to go to bed. I had the rest of the house to myself so I started dusting so I could get that out of my way. I checked to see if my dad had any T-shirts that needed ironing in the laundry room. Yes, my mom ironed my dad’s T-shirts. She ironed everything. I swore when I got older I would not iron. I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to re-iron a shirt or pants because my mom said they weren’t good enough. Sometimes I had to really search to see where I messed up, she was that meticulous. I looked in the fridge to see what I could take that wouldn’t be missed. I might be able to take a leftover hamburger because I was the one to put them away. My mom might not know how many burgers were leftover though she knew how many buns were in the bag. Besides, I have been known to eat one for breakfast. I could take a few slices of bread. I usually don’t eat one of them in the morning for breakfast. I was glad I still had some of the items in the treehouse that we used when we stayed there in the summer before my dad built the warehouse. Sometimes some of my dad’s friends from St. Louis used it when it was hunting season. I got out baggies: one for ketchup, one for mustard and one for pickles. I couldn’t imagine eating a hamburger without all three of these condiments. I took out some cheese slices. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as well. I grabbed a couple of apples. My mom had some cookies in the freezer that she kept for when we had company. She knew that everyone took a couple occasionally. My older sister, Laurie, got us started doing that. My dad would even get into them occasionally. This was one of the times that none of us were scared about taking something without asking. I swear my mom did it, too, when we weren’t home. I didn’t find any T-shirts, but I took a washcloth and a towel, toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, and a bar of soap. There wasn’t any shampoo that I could find. Ned would have to use the bar of soap on his hair. I got bandages, peroxide, and some aspirins. There were so many cans of Vess soda my mom couldn’t know how many there were. I grabbed a black cherry, orange, and cola. I got a Ziploc bag of ice. I put all this in a grocery bag and took Suzy with me. I wanted Suzy to become friends with Ned so she wouldn’t bark at him. I heard my dad snoring, so I knew he was asleep. I could see that Missy’s light was off. This meant that she wasn’t reading before she went to sleep. I stood outside Missy’s door, and I didn’t hear her. It was safe to head down to the treehouse with my flashlight. I could see the steps of the treehouse when I crossed the road. The window in the door was frosted glass and light was spilling out of the window onto the steps. I would have to tape black paper over the door’s window. Plus, I saw he must have the shutter opened on the far side of the treehouse. You really couldn’t tell it from the road unless you were looking in that direction. I would have to tell him no lights if he wanted the shutters open. Suzy started to growl as we started up the stairs. I told her, “Shush girl, it’s okay.” The lights went off instantly. I didn’t want to yell. I didn’t know why; no one would have heard if I did. I just said, “Ned, it’s me Sam.” No answer. I started up the stairs. When I got to the top, I didn’t reach for the key, instead I knocked on the door. I knocked five times in the rhythm that all kids knew, and he responded with two knocks. He opened the door. Suzy was right behind me, and she started to bark. I yelled at her to stop. “Suzy, stop. It’s okay, he is a friend of mine.” We both were startled with my yell. I thought he was a little startled that I said he was a friend. “You should back up so I can come in and she will follow.” When we were all in and the door was closed, I flipped the switch for the light over the sink. Suzy had cornered Ned and was growling at him. “Suzy stop.” I walked over and stood beside him. “Ned, kneel if you can. Now, make a fist with your hand, palm down, and gently move it out so she can sniff it.” I reached out and petted Suzy. “See Suzy, he is a friend.” “I don’t think she is going to come to me.” “Talk to her in a soft gentle voice.” He said in a sing-song way, “Hi Suzy, I’m Ned and I am not going to hurt you or Sam.” Suzy came over very slowly and sniffed Ned’s hand. I petted her, trying to make sure she knew everything was all right. She finally came closer and was sniffing all of him. “You should try to pet her now.” “Are you sure?” He looked up at me and you could tell he was scared. I nodded, then walked over to the table and got everything out of the brown paper bag. I put the bag of ice in the little freezer. “I brought you some food. Sorry, I couldn’t find any clothes though. Are you hungry?” “I’m starving.” “Well, I will try to get you more stuff tomorrow, but I have to figure out how to get it out of the house, so nobody sees me taking stuff or my mom doesn’t notice that it’s missing. I brought some stuff to clean you up, but you should eat something first.” Ned sat down and devoured the hamburger on bread with ketchup, mustard and a bunch of pickles. He drank the orange soda first. “Thanks, I needed this. I really don’t want to get you in trouble. I just have to think about what I should do next.” “Well, you are going to draw attention to yourself walking around all bruised up and bloody.” “Yeah, I know.” He said looking down and eyeing the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Don’t you like peanut butter and jelly?” “Yeah, but I am trying to decide if I should leave it for breakfast.” “Shoot, I didn’t think of breakfast. I have to collect eggs tomorrow morning. We split them with my brother’s family. Do you know what? You could go over there in the middle of the night and take some if you want.” I saw he didn’t like the idea. “I can try to figure out how to get some without the boys noticing. Sometimes they are watching cartoons while eating breakfast when I come over early.” I saw I was going to lose sleep trying to feed this guy. “Go ahead and eat it.” It was gone in a flash. Suzy had been dancing around him thinking she might get a morsel of food off him but unless he lets her lick his hands I doubt if there was a crumb left. “You should give Suzy one of the slices of cheese. You will be her friend for life.