Scrap Paper Hearts: Part Two

Hello again, my beloved readers! Here's the second (and last) installment of my short story, Scrap Paper Hearts. I hope you've loved reading it as much as I loved writing it. Enjoy!


“I see Sophie drinks coffee,” a vaguely familiar voice said.  
     
Sophie was sitting in the corner of the Starbucks near her apartment, curled up with her legs pulled under her as she read the book she’d picked out at the library that morning. So far, she wasn’t impressed with either the writing or the plot line, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up on it. It was a Saturday, early afternoon, but she’d already been there long enough to amass a collection of crumpled napkins along with her empty porcelain coffee cup and French press.
     
She looked up from her book to see Charlie, the man she’d met at the park. It had been more than a month since that day, but she still recognized him, and he obviously remembered her. Then again, who would be able to forget a strange young woman they’d  pushed on a swing set?
     
Sophie felt herself smile uncertainly, not sure whether she was glad to see him again or if she should be humiliated at how unstable he’d seen her. He probably thought she was insane.  
     
“Yes, Sophie drinks coffee. And, obviously, you do as well,” she replied, nodding to indicate the paper cup he held in his hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Charlie.” He didn’t need to know that she wasn’t sure she meant it.  
     
“You remember my name,” Charlie said, obviously pleased. “Do you mind if I sit?”
     
“No, no. Not at all.” Sophie closed her book and uncurled herself, straightening in the overstuffed chair so that her feet reached the floor.
      
Charlie crossed in front of her to take a seat in the next chair, adjusting the legs of his pants as he sat.  The man certainly knew how to dress.  He was wearing well-cut jeans and a French blue button down, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms and the tails un-tucked.  A white tee-shirt peeked out from the neck, which was unbuttoned to the second button.  Noticeably absent was the baseball cap he’d been wearing the last time Sophie had seen him, and she now noticed that he had light brown hair cut clean and close to his scalp.  Charlie may have been staring down the barrel at 40, but he wore it well.
     “So what are you reading?” he asked, noting the book that now lay, face down, on the arm of Sophie’s chair.
     It was a casual question between two ordinary people, a man and a woman who could have been meeting for the first time, purely by chance. It was a question that held no indication of any awkwardness or judgement by its presenter, merely interest in this small aspect of her life. To Sophie, it was an outstretched hand, a gentle offer of friendship from someone who seemed to understand a need she had never expressed. She smiled sweetly and reached for the hand, wondering where it might lead her.


*******
Charlie and Sophie had been dating for two months before she told him all the details of her mother’s death. He’d listened quietly as she recounted the ordeal––the arrangements and decisions she’d had to make, the loneliness she’d felt. The anger and hatred she’d struggled with. Her mother––so lovely and generous and vibrant––was gone, while the man who’d been involved in the accident walked around unscathed.  
     
He’d asked her what she knew about the man––if she knew who he was or where he was. If she’d tried to contact him since her mother’s death. Sophie shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes and stinging the back of her throat.
     
“I don’t know anything, really. They told me afterwards––what happened, how it happened. But I still feel like I don’t know anything. I know his name, and I met him. I met him long enough for everything official to be taken care of and reports to be filed. Officially, it wasn’t his fault. Officially, it was no one’s fault.” She swallowed the lump that seemed to be closing her airways, the bitterness that was building. “But she’s still gone, and he’s still here.” Sophie shook her head again and looked down at her hands, resting limply in her lap. Hands with long fingers like her mother’s.
     
Charlie swallowed thickly and reached out a hand, crooking his index finger just under her chin. He tilted her face up so that her eyes met his––eyes that were moist and glistening with the sheen of tears. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and husky with emotion.  
     
“What would you do, if you met him again? What would you say to him?” 
     
They were questions Sophie had asked herself thousands of times, questions that seemed to have different answers every time she asked them. She’d constructed scenarios and encounters and speeches, but even now, she still wasn’t sure of the true answer. Maybe she would never know.  
     
Was that such a bad thing? People talked about closure until she was tired of the word, but she wasn’t convinced that meeting with the man would actually bring her “closure.”
     
Sophie searched Charlie’s eyes, wondering what he saw when he looked at her. He had become, in the past two months, a best friend. A confidante. More than that, she felt a connection to him that went deeper than mere friendship. Friendship and respect had grown into love, the kind of love she knew she could depend on.
     
It was the kind of love her parents had shared, once upon a time. Not that Sophie remembered it firsthand. Sophie’s father had died of leukemia before her fifth birthday, but she had vague recollections of happy trips to the zoo, falling asleep in her father’s arms as she listened to the rumble of his voice rising from his chest while he sang in church, the security she felt when he held her tiny hand in his. Her mother had been his steadfast companion through his illness, nursing him as he worsened, keeping his spirits up even when things were bleak. Family time never suffered, and story books were read every night to both the ailing man in the bed and the little girl curled up beside him, while Rosemary Watson’s heart swelled with love and pain.
     
Sophie’s mother had raised her alone, never tiring of telling her stories about her father and what a wonderful man he’d been. Rosemary seemed to draw her own strength from the stories, reminders of times with a man who had loved her passionately even when his body failed him. As the years passed and Sophie grew into an adult, the woman who had been her mother also became her friend––her best friend, really. An irreplaceable part of her life.
     
The accident had taken both her mother and her best friend, leaving her with a deeper hole than she would have ever imagined.  A hole that she feared would never be filled.


*******
Charlie’s questions replayed in Sophie’s mind over the next few days, a constant loop of words and question marks. And finally, finally, she felt she knew the answer.
     
The knock on her front door bore Charlie’s signature rhythm––two raps and a ring. Sophie opened the door, expecting only to see the man she loved, dressed and ready to take her to dinner at their favorite restaurant. She smiled widely at the sight of him, his mere presence still something that gave her great delight.  
     
But the smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come, stolen from her face just as the air was stolen from her lungs. An indefinable wave of emotions crashed over her, a confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings and memories that once would have been her undoing.
     
As she looked past Charlie, she found herself standing face to face with the man who’d changed her life forever.  
     
What would you do? What would you say? The questions she thought she’d resolved now came as a test. A test to her heart, a test of what her mother had taught her.


Don’t forget I love you!  


     
Her mother had taught her love and forgiveness. That neither of those things showed weakness, but immeasurable strength.
     
As she looked into the eyes of the man she thought she would never forgive, her confusion was stilled by an unexpected calm. Sophie felt no more hatred. She felt only mercy. She felt her heart and her lungs fill with love, like blood and air. It was the love her mother had taught her.
     
“Sophie, this is my brother, Peter.” Charlie’s voice broke the spell, and finally she understood. Peter stood on her doorstep, both a gift and a curse. He had taken her mother, but he had given her Charlie. Here was her chance to give him something back––something his sorrow-filled eyes were obviously longing to see.
     
Forgiveness.
     
“Peter,” she said softly. Sophie offered him her hand, both a lifeline and an olive branch. “It’s nice to meet you.”  
     
The man she had once considered an enemy took her hand, holding it tightly. A wordless understanding passed between them, an unspoken exchange of supplication and mercy.   
     
Peter’s face broke, relief obvious in the grey-blue eyes that mirrored his brother’s. They were mere seconds in time, seconds that passed with the weight of years.
     
“I don’t know about either of you guys, but I’m feeling like a trip to the swings,” Sophie said, her voice gathering strength as she spoke. She let go of Peter’s hand and reached for Charlie’s, closing the door behind her. She smiled and looked ahead at the road, the evening sky around them painted in pinks and reds and yellows.  
     
Charlie squeezed her hand, a reassuring reminder that he was there, that he loved her and was proud of her. A reminder that her life was good.
     
Don’t forget I love you!  
     
The began to walk down the street, down the narrow sidewalk that ended at a small neighborhood park not unlike the one where she’d met Charlie. Sophie walked between the two brothers, three people whose lives had been ripped apart and united by circumstances that could have destroyed them. Three people who were finding life together.
     
Don’t forget I love you! 
     
Sophie looked at Charlie, feeling a peace that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She squeezed his hand in return, a smile crossing her lips as she shifted her gaze back to the deepening sunset.  
     
Staring straight ahead, Sophie slipped her free hand into Peter’s––a reminder that she was there, that he was forgiven. The three of them walked, now linked by hands, a reminder that love and forgiveness were stronger than hate. 

Scrap Paper Hearts: Part One

Hi, loyal readers! Take a look below at Part One of a short story I wrote called "Scrap Paper Hearts." I hope you'll enjoy it and come back for more!



She’d been fine until she saw it.  
     
She’d been strong, recovered, adjusted. And then it all came crashing down.  
     
One simple little scrap, one unevenly torn sheet of yellow legal paper with chicken scratch notations on it. Slightly smudged letters in mechanical pencil, hastily written by a hand that would never write another word.
     
Sophie stared out at the water, unblinking and unseeing, as people walked past her in a blur of activity that seemed a million miles away.
     
“Need a push?” A voice behind her startled her out of her reverie; almost a violent assault on her concentration, so unexpected was the question.
     
She turned her head to discover the source and found herself looking into the smiling eyes of a man who looked to have about ten years on her, his blue-grey eyes offset by tanned skin. A well-worn baseball cap hid his hair and cast a shadow across his face, strangely at odds with the Oxford cloth shirt he wore. There was a boyish sense of vibrancy in him that seemed almost irrepressible, despite the fact that he’d barely spoken.


Milk.
Peanut butter.
Coffee.
Don’t forget I love you!
––Mom   


Words seemed stuck in Sophie’s throat as she stared into the stranger’s friendly face, a forming response just out of reach. Thickly coated in peanut butter and floating away in a white river of milk.
     
“I see your mother taught you never to talk to strangers, huh?” he said, chuckling softly.
     
Don’t forget I love you!
     
The invasion on her thoughts was almost too much for Sophie’s brain to process. She blinked rapidly, trying to regain her grasp of the present, of what was happening here, right in front of her. Tugging her lips into the beginnings of what she hoped was a smile, she pushed words past everything that seemed to be keeping her silent.
     
“Yes, she did. Though I hardly think that the rule still applies.” The words sounded much more flippant than she felt, but it was a technique she had mastered. Hiding behind coy phrases and a constant flurry of activity. She was a social butterfly, never still long enough for anyone to see that the colorful wings perpetually in motion were riddled with holes.
     
“So does the lady need a push?” he asked again, his smile widening to reveal even, white teeth.
     
It was a strange offer, no doubt a shameless flirtation, but it was a distraction Sophie desperately needed. One more thing to push away the looming thoughts, the memories and the feelings that always seemed just on the verge.  
     
“Why not?” she replied, her own smile deepening and becoming more genuine.  
     
“And what would the lady’s name be?" He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as he spoke, unbuttoning the cuffs and making quick folds.  
     
“Sophie,” she said, turning back to face forward and repositioning herself in the swing’s sling seat. It had been years since anyone had pushed her on a swing set, years since she’d even set foot on a playground. It seemed like such a frivolity, yet here she was.  
     
“Well, Sophie, I’m Charles. Charlie.”  
     
The chains on either side of her moved as he took them in his grip, his hands just on the periphery of her vision.  
     
Charlie. It was a nice name, though not one she would have necessarily guessed for him. He looked more like a Jack or a John. Charlie. Sophie wondered idly what his last name might be.
     
“You ready?” he asked, and she felt him tugging the chain back.
     
Sophie nodded. Yes, she was ready. And soon, she was soaring, up and back, her hair whipping in the wind as she moved. She was free of the earth, rising high into the air toward the sun.  
     
High toward the heavens, where her mother watched--just out of reach.  
     
Don’t forget I love you!
     
Charlie stood, his feet firmly planted, pushing Sophie higher as her legs pumped, watching her arc through the air. He thought it odd that she made no sound--no squeals of delight or whoops of exhilaration escaped her. But he said nothing to this odd young woman who seemed silently in need.  Instead, he continued to push, unaware of the silent tears that finally escaped her tightly closed eyes.




*******


She’d been driving, slowly creeping down one of the residential streets downtown, one hand on the steering wheel while the other rifled through the glove box in search of sunglasses. They were there—somewhere—she knew they were. Sophie’s hand disappeared further into the recesses of the glove box, past the collection of assorted paper napkins, past the jumbles of pencils and pens and paperwork, until they closed around the familiar plastic shape of her sunglasses. She pulled them out, only slightly aware of the scrap of paper that had somehow become adhered to one of the oversized lenses.
     
How did that get stuck there? she wondered, catching sight of the torn yellow paper.    
     
Braking at the stop sign, she took a moment to examine her sunglasses and remove the paper, which had somehow encountered a substance that looked suspiciously like caramel.  
     
And then, she saw it. The handwriting. The familiar script of her mother.
     
Her throat closed, and the world around her dulled and darkened. She had to pull over. She had to pull over and get out of the car.  
     
Now.  
     
Sophie forced her eyes to focus and took a gulp of air, feeling her nose burn under the threat of tears.  Not now. Why now?
     
Up ahead, there was a little park. A playground with shiny swings and a jungle gym. A sandy plot bordered by lush green grass and wooden benches painted a cheery yellow.  
   
There, Sophie thought. There. I can stop there, and I can be alone. I can be alone, and I can get my head on straight.  
     
It was there that Charlie found her, a solitary figure sitting on the swing, staring ahead and motionless.  Alone, like a little lost child too frightened to move.




*******


Ordinary life had been shattered two years before, on a morning that had begun just like any other. One more morning of a million unremarkable mornings strung together in the normal life Sophie had been taking for granted.  
     
The cell phone tucked in her purse interrupted her thoughts as she navigated her Inbox, annoyingly inundated with junk after a weekend of idle collection. She bounced up from her chair, hurrying to catch the phone before it disturbed any of her other cubicle mates. Especially the snarky ones. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to have it with her, but she knew for a fact that most of the other people in her office were consummate rule-breakers and just kept their phones on vibrate. Which usually, Sophie did––only she’d forgotten to switch it over from its bouncy little ringtone to silent mode before she’d clocked in that morning.  
     
“Hello?” she said, keeping her voice low.  
     
“Is this Sophie Watson?” There was an unfamiliar voice on the line, and Sophie felt her eyebrows knit together in puzzlement. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she remembered seeing Mom on the display as she’d hastily flipped the phone open. So why was the voice on the other end coming from a man? 
     
“Yes?” It sounded more like a question than an answer, but Sophie was still running through all the reasons that someone else might be in possession of her mother’s cell phone.  
     
Everything after that was an indefinable blur, melting together in a violent assault of clinical terms, sympathetic words. Strangers’ faces floated before her, offering empty condolences and meaningless platitudes. Paperwork loomed endlessly, stark and sharp-edged stacks that seemed to trivialize the most complicated moments of her life and lay them within the confines of their margins. The sound of sobbing became familiar, background noise that she almost didn’t even notice anymore. Sophie wasn’t even really sure of where it was coming from most of the time.
     
She answered questions and made decisions that she shouldn’t have been making––not yet, not like this. There were arrangements and phone calls and a constant barrage of words. Words, words, words. She hated words. She just wanted them all to stop and let her breathe.  
     Most of all, though, she just wanted her mother to hold her. To have her stroke her cheek softly and draw slow patterns on her back with her fingertips until she fell asleep, the way she’d done when Sophie was little.  
     
But that was never going to happen now. Her mother would never be there to hold her when she needed comforting, never be there to listen when she needed a sounding board, never be there to see her fall in love or walk down the aisle. There would never be any more laughter or the beautiful sound of her mother’s voice.  
     
Never.  
     
It was ironic how close never and forever had become in her mind. 
     
Sophie made it through those next few months somehow. The funeral and the accident reports and the police reports. There were stacks of unopened sympathy cards that she wanted to burn––she wanted to smell the smoke and watch the flames writhe in their hot red and orange and yellow dance. She wanted to burn away all the pain. She knew it would always be there, though, forever tattooed on her heart. And her life would never be the same, never resemble the life she’d been living before that phone call. Still, she’d learned to move past it, to box it up and put it in a drawer, safe from sight.  
     
Until then. The drawer was upended, the box ripped open and spilled. And all it had taken was one little piece of paper, words written two years before by the mother she no longer had.  


By the mother who had been stolen from her.

Baby Doll Magic: Part Two

And here it is...the conclusion of the short story, Baby Doll Magic. I hope you all enjoyed reading it!

Part Two

“Michael, I’d like you to meet Julie. My mom.”  
     
Two months later, the stranger in the shoe store had become my best friend, my confidante. The man I had waited so long for. He encased my mother’s finely-boned hand in his, lingering only a moment in the formal greeting. I watched in surprise as he abandoned the gesture and swept her into an embrace, his easy affection making the movement fluid and almost dance-like. It seemed to come without hesitation, as though he was greeting a friend.
     
My mother’s brown eyes widened in surprise, creeping back down to size as she relaxed into Michael’s arms and returned his embrace. When they separated, my mother’s face was flushed and smiling shyly.
     
“Ms. Harper,” Michael said, his deep voice edged with eagerness. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you.” He paused, a look of concern crossing his face. Lines etched his forehead as his eyebrows rose, creeping toward his hairline. “Hopefully I didn’t catch you too off-guard. I don’t usually hug people the first time I meet them, but,” Michael’s smile returned as he looked at my mother, “I just feel like I know you.”  
     
“Please, call me Julie,” my mother replied, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ears. At forty-four, my mother’s dewy youth had matured into a refined glow––like a gemstone smoothed and shined by the slow, abrasive processes of a tumbler. Lessons of life had made her wiser, though she had never allowed them to make her bitter or harsh. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.  
     
“And please, don’t apologize. I think it’s delightful,” my mother continued, studying Michael as she spoke. I could see something in her eyes, something searching and contemplative. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.   
     
Michael laughed, sending a whisper of delight that drifted past my ears and tickled the skin at the nape of my neck. I loved the sound of Michael’s laughter; it was full, rich, and warm. It seemed to come from his soul. “My mother says she used to worry about me when I was little, because I would walk right up to strangers like I knew them. She was afraid I’d go up to the wrong person someday.” He paused, staring off into the middle distance at some unexpected memory. “Once, we were at the  doctor’s office when she was pregnant with my sister, and she says I went right up to this teenaged girl in the waiting room and shoved a baby doll in her lap.” Michael shook his head. “Don’t really know why, but the girl started crying, and then I crawled up into her lap with the baby doll and gave her a hug.”
     
Beside me, my mother had grown still––so motionless that I couldn’t even detect her breathing. The only movement came from a tear that had escaped, slowly tracing the curve of her cheek as she stared in silent recognition of the man who stood in front of her.


**********




The tiny boy in the waiting room could have never known the gravity of that one word.  
     
Baby.
     
For him, it was a newly-learned sound associated with the shape and form of the toy he had just given to Julie. He had no concept of the battle raging in Julie’s heart as she sat alone in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, no inkling of the newly-formed life growing in her belly.  
     
No one knew.  
     
And no one was supposed to ever have known. At least, that was what Julie had decided when she’d taken the bus downtown that morning, walking the last few blocks to the doctor’s office. The doctor’s office where she waited to discuss an abortion, to figure out how to get rid of the complication she was now facing.  
     
She was seventeen. How on Earth could she ever consider having a baby? Her parents would never understand, and she would end up sitting right here, anyway. This was simply taking control of the inevitable. This was the responsible thing to do.
     
Right? 
     
Julie’s decision had been made. The baby would be taken care of, and no one would ever have to know. Her parents would have no reason to be shamed, the boyfriend she no longer saw would never have to become a father. Julie would be able to go on with her life as planned, and no one would ever find out her secret.
     
But the bright blue eyes of the tiny boy could see something no one else did, and what he saw ripped at her soul.     
     
The fissure started small, a slow creep down the tenuous defenses she had built around her heart.  Inching down, down, gaining speed and strength until the crack had become undeniable and irreparable. The defenses were broken, the damage was done.  
     
Julie heard sobs escape her lips before she could capture them, tears burning her throat and eyes. She was betrayed, and now the heartache she had been so carefully denying had been exposed by a child’s whisper of one little word.
     
Baby.  
     
The little boy’s bright eyes searched hers, growing wide as his grin wavered. Those eyes, though, never left her face as he reached up and crawled into her lap. A small giggle slipped past his lips as he buried his face in her chest, his chubby arms wrapped around her. Julie could smell the sweet smell of his skin, could feel his entire body move with each breath he took.
     
In, out. In, out.  
    
“Michael, what are you doing? You know better than to run off like that.” A voice scolded.  
     
Julie blinked through her tears to see the bewildered face of a young woman, reaching out for the boy sitting on her lap. Blonde hair was swept back in a ponytail, the blue of her son’s eyes was mirrored in her own. Julie noticed that the woman’s belly had the telltale swell of early pregnancy.
     
“Is he yours?” Julie asked, swiping at the moisture on her cheeks.
     
“Yes, he is. I’m so sorry,” the woman said, her voice a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment.  There was worry there, too––the worry of a mother who loved her child and feared for his safety.
     
“He likes to run off. I swear, he’ll just run up to to anybody and start jabbering.” She shook her head, a frown darkening her lovely face. “Michael, come on now and leave this poor girl alone,” she instructed, taking her son’s little body in her arms. “I’m sorry he bothered you,” she said again.
     
Julie watched as the woman turned away, wondering if she knew what a special child she held. Wondering if the little boy would ever know that he had been a gift and that he had saved the life of another child.


**********     


My mother had never given me the details of her pregnancy, and though I often had questions, I never pressed the issue. I sensed something there that made her uncomfortable, something she never seemed quite ready to tell me. I wanted to know, but I also wanted my mother to be able to give me all of the answers to all of those unasked questions in her own time.  
     
Michael’s story had pierced little holes in the wall she’d built around that part of herself, and after we left his house the night of that first meeting, she told me everything. It certainly wasn’t easy for her to tell me, just as it wasn’t easy for me to hear.  
     
Who, after all, would want to hear that their teenaged mother had, at first, planned to abort them?  
     
Who would want to have to tell their daughter that the grandparents who now so openly doted on her were once in denial of her existence?
     
The life my mother had to carve out for us had seemed doomed from the start. After she left the doctor’s office that day, still pregnant and holding a fistful of prenatal care pamphlets, she had gone home to tell her parents everything. Despite their fierce insistence for tolerance, their avoidance of controversy at all costs proved to outweigh their open-mindedness. The pregnancy of an unwed teenager was, by very definition, controversial, and something they felt unprepared to handle. They were unsupportive of my mother’s decision to keep me, intent on convincing her that a baby would only ruin her life.  
     
And theirs.
     
My grandparents so greatly feared being judged by their peers that they rejected their daughter when she needed them most. The baby she carried was the embodiment of a challenge, forcing them to address their own lack of true direction. It took nearly a decade of distance and silence for my grandparents to finally realize what a mistake they’d made.   
    
The wheels of that yellow plastic dump truck had collided with the bright red shoes of a troubled young girl to break through invisible barriers. The simplicity of youth collided with the complexity of adult-sized responsibilities. The bright blue eyes of a little blonde boy looked into her heart and saw the possibilities she couldn’t, while the voice of that tiny stranger spoke for me when I was voiceless. The weight of the baby doll in my mother’s arms gave shape to the realization that the beginning of my life would not end hers, but truly begin it.  
     
The life that was saved that day in the doctor’s office was, by turns, the destruction as well as the redemption of a family. That family––my family––had so long lived under the fragile shelter of its own disfunction that the feather-light weight of a plastic pregnancy test proved to be a burden too demanding. The broken pieces that scattered were slowly collected, slowly repaired––set in motion by the gentle touch and whispered words of a tiny stranger.
     
Baby.

Baby Doll Magic: Part One

Hi, readers! To whet your literary whistles, I'm giving you part one of a short story I've written. I hope you enjoy reading it and come back for more! Let me know what you think....

Part One

My grandparents were never people that liked to confront an “issue.”  Issues were for magazines and non-conformists, not for people who wanted a relatively waveless society.  
     
Waves belonged at the beach.  
     
Waves were created by subjects that caused any kind of dissension among the people discussing them, anything that might give rise to an argument.  For my grandparents, these subjects simply didn’t exist.  If you don’t see them, they don’t see you.  No discussion meant no argument, and no argument meant a relative feeling of peace and acceptance.  Incidentally, this ensured that no one had any legitimate reasons for disliking them or their beliefs.  Their beliefs were indefinable. 
     
This was also how they approached the raising of their children.  They taught each of their four children that they were to avoid incendiary issues at all costs, in all company.  After all, how better to get along with the rest of the world than to have no true opinions of your own?  They were benign beings--well-behaved, well-mannered, well-liked children.  But as they grew into adults, their lack of strongly-founded beliefs became dangerous.  All four of them, in some way or another, went in search of what they were lacking.
     
My mother’s theory on what might be missing in her life took shape when she was seventeen, when the rest of her truly began to take shape.  She had never been flirtatious or carefree as a young child, despite the fact that her parents seemed to grant her every freedom.  She was serious, quiet, unobtrusive.  Her grades were always impeccable, and her parents never seemed to have reason for complaint.  Still, my mother felt as though she never quite measured up, never fully had their love.  Love she desperately needed and wanted.
     
Despite being beautiful, she never felt it.
     
Until she met my father.  
     
Their romance found its unlikely beginning in the park, under the shade of an oak tree.  It sounded so picturesque, so innocent, to hear her tell the story of how she met the man who would be her first love, the young soul who seemed to understand and appreciate her more than anyone else she had ever encountered.  He was a painter--or should have been.  That was his true talent, his true passion.  It was, unfortunately, not what paid his rent.  For that, my father depended on the payroll department of a local law firm, where he worked as the assistant to one of the up-and-coming partners.  An up-and-coming partner who was the same age as he.
     
That injustice, coupled with the fact that he was having to stifle a dream, gave him license to brood, to consider himself a misunderstood citizen of the world.  He was absolutely poetic.
     
My mother adored him, and he seemed to return her adoration.  He needed her, appreciated her.  He made her feel like a rare and priceless painting.
     
Their passion for each other, however brightly it burned, burned out quickly.  It was a paper match held by tentative hands, between two fingers that released it as the flame crept closer.  Neither of my parents was prepared to hold on when they were tested.  Perhaps they were too young.  Perhaps they ultimately realized that they were not strong enough.  
     
Whatever the case, after six months, my father and mother said good-bye. 


**********
The air in the waiting room had that strange, sterile, stale smell that doctor’s waiting rooms always have.  That indefinable, unmistakable smell that seems to be found nowhere else in nature.  It was a smell that, today, was making it extremely difficult for Julie to breathe.  
     
She tried to ignore it, to concentrate on the outdated, dog-eared parenting magazine that seemed to have taken up permanent residency on the scarred wooden coffee table in the middle of the room.  Words and pictures blurred together in front of her eyes as she tried to breathe.
     
In, out.  In, out.
     
The chairs arranged around the perimeter of the small room were mostly unoccupied, though there were a couple of mothers with tiny children, their focus swallowed as completely as juice from a brightly colored sippy cup.  It was fortunate, really.  No one was paying attention to her, no one noticed the fact that her young face was ashen or that she was struggling against panic that seemed to be closing in on her.
     
No one sat in judgement.
     
A bright yellow plastic dump truck skittered across the worn industrial carpeting, stopping only when one of its oversized front wheels met the toe of her shiny red ballet shoe.  She looked up, startled, to see the sheepish grin of a little boy.  He crouched beside the table, a plump arm still outstretched after his release of the toy.  His bottom hovered only inches above the floor, his tiny little plaid shorts bunched up above skinned knees.  Blue eyes sparkled mischievously in a chubby little face flushed from the exertion of play, while straw-colored whispers of hair fell across his forehead.  Julie would have guessed him to be somewhere around eighteen months old.  
     
The tiny boy smiled again and giggled gleefully, rising from his crouch to run back to a toy box in the corner of the room.  He leaned over the side of the plastic crate, nearly falling in as he rifled its contents, searching for something known only to him.  His tiny shoes kicked the air happily; and he reemerged, his chubby, dimpled fist wrapped around the thigh of a baby doll whose plastic infant body was dressed in nothing but a diaper.  The boy looked at the doll in his hands, raising it so that he held it right-side up, clutching the baby to his chest.  He stood there a moment, smiling sweetly, and took off at a run in Julie’s direction, his body bouncing madly with the awkward gait of a toddler.
     
Another squeal of delight escaped him as he neared; and finally he slowed, stopping directly in front of her, his small form mere inches away.  Julie thought for a moment that he might crawl into her lap.
     
Instead, he looked up at her, his bright blue eyes meeting hers.  His hands, still holding the baby doll, reached out toward her and gently placed the doll in her lap.  His cheeks swelled as his smile broadened, and he leaned closer.  The little boy’s tiny hand fluttered forward until it rested, feather light, on the flat surface of Julie’s abdomen.  He stilled, his eyes growing large and solemn.
     
Everything in the room stopped and slipped away, leaving only Julie and the little boy.  There were no sounds aside from her heartbeat and measured breaths.
     
In, out.  In, out.
     
The big blue eyes blinked.
     
“Baby.”  It was a tiny word whispered by a tiny stranger, but it made Julie’s heart stop.         


**********


Though she never maligned his character, my mother never answered all of my questions about my father or gave me all the details about their relationship.  I always thought it might be an attempt to protect all of us: me, from a father too flawed and selfish to raise a child; her, from the self-loathing that would accompany the acute realization that she had been so foolish in her emotions.  I never judged her, though I know she always felt some sense of inadequacy and failure.
     
Despite the fact that she overcame the challenges of being a very young mother alone, she always wondered if she had been good enough and if she had taught me well enough.  She was determined not to be a stereotype-- she worked her way through college and graduated at the top of her class.  She took a job at a local restaurant and labored her way all the way from the dish room to management, leaving only when she was ready to open the doors of her own restaurant.  Her passion for life and her dream were obvious to anyone who met her or tasted her food, and that passion made her wildly successful.
     
Still, though, she felt she had failed me.  And nothing I ever said or did seemed to reassure her.
     
**********


I was sitting alone, folded forward in a padded chair as I considered the shoes on my feet with the concentration of someone making a life-altering decision.  My left foot was encased in a bright red patent-leather ballet flat, beacon-like in its shiny cheerfulness.  The right foot wore its alter ego, executed in hot pink.  
     
Pink.  Red.  Pink.  Red.
     
Both?
     
Pink.  Red.
     
“I vote the red,” said a voice that floated above my head. The toes of a pair of well-worn leather loafers pointed in my direction, curtained by dark jeans with the perfect amount of length and break.   
     
I turned my head and lifted my gaze to find myself looking directly at a man somewhere around thirty, his pleasant face arranged in grave contemplation.  Blue eyes assessed my mismatched feet, narrowing in single-minded focus.
     “Yup.  Definitely the red,” the man said again, nodding as he spoke.  Short, sand-colored hair reached just over the top of his forehead, swept to the side and slightly ruffled.  It made him look more approachable, less formal than he might have otherwise.  
     “You don’t think they’re a little too Wizard of Oz?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t showing the surprise I felt at his unexpected approach.  
     
He considered for a moment.  “No.  I think they’re great.  And I happen to like the whole ruby slippers thing, but that’s another issue entirely,” he replied, smiling.
     
I couldn’t help but smile back.  It seemed so rare that anyone stepped out of their own orbit to make contact with a stranger--unless, of course, it was to complain about something.  Pleasantries seemed reserved for only the closest acquaintances and came at a premium when exchanged between strangers.  It was shameful really, though it certainly made moments like this that much more notable.
     
“So you’re a Judy Garland fan?” I asked.  
     
“Me?  No, not at all.  I just like a pretty lady in shiny shoes.”  He laughed.  “I like a pretty lady out of shiny shoes, too,” he clarified.  I felt my breath release.  So he was flirting with me.     
     
“Well,” I said, not knowing quite how to respond.  I could feel my cheeks coloring as brightly as the shoes on my feet.  Both feet.  Apparently, no matter how old I got, being complimented would never cease to make me blush.
     
“And don’t worry.  I don’t actually work here, so I have no stake in your decision.  Consider me an unbiased second opinion,” he paused slightly, looking around the small shoe boutique.  “Unless, of course, you already have one?”
     
It took a moment for me to register the meaning of the question.  I shook my head.
     
“No.  No second opinion givers here, and the only ones I have in my repertoire are all female.  Having a male perspective is certainly helpful.” I smiled at him again, hoping none of my lipstick had migrated to my teeth.  “Thank you,” I said, feeling slightly awkward.
     
“Michael,” he supplied, extending his hand.  It was strong and capable looking.      
     
“Evalena,” I said, taking his hand.
     
We stayed like that for a moment, hands clasped in the friendly gesture of a handshake, eyes locked in silent exploration.  It was odd, this sensation that seemed to shiver through me at his touch.  Familiar, somehow, like we had met before.