Reay Jespersen

Penny jammed the barrel of the gun into my mouth. It tasted coppery. Or maybe that was my own blood from the three newly missing teeth, courtesy of the gorilla sneering a smile at me from behind her.
I’d seen him before.
Where was that?
Then it hit me through the dazed fog: that musclehead with Papillon in the club that first night. The night I met Penny.
Built like a brick shithouse, that guy. I’m no slouch in a street fight, and he took four of my hardest, dirty hits like he didn’t feel them. That was before he hit me back, like a wrecking ball. One hit for each of mine. I’m not sure which ones took the teeth out or when I fell to my knees, but it doesn’t matter. I heard that click of a Colt’s hammer and knew it was over.
I didn’t know it was her, of course. Not until she stepped out of the shadows with the heater leveled. Not that she needed it. One dance with the silverback in the Italian suit, and I was all but finished. Seeing Penny step out from behind him – realizing what was going on – and I was already done. The gun was a formality.
“I told you to stop digging,” Penny said, pushing the gun. Angry. I looked up at her as well as I could with one eye swelling shut; her beauty now severe. “But you couldn’t help it, could you? ‘Johnny Delmar, the Great Detective.’ You couldn’t let it go.” It was then I saw the crack, the tiny fracture in her wall. A glimpse of humanity; of the woman she’d been. She caught it. Composed herself again. “Why couldn’t you just let it go?”
Because it’s who I am.
Because Papillon is killing you with drugs.
Because I love you.
I couldn’t say anything around the gun’s barrel, but must’ve said it with my eyes, because there was another crack in her wall. Bigger this time.
I pleaded through them.
This isn’t you, baby. I know it, and you know it.
End this. Take that heater and plug that mook standing behind you and let’s get out of here. Away from the city. Away from the country. Away from everything. To the end of the world. Just me and you. No one else and nothing else matters. Don’t do this. Don’t –
“Why do you hesitate, my dear?”
That voice. With that smooth French accent.
Papillon slid into the light behind her and stopped, eyes never leaving the back of her head. Not so much as a glance down at me.
“Do you love him?”
I looked up at her.
She gritted her teeth, jaw muscles flexing. “I did.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled, biting on the gun barrel, willing myself to stay still. I’d been waiting to hear those words from her these last three months. Waiting for some confirmation I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.
She never told me. Why didn’t she tell me?
But then, why didn’t I tell her?
Christ, how different it would’ve been if we’d just admitted it to each other.
“You don’t any more?”
A pause. Too long a pause. I looked up at her. Her eyes were welling with tears.
Papillion eased forward, stepping silently, until he was right beside her ear. “Change is never easy, cherie. You know what I offer you. But – ” he stepped away from her, stopping at the edge of the light. “… if you feel you still want to be with Mr. Delmar instead, I understand. You would, of course, have to… join him.” Papillon stepped into the shadow as the gorilla cocked his own gun. Penny stiffened.

I flashed back to that first night at the club. I was there to catch a hot new piano player – a colored kid name of William James Basie – but was typically early. Only a few people around yet.
I was half way through my second Coke at the bar when Penny slid in beside me. At an empty bar. She was always blunt that way. She started talking, and I started listening. Kept listening, even when I caught Papillon and the musclehead coming down the stairs with the club owner, a guy I knew named Russ, who was looking nervous. My detective alarm was clanging at the back of my head.
“Are you even listening to me?” Penny asked.
I turned back to her. “I am,” I said honestly. “Just wondering who those two were, with the owner.” I glanced back to see the three of them heading out the front door.
“Probably best to not know,” she said.
I looked at her. “Oh?”
“I’ve been here a few nights a week for a while. I’ve… seen some things.” She half-shrugged.
“Things? What kind of things?” Russ was a good guy. Straight shooter. Wouldn’t even get into the speakeasy racket he’d told me about one night, even though it would’ve meant big money for the place, which I knew was having some money trouble. Maybe that was what the other two were here about.
She shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head, sucking her juice and soda through the straw. “And I don’t want to know. You know what they say: ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you.’”

I smiled.
Even with the gun barrel stuck in my mouth, I smiled.
Penny frowned down at me. “What are you smiling at?”
I smiled wider. She was upset now. “Stop it.”
And then it came: from deep within me, a tiny laugh.
“Stop it, Johnny.” Getting angry again.
The laugh grew.
“You stop it!”
And grew.
“Goddamit, stop laughing! Stop it or I’ll –… ” Past angry now, into hate; this woman who I’d loved, and who’d loved me.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
And it erupted from me: the biggest belly laugh I’ve ever had… cut short.

The wizard rushed along the hallway. Anyone in his way was forced aside by his considerable girth, often followed by admonishment, while sheer momentum kept him huffing forward. Razzle was never a man to be trifled with, everyone knew, much less when he was in a hurry.
The guards at the commander’s door crossed their halberds as he approached.
“What is the meaning of this?” Razzle asked the older guard, a slow-looking man named Feldman.
“Commander’s orders,” Feldman mumbled. “Everyone’s to be kept out.”
“And a fine job you’re doing,” Razzle assured him. “Well done in keeping everyone out. I, however, am clearly not everyone, am I? I am just someone.” He could see this got the tiny hamster in the tiny wheel in Feldman’s tiny brain going furiously. After a long moment, Feldman glanced at his partner and gave a quick, tight-lipped nod. The halberds uncrossed.
“Do keep up the excellent work,” Razzle patted Feldman’s shoulder on the way past as he turned the considerable doorknob and pushed through the heavy, metal-strapped wood door.
Commander Blackthorne looked up at the sound of the creaking door opening. He was seated at an oversized table with a large, detailed map of the continent spread before him, dozens of coloured pieces placed upon it. Ten-hour candles had burned out and been replaced again and again. Blackthorne looked even worse than he smelled. His planning for making war was taking its toll on him.
“My liege,” Razzle bowed as deeply as his girth would allow.
“Good evening, Razzle,” Blackthorne said wearily.
“Morning, sire.”
“Oh?” Blackthorne turned to the small window in the corner, now gaining detail in the dawn’s thin light.
“Sire, if I may?”
“Hmm?” Blackthorne turned back to him. “Oh, yes,” he gestured to continue.
“I believe that I have discovered a way for you to take over at least a portion of the world with nary an arrow fired nor man lost.”
The commander perked up, but then became typically suspicious. “Are you well? Have you hit your head?”
“Not at all, sire,” Razzle took tentative steps forward. “It is the portal you had asked me to work upon.”
“Portal?”
“A… time portal,” Razzle reminded him. “To seek out the result of pending battles.”
“Ah, yes,” Blackthorne finally remembered. “And? You have seen the result of the war?” He looked back at his map.
“Oh, much better than that, sire,” Razzle said, licking his lips. “Late last night I finally managed to get the spell to work, and cast my gaze into the future. I came here immediately to tell you that the road to victory lies not in war, but in…” he paused to dramatize the moment. “Apples.”
“Apples?” The commander echoed.
“Apples,” Razzle confirmed. “Granted, the visions were neither clear nor whole, but one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that in the future, millions of people the world over will own apples.”
“Millions do now, Razzle.”
“Ah, but something happens in the future. What, I cannot be sure, but it must be a fundamental change – a paradigm shift in their very nature – because apples are used, from what I can gather, as a form of entertainment, storage of information, creation, and communication.”
“I fear this… future-gazing… has left you senseless,” Blackthorne’s gaze returned to the map.
“Sire, I beseech you, heed my words. In this future, apples have become something entirely different than those we know. People are dedicated to them, to a stunning degree, despite the fact that they become extremely expensive. So much so, that as much as they may be desired, most people cannot afford them at all. It is only the relatively wealthy who can purchase them. And, oh, purchase them they do, sire. Again and again.” He could see he’d regained Blackthorne’s interest. “They have them in their homes, they purchase them for their children… they carry them around openly, speaking of them as an indication of loyalty, and as financial stature. To corner the world market in apples will mean to have power the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Now fully understanding Razzle’s proposal, the commander rose to his feet. “Are you suggesting I give up everything in light of this vision? Thousands of men are in the field as we speak,” he stabbed a finger at the map, “ready to lay siege at my notice. You would have me call them back and instead take up… agriculture?”
“I know what I saw, sire, and can only advise based upon that. Years of toil and strife and countless dead could be avoided completely, while giving you power and sway over a significant portion of the world. The choice, of course, is yours,” he bowed and stepped backward, finally turning and exiting.
The commander glared at his map.
How could any of what Razzle said be true?
And yet, he had seen the wizard’s work before. He knew the wonders that Razzle was capable of. The future had been seen; a future which could now be controlled by him with this new information.

The armies were recalled and put to use, the war machines disassembled and remade into more practical tools. Blackthorne oversaw everything. From his window high in the castle, he could look out and gloat over row after row of apple seeds as far as the eye could see; no mean feat.
He sat on his throne, fingers steepled in front of his face, with a glint in his eye and a dark smirk of certain victory. All he had to do now was wait for his world domination to come to fruition.

Dan woke up when the alarm clock went off. He hit it quickly and looked over his shoulder. Brianne hadn’t moved. He looked at her in the early morning light, stroking her hair fondly with a loving smile on his face. He slipped out of the bedroom as quietly as he could.
He showered before eating, as he always preferred. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal – not his favourite brand. Plain Shreddies. Brianne’s choice. Smothering the coffee grinder with a dish towel to dull the sound, he brewed himself a single cup of coffee and enjoyed it as he flipped through the morning paper pulled from the front porch.
Dan skimmed over the local news, then international news – more violence everywhere (what was the world coming to?) – before poring over the sports section and finally ending, as always, with the comics. He liked to start off his day with some light humour.
He checked his watch. Time to get to work. He tidied up, pulled on his sports coat, grabbed his heavy briefcase – a new project started today – and locked the front door behind himself.

Forty-three minutes later, the door was broken in with a ram, SWAT making a quick, efficient sweep of the entire premises.
“All clear,” the captain said as Special Agent Jamieson stepped over the threshhold. “Proctor reported something you should see in the bedroom.”
Jamieson made a sweep of his own, scanning around the living room and dining room from where he stood. “Thanks,” he said.
Brianne Tremblay, Jamieson knew even as he stood at the bedroom door and saw her in the bed. Forensics was already at work on her body, but he knew what they’d find: the same thing they’d found each time. Like the cereal bowl. Like the coffee and newspaper and hair in the shower drain.
Now fourteen victims and counting.
They were getting close to catching Daniel Hayes. But not close enough.
Not yet.

With a child’s life in the balance, a parent will do exceptional things. Ilsa was slipping further away with each passing moment and needed the apothecary medicine strapped under my cloak. My only option was to cut through the Dark Forest. Tales of the region said that most avoided the Forest at all costs, and that those who didn’t were never heard from again. But the Black Path would cut my travel time by half at least.
With no choice to make, I went in.

Spidery trees clawed the sky from the fog-laiden ground, and all was deathly quiet. I pushed myself hard for long stretches at a time, stopping only when absolutely necessary. I was perhaps half way through to the far side when a beautiful woman in tattered clothing approached me, stepping – almost forming – out of the dim fog. She seemed familiar, possessing some aspects of my late wife, yet at the same time strange.
She cupped her hands, imploring. “Good sir, may I please have some food?”
But what little food I had brought from the distant village was lost as I fell into a stream I was crossing much earlier. I had nothing for myself, let alone to offer to others. I told her I could not help her.
With that, her demeanor changed drastically: her beautiful face became twisted and hateful, once-beautiful eyes suddenly blazing with anger. She closed her fist, opened it again, and blew a fine powder at my face. My eyes stung and my breathing was reduced to choking gasps.
Everything went black.

I awoke as if immediately to find myself bare and leather-strapped to a wooden table. Candles, books, glass jars of oddities, and small, rusty farm tools were everywhere in the room, whose smell turned my stomach.
“You don’t like your new home?” An old woman’s voice croaked at my expression. I turned to see a mockery of the woman I had seen on the path, now decades older; bent and twisted. She wasn’t looking at me, but was instead focused on her work as she pushed a ladle around a cauldron hung over her large fireplace.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
“You should never have entered my domain,” she said, sparing me only a brief glance.
Tales of the Dark Hag flitted through my mind. No longer myth. No longer stories for children to scare each other with. Alive and before me and holding me prisoner.
Then, remembering what the tales said she did with her prisoners.
“Free me, fiend, or you’ll pay dearly when I’ll escape,” I informed her.
“Escape?” She asked. “And how, pray, will you do that?” She glancing at my legs before turning back to her cauldron. I looked down the length of my body to see my legs had been cut off above the knee, now ending in stumps with bloodied poultices wrapped against them.
Yet rather than of myself, I thought of Ilsa. Without her medicine, she would now certainly die… utterly alone. Tears welled up, and though I don’t recall doing so, I must have uttered her name.
“Oh, not to worry,” the old crone said. “She’s doing very well. Aren’t you, dear?”
All in a moment, cold, rasped metal encircled my small finger just before pressure was put upon it, and with a crisp snap, a blinding pain shot through me. Vision swimming as unconsciousness vied to take over, I looked down to see Ilsa wrapping a poultice to the wound she had inflicted, where my finger had been. The blood flow stemmed immediately.
I wanted to say her name, call out to my only child. But in my shock, I could do nothing but watch. She took my finger to the old woman. “Yes, Mother,” she responded. The Hag dropped my finger into her brew, stirring it in as Ilsa watched.
First heart, then body, and now mind broken, I finally let unconsciousness take me… hoping to never wake again.

She sat in the empty subway car, chastising herself for riding it so late at night. No one should, in this city going to Hell in a hand basket, but particularly at her age? What had she been thinking?
Still, the ladies of her Bridge Club had insisted there was no other way than to hold the games at Meredith’s house this week – their usual community centre meeting spot closed for renovations as it was – so Edna had little choice but to travel across the city to attend.
Oh, she could have taken a taxi, of course, but at the prices they charged? She could get a month’s worth of food for her tabby, Mr. Pickles, for what a taxi would cost to drive her a half hour away.
No matter, she thought, looking at her reflection in the window beside her and adjusting her flowered hat. She was here now. No use crying over spilled milk. Or at least, Mr. Pickles certainly wouldn’t be upset if such a thing were to happen.
The subway pulled into the next station, which Edna was quietly relieved to find seemingly empty. Only one more station to go. But as the subway eased to a stop, her smiling, shrunken apple face dropped when she saw a group of young men gathered a short ways down on the platform, talking and laughing about something. Hoodlums, the lot of them, with their long or bed-tossed hair and unshaven faces, dressed in their undershirts and worn dungarees. Two of the five wore baseball caps, one normally but the other, particularly brazen one wearing his cap backwards. Backwards! It was like the lot of them were raised in a barn. And, as was just her luck, the whole braying pack of them herded onto the far end of her subway car. Pursing her lips, Edna shifted uncomfortably.
The doors closed and the subway lurched forward, pulling out of the station, and still the hooligans kept up their shenanigans. As the subway plunged into the tunnel, one of the group facing Edna gestured to her with his head. The others became quiet, all turning to look at her. They looked at each other again. The one turned directly away from her said something, and the others nodded and laughed darkly; a sound without humour. Edna had a bad feeling about this.
Her suspicion was confirmed when the same one spun on his heel and started making his way toward her. The rest of his filthy pack followed him, those not busily making themselves look nonchalant instead sporting insipid grins on their faces.
Edna distracted herself, looking around at anything except them, until they stopped a few paces from her and stood there. Head turned to the side, Edna finally peered at them, darting her eyes to them and away again. She sighed deeply and finally looked them straight on.
“What?” She snapped.
“Your purse,” the lead hood smiled.
“What about it?” Edna asked, unfamiliar with mugging protocol.
He looked at his companions, some chuckling at his bemused expression. He turned back to Edna, serious. “What about it is I want it.”
“Well, you can’t have it,” she said.
His face betrayed a moment of surprise before it was replaced by anger and he started a slow, purposeful strut toward her. “I don’t think you get it,” he said, now almost on top of her.
“No, deary,” Edna said, her most innocent grandmother face on. “You don’t get it.” She snapped to her feet, throwing an empty hand toward him, and he became a two-dimensional form of pure light before disappearing.
His dumbfounded friends stood wide-eyed and slack-jawed where they stood. “So,” Edna said to them, cocking her head slightly and smiling. After a single, pounding heartbeat, they broke and ran back down the length of the subway, clambering over each other to get away. She tut-tutted them. So predictable.
She threw another open palm at one, and he shrank into nothingness, even as she gestured to the next and he was sucked into a door-shaped portal that opened and closed in the blink of an eye. She pulled up her sagging knee-high stockings and set out with purpose after the remaining two.
A gesture of her hand, and the second last of them disappeared into a miniature, all-consuming tornado which began at his feet and swept up his body and over his head.
The remaining hoodlum slammed into the door between subway cars, frantically pulling at the handle, which found itself suddenly locked. He turned around to find some other way out and stopped in his tracks when he saw Edna standing an arm’s reach away. Hyperventilating, he backed against the door, looking around for some salvation; a desperate, caged animal.
His breathing became more shallow as she approached, this smiling old lady no taller than his chest.
“Wh-… what are you?” He strained.
“Irked,” she said with a quick nod. She levelled a finger at him. “And…” she touched his stomach, with a high-pitched, “Boop!” He turned into confetti and made a small pop as he weakly blew apart and drifted to the subway floor.
Edna brushed bits of confetti off herself as the subway pulled into her station. The doors opened. She adjusted her flowered hat and stepped out onto the platform, turning toward the escalator. Toward the bus, and Mr. Pickles, and home.
Hell in a hand basket, she thought to herself. The city was getting so bad a demi-god couldn’t even feel safe on the subway any more.

“You finished your homework?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilfred glanced at Agatha, who nodded her confirmation. She touched her napkin to the side of her mouth. “He finished it after dishes and before listening to the radio last night.”
Taking a sip of coffee, Wilfred looked with a slight smile at his son, who sat in his pajamas and scooped the last bit of oatmeal into his mouth. “Well, perhaps the son I had last year, who was so willing to let his work and grades slide, is starting to become a young man I can finally be proud of.”
“I want to do well,” Edwin said earnestly as he concentrated on scraping the bowl clean. He looked up. “To make you proud of me, yes, but also because we were told that only the students with the highest grades will be chosen for the clubs.”
“And those who show particular enthusiasm and ability will no doubt be selected as the leaders,” Wilfred confirmed. The boy’s eyes lit up with aspiration.
The family returned to its breakfast routine. The clinking of cutlery on plates was all that broke the silence for long moments.
“Have you heard any more about the transfer?” Agatha asked.
Wilfred shook his head as he took the last bite of egg and toast. “Nothing yet,” he finally said. “It would probably still be out east, if anywhere.”
“I hope so,” Agatha said. “That’s where the Beckers moved, you remember?”
“I remember.”
“It would be wonderful to see them again. Mindy and I could restart our Bridge club. Maybe with new members from the neighbourhood. I’m sure there must be Bridge players out that way.”
Wilfred nodded automatically. “I’m sure of it.”
She took a small bite of her eggs, pensive. “So they said by the end of the week?”
Wilfred sighed, sagging slightly in his pajamas, tired of days of the discussion. “Yes. They said they would know for sure whether or not I’m getting transferred by the thirteenth, the end of this week, and would let me know either way by shift’s end Friday.”
He remembered something and checked his watch. “Blast, I’m late.” He stood up and hurried to his room.
“Late? For what?” Agatha asked. She got up and followed him, nervous. Edwin leaned slightly in his chair to be able to look down the hallway of their small house and see his mother standing at the doorway to his parents’ bedroom.
“The meeting,” Wilfred said from within. “I told you about it last week, remember? The managers wanted to meet with lead supervisors to go over the lagging turnaround time we’ve been having the last few months. Our numbers are way down, and they’re none too happy about it.”
Edwin slid from his chair and made his way down the hall.
“But the meeting is now? This morning? So it won’t keep you tonight?” Agatha asked.
“Yes,” Wilfred said, forcing patience. “That’s why I’m late now.”
“Well alright,” she said, still anxious. “But call me if you’re going to be late for dinner.”
He sighed. “Of course.”
She smiled and smoothed the front of her dress, turning and walking back up the hallway, stroking Edwin’s crew cut hair as she passed by him. He got to the door of the bedroom and looked in, having always enjoyed watching his father get ready for work.
Already in his pants and starched shirt, Wilfred threw his jacket onto his arms and leaned down to pull his boots on, polished to a shine visible even in the early morning light.
Looking at himself in the full-length mirror, he stood up straight and did up the buttons down the front of his jacket before he saw the reflection of the boy in the doorway. Wilfred smiled and turned to him, flawlessly official, even the leather of his snapped holster buffed to perfection.
Knowing what his father was expecting, Edwin stood at emphasized attention and clicked his slippered heels together, saluting his right hand at arm’s length upward in front of him.
Wilfred’s expression became serious and he clicked his boot heels together and saluted back the same way, holding the pose for a moment before smiling and breaking form. “Go on and get changed and get your books, or you’ll be late, too,” he said with a gesture of his head. “And keep up the good work at school.”
A wide smile on his face, Edwin nodded once and ran into his room to gather his books, wanting to do well. Wanting, as every boy does, to make his father proud.

Cassandra sat at the end of the sofa closest to the window in the dark living room. The curtains were parted, and she looked up to the cloudless, starry night sky, a small smile on her face.
Her young son peered out from behind his bedroom door, looking at her for a long time. She’d been doing this a few times a week for the last month. Exactly a month, he slowly realized.
He finally pushed the door open and stepped into the short hallway. If she heard the light slap of his small bare feet on the parquet floor of the apartment, she didn’t show it. He stood half-hidden at the wide doorway to the living room, watching her.
“Mama?” He finally asked.
She turned to look at him, slight surprise crossing her face.
“Jason, honey… what are you doin out of bed?”
He looked down for a moment, bending one foot around the other, toes splaying on the floor, and gave a shrug. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Mmm,” she said mildly, turning back to the stars. “Me neither.”
He watched her for short time again.
“Whacha doin’?” He finally asked.
She turned back to him.
“Just… thinking.”
“About Jerome?”
She gave a sad smile. “About a lot of things,” she nodded slightly. “But yeah… mostly about Jerome.” The tears in her eyes were staved off by her warm smile.
“C’mere, baby,” she said, opening her arms to him. He went to her quickly, enveloped in her powerful but loving weight.
She eased up on her hug and turned to him.
“You wanna look at the stars with me?” She asked. Pressed against her, he smiled and nodded.
She shifted up the couch slightly, patting the place she’d just occupied. He hopped up and rolled onto his back, her thigh a makeshift cushion for him. They gazed skyward in silence for several long minutes before she began to hum quietly, a warm, heartfelt but sorrowful tune that Jason could recall since before any other memories. It was a song passed down from her mother, Cassandra had told him. And her mother before her.
He knew the words to better than anything else he could think of, going over them in his head even before she sang them, whispering but with heart and power to her voice.

Mama done tol me,
Said Baby, doan you cry,
We’ll leave here together,
To be home by an by.
She wipe my tears an hol me,
I never be alone.
We’ll leave here together,
And baby, we’ll be home.

There was silence for long moments, save for Cassandra’s relaxed breathing. It caught for a beat when, under the trees out in the courtyard, she spotted some dark figures moving. More hints of shadowed shapes than anything else.
Pushers. Gang members. Maybe even the ones who killed her son. Not that it mattered any more. Around here – the worst area of the city, and infamous country-wide, but all she could afford on her meager salary – no one would talk about the bad things that happened. A dozen people could witness a young man get killed one evening, caught in a crossfire between a rival pushers, and no one would say a thing. The police, when they were around, would only say they hadn’t found anyone yet. Not even any suspects. And a month after she held her boy’s head in her lap, crying out for someone to help her and finally, finally hearing the sirens in the distance as Jerome’s life bled out of him, the people responsible walked around freely.
A tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly, and stroked Jason’s head. He hadn’t picked up on her sudden discomfort, still looking at the stars.
“You always did love them,” she said, making herself look to the positive that was still in her life. Jason nodded. Before he started school, when he had a father, he went camping once with his daycare. Way out of the city to where there were only trees and rocks, and hardly any roads, just a few dirt ones. And he could see more stars than he ever thought possible. He’d never forgotten the awe he felt.
He was a bit disappointed when he looked at the stars back home, in the city, because you couldn’t see nearly as many. But he’d always loved them.
“Can I visit them one day? When I grow up?” He asked.
She smiled and looked down at him; his life ahead of him, eyes and heart wide open to whatever the future held.
“Honey, you can do anything you set your mind to.”
He breathed a few times.
“Will I ever forget him?”
Cassandra held her breath to hold back from crying openly, the question cutting her to the quick with its innocence and earnestness.
“No, baby,” she said, stroking his head and looking down at him, her tears coming freely now, running down her broad cheeks and soaking into her thin summer nightgown. “Not if you don’t want to.”
And he knew what she said was true. That as far as he may go some day – even to the stars – as far away from his mother’s hugs, and from the place where his big brother had taught him things and meant so much to him, he would always and forever be loved.

She wipe my tears an hol me,
I never be alone.
We’ll leave here together,
And baby, we’ll be home.