Claire barged into the mansion's parlor. Inside, she found Frank, her worthless fat oaf of a brother. He couldn't be more of a contrast to the elegant room, but there he was. He was lounging in an armchair like he owned the place and slurping cognac that didn't belong anywhere near his uncultured lips! She stalked right over to him.
            “Claire!” he gasped. He ought to be surprised. She was holding a revolver in her hand.
            Claire didn't answer. She relished the look of dumb shock on her dumb brother's dumb face. Summoning up her hatred for the worthless fat blob in front of her, she fired.
            Claire would not be denied what was rightfully hers.
 
            Several hours earlier, Claire arrived at the mansion of her late grandfather. In fact, he had only recently become “late” as this was the reading of his will. Claire had purposely decided to arrive fashionably late so that everyone would notice her new dress and furs. As she neared the drawing room, she caught a snippet of the will reading.
            “— Claire gets nothing. Frank receives two million dollars —”
            Claire stopped in her tracks. She seethed. How could that stupidly eccentric grandfather of hers give two million dollars to Frank and nothing to her?! Frank would have no good use for that money. It belonged to her!
            Claire decided that if she got nothing, Frank would get nothing too.
 
            Claire was now leaving the parlor. She didn't care that she had just committed murder. No one would suspect her. They all thought she was such a great and wonderful sister, putting up with all of Frank's ignorance and worthlessness. Well, it turned out even she had her limits.
            As she entered the drawing room, she noticed the will resting on a table. Claire walked over and grabbed it, intending to chuck it into the fireplace. She quickly scanned the document to find the offending section. She found it all right:
 
            Claire has always been a good sister to Frank, but I worry that she's prone to anger and jealousy. Therefore, I will be making her inheritance conditional. If she continues to take good care of her mentally impaired brother, Claire will receive five million dollars. If something bad happens to him, Claire gets nothing. Frank receives two million dollars.
​

​When I entered the motel room, the first thing I noticed were the horrendous striped sheets that were on the beds.
                        “It’s not so bad,” I said, swallowing my true thoughts as I had been doing for years.
                        “It’s just for tonight, right?” said my husband, brushing past me and heading for the patio, where he immediately lit a cigarette. I sighed and followed him outside.
                        “I thought we came here to talk about it,” I pointed out, sitting down across from him.
                        “What’s there to say?” Josh asked, taking a long pull on his menthol and exhaling in a cloud of smoke.
                        “We still have stuff to talk about,” I said.
                        “We’re getting divorced. We don’t love each other anymore.” His words were blunt, but cut sharply. I had spent over a decade with this man. He had been my first boyfriend. He was the father of my children. But the drugs had cost him everything, and we were spending this night in the room to figure out the details of what came next.
                        “I didn’t just fall out of love with you. Everything you did—“
                        “Yeah, yeah, it’s all my fault, I know,” he snapped.
                        “That’s not what I said! Why do you have to do that every time I try to talk to you?”
                        “I already know what you’re going to say. I chose drugs. I lied. I cheated on you. I know what I did. I loved everything more than I loved my family.”
                        “And we are getting divorced because you can say all of that without any kind of remorse. You are not the man I married.”
                        “You aren’t the woman I married, either,” he said sharply.
                        “I grew up! I had to! Our kids needed someone to take care of them! I didn’t want it to be this way! And I’m trying to live the way—“
                        “Yeah, the way God wants you to.” He spit God’s name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes but forced them back. He would not get the satisfaction of seeing me cry anymore.
                        “I want you to still be a part of our children’s lives,” I said. “We can set up supervised visits.”
                        “I’d rather sign my rights away so the next man you meet can be their father.”
My heart broke. The drugs had really taken everything from him. He cared about nothing but himself. I tried to remember that he was an addict, that this wasn’t the man I had chosen to spend my life with. This was it. There was no going back. We sat in silence for several minutes. It felt like hours.
                        “So is that it?” he finally asked.
                        “I guess so,” I whispered.
                        “Then there’s no point in both of us staying here. I’ll keep the room. Go get the kids from your mom and go home. I’ll sign the papers when it’s time.”
I nodded numbly and got to my feet. I walked to the door and looked back once, seeing him digging the pill bottle from his pocket. The tears finally spilled over, and the last thing I saw before leaving the room were the ugly striped sheets, somehow made beautiful through the blur of tears.
 
            

The room with the blue Christmas tree had always intrigued and terrified me. At sixteen, I had passed this apartment every single day for the last nine years, and the eerie turquoise glow that shone underneath the door each and every day sent a shiver of fear and excitement down my spine. I never knew who, if anyone, lived inside that apartment. No one ever went in, and no one ever came out. But the light from the tree never turned off. One stormy afternoon, as lightning split the darkened sky in half and thunder made the building shudder, I was standing beneath awning with the doorman after school when the lights flickered out.
                   “The generator should kick on in a moment,” Freddie, the afternoon doorman with the heavy Southern accent, said reassuringly. I glanced up at the blackened windows of my home and saw the limbs of the blue tree illuminated in the window. If the generator hadn’t restored the power yet, how was the tree still on?
                   “Freddie, who lives in the apartment with the blue Christmas tree?” I asked. Freddie looked upward and smiled at the glow.
                   “The landlord’s son,” he answered.
                   “The landlord doesn’t have a son,” I said, confused.
                   “Ashley, living here doesn’t give you the answers to every question you have about every tenant. It ain’t my place to tell you, but since you have been dead after that room and that tree—don’t give me that look, I’ve seen you staring—I’ll tell you. Not long after he and his wife bought this building, she gave birth to a little boy, right around Christmas. He was stillborn. The wife couldn’t handle it—she took off. Nobody has seen or heard from her since. But our landlord, he wasn’t going to let go. He put up that Christmas tree in the apartment that they had chosen to live in and the color blue is for the little boy he didn’t get to have. It never goes out. Hasn’t in fifteen years. It’s in the window in case his wife ever decides to come home, so she will know he’s still here, ready to make that apartment their home.”
Tears were still streaming down my cheeks when the power flickered back on. The next day, I made a stop after school before returning home. Balancing the gift in my arms, I knocked on the landlord’s door. He opened it quickly.
                   “Ashley, is there a problem?” he asked kindly. I shook my head and held out the gift.
                   “It’s for the window in your apartment. So it can be seen from the street, too.”
                 I hurried away before he could respond, but I had seen the tears brimming in his eyes as I turned away. As I mounted the stairs, I glanced back quickly to see him crying over the much smaller version of the blue Christmas tree that I had placed in his arms. 

​“It’s hard to find a job in LA, especially when you’re an actress,” said Emily, speaking as loud as she could over the music in the background.
The man in front of her is a Hollywood producer. “Hey, listen, darling, I can get you in the spotlight at any time, just don’t ask me for it.” They’re both near the pool in a big house in Beverly Hills. “There’s a casting session every Thursday at the- “
“I know. I go there all the time.”
“Then you know the drill.” said the producer, taping Emily on her back, “now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna get another drink.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said, but he was already out of reach.
The host of the party, Brenda, was talking to a small group of women when she saw Emily grabbing her coat near the front door. “Why are you leaving so early?” asked Brenda.
“I don’t know why I came here in the first place. Looks like every party is a waste of time.”
“Come on, stay a little bit longer. Let me introduce you to the girls.” Brenda grabbed Emily’s hand. “Please.”
“Okay, but just ten more minutes.”
Back at the party, Emily was introduced to the group.
“So, tell me, Emma. What do you work with?” One of the women asked.
“Oh, it’s Emily. And I’m an actress.”
“No, sweetheart, I’m talking about your real job”.
“Acting is my real job,” said Emily.
Before she could get to the door, she was stopped by Brenda. “Have you met Krista? She’s a model that just got out of a photo shoot with that photographer I was talking about.”
Krista smiled.
“Oh, really? How did you get to him? I’ve been trying to get a new portfolio for months,” said Emily.
“Between us, I have a little secret. I went to this fortune teller near downtown. And let me tell you, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t even be here tonight,” said Krista.
“What do you mean?” asked Emily.
“Well, I was a little bit concerned the first time. But this guy is a life saver. Here, I’ll give you his card.” Krista handed Emily a colorful business card. “All you gotta do is call him and make an appointment.”
“And then what happens?” asked Emily.
“Oh, you’ll see, Emily. You’ll see.”
 
On the next morning, Emily hesitated to make the call, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what Krista said. She decided to give it a try. Instead of calling, she drove to his address before noon.
When Emily entered the old house, she first thought that she was in the wrong place, but after spotting some eastern antiques and a strong scent, she knew the address was right.
When she finally got to the end of the corridor, a pregnant woman with a baby in her arms was getting out of doorway curtain. She puts the baby on a stroller and heads to the exit.
“Do you have an appointment?” asked a man, dressed like a gypsy.
“I was wondering if I could- “
“It’s your lucky day. I have no more clients this morning.”
The smell and smoke were even more present in the room past the curtain.
“You helped a friend of mine,” said Emily.
“Did I? Interesting. How may I help you?”
“I don’t really know. This is the first time I’ve been in a place like this.”
“Tell me about you. Your career. Love life. Goals.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Allow the cards to speak then.” The fortune-teller slammed his hands on the table, spreading upside down cards in a semi-circle. “Since this is your first visit, and the first experience, you don’t own me anything. In fact, I’ll show you what the future holds for you.”
Emily kept looking at her watch, trying to find an excuse to get out of that place. It was then that the fortune teller caught her attention.
“Fame, what you seek is fame and fortune.” He turned one of the cards and gave it to her. “The cards never lie, there is fame in your path.”
“Really? I mean, how?” Emily was scared and confused.
He turned another card, “A heroic path. You shall rise from your own ashes. You’ll be known as- “
Silence. Emily was tapping her foot. “What? What happened?”
The fortune teller closed his eyes. “Star. I see the star.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll be more famous than anybody else. I see your face all over the news. Everyone will be talking about you. Oh, the star! The star shines so brightly!”
“What star? I don’t understand.”
“My child, destiny is supposed to be trusted, not comprehended.” He grabbed her hands. “You will get what you want the moment you step out of this house, you just need to trust your instincts.”
Emily left the room more satisfied than she has ever been before. Outside of the old house, she recognized the pregnant woman.
The stroller, on the sidewalk, moving to the road. The woman, looking at her phone. The traffic light, green.
Out of reflex, Emily jumped toward the baby, already on the road with a car coming fast in their direction. At the last second of attempting to grab the baby, Emily lost balance and threw herself into the stroller, pushing it even further to the side.
Right before falling in the ground, Emily saw the world turning upside down, as if life stopped for second and time decided to pass slowly. Instead of her most precious memories, the only thing that flashed through her eyes was the front grill of a black Mercedes.
 
 
 
 
 

​“What kind of person just throws a package at your face and runs away?” Asked Will, talking to himself at the front porch of his house, “What a Jerk!”
Will then grabbed the package and went inside. Without further ado, he opened the flat, rectangular shaped mystery object; and for his surprise it was a book, a notebook. I hope it’s not someone’s diary. The notebook was white and had ‘Life Note’ written at the cover, “what the heck?”.
“What were you expecting? A box full cassette tapes of a teenager who committed suicide?” said a strange, yet oddly charming voice.
“Who? Who said that?” asked Will, confused.
“I did. Hello, William,” said a man seated in a chair.
Will couldn’t see his face, but his body was visible. The man was wearing a blue suit, with fancy shoes. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?”
“First of all, it’s your mom’s house.” The man stands up, Will recognizes him immediately, “and second, I come with the book.”
“Morgan Freeman?”
“I am the god of life. But I can be Michael Caine too, if you prefer.”
“I don’t understand-”
“Let me go straight to the point, kid. You received the Life Note, which means you can revive whoever you want. You just need to write the person’s name on the book,” said Morgan Freeman.
“Really? Like, whoever I want?”
“Whoever the hell you want!”
“Even Michael Jackson?”
“You can’t revive the living, son. Oh, and I must tell you this because people ask me all the time... You cannot revive Hitler.”
“Can I revive my dad?”
“Is your father Adolf Hitler?”
“No!”
“Then yes!” Morgan Freeman starts to whistle and walk around the living room.
Will looked at his father’s picture on the table. “I miss him so much, I would give anything to see him one more time,” What should I do? “You know what, I’m doing this!” So, Will grabbed a pencil and wrote the name of his father. They waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. “What now?”
“Strange. He should’ve popped up right away. Oh...I don’t want to be the one to tell you this but… Looks like your father is alive,” said Morgan Freeman while smoking a pipe, “may I ask you how he died?”
“He went to buy some cigarettes and never came back. Mom said he was hit by a truck.”
“I see... Sorry, William, it’s not the first time this happens to someone.”
Will seated on the couch, with the book and pencil still on his hand, “Goddammit, dad!” Almost desperate, Will looked at the family’s portrait and quickly wrote a name. It was then that an old man holding a Margarita appears on the other side of the living room, “Grandpa!”
“What the fuck is this? What’s happening?” Asked Will’s Grandfather, looking around the place.
“Grandpa, I brought you back to life!” said Will with excitement on his voice.
“Oh shit! Why did you have to do it? I was having a nice conversation with Don Rickles and Frank Sinatra!”
“I thought that you would be glad to see me,” said Will disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Bill, but I really need to go now,” said Grandpa.
“Okay, I get it! Can I send him back to heaven?” asked Will to Morgan Freeman.
“Yes, you can. You just need to wash the page from the notebook,” said Morgan Freeman, proposing a Margarita toast to Will’s grandfather.
“Heaven?” Grandpa laughed, “yeah, sure, Heaven. Wait, before I go, can you say ‘hi’ to your grandma for me, huh?” said Grandpa, spilling the Margarita.
“She died ten years ago,” said Will, sadder than ever. He rips the page off the notebook, throws it on the toilet and flushes. When he goes back to the living room neither Grandpa or Morgan Freeman were there.
“Funny guy, your grandfather,” said another man standing in the corner of the house.
“Who are you? What happened to Morgan Freeman?” asked Will.
“It gets boring sometimes. You can call me Stevie, by the way,” said the god of life, this time impersonating Steve Buscemi.
“I don’t care who you are, listen, I don’t want this anymore,” Will gives the book to Steve Buscemi, “here, take it away from me.”
“I’m sorry but I can’t William. You have to do it yourself.”
Dammit! Thought Will, “how do I get rid of this thing?”
“Just leave it somewhere. Oh, but please, make sure it doesn’t fall into the hand of the terrorists.”
“Wait! I think I have an idea…” Will grabbed the book and went straight outside. He knew exactly where to leave it, “see you, Stevie!”
It was almost night by the time Will arrived at the park. He knew for sure that a lot of companies would tear the whole place apart, due to the high concentration of fossil and natural gas under the ground. They were just waiting for the government permission, which will only happen in one hundred years.
Will digged a hole and buried the chest in the ground. With a note written ‘whoever finds this book, just write the name William Thompson, thanks!’ On his way home Will couldn't stop thinking, it will be nice to be back in the future…
 

​Prelude
“We have reached the world’s edge and now where do we go? Where else is left to explore? Are we to sail forever until we die of cold or starvation?”
The sailor stood with his companion astern of the ship, watching the trail that the large wooden craft left behind in its wake; the broken ice, the waste that was regularly deposited overboard and the seabirds that hovered ready to gather scraps.
“It is as Allah wills” murmured his companion, mindful of listening ears and the various punishments for disloyalty.
“We are beyond even Allah’s protection in this wild place. Who can save us from dragons and sea monsters? Who can save us from creatures who sing with unearthly sounds and who drive our captain insane?
 
El Capitan walked up and down the quarterdeck immersed in thought, his deep blue cloak wrapped around him against the cold. The ship travelled on through the ice, fortunately they were out of the worst of it now, but things changed quickly at the sea, especially in the hellish north. And he had seen such strange things, unholy and evil things, so all that he wanted was to escape to warmth, to the people he knew and to a land which knew Allah.
 
There was a growl from below decks.
“The creature isn’t happy.”
“Nobody is. We should eat it, it devours more food than the rest of us put together, and the stink…. If only El Capitan showed as much concern for the rest of us.” he pursed his lips expressively, looking all the while at the leader of their ship.
“He has led us this far” said his friend, “have some faith.”
“This is a godless ship with a godless captain. There is no faith. Ever since we reached the ice; the edge of the world, we have been beset by daemons. This is a land before any religion; Islam, Christianity, the Jews, this is a land of darkness and evil.”
 
El Capitan knew that there were muttering, had they forgotten the jewels and wealth in the ship, safe below in boxes? But a cold wind and stale rations could swiftly make the bravest of sailors forget. He hugged his cloak more tightly around him. He could hear women chattering below and the roar of his beast; all under his care. The responsibility for the ship and its crew had come upon him, he had not chosen it, but if there was a mutiny he would be executed and thrown overboard for the sea creatures to feed upon.
 
He remembered reaching the ice stretching out in front of them, seeming to be never-ending. As the ship had pushed through he had pretended to be calm and in command, but he knew that one crack beneath the sea line could send them to the bottom or leave them stranded which would just be a slower death. So many of his men and the women had died nonetheless as they made their way through the cold, some of wounds received earlier in the voyage and others just sank into a torpor and died in their bunks. And some just disappeared without a sound.
 
And then there was the strange sounds that drifted over the ice; was he the only one who heard this weird music? A harmony so beautiful that was like nothing he had ever heard before, but it reminded him of when he was a child and he had been very ill, his life despaired of.  In his delirium he had heard such music surrounding him, seducing him, later his mother said it must have been her singing to him, but it was not human music.  And again the sounds that came from above were not those of human voices nor was it any instrument that he had ever heard; it sounded angelic as if from another realm, coming down on all side of him. Nobody else mentioned it, well not to him, but then he was the captain, but they must have heard it too.  It was like a multitude of colours coming over his head, guiding him, loving him, taking him forward to the end of the world, and then leaving him adrift.
 
“Land” a voice shouted from high up in the shrouds, “land ahead.”
Soon it came into view, an island seemingly not very large and likely to be uninhabited, but it was green and surely there would be water and food. The skies grew dark as night set in, but they headed straight for this land which offered them a sanctuary, at least for now.
 
 
The Silkie
He swam towards me, pushing effortlessly through the sea, a Silkie, half man, half seal. And for awhile he lived amongst us on our island, away from his natural element. He called himself El Capitan but he was The Silkie from our legends, come from faraway, come to our godforsaken island of Cagair.
 
The ship had been out there for three days, stuck on the rock, waiting. It had arrived during the night so that Brayan our chieftain and priest saw it as he went out to do the morning ritual, and he called out to us, forgetting his religious duties in his excitement. A large wooden ship so close but with a wild sea between us and it.  Over the waves we could hear what sounded like the growls of a monster. It was the largest boat I had ever seen, far larger than the boats we used for fishing and for visiting other islands. Its mast rose far up into the sky and occasionally we could see figures walking about and looking over at us, just staring but then they would disappear back into the ship.  They wore brightly coloured clothes, like people from a different world, unlike the grey of our island.
 
Soon after it had arrived Brayan told us to stay indoors; he was getting old and scared, and presumably he hoped that the ship would disappear and leave us to get on with our dull lives.  We did what he said as we were wont to do, although muttering about him, but we could not stay hidden for long however, we had cattle to feed and fish to capture, and aside from Brayan we are not a timid people, and so we came out of our huts and stood and watched and in the end Brayan came out and joined us, trying to regain his lost authority.
 
The Silkie appeared swimming through the sea, strong and powerful, like a seal, and he came out of the sea naked and dark with a sword tied around his waist. Brayan came up to him, old and white, with his large bronze bracelet on his arm, but the Silkie ignored him at first and turned to look at his ship and waved. He then turned to Brayan and said something in a strange tongue and our leader answered in our language. They seemed to communicate a little, I heard the word “Cagair” and “Hebrides”, then the Silkie walked around our settlement a little; not the whole island it would have taken two days to do so, but he got an idea where he had landed. And then he swam back to the ship.
 
And that night, when the wind was soft like a breath, he returned and so did the other men and women from the ship, swimming and some pushing boxes. They were so different from us, they were tall and dark with silver on their arms and legs, and so graceful in their movements.  And whilst we stared at these people, over the sound of the waves and the shouts of our visitors we could hear the roaring of animals from the ship wanting to come to our island and devour us.
 
As the night grew darker we watched one man trying to swim over to us, he was pushing a large box in front of him which must have been bound to one of his wrists. He struggled against the sea which was becoming stronger and more violent; at times he was making good progress but then a wave would push him further back and away towards the rocks. The sea was getting up now and we knew it was dangerous, but he was so strong it seemed impossible that he would not reach us. And then a large wave came and submerged him, he and the box were turned over, and it smashed. We saw an arm, or maybe it was a leg, but then nothing. The strangers stood and watched until it got dark, but their comrade did not appear, and they returned to the camp that they had made.
 
They ignored us for the most part; there were about twenty of them; mostly men but some four women as well. They built huts on the large field, away from us, but not far enough that we could not hear their hammering and talking in their barbarous tongue. The Silkie was their leader; tall and thin, he wore a cloak, a sort of blue, like the sky when it is sunniest, and he was beautiful. Oftentimes as I wandered near their camp or he came to ours, he looked at me, his eyes appraising as he looked at my face and my body. I blushed; I knew what that look meant.
 
There were only a couple of young men on the island who were unmarried, and I knew that one day soon I would have to marry one of them, that is the way of things. But this Silkie who had come out of the sea from foreign lands made my heart quiver. He had grace and strength and power; his people obeyed him without question, unlike Brayan who we ignored more and more and who stayed in his hut with Aela his wife and only came out to go fishing on the other side of the island, almost as if he were keeping out of our way.
 
“El Capitan” they called him, and whilst they laughed with him, they did what he told them to do. Even their smell was exotic, how was it so? They had come through the sea, but they smelt of elsewhere. And the colours of their skin; the Silkie was dark as were the women but the other men were every shade between them and us. Their clothes were bright and they wore them wrapped around their bodies with golden pins to hold them in place.
 
And then one evening they gathered on the beach and stripped off their cloaks, even the women; the sea was quiet, and I realised that they had been waiting for that. The Silkie smiled at me, as he stood naked in front of me, he was so close, almost touching me, and then he joined the others as they plunged into the sea. They worked all evening and night and the next morning; to and fro from the ship, boxes came over pulled by ropes surrounded by the men and women. They did not ask any of our people to help them, perhaps they thought that if we could swim we would not be here. Above it all was the sound of the wild creature or creatures, echoing over the island, calling to the animal god for rescue.
 
Boxes were dragged up on shore and left, and ropes and bits of wood. What could be in the boxes? Treasure, exotic food or more of their beautiful cloaks? None of us dare go over and investigate.  I looked over at the ship and realised that it had moved; it was stuck to a rock, but the sea was having an affect and it was moving. Soon it would be no more. Were they trapped here, or would they move on? I yearned beyond all yearning for the Silkie to take me with him away from this land, the sheep and the people all the same.
 
And then they all appeared from the ship pulling a large box. Even Brayan stood with us, his hand fiddling with his bracelet, and watched. They slowly made their way through the sea, the Silkie straining along with the men and women. But they were strong, all of them, so that even the sea obeyed them. As they neared the beach our men, all except Brayan, ran out to help them and drag the box ashore. And it was from the box that the roaring came. But there was also a smell, a smell of rawness, of meat and death.
 
We watched the snarling thing in the box; wet and angry. And then I felt the Silkie by me.
“Snow Leopard” he told me and I gazed into its eyes; scared and a long way from home. It was a large cat, spotted with black over its yellow and white fur, which for the moment was soaking wet. And the teeth, large and white, ready to devour and fight.  And it was so beautiful, I had never seen anything so graceful and compelling, even more than the Silkie who stood by my side as if he owned me.
 
The ship was destroyed one night soon after. I lay in the arms of my Silkie in his hut, feeling his strength around me, and I heard the wind and sea crashing all around us. Brayan had shouted at me when I left my parents’ hut, but nobody cared what he said, least of all me.
“You are a whore” he told me, “in the arms of that Arab”.
The wind howled as it so often did although usually later in the year, but he did not stir, sleeping soundly. I got up as soon as it was light and looked out to sea and the ship was gone. The sea was calm now, but the rock was empty as if the ship had never been. Planks of wood washed up on the shore over the next few days to remind us what had been there.
 
Ever practical the pirates used the wood to make an enclosure with wooden pillars and a roof for the creature and he walked about there. The brave ones of us would stand by the gate watching this creature prowling about. Sometimes it would snarl at us, especially when the pirates teased it, but it was trapped and those jeering figures were the only people that he knew, and he seemed cowed by us and by the island.
 
My countrymen started to work with the pirates, at first they used me as a go-between but soon they did not need me and they all worked together fishing and farming the cattle, and even sharing food and drink. Only Brayan remained apart. Before the pirates arrived he had appeared our only authority, but now he was a joke; even the women mocked him. His wife, Aela, laughed in his face, and his two young children looked embarrassed that he was their father.
 
One of the young pirates, Francois, made mock-love to Aela; bowing to her and kissing her hand. Brayan stood and watched, his face revealing nothing. At first it was only in jest; the pirate was young and handsome whereas Aela was the chieftain’s wife, and older. But one morning I realised she was beautiful, more beautiful than anybody on the island, except perhaps the creature. I was at the beach thinking my thoughts and I watched her walk up from the sea having bathed, at first there was just her head and then the rest of her white body, and she was glorious like a goddess; her hair red, her thighs pale and strong. A powerful being, far mightier than her husband.
 
She nodded to me and went to pick up her cloak, and then she realised, as I did that the young pirate Francois was watching her. He strode past me as if I was not there and stood and watched her, admiringly, and she stood, her rough cloak in her hand, letting him enjoy her beauty. And then slowly she covered herself and walked back to our village, whilst Francois and I were, for a moment united in homage to this woman.
 
And then Brayan was gone. I was not surprised, he was nothing now, had lost his power and was just a rather weak man who was just in the way, I am not even sure when he disappeared, I just became aware that he was not with us anymore. When our people asked about him to Aela who shrugged and after a few days she moved her possessions into Francois’s hut. At night as I lay with the Silkie covered in silk and cotton, I heard her cries and his, reaching out into the darkness.
 
I had learned their language; the words to say to my love at night, and questions to ask and to answer, common words, and by their expressions and gestures I knew what he and the others required of me. However, I did not understand everything, and at times their laughter scared me, and then I realised that I did not know anything of these people; their language, their life, their god.
 
Brayan did not return and it was as if he had never been. His children moved to the hut with my parents and even they did not mention their father, or their mother.  Often I spent my time when not cooking and looking after cattle watching the snow leopard. It looked older now and wearier. I watched it munching on the remains of a sheep, the noise and smell I was used to by now, and I did not blanch. In the corner were bones and flesh and there was something that shone dully, a bracelet that I seen so many times on the wrist of Brayan, left in the corner of the cage amidst flesh and bones.
 
 
Aela
She stood on the mound dressed in white, Aela, who was no longer Bayan’s wife, but the high priestess of our island, powerful and strong so that even the pirates stood back in awe. She spoke the ancient language which the men from the east had brought with them many years ago, long before any of us had been born, but when the sea was ice and dragons lived and roamed over Cagair. The language had been passed down from chieftain to chieftain, and now Aela spoke it as she performed the ancient ceremony.
 
When my father and mother were young, priests had come from the mainland and Father Boniface had stayed amongst us, and had married my parents in the church he built, but then he had had to return and he was not replaced and whilst we still prayed to the holy mother and occasionally knelt in the church, we also worshipped what was around us; the sea, the sky, the grass under our feet and the stones that littered our island.
 
In the past Brayan had led the people in worship, but now that the snow leopard had devoured him Aela had taken his place. She looked like a goddess as she had when I saw her naked emerging from the sea.  In her hands she held a silver goblet, in it was water from the sea and she drank from it and then she chanted the song from long ago.  And then a sheep was brought up by two of our people, it bleated and fought but it was helpless; the rest of the water from the goblet was poured over it and then Aela raised her hands said a blessing and for a moment all was still. We listened to the wind and to the sea, and above it all I heard something musical and angelic, something from the skies above which disappeared almost as soon as I became aware of it. 
 
And then Aela kicked the creature and we chased it with shouts and more kicks, herding it towards the cliff which lay at the north end of the island. It tried to break out, to reach her sisters, but it was surrounded, and we hit out at it when it started to stray. As it got nearer the cliff edge the sheep started to panic, but inexorably we pushed it on, Aela still chanting as we did so.
 
As it reached the cliff, exhausted and defeated it turned to look at us; this group of such disparate people, defying us or perhaps mocking us. But we needed to do this and as it rushed at us in a last desperate bid to escape, Aela and her lover thrust it back and over the cliff, and with a woeful cry it fell and crashed to the sea below, visible for only a moment before disappearing into the waves.  We then turned back, our duty being done, and we walked back to the camp feeling cleansed and that evening we feasted on another sheep, talking and feeling happy, a people united. This ceremony happened every month and it kept us safe and the island fertile so that our cattle throve.
 
The snow leopard however did not thrive. We tried to feed it, but it refused food and lay in a corner as far from the gate as possible and growled at anybody who came in, even El Capitan who it had seemed to love, but clearly thought was its betrayer, bringing it to this strange and unpleasant land.
“It is dying” he said.
“Where did he come from?” I asked him. We were stood at the gate, his arm loosely around me.
“He was a gift from a king. We were in a barren place where few people live. The king gave him to me as I helped him defeat his enemies. He has travelled with us, been with us during our battles and troubles, but now he is old and weary, and it is time for him to die.”
 
Later in bed, his warmth still deep inside me, my hand on his chest, I questioned him.
“Where are you from?”
“The Western Kingdom in Africa, so many leagues from here. It is much hotter there, the sun burns down on us. We have sand and trees, dates and sherbet. It is a beautiful place, and warm.” He shivered beside me.
“Then why did you leave?”
“My uncle owned a ship and I went with him, to sell the goods from our land. He died after a few months out at sea and then I took over. I thought that I would arrive home, but it was not to be, we traded and ended up fighting with other ships, became pirates rather than merchants. We lost men in battles and gained new ones. I lost my religion and my people, some chopped in pieces in front of me. We travelled all over and now we are here.”
He kissed me and touched me and soon he was inside me again. It was only later that I realised that I could not remember what language we had been speaking in, his or mine, or perhaps it was another language, the language of lovers.
 
Later, as we rested, he told me of strange voices that he had heard, a melody that he could not get out of his head.
“Sing it” I commanded him, and he tried, the sounds he produced sounded like the song that Aela sang when she was being the priestess, but then he stopped.
“I cannot get it right. It was like something from heaven, something that an angel might sing.” He shrugged as if embarrassed, or just unsure what to say or do.
“Sometimes I hear those same noises” I told him, “my mother hears them too but nobody else. This is a mysterious place, close to God.”
 
The next morning I went to see the snow leopard who staggered up and walked towards me before falling down again, the smell was stronger now, but I was not affected by it as I was so overcome with pity for this poor creature. I walked to him and stroked him, ignoring his snarls, I knew that he was beyond hurting me or anybody else. I sang the song of The Silkie to him.
“An earthly nourris sits and sings
And aye she sings, Ba lily wain
And little ken I my bairn’s bather
Far less the land that he dwells in.”
 

 

I felt him tremble and then there was no sound or movement. I wept a bit for this creature who had died so far from home.
 
They buried him near the camp on a hill overlooking us all. And over the grave one of the islanders put up a stone and carved a likeness the creature on it. The enclosure was knocked down and slowly the smell of this creature dissipated throughout the island, never quite leaving; appearing at the strangest moments.
 
Aela spoke to me as we walked away from the pirates’ camp.
“Are you happy?” she asked, her question seemed false, as if she wanted to trick me into saying something, but I was not sure what she wanted me to say.
“I am happy.”
“But El Capitan, do you want him to rule this island?” She asked.
“Do we have a choice?” I asked. He killed Brayan and now he is our chieftain.”
She looked at me, with contempt in her eyes.
“He did not kill Brayan, he wanted him to live. I killed him and scattered his remains for the beast to eat.”
She walked on ahead of me, stride after stride.
 
She and Francois her lover left the other pirates and lived in the hut where she had lived with Brayan. She talked with our people, but not with me.
“Is Aela plotting?” El Capitan asked me.
I shrugged and did not know what to say. Soon after the four women in the pirates’ camp left their own hut, and became part of the Cagair people. After a while it was only El Capitan and me, and four of his men, the rest having deserted him. Suddenly we were shunned and El Capitan and his men walked with swords by their sides and they talked of building a boat.
“There is land to the south” one of them said, “we can make a boat. This is a Godforsaken place, even our women have left us.”
I sat with them knowing that I did not belong to either. But El Capitan did not do anything, did not appear to be listening, he reminded me of the snow leopard in his last days, pacing about, frustrated and scared. So one morning I left him sleeping and walked back to my people and slept in the hut with my parents.
 
Aela stood on the mound once again chanting ancient words, but instead of the sheep being held it was the Silkie, El Capitan, bound tightly but making no movement. He had been taken in the night and was being held by four men when the rest of us awoke. There was no sign of his loyal men, I learned later that three had been killed as they slept whilst the other who was keeping watch had fled to the other side of the island where he lived the remainder of his days.
 
The words droned on, and the Silkie seemed to be listening, almost as if he understood what was being said. I then became aware that there was another sound, that the Silkie was humming the tune that we both knew, and it grew louder and seemed to echo and become a chorus, but nobody else seemed to notice. He continued to hum as he was pushed forward by the men who surrounded him. He looked so graceful as he walked forward and up to the high priestess who waited for him. She poured water over him and looked directly at him, the only one of us who dared to do so.
 
And then we herded him as if he was a sheep, a circle around pushing him forward. At first he went with us, meek and obliging but then he tried to break free, but his hands were bound and Francois tripped him and he fell helpless. He was lifted to his feet and once more was pushed forward. He reached the cliff and stood facing us, the sea crashing behind him. His eyes met mine, and it was as if he we were asking me to join him, and part of me wished to go, to jump in the sea and escape to a land where there was sun and sand, dates and all the people were as beautiful as my love.
 
After a moment he turned around to face the sea and then he stepped back and with a powerful leaped he jumped high into the cold sky. We saw him enter the sea, his body straight like the seal that he was. I continued to watch, and in the distance I saw him dark against the sea pushing out to new lands leaving me here amongst barbarians on this cold rock in the middle of nowhere.
 
 
Cagair
“Cagair, my home.”
Jenny’s husband John sniffed beside her, the boat ride over to this remote island had left him out of humour and cold. Before they had set off she had told him to dress up warmly.
“I am from Yorkshire,” he had replied, still abed in the Inverness hotel, “I can handle a bit of cold.”
But as they stepped over the beach, the fisherman who had dropped them off promising to return the same time tomorrow, she could tell he was regretting his army coat, still hung up in The Glen Mhor Hotel.
 
She remembered the last time she had been here, June 1935 the island was being abandoned and she watched her mother and father pack up their few things. There was an Englishman there with a camera, a film director recording it all. He had become famous since then, but she did not know what had become of the film.
 
To the north were the cliffs with sharp rocks at the bottom, there were legends of animals being thrown over as a sacrifice to some Gaelic god and even people being thrown over who had committed some crime. John had laughed when told of this. His humour was bleaker since the war, a cynicism about the future, about everything including her. She wanted children, she was getting older and she wanted a house, but he was happy in rented rooms in one of the less salubrious parts of Leeds and playing in dance orchestras whilst she typed letters for Hogg and Sons, one of the city’s oldest solicitors.
 
He was not the man she had met just before the war. Brother of her friend Megan who was studying with her at the commercial college in Glasgow, and who she had visited in Leeds the summer of the phoney war. He had a lightness of spirit even though he knew he would be fighting soon. They had kissed passionately, and walked hand in hand through the streets of Leeds.
“Wait for me” he had told her, “wait for me, I don’t want to lose you.”
And she waited for him, and when he came back they got married and moved to Leeds to be near his mother. Her parents having died before the war’s end, unable to cope with the mainland air.
 
And yet he had not come back, not totally. He was so withdrawn, only when he played the piano or the clarinet did he seem alive, all there. Even when making love, deep inside her he seemed somewhere else as she clutched at him wanting him with her, to be aware of her and her body.
 
The wind blew on them and she instinctively reached for his hand, it felt surprisingly warm as they walked up into the island. He seemed happier now that they were out of the boat and the fisherman had gone. He hummed something as he walked along, a hymn it sounded like. She often forgot how important religion was to him, he had confided to her that at one time he had thought he would become a clergyman, but was losing that inclination when he met her, and now he did not mention it at all.
 
The house where she had lived with her parents was still there, empty and beaten by the wind but still a house. They sat on the stone floor, he laying down his coat for her to sit on, and they ate the sandwiches the hotel had prepared for them. The house smelt of the countryside outside, it was as if it had never been inhabited and she could not imagine that she had lived there with her mother and father, that this was her home for almost fifteen years.
 
They walked around the island until they came to the stone memorial.
“This is the beast” she told him. He looked blankly. She then took his hand and helped him trace the engraving on the grey stone.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Some kind of creature is supposed to be buried underneath, nobody knows what. It looks like a leopard or an ocelot, although I have no idea what it would be doing such a long way from home, it is a mystery. The stone has been there for hundreds of years apparently. It is so faded it is probably something different, a chieftain’s symbol or something.”
They sat with their backs resting on it.
“Cagair was very pagan” she explained, “even in the mid-twentieth century there was a Celtic tinge to everything. We were so far away from anything.”
“Here be dragons.”
“Indeed.” And then she kissed him hard, willing him to kiss her back, to hold her and make her feel loved, and eventually he did. And as he slid inside her, she knew that she would have a child, that life had started inside of her.
 
He must have carried Jenny back to the hut because she awoke there naked and alone with her coat over her. It must have been morning as the light was grey which came into the house through the empty doorway.  As she lay there Jenny heard a noise, the strange music that came when she was not concentrating on it, nobody else ever had heard it and soon she had learnt to stop mentioning it as she did not want her family to think that she was insane. But the music was real, and as she heard it again she realised how much she had missed it, this sound that was so unearthly and beautiful, a sound from the edge of the world.
 
After awhile Jenny got up and headed out to look for John. She put the coat on and then otherwise naked walked out in the cold dawn. Ahead towards the cliff was the mound where she had been told religious services used to be held before the church had been built.  Perhaps a residual whiff of holiness had attracted John to it because he was there facing out to sea.
 
She stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. As so often she felt apart from him, whereas for a few moments yesterday she had felt that it would be okay.
“So you found our holy hill.” she said. “The time that I ever kissed somebody it was on here.”
“Oh so it wasn’t me. I didn’t think there were many young men here.”
“A couple about my age, they left when I did. I was only twelve, just experimenting. “
He sighed. “What time is the boat coming?”
“At three, same time as he picked us up.”
 
“Let’s walk” Jenny suggested.
“Do you miss here?” he asked as they walked together.
“I miss you more.”
“I miss me too.”
“Did you hear the music?” she asked.
“Yes” he responded, “I thought it was in my head.”
“No it is real. It comes when I least expect it. I am glad that you hear it too.”
 
They looked out at the sea; there were seals swimming and frolicking far below us. They were on the edge of everything. Far to the north was the edge of the world where strange creatures lived, close to God and to heavenly things, and where heavenly music came from, heard by those who were restless and yearned for something more.
“Let us go and look at the church,” he suggested.
“How do you know about the church?”
“I saw it when you were sleeping.”
They walked towards it, hand in hand.
“I don’t remember people using it much. We were a pagan people. But we were buried there, and sometimes a vicar came over and preached.”
There was a graveyard around it, the stones worn by wind and rain. The church seemed cold, she remembered a bishop coming to deconsecrate it before the island had been abandoned. The windows were plain and the pews looked hard and cold.
 
They walked to the altar.
“Someone has left flowers” John noticed, they were withered but lay on the altar.
“Perhaps we are not the only ones to visit” Jenny suggested, she sat in the pew whilst he wandered around the tiny church and then softly she sang a song she remembered from her youth, a song about a Silkie coming out of the sea; a seal who became a man. She watched the man that she loved pottering about, setting the church to rights, tidying it up. And then he stood at the lectern and quoted from the Psalms, to a congregation, a congregation who had left long ago, to the mainland, to lands of spices and desert, to cities and to towns, away from the mighty sea.
 
We met the fisherman as arranged and we sailed through the sea towards our home, John’s arm around my waist as we kept each other warm.  I turned back and watched the island disappear in the mist, Cagair, my home, my love.

 
“What are you trying to say, Romanov,” asked Mrs. Watkins, “that you can’t do it?” Shifting one leg over the other, she moved her scotch around listening to the ice clink against the glass. “I’d assume a man such as yourself would be able to get the job done. It’s not like I don’t pay you well.” She peered at Romanov from the rim of her glass.
            “It’s not that, ma’am.” Romanov pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead. “We just haven’t been able to track him down. I still have my men set up in the Maldives. If your husband so much as sneezes, we will find him.”
            “Is that so?” Setting her glass down on the small table, she wiped the red lipstick stain on the edge. “Do you see that chair over there? I chose this hotel because of it. Believe it or not, we had one just like it back in Tahoe. And do you know what happened in Tahoe, Mr. Romanov?” Shifting her legs again, Mrs. Watkins ran her hands up her ankles and grimaced as her fingers traced the welts in her skin.
            “Ma’am, I promise we will find him. We’re canvasing the area as we speak.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the shrill sound of the telephone unit in the room. Mrs. Watkins got up and walked over to the phone to answer.
            “Watkins speaking.” She listened to the receiver and made a sound of approval. “How far? I see… yes, I do. Immediately. Get on it.” She ended the call and dialed another number. “Code orange,” was all she said before hanging up. Turning her gaze to her conversation partner she asked, “Mr. Romanov, how long have you been working for my husband?”
            “Ma’am?” Romanovs eyes looked between the woman and the phone, wondering what prompted the question.
             “You were his right-hand man for, how long now?” She began to pace the room. “And you always got the job done neatly. My husband praised you so much you were even invited to our Christmas dinners!” Mrs. Watkins walked over to the room’s door and peered through the peephole. Satisfied with what she saw, she unlocked the door. “But you were never invited to Tahoe.”
“Ma’am?”
            “23 years of service is a very long time, I assume, since you’re willing to aid him even after the small fortune I’ve paid for your services.”
            Romanov shot up from his seat and walked inside. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m doing as you’ve asked. I’m working on what you’re paying me for. I will find your husband.”
            “No need, Mr. Romanov. He’s already been found.” Mrs. Watkins opened the door and ushered in two burly men dressed in black carrying what seemed to be a medical bag. “My men spotted him in one of your safe houses quite cozy and very, very far away from the Maldives, as you’ve led me to believe is his current location.”
Heavy feet stump on the carpet as the men grabbed Romanov by the shoulders and wrestled him into the chair where they fastened him with cuffs.
            “What? It’s a set up! Can’t you see?” Romanov pleaded with Mrs. Watkins who moved to sit by the edge of the bed after having closed the other door and the heavy drapes. “I didn’t know he was there! My spies told me he was in the Maldives! I swear!”
            “Hard to believe that a man such as yourself can’t even realize that his target was right under his nose. I’m sorry, Mr. Romanov, but I just can’t believe that. Such gross miscalculation. Gentlemen.” She gestured at the two brutes who proceeded to open the bag and pull out hardware. Romanov’s breath is shallow and quick as he eyes what the men are doing. Once again, he tried to reason with Mrs. Watkins. Annoyed by his words, she instructed the men to “shut him up” and a large piece of duct tape covered his lips. Romanov began yelling but the sound was muffled by the material.
           “Believe it or not, Mr. Romanov, I’m quite acquainted with lies. Heavens knows all the ones I had to tell my husband.” She got up and walked over to him. Her small nose wrinkled in anger, giving away her calm demeanor. “Let me explain why you were never invited to our home in Tahoe. You see, it wasn’t a home. It was my deathbed. It was where my husband took me to release all his pent-up anger from butchered business dealings, the politics of the crime trade, and an unfaithful, unhappy wife. But only the worst got me in that chair you’re sitting on now.” She nodded at one of the guards who promptly exited the room to stand outside.
            Romanov shook his head no. You could hear his pleading and sobs as tears trickled over the duct tape but Mrs. Watkins was hearing none of it. “Perhaps it’s time I showed you what happened in Tahoe.”

 Jackson took a ten from his wallet and placed it in the bucket, specifically above the four singles already there. Megan had deposited the four dollars to kick things off, but ones encouraged people to donate ones. Fives were still too small, but twenties intimidated. Tens were perfect. The logic was elementary, but the difference it made was monumental. That’s what Jackson’s older brother, Willson, told him.  
            Megan and Luke stood behind Jackson, setting up the canopy tent. Las Vegas summers boiled and shade was a must. The Albertsons supermarket before them offered no awning, so they had come prepared. Willson had insisted. He didn’t want his little brother getting heat stroke.
            People had been scarce up to this point, but that was to be expected, Willson said. It was Saturday, but it was still early. Jackson looked at his watch. Eight twenty-two. Shopper density would increase in the afternoon. They would remain outside of Albertsons until six p.m., or until they reached their goal of six hundred dollars, whichever came first. They would sit at a folding table beneath the pine green canopy, rising at the approach of customers, thrusting buckets before them as humble invitations to each shopper to enrich his or her life by making a difference.
            That was the name of the foundation: “Make a Difference.” They had taped small flyers with those words encapsulated within a glowing halo to their bucket. Megan and Luke would tape a poster with that same logo to the front of the table once they finished the canopy. A stack of flyers that included a short blurb about the foundation’s cause and its impact to date, along with directions to the foundation’s website for further reading, would sit atop the table. One for each donor. People liked to have information about their altruism. More than that, Willson said, they liked tangible evidence to give to their friends and to their neighborhood tax collectors. 
            A car door in the parking lot slammed shut, and its driver, an athletic middle-aged woman with blond streaks in her hair and cross-trainers on her feet, headed toward the store.
            “You’re up, Jacks,” Megan said as she and Luke unfolded the table.
Jackson took a deep breath, squinted in the sunlight, and smiled.
            “Hello, ma’am,” he said, insinuating himself between her and the door. “My name is Jackson Bennett, and I’m here representing the Make a Difference Foundation. May I please have a brief moment of your time?”
            Jackson continued to smile and raised his eyebrows, simultaneously innocent and expectant. He knew his politeness earned incalculable points. Adults anticipated from teenagers a snotty tone and a general indifference to the world outside of themselves. They expected sagging pants, side-cocked hats, and T-shirts brandishing offensive logos. When met with Jackson, a courteous, articulate, and socially conscious fifteen-year-old in a Polo shirt and appropriately fitting khaki pants, they were so taken aback that they would afford their only slightly begrudging attention.
Said Willson.
            “Sure,” the woman said, stifling the evolutionary impulse to wave Jackson off.
            “I’m hoping to collect donations for the foundation. Did you know that nineteen percent of America’s teenagers either currently live or have lived on the street?”
            Eighty-one percent of statistics are made up on the spot, said Willson.
            “Wow.” The woman’s interest was spiked. Statistics do that. Her presence was now less begrudging. “Nineteen percent? Really?”
            “Yes, ma’am,” Jackson said, gaining momentum. “The Make a Difference Foundation has shelters around the country to temporarily house these teenagers. We have specially trained counselors who help reunite them with their parents, or, if the parents are incapable of caring for them, the counselors broker relationships between the teenagers and the state to help get them into safer and more permanent living situations.” 
            Two more shoppers walked past Jackson and the woman during his speech. Neither Luke nor Megan approached them. They occupied themselves with taping the poster to the table.
            “Well. That sounds like…a really good cause.” The woman nodded. Jackson inched the bucket closer to her. The woman’s hand absently brushed her purse. “Oh, yes. Well. I don’t have any cash on me right now.”
            Jackson left his eyebrows in his forehead. Innocent and expectant.
            “Tell you what. I’ll withdraw some cash at the register after I finish shopping and catch you on my way out.”
            “Thank you so much for your generosity, ma’am.”
            The woman touched Jackson’s shoulder and smiled before retreating into the store. He felt a stir.
            “You think she’ll actually give you something?” Luke asked. The table was erected beneath the shade of the canopy. Luke and Megan sat next to Jackson’s vacant chair.
            “She has to. She’d be too embarrassed to walk by and not give anything after she said she would.”
            “And after she rubbed your shoulder,” Megan said, performing an exaggerated imitation of the rub on Luke.
            Jackson felt another stir of an entirely different sort. In these moments, he hated Luke, who, in other moments, was, more or less, his best friend. But how else should he feel? Megan and Luke were dating, after all, and Jackson was in love with Megan.
            At least, he was as much as any fifteen-year-old could be. He had loved her since he met her six months earlier when she walked into his math class, late for her first day in a new school. He loved the way the teacher, Mrs. Bell, had scowled at the bronze ring that dangled from Megan’s nose like a cartoon bull’s, at the neon blue streak in her hair that would continually change color (now purple), and at the skin-tight camo pants tucked into scuffed combat boots (which she had graciously now abandoned in favor of ballet flats). Before, after, and during school, she smoked cigarettes—not cloves, like most teenagers, but real, honest-to-goodness tobacco cigarettes. Sometimes she smoked menthols, and when she did, Jackson’s head swam. The sickly sweet, mint-laced tobacco accented her organic, pubescent pheromones and created an aromatic cocktail that made him nauseous and horny. All he wanted was for her to breathe on him, to blow directly into his nostrils. The urge was repulsive, he knew, but it existed nonetheless.
           Jackson thought that it was for all these reasons he loved her, but there was something more. Something of which he was unaware, and wouldn’t have understood or acknowledged even if he were aware. She made him feel dangerous, plainly and purely. He didn’t know that he needed to feel dangerous, but when that unconscious craving was fulfilled, he felt good. He felt significant. Her very presence, and the fact that a girl like her would award him her attention, made him feel, frankly, like a badass. And people respected badasses.
            “Oh, yeah,” Luke said, leaning into Megan’s hand and adjusting his body until she was rubbing his chest. “Just like that. Okay, now move down a little. Lower, lower. Warmer. A little lower. Almost there….”
         And then there was Luke. Tall—awkwardly, gangly so, Jackson thought—with small feet, an easy smile, and a unique ability to take nothing seriously. He wore V-neck shirts brazened with images of Johnny Cash and The Who (Pink Floyd today), ultra soft and pre-faded, intended to give the impression of introspective and romantic poverty but costing upwards of forty bucks a pop. Jackson knew the prices; he had been shopping with Luke. Megan had been immediately spell-struck by him, as were most girls at their school. Jackson believed that if Megan had a downfall, it was her infantile adoration of Luke. Prior to Megan’s appearance in their lives, Jackson had never viewed girls’ adoration of Luke as infantile. Sure, he had been accordingly jealous, though never spiteful. But now, he was spiteful. He spited both of them for it.
          “Someone’s coming,” Jackson said, desperate for something—anything—to keep Megan from giving Luke a handjob right there under the table. “One of you guys do this one. I’m not taking them all.”
          “Cock-block,” Luke said, rising. Turning toward Megan, he said, “Take notes, sugar tits.”
            Jackson’s eye twitched when he heard “sugar tits.”
         Luke took the bucket from Jackson and moved between the door and the approaching shopper, a younger woman, blonde hair hastily tied back in a pony-tail and a face devoid of makeup. She held the hand of a stumbling toddler, half leading him and half dragging him. His cheeks were red and swollen, evidence of a recent crying fit.
           “Excuse me,” Luke said with a finger lifted in the classic check please gesture. “Hey, there. Uh, ma’am. I’m representing the foundation of making differences.” He pointed to the flyer taped to his empty bucket. “Oh. I mean the Make a Difference Foundation.”
            “Okay,” the woman said. Her son’s eyes flickered between Luke’s shoes and his face. The boy, seemingly as nervous as Luke, slowly collapsed into himself.
“Well, you see. We—the foundation, I mean—help these teens find homes. Permanent ones. So they can be, uh, safe.” He pushed the bucket toward the woman.
               She stared blankly, melting into impatience. “What teens?”
             “The ones on the streets. Oh.” He paused, looked at Jackson, and looked back at the woman. “Did you know that sixteen percent of teenagers are homeless?” He looked down and smiled at the boy, who, if possible, collapsed even further into himself. 
              “No, I didn’t know that.” She stooped over and picked up her son, whose eyes were now firmly affixed on Luke’s shoes. Milk stains framed the boy’s mouth and crusted the collar of his Angry Birds T-shirt. “Listen, I have a lot to do today. Good luck with the teens.”
          She disappeared behind the automatic door and into the store. Megan grinned.
             “Nice one!” She flashed two exaggerated thumbs-up. “Okay,” she said, writing on an invisible notepad. “So first, forget the name of the foundation. Then, you confuse the shit out of her by talking about homes for teens without telling her anything about homelessness. Then, give her son a creepy ass smile and scare her into the store, where she is now probably talking to a security guard. Sound about right?”
           “Whatever,” Luke said, dropping the bucket onto the table. “I was just getting warmed up.”
          Another shopper trudged toward the store. A twenty-something guy in gray, mesh athletic shorts that flapped above angular calves. Megan rose.
         “I got this one.” She tenderly brushed nonexistent flakes of lint from her breasts as she approached the man. “Hello, sir. My name is Megan. Can I have a moment of your time?”
           The man slowed, looked at the door, then back to Megan, who was now biting her lip. He stopped, smiled. “Sure.”
         “Did you know that twenty-seven percent of teens in this country are currently living on the streets?”
          “Twenty-seven percent,” he repeated, struggling to keep his eyes above Megan’s chest. “Wow.”
       “Yeah. Wow.” She twisted a finger through her length of purple hair. “I’m collecting money on behalf of the Make a Difference Foundation. With a small donation,” she paused, leaned forward, and put a hand that was at once both seductive and melodramatic on the entranced man’s shoulder, “you can make a huge difference for these teens.”
          “A donation?” He looked down at Megan’s fifteen year-old hand on his shoulder and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I can do that.”
            Megan gestured toward the bucket. The man reached into his pocket and extracted a twenty.
            “Thank you so much,” Megan said, returning her hand to his shoulder, rubbing slightly. “We have flyers here if you want to read about the foundation.”
             “No.” He again eyed the hand on his shoulder. “That’s okay. Good luck.”
             “And that,” Megan said after the man was inside the door, “is how it’s done.”
          “Bullshit,” Luke said. “You can’t collect donations with boobs and lip biting. Not fair.”
            “Whatever gets the job done.”
           Two girls headed toward the store, both wearing sorority shirts flashing raised, incandescent Greek letters. One wore shorts with a lack of material that would have been sufficient to earn her a trip to the dean’s office at their school, and the other wore yoga pants with the Bebe logo printed across the butt.
            “I’ll show you how to get the job done.” Luke picked up the bucket, now with a twenty above the preexisting fourteen dollars, and strolled toward the girls, a comically overdone bounce in his step. “Hey, ladies. Oh, Delta Theta Pi? Cool, cool. Yeah, my ex-girlfriend was in that sorority.”
           “I’m sure she was,” Short-Shorts said, not slowing.
         “Yeah,” he said, now trailing behind them. “She told me about some wild parties. Anyway, I’m here with the Making Differences Group—”
            “We’re kind of in a hurry,” Yoga Pants said. “Maybe next time.”
            “But—”
           The door closed and Luke stopped. His disarming charm apparently worked only on girls under seventeen.
            Megan’s invisible notebook reappeared.
            “Whatever,” Luke said. “They were obviously dykes.” 
            “Obviously dykes,” Megan said, writing furiously with her invisible pen.
          “Come on, man,” Jackson said. “Willson told you what to say. This isn’t a joke. Take it seriously. I mean, you didn’t even wear a Polo. Willson said people don’t want to give money to teenagers who look like teenagers.”
         “Whatever.” Luke dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Camels.
            “What the fuck? Are you serious with that? You’re gonna smoke, right here in front of the store, in front of everybody? Are you fucking stupid? What do you think Willson would say?”  
         “Shit, Jackson,” Luke said, Camels still in hand. “I’m tired of hearing about ‘Willson said, Willson said.’ Where the hell is Willson right now? Why are we the ones out here doing all the work if this is so important to him?”
             “You know he can’t be here right now.” Jackson paused. “He’s going to try to come later.”
         “Later. Right.” Luke extracted a cigarette and popped it between his lips. He patted his pockets. “Shit. You gotta light, sweet nips?”
           “Don’t call Jackson sweet nips in front of me,” Megan said, folding her arms. “It makes me jealous.”
           Megan and Luke grinned.
           “Ha ha. Yeah, great. It’s all a fucking joke. At least smoke behind the store.”
Luke didn’t move.
           “Please?” Jackson said.
           “Fine.”
           “I’m coming, too.” Megan rose. “I could use a smoke. You mind, Jackson?”
               Yes, I mind, he thought. 
              “Whatever,” he said.
           Jackson wished Willson were there. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with Luke’s shit on his own. Luke wouldn’t talk to him like that in front of Willson. He wouldn’t pull out a pack of Camels and try to smoke in front of everyone like a moron. He could say and do what he wanted behind Willson’s back, but never in front of Willson. Why? Because Willson broke his knuckles on people’s faces. He had tattoos. He drove a fucking motorcycle.
                  Willson was a badass, and people respected badasses.
 
 
              “We should turn down the TV.”
             “This is good.” A cloud of smoke obscured Willson’s head before dissipating. “Where’d you get it?”
                 “My friend, Luke.” Jackson said. “You’ve met him.”
            Willson frowned, thinking, the joint slowly burning down between his fingers. “Gangly dude?”
            “Yeah, I guess he’s kind of lanky.” Jackson craned his neck and looked down the hallway. “We should turn down the TV.”
            “Where’s he buy?”
            “Some kid at school. I think his name’s Brian. Or Brent. Something like that. Never met him.”
            Willson grunted, toked. Sparse, post-teen but pre-man stubble circled his mouth. A hole in his black Fender T-shirt showed his pointed collarbone. Willson, like Luke, could be described as lanky, but in a distinctly different way. Whereas Luke looked as if he might lose his balance if a semi drove past him going more than thirty, Willson was compact with sharp, dangerous edges. He was a spring-loaded compression of potential energy, waiting for a reason to go kinetic. His presence unnerved most, but not Jackson. Jackson knew he would never experience kinetic Willson.
            The TV in front of them, the only light in their living room, cast ever-changing shadows on Willson’s face, adding depth to his edges. They watched Back to the Future 3. The weed accentuated Doc Brown’s erraticism. Willson passed the joint to Jackson.
            “You can finish it,” he said.
            “I’m good. We really should turn down the TV, though.”
            On the screen, Marty McFly rubbed his rope-burned throat while Doc asked him what idiot dressed him in his pink cowboy outfit.
            Willson shrugged, said “eh,” and laid the joint amidst dozens of blackened scorch marks on the chipped wooden coffee table. He chugged the rest of his 7-Up and placed the empty cup upside down over the joint, cutting off the oxygen and suffocating the flame. Waste not, want not.
            Popcorn kernels jabbed Jackson on his back. Anyone sitting on their couch with exposed skin ran the constant risk of having food scraps embedded in his skin. He leaned forward and dusted the back cushion with his hand. They had a vacuum at one point, but it was long enough in the past that Jackson couldn’t quite picture it. It might’ve been green with a clear body through which you could watch a vortex of dust spin. Or it might’ve been red with a cloth bag and a retractable power cord. Jackson didn’t know. But it had existed at one point. That he knew.
            He rose from couch and grabbed his empty cup from the coffee table. Willson lifted his own cup from above the now flameless joint. “Fill me up.”
            A successful walk from the living room to the fridge usually required sobriety, of which Jackson had just enough to make his walk marginally successful. He sidestepped piles of clothes and shoes, he kicked aside an overturned kitchen chair, but he bashed his shin against the corner of a cardboard box filled with license plates.
            “Fuck!”
            “Box?”
            “Yeah! When is she gonna get rid of this shit? What the hell is she gonna do with a box of license plates?”
            “Why does she do anything she does,” Willson said.
            It wasn’t a question, it was a mantra.
            “Stupid fucking useless license...” Jackson continued to mumble inaudibly while he opened the fridge. The 7-Up was almost gone—enough only for one. He filled one cup with 7-Up and the other with water from the sink. He threw the empty soda bottle in the direction of the garbage can but missed wildly. It didn’t matter. The stack of soaked coffee grounds, milk jugs, pizza boxes, ramen packets, and cigarette cartons reached a good two feet above the rim of the can. Had Jackson’s aim been more careful, the soda bottle would have bounced off the top and onto the floor where it now lay anyway, so why bother?
            “Here.” Jackson handed Willson the 7-Up and returned to his spot on the couch.
            “Thanks.” He gestured to the TV. “See, I think this is what makes the series so fucking great. Look at Doc chase down Clara. I mean, the guy’s a scientist. He’s like, brilliant, but look at him! Look at him ride, man.”
            Jackson didn’t respond, didn’t need to. Willson wouldn’t have heard him. He leaned forward, shaking his head, entranced by Doc Brown’s heroism. Willson was often entranced, was more entranceable than anyone Jackson had ever met or would ever meet. He experienced moments entirely and singularly, shut out the distractions and focused on that one thing, whether it was Doc Brown or Kubla Khan or The Animaniacs. He erected a nearly impenetrable fortress around his attention. Often he spoke through the fortress, sometimes coherently, sometimes when he was alone. His fortress only allowed sound to exit, though, and any response to him would go completely unnoticed. Jackson envied that quality. He was always too aware.
            “Why does it smell like fucking skunk in here?”
            Jackson knew they should’ve turned down the TV.
            “We talked about this shit. I don’t want it in my house. You little fucks want to waste your lives, do it somewhere else!”
            Their mom stumbled from her bedroom into the living room and parked in front of the TV. The room darkened as she eclipsed the screen. Her ancient relic of a bathrobe hung open, the sash lost long ago. Beneath it, a grey tank top that might once have been black struggled to keep her stretch-marked belly beneath its tired fibers. Alfredo sauce, pizza sauce, Beefaroni sauce, and a dozen other mystery sauces stained the purple sweatpants that she had cut into shorts. Her right foot stood hidden inside an ashy green slipper, but her left foot was naked, obscene and sallow, toenails cracked and yellow. The skin on her face was pale, almost clear. She hadn’t been out of the house in at least a week, probably longer. She and the sun were strangers to each other. Seeing her like this, Jackson wondered, as he often did, what his and Willson’s fathers, Jack and Will (Jack-son, Will-son—ha ha, clever, right?), must have been like to bed a woman like her. 
            She looked at the coffee table and saw the joint. She lunged for it. Willson was faster. She pointed a crooked finger at him.
            “Throw it away,” she said. “Throw it away!”
            Willson didn’t flinch. “Go back to your room. We’ll turn down the TV.” His voice was even, calm.
            “I don’t give a shit about the TV.” Her voice slurred, struggling with the transitions between consonants and vowels. “I’m sick of having hophead losers for sons. I don’t want it in my house. Throw it away!”
            “Take a pill, and go to bed.”
            “Oh, I should take a pill? And where should I get that pill, Willson?” She threw an empty prescription bottle onto the coffee table. It bounced once and rolled onto the floor. Jackson didn’t have to look at it to know that the description read Lortab. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Selling my pills to the kids outside of Jackson’s school?”
            Willson shot Jackson a sidelong glance. He didn’t know that Jackson had been selling the Lortabs.
            “Do you have any idea how much pain I’ve been in since the accident? Have you ever thought to ask? Ever wondered, ‘Hmm, I wonder how Mom is doing. I wonder if she’s in pain. I hope her pills are helping her.’ No! Instead, you say, ‘Hmm, let’s see. How about fuck Mom! How about I sell her pills so I can pay for my hophead habit and ruin my life!’” Her chin began to tremble and her hands quaked. She possessed a potential energy similar to Willson’s. “I know you have them. I need my pills. Give me my fucking pills!”
            “Mom,” Willson said, “go to—”
            “GIVE ME MY PILLS!”
            She dived across the table, wrapped her hands around Willson’s neck, squeezed. Her nail-polish glittered fluorescent green in the TV’s flickering hue.
            Jackson rose.
            “I NEED MY PILLS!”
            She shook Willson and leveraged her considerable weight over him. Willson, caught off guard, was unable to defend himself. He lay against the arm of the couch, feet pushing up on their balls, hands wrapped around his mom’s wrists as her surprisingly powerful hands tried to crush his throat. His kinetic energy was entirely contained. A crumpled Dorito’s bag peeked from behind his shoulder.
            “Stop,” Jackson said.
            Their mom snarled inhumanly. Willson’s face shifted colors. The Dorito bag crinkled behind him. His mouth opened, and sound came out, but nothing intelligible. Grunts and spittle relayed the same message that his words would have. Let go of my throat, said the grunts. Don’t kill me, said the spittle.
            “Stop!” Jackson said.
            Willson’s eyes bulged, shocked and pleading. His hands glowed white over his mother’s wrists. A cockroach crawled into the empty prescription bottle on the floor. Jackson’s view darkened, and his ears buzzed. From a great distance, Marty McFly said to Mad Dog Tannen, “Nobody calls me yellow.”
Then he saw and heard nothing. Jackson picked up the lamp from the end table and swung. It collided with the side of his mom’s head. She fell onto the coffee table and then the floor. Blood pooled around her head, and a clear liquid dripped from her nose. The cockroach crawled out of the prescription bottle and into the puddle of blood. 
 
***
 
           “I’m sorry,” the athletic woman in cross-trainers said. “I forgot to get cash. Next time, though. Good luck.”
              Jackson lowered the bucket as the woman walked toward the double beep of her Kia. Megan and Luke had now been gone fifteen minutes. Far too long for just a smoke. Jackson shuddered at the thought of the various ways they might be spending that extra time. If Willson were there, he might be able to distract Jackson. He’d probably be able to see in Jackson’s eyes his love and lust for Megan. He might even tease him about it in the way that only an older brother was allowed. But it wasn’t going to happen. Wish as Jackson might, Willson wouldn’t be coming to Albertsons. They don’t let you out of jail to participate in fake fundraisers.
“Excuse me, sir,” Jackson said, “but can I have just a moment of your time?”
             In his Tommy Bahama button-up shirt, short slacks too many inches above the knees, and his boat shoes hugging his bare feet, the approaching man silently screamed that he had all the time in the world, but each of his seconds was too important to waste on the likes of you.
               “What are you selling,” he said, “and am I going to go to hell if I don’t buy it?”
               Jackson forced a laugh.
              “Actually, sir, I’m not selling anything. I’m asking for donations for the Make a Difference Foundation. Did you know that nineteen percent of teens in America either currently live or have lived on the street?”
            The man appraised Jackson. Then he reached into his pocket, removed a money-clip that bent outward into a V under the strain of cash, and casually slid from it a hundred dollar bill. He dropped the money into the bucket and continued into the store.
            Jackson stared. Now resting in the bucket were Megan’s four ones, Jackson’s ten, a twenty, and a hundred. He looked at his watch. Eight fifty-one. Jackson needed his split for the day to be two hundred dollars. With that hundred, he would already be halfway there, and they had only been at it for a half hour.
           Pausing only long enough to see if Megan and Luke were rounding the corner, he reached in and removed the hundred. He put it in his pocket.
        Jackson had been skeptical when Willson suggested a fake fundraiser. Between the two of them, they had broken the law plenty of times. Hell, they had the conversation about it between bullet-proof glass during visiting hours. But this just seemed wrong.
          “I don’t think I can do it,” Jackson had said.
          “How the hell else can we raise the money?” Willson said, his face a pale bubble atop his orange safety cone of a jumpsuit. It wasn’t his color. “We’re only two hundred short. Two hundred dollars more and I’m out on bail. And then.”
Jackson knew what “and then” meant. Neither Willson nor Jackson knew whether or not these conversations were monitored, but just in case, they didn’t want to follow the “and then” with the subsequent “we get the fuck out of town before Mom or the cops know what the hell is going on.”
            “Dude,” Jackson said, lowering his voice. “She’s still getting pills delivered to the house. I could unload one of her bottles in—”
            “No.” Willson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Fucking no. How many times do we have to go over this? She thought I was stealing her high, so she tried to kill me, and then I hit her with a lamp. If her pills disappear and I’m not there for her to blame, she’ll come for you.” Willson grinned. “And I don’t think you can take her.”
            Jackson paused, exhaled, looked at the ceiling. “Fuck, man. I should have done something. I should have pulled her off of you. I just…I don’t know, man. I don’t know what happened. One minute she’s on top of you, next thing I know you’re in cuffs and she’s bleeding on the floor. How the hell are you the one in here and not her?”
            Willson shrugged. “Because she can afford bail until her trial, where she’ll probably get off on probation because I don’t bruise.”
            “Fuck. Fuck her.” Jackson clenched his jaw. “Fuck me, man. You shouldn’t be in here. I should’ve been able to help you. It’s my fault, man.”
            “No. It’s not your fault. And it’s not my fault. It’s her. That’s why you need to make that money. Just two hundred more so we can get me out of here and get you out of that house.”
            And now Jackson was halfway there. He might’ve felt bad for screwing Megan and Luke (though their screwing each other made it easier not to), but what did they need with the money? Was there a Rolling Stones T-shirt that Luke didn’t yet have, maybe a color of hair dye that Megan hadn’t tried?
              Six months ago, Jackson wouldn’t have been able to contrive a single negative thought about Megan if you threatened to set him on fire, but with each prolonged and unexplained absence she shared with Luke, with each time she publicly nibbled his ear, with each sexual innuendo they swatted back and forth like a ping pong ball, another negative thought surfaced. He still loved her, of course, but he forced himself to nurture those negative thoughts like orphaned kittens because they were all that kept him from stabbing Luke and claiming Megan as his own. Figuratively speaking. 
                 No, Jackson didn’t feel bad. Instead, he took his bucket and he walked into the store. To his right, tomatoes and cucumbers were on sale. On his left, two checkers stood amidst ten closed lanes. Jackson couldn’t remember ever visiting a grocery store when every checkout lane was open. Seemed like a waste of space. He took his bucket and paced the ends of the aisles, past rows of salsa and enchilada sauce, past kettle chips and buffalo-flavored pretzel bites, past bags of Hershey kisses and Russell Stover’s sugar-free caramel nips, until he saw his target browsing vitamins.
            Tommy Bahama read the back of a bottle of fish oil, his glasses resting on the edge of his nose.
      “Excuse me, sir?” Jackson approached trepidatiously, knowing he was overstepping his bounds, not that there was a book of rules or regulations for behavior during fake fundraisers. But still.
          Tommy looked at Jackson, at his bucket, then back at Jackson. He raised his eyebrows. Thin ice.
           “I’m so sorry to bother you again,” Jackson said, “but I feel I would be doing a disservice to those homeless teens if I had stayed outside. Sir, your donation was beyond generous. Beyond anything I could have hoped for. I realize it’s, well, unconventional for me to be chasing you down like this. But, I, well, the shelters are horribly underfunded, and…”
           “Son of a bitch.” Tommy took off his glasses and shoved the fish oil back on the shelf, knocking two bottles of Vitamin D and one bottle of Echinacea to the floor. They bounced and rolled like empty prescription bottles. Jackson felt momentarily cold. “You realize that was a hundred I gave you, right?”
             “Yes, sir. That’s why—”
“As in one hundred dollars. As in at least five times as much as anyone else has given you?”
“Yes, sir. But—”
           “And now you come in here, stalking me through the store, giving me this line of bullshit about disservices and shelters?”
         “Well, sir, you see—”
       “Jesus. Kids get fucking dumber and dumber. What’s the matter? You don’t have a computer at home? Do some research, you idiot.” Tommy tapped the side of his head with a fingertip. “The Make a Difference Foundation is a real charity. It exists. And it has nothing to do with homeless teens. It’s for a no-kill pit bull shelter. Yeah, that’s right. Not that I give a shit about pit bulls, but my wife donates every month.”
           “Pit bulls?” Jackson’s tongue went numb.
        “Yeah. Pit bulls. God, you’re lazy. When I was young, we put effort into our bullshit. We thought things through. At least come up with an original name. Something that’s not already out there.”
        Jackson gaped.
          Tommy cupped his hand around his ear. “What? No more ‘sir’? Shit, kid, I gave you your money. Go back outside, think of a name that’s not already taken, and let me buy my wife her fish oil.”
          Jackson had never been so intimidated by someone so frail. He began to turn, fingernails buzzing, but paused. “Sir?”
         “What?” Tommy again held the fish oil, on which his eyes now remained affixed.
           “If you knew it was bullshit, why did you give me money?”
       Tommy exhaled, considering. “I’m a lawyer. I guess I figured I’d fund tomorrow’s generation of lawyers.” He laughed, slow and mild at first, then loud and hysterical, gaining momentum like a pack of galloping horses. Jackson was terrified. Tommy’s laughter finally subsided. He wiped tears from the corners of his eyes and took a breath. “Look, I ran the same games when I was a kid, and look where I am today. I don’t know. I guess I just like the idea of my money going somewhere other than pit bulls.”
           Jackson nodded, unsure of what to do next.
           “But you came in here after me,” Tommy said, frowning, “which is something even I didn’t have the balls for. Either you’re a doper, which I don’t want to fund, or you actually need this money.” He raised his eyebrows.
          “I…” Jackson looked behind him, then past Tommy down the aisle. He hadn’t told anyone, namely Megan and Luke, that Willson was in jail. Figured it wasn’t anyone’s business but his and Willson’s. But now, it was Tommy’s as well. “I need to bail my brother out of jail. He’s going to get me out of my house.”
           Tommy appraised Jackson, weighing his words. He squinted, tilted his head. Jackson was used to people believing his lies, but he didn’t know how well his truths came across. Finally, Tommy nodded. Without speaking, he retrieved his money clip, removed three more hundreds, and held them out for Jackson. Then, with a flicking motion of his hand, he shooed Jackson away like a dog before returning his attention to the back of the fish oil, mumbling about omega 3s and wastes of money.  
 
          Jackson walked through his front door at nine twenty-two. By now, Megan and Luke would have realized that he had bailed. They would have come back around to the front of the store to find the pine green canopy hovering above an unmanned table, atop which sat the bucket containing thirty-four dollars. Inside of Jackson’s front pocket were four hundred dollar bills.
          “Mom?” Jackson called, scattered piles of clothes around the house sucking up his voice and keeping it from traveling through the halls. He stepped over a blood stain and a shard of glass from the lamp. “Mom, where are you? I need the car keys.”
         Megan and Luke might have stayed at the store, begging for money for the homeless teens. And they might have made more money. Hell, now that they would be splitting the money two ways instead of three, they might have made more than they would have if Jackson had stayed, not counting the money from Tommy, that is. But then, they might also have been looking for Jackson. He had considered that, had considered waiting until they came back to tell them something had come up and that he had to leave immediately. Tell them goodbye. Because, if all went according to his and Willson’s plan, he would be out of the city by the next day and would never see either of them again. 
         That part was difficult. He and Luke had been friends since elementary school, but shit happened, right? People moved on. People made new friends. And this was for family. Blood is thicker than water and all that. If Jackson and Willson stayed at home with their mom, someone was going to get killed. Luke would have understood that. Jackson had to believe that Luke would have understood.
         “Mom!” Jackson walked to the end of the hall and knocked on his mom’s door. “Mom! I need to go somewhere. Let me get the keys.”
          Then there was Megan. Yeah, Jackson loved her. Yeah, he dreamed about her nose ring and her combat boots, but she was with Luke. And what, if they broke up, Jackson was supposed to swoop in and grab his best friend’s rebound? Not likely. No, Megan was truly alive and breathing as a phantom in Jackson’s head, in his fantasies and his dreams. He could take that phantom with him anywhere he went.
          “Mom!” Even in her oxy-stupors, Jackson could usually get at least an annoyed grunt out of her. He continued pounding. “Mom! I need the keys. It’s important!”
A resounding thud sounded from inside the bedroom.
          “Mom?”
           No sound.
          Jackson opened the door and found his mom convulsing on the floor beside her bed. Foam trickled from her lips. Jackson froze. His mom continued to convulse. He felt ice slide up the back of his neck and into the base of his skull. Her slippers lay forgotten and impotent at the foot of the bed. Her feet pointed straight out, yellowed toenails aimed at the dresser on the wall opposite her. Her stained purple sweatshorts rode up her legs, where cellulite pulsated.
         After several critical moments, Jackson finally gained control of himself. He called an ambulance.
          “My mom is having a seizure.”
 
          Three hours later, a doctor at the hospital, Dr. Hodges or Hodgins, declared Jackson’s mom dead. He heard the doctor tell a nurse that it was SUDEP. Jackson didn’t know what that was, didn’t care. He did care, though, when he heard the doctor say that the seizure had been caused by recent head trauma.
          He pictured Willson through the bullet-proof glass in his safety-cone jumpsuit, promising Jackson that he would get him out of that house, that he would get him away from their mom. He pictured Willson, his hands in cuffs, standing on the other side of their mom while she bled on the floor.
         My brother hit my mom on the side of her head with a lamp, Jackson thought, and now she’s dead. Willson killed our mom. She was strangling him, screaming for pills, and he killed her. He’s in jail for “excessive self-defense,” but the judge doesn’t know the half of it. My brother is a killer.
              Jackson went into the hospital bathroom and threw up.  
          Willson had killed their mom. For the rest of his life, Jackson would believe that lie. He was surprised to feel the tickle of a tear on his cheek as he walked out of the hospital. He felt more tears as he drove to the City of Las Vegas Detention Center. Together, he and Willson shed tears as they took the I-15 North out of town.
 
 

   I heard the talons of the messenger hawk screeching at the door. As I walked towards the door I could feel the vibrations of ground as the large bird flew away. I opened the door the atmosphere-felt silent a rare sight to see. Before the war of the worlds begun, life was so peaceful and tranquil. Now the word was full of destruction and chaos at every turn. I looked down and picked up the medium sized metal box. I felt the energy emanating from within.
 
   I wanted to open the metal box; even though I knew what it contained can wreak havoc. My powers were still undeveloped; I sat next to it my eyes fixed on it. I wanted to touch it. Its energy was pulled me in, before I knew it my right hand moved towards the box. As I put my hand over it I could feel energy pulsating from inside. I moved my hand closer “Ouch” I felt a forceful pinch. I quickly pulled my hand but it was to late the box had already opened.
 
   I felt a burst of energy as the box opened. My hands hot like a pot of boiling water. A blue light beamed from within the box. The box started to spin uncontrollably “What! Stop! Stop! I screamed. I took a step back, the whole table shaking. The picture frames on wall trembled at least two fell on the ground. I looked all around everything seemed to be moving. Then all of a sudden everything stopped. My breathing so loud, like if I had ran a marathon. I covered my face with my hands; I felt the burn on my hand as I pressed on my cheek. ‘What did I do!” I told myself as moved my hands away from my face. I heard a loud click as I looked at the box; a large three-dimensional map emerged from the box.
 
   I could feel my heart beat pounding vigorously. It took me a moment to find myself again. “Calm down! Sarah Calm down!” If I weren’t so nervous I would probably be enjoying the marvelous sight to be seen. After I regained my strength, looked up at the map. The map was detailed with all the villages in all the different worlds in the universe. The highly detailed map could be the key to winning the never-ending war with the kings’ army. Taking a closer look at the map, I realized it was more then just a map. It was filled with the secret passages and tunnels used by our ancestors. This could only mean one thing, it was sent by the master ancestor.
 
   The map was so visually captivating I wanted to touch it. I was still in pain from the initial burn, my hand moved towards the map. “Wow’ I said I could feel the energy as it flowed through my veins. The feeling was amazing; I have never felt this way before in my life. Considering I always felt like the underdog, watching all the others effectively use their powers. This time it’s my turn and I felt powerful.
 
   As I touched each village on the map, a more detailed image appeared. “ What the hell” the secret passages started to run from the map on to my arms. I tried to move my arms but the energy didn’t allow me. My arms glowed as the secret passages kept transferring on my arm. Deep down I knew I should have been scared, but for some strange reason I finally felt like belonged. All of a sudden the box closed abruptly, some how I managed to pull my arms out the way. I checked my arms nothing I turned them around. Still nothing “what just happened” I was in shock.
   I stumbled as I got up. I ran to the bathroom I washed my face and hands closing my eyes. I opened my eyes both my arms illuminated, the secret passages started to running all my through my arms. Now I knew my purpose. I grabbed my sword from the close and walked to the door. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I opened the door looking at all destruction around me. I knew I was ready the war had already begun but my battle had just started. I held the key to defeat the king’s army in my hands and no one would stop me.
 
 
 

Christina Lacourte is a former tax accountant living in San Francisco, California. She became serious about writing a couple of years ago when she took a course to brush up on her writing skills for a blog that she occasionally posted to. From there, she took another course and another and discovered a strong inclination toward writing fiction.
She adores ballet (watching it as well as taking classes), lazing at one of the many fantastic San Francisco parks with her twin sons, and watching her cat, Hillary Kitten, prowling around the house a la some sort of much larger feline.
This is the first piece of her fiction to be published.

​Amy apprehensively climbed the steps that led to the door of the slightly run-down Victorian, which faced Dolores Park. At the top of the stairs, were two doorbells with the letters A and B taped next to them. She heard someone descending the interior stairs as she pressed A, and within moments, could see a figure through the thin curtain covering the glass door. With what seemed to Amy like a grand gesture, the figure materialized, opening the door widely and beaming. She was a woman of sixtyish, with salt and pepper hair worn in an air-dried, wavy bob. It was the sort of hairstyle commonly seen in women of this age, who belonged to the New Age set. Her clothing was a flowy, diaphanous wonder of scarfs and tunics and wide-legged pants (or was that a skirt?).
    
    “You must be Amy,” the figure said, drawing out you. “I sensed you approaching.”
 
    “Yes, hi,” Amy said.
 
    Amy held out her hand.
 
    “Ah, no, my dear. I make it a habit never to have physical contact with my clients. I wouldn’t want our energies to get mixed up. It could impede the process.”
 
    “Oh, ok. That makes sense,” Amy said.
 
    But actually, none of this made sense. Amy couldn’t believe she was even there and momentarily had the urge to make an excuse and run back to her car. But then, the title of the article in C Magazine flashed in her mind - “The Love Maestro” - and she decided to stay.
 
    “Come on in. Let’s get started right away. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” the Love Maestro said, walking up the stairs ahead of Amy. “Would you like to use the bathroom first?”
 
    “Uh, sure.”
 
    “It’s right down that hall,” she said. “Please remember to close the toilet lid when you’re done. Bad Feng Shui to leave it open!”
 
    “Oh yes, I will.”
 
    The bathroom smelled of Nag Champa, and as soon as Amy closed the door, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to “go” with the Love Maestro listening outside. So she flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and opened the door. The Love Maestro was standing right outside the door as she exited, looking at Amy a tad suspiciously.
 
    “Ok then. Right in here.”
 
    “By the way, I’m not sure that I ever got your name?” Amy asked.
   
    “Well, that’s not really necessary. People are calling me the Love Maestro, which I find amusing. You can call me that if you like, or my actual name is Joan.”
 
    Joan led Amy into a room at the front of the house that seemed originally to have been a small dining room but was now used for business. The large bay window was covered with red curtains made of a material that had the same flowy quality as Joan’s clothing. There was a large round table in the center with four chairs around it. Tall bookshelves lined the walls and were packed tight with books, all of which would, most likely, be found in the New Age and Spirituality section of a bookstore.
 
    “You’re going to sit there.” Joan pointed to one of the chairs. “And I’ll sit here,” she said, pointing to the chair directly across from Amy. “I’m just going to get the tea. Why don’t you sit quietly for a moment and do some breathing?”
 
    Joan left the room, and Amy quickly grabbed her iPhone out of her Chanel purse to turn it off and then turned the purse over, so the double C’s weren’t visible. She also turned her substantial diamond engagement ring around, so the diamond was on the inside of her hand. She was hoping to convey a down-to-earth air to Joan; she needed her on her side and thought that she’d picked up on a judging tone in her voice when they’d met earlier.
 
    This has got to work, Amy thought. It was the only way. After everything Jim had done to her - the multiple infidelities, the name-calling, the vice-like control over everything they shared (kids, house, money) - hatred was much too mild of a word for what she felt for her husband. But she saw no easy way out. If she left him, she’d get nothing. In much more loving times, he’d convinced her to sign a prenuptial agreement in which she had absolutely no claim on the fortunes he’d acquired either before or after her. He’d billed it as “just a piece of paper” and had told her it was merely a tool to deal with his “trust issues.” At his suggestion, she’d (happily) quit working before they were even married because he said that he wanted to “take care of her” for the rest of her life, something that appealed to her own set of issues. “We’ll be together forever. It will never even come up,” he’d told her, a sentence Amy was sure must have been uttered, in some form or another, in every prenuptial agreement coercion in the history of prenuptial agreements. And they really were in love, so she signed.
 
    But now she detested, despised, loathed him. She’d lay in bed in the middle of the night, eyes wide open, thinking of the least painful way to get out. She couldn’t lie to herself; she’d miss the money, but she’d manage. She’d taken care of herself before, and she could do it again, she thought.
 
    But, it was the possibility of losing her kids that she could not tolerate. On more than one occasion, Jim had threatened to take the kids from her, always citing her “drug problem” as evidence that she was unfit to take care of the children on her own. It hadn’t even been a “problem” as far as she was concerned, more like an identity crisis, and it was a thing of the past. She’d been managing two toddlers under three, on her own (aside from the nanny) and, so, on the occasions when she was able to get away and see some of her old friends, she naturally wanted to let loose. One thing had led to another, and instead of just doing a line here and there on the weekend, she had her coke dealer on speed dial and was using daily. Things came to a head one day when the nanny had called in sick, and she had to take the kids for their annual exam at the pediatrician. She’d already done several lines that morning and was feeling fairly invincible, so she loaded the kids in the car and headed to the doctor. She made it to the appointment and returned home safely with the kids. But, when they got home, Jim was there, and he knew immediately that she’d been using - he’d seen her in that state plenty of times when they were dating and both partaking. He’d been furious and had insisted that she immediately enter a rehabilitation program. She didn’t put up much of a fight, and she’d pretty much stayed away from any drugs since then, but Jim had frequently thrown the incident in her face during subsequent arguments. She was sure that, mostly out of spite, if she tried to leave him, he would use it against her to gain custody of the children. And that she could not have.
   
    She couldn’t leave him, and she doubted he’d leave her anytime soon. She knew how much he wouldn’t want to disappoint his repressed Catholic family who didn’t believe in divorce. Plus, Amy was good for business - the thing that Jim seemed to care about most. His partners loved her, his clients loved her, and she could throw one hell of a dinner party. Not to mention the fact that, unlike the tramps that he’d cheated on her with, she played the part of the classy manicured CEO’s wife flawlessly. Yes, she was quite sure, Jim was going to maintain the status quo. She felt trapped and couldn’t see any possible move that would better her circumstance.
 
    Then, one day, she was flipping through her magazine and spotted the article on Joan. She’d remembered reading something on one of the celebrity gossip sites about this Love Maestro. Joan had apparently been experiencing a good deal of notoriety since she’d supposedly saved the marriage of a very famous Hollywood couple on the verge of a particularly nasty divorce. There had been claims splashed across the tabloids of abuse, underage cheating, drug and alcohol addiction - real reputation wreckers. And then, this miraculous fixer of relationships stepped in, and those same tabloids showed nothing but hand holding and canoodling and family outings to the farmer’s market. Amy saw this and thought that if she could just forget how much she hated Jim, then, maybe, she could bear sticking it out with him until the kids were grown. She knew it was probably a long shot, but, short of murdering him, she didn’t see what else could be done.
 
 
    Amy snapped to from her panicky thoughts as Joan reappeared.
 
    “Here you are,” Joan said, setting down a pottery mug filled with a very pungent and dark tea.
 
    “What’s in it?” Amy asked.
 
    “It’s just a mix of herbs and what-not that I’ve perfected over the years. I’m unable to divulge the ingredients. I’m sure you understand. But you’ll have to trust me that the tea is what makes the journey possible. It’s completely safe in case you’re concerned about that.”
 
    Amy stared into the cup as the steam rose up and curled into her nostrils. She tried to decipher the smells: Pine needles? Lavender? Thyme? Sage? Or was that marijuana? She sincerely hoped there wasn’t anything stronger. She wasn’t interested in rousing old demons.
 
    “Ok, so you’re going to drink that whole cup of tea, and when you’re finished, we will begin the journey, and our destination will be love. And when the journey is complete, you will be void of anger, contempt, and hatred for your spouse. I believe the online questionnaire said it was your spouse that you are you wanting to mend your relationship with, correct?”
 
    “Yes, that’s right.”
 
    “Good, good. Just out of curiosity, why is it that you want to save your relationship?”
 
    “Well, that’s a good question considering he’s been just awful to me. But, for the sake of the kids, I’d like to do whatever I can to keep our family together.”
 
    “Hmm,” Joan said, “And are there things that you’ve done that you think may have hurt the relationship?”
 
    Amy shifted in her seat.
 
    “Not really,” Amy said defensively, “I mean, sure, I’m no saint, but I mean if you knew what he’d done…” she trailed off.
 
    “Oh, that’s quite alright. Just curious. Well, then, do you have any other questions before we get started?”
 
   
    “Uh, well, I know it said on your website that it was best if both parties took the journey, but as I mentioned in my email, I could never get my husband here. Are you sure it will still work?”
 
    “Of course. It may just take a bit longer today. You’d be shocked at how much a relationship can improve when even one party can find an inner peace. I’ve seen it time and again. You said in the questionnaire that the two of you were still living under the same roof - correct?”
 
    “Yep,” Amy said, pursing her lips.
 
    “Perfect, then we shouldn’t have a problem. When people have been geographically separated for a period of time, it can sometimes be a little tricky, so it helps very much that you’re still living together. Let’s just put all of that out of your mind and stay positive.”
 
    Amy wondered if she should mention that Jim would be coming home tonight after a two-week-long business trip, but decided against it.
 
    “Ok, dear, the tea should have cooled off by now, go ahead and start sipping it.”
    Amy took a drink of the tea, which had a pleasant taste but immediately made her nauseous. 
 
    “Don’t worry. The first few sips can make your tummy feel a little funny, but that will go away in a moment.”
 
    Wanting nausea to dissipate as quickly as possible, and for Joan to stop staring at her, Amy drank the rest of the tea in a few gulps. She was no longer sick to her stomach and actually felt pretty relaxed.
   
    “Ok, then, I’d like you to close your eyes and take three deep breaths.”
 
    Amy closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
 
    “One, two, and three,” Joan counted slowly. “Now, I’d like you to think of your husband and of all the reasons you are currently angry with him.”
 
    This was easy for Amy, and as she tallied his transgressions, she felt her jaw tighten, and her heart speed up.
 
    “Now, I’d like you to imagine yourself surrounded by a warm, rose-colored liquid that is pure love. I’d like you to feel your chest open up and your heart begin to drink in this beautiful love liquid. And when you feel that your heart has consumed as much of the liquid as it can, as if it might burst with love, I’d like you to picture your husband before you.”
 
    Amy was doubting the Love Maestro’s process and was wishing she’d spent the $1000 fee on those Manolo Blahnik pumps she’d been eyeing.
 
    “Amy, honey, now if you want this to work, you’re going to have to have faith. Stay with me, dear. Now, I’d like you to picture your husband and imagine you are emptying the love liquid from your heart directly into his. Picture the lovely pink fluid as a continuous stream from you to him.”
 
    Amy tried to do as Joan said, but she was having a hard time envisioning this ridiculous scenario. Then, at the very instant in which Amy was about to disregard the Love Maestro as nonsense and resign herself to the idea that she’d just have to deal with the fact that she was out a thousand bucks and an hour of her life, something happened that changed her mind. A familiar image flashed across her mind’s eye that was so vivid that she considered, for a moment, perhaps, Joan had transported her back in time.  She saw herself and Jim in their bed. He reached over to her, attempting to embrace her,  and then she heard the image of herself say, in a crueler tone than she had remembered using with Jim, “Leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m sleeping?” She saw herself turn away from Jim. Then, as if a camera had focused in on him, all she could see was the wounded look on Jim’s face.
 
    The images kept coming, and they were always the same scenario. Each time she would reject Jim, and each time Jim would look crushed. When the view-finder-type images of her repeatedly pushing Jim away ceased, Amy heard herself say (as if she was talking about someone else): “My god, that’s awful, no wonder he cheated.” And, as she heard herself say this, she realized that she actually believed it. To believe that she had some part in Jim’s infidelity would have been utterly inconceivable to her before this journey. She was amazed.
 
    As she sat there in some sort of a trance-like state, contemplating this new way of thinking about this particular situation, she saw a whole other set of images. Most of these showed Amy buying this expensive bag or that expensive pair of shoes. And then she saw Jim, looking over their finances with a panicked look on his face. The image focused in on the financial statements he was looking at and Amy saw the amount of debt and monthly expenses that they owed. She was shocked. She’d had no idea that they owed that much money or that they were spending that much per month. She saw a line item reading “Clothing” and a number next to it that read “$18,894.” She looked at the top of the financial statement and saw that this was just for June. She began to feel ashamed, knowing now that they owed so much money and that she had regularly been spending this much on clothes and whatever else she fancied. She’d always sort of kept her head buried in the sand when it came to their finances. She’d thought that Jim was just being his usual controlling self when he’d started asking her to cut back on her spending. Amy had been insistent on the 4.5 million dollar house that they’d upgraded to a few years back, even though Jim had told her that it would be really tight for them. Thinking back on it now, Amy realized that Jim had given her pretty much anything she’d ever asked for, regardless of how much it cost.
 
    And so it continued. With each grievance that Amy had had with Jim, she was shown his point of view on the matter. But, even more of an eye-opener for her was that she saw the role that she had played. She had always entirely blamed Jim for their problems, but now she could step back and see herself and how she’d contributed to the disintegration of their marriage. For the first time in years, she felt true compassion for her husband.
 
    And then he appeared. She saw him clearly, sitting directly across from her (where Joan had been previously). She stared with wonder at his brown wavy hair, his piercing green eyes, and the fine figure he cut in his navy Armani suit. He had the kindest smile on his face. She looked down and saw the pink stream flowing fast and hard from her chest to his, and a smile spread across her face. Her skin felt warm, and she had a sudden urge to roll around on the floor like a giddy child.  And then things went dark.
 
    When Amy awoke, she found a pillow between the back of her head and the tall-backed chair she’d been sitting in, a soft stool under her feet, and a heavy blanket over her body. She felt refreshed and surprisingly comfortable, considering that she’d been sleeping sitting up.
 
    “Well, hello. How are you feeling, dear?”
 
    Amy focused her eyes and saw Joan’s bright blue eyes staring back at her. There seemed to be a rosy glow to everything around her.
 
    “I feel fantastic. I haven’t felt this good in… Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this good. What happened? How long was I asleep?”
 
    “I don’t really consider it sleep. I call it a love trance. You were in it for a little over two hours. It’s different for everyone. It just depends on how much of the H word you need to rid yourself of.”
 
    “What’s the H word?” Amy asked.
 
    “H - A- T - E,” Joan spelled out. “I don’t want to say the actual word. We want to keep this perfect loving energy we have intact. How are you feeling about your husband, now? Jim, right?”
 
    As Joan uttered Jim’s name, Amy had an uncontrollable longing to see him, to embrace him and feel his breath on her neck, to be close to him, to love him.
 
    “Oh my god, it worked. You did it! I can’t believe this. I actually feel… I can’t believe it. I think I love my husband. You’re a genius.”
 
    Amy wanted to hug Joan, but held back, remembering the mixed-up-energy thing.
 
    “It really is amazing when one can actually see one’s self - isn’t it? That really is the secret to all of this.”
 
    “Oh my god, yes, I can. I can finally see how awful I’ve been to him. Thank you so much!” Amy said as she removed the blanket and gathered her things. “I have to see him now. I just have to see him in person to make sure it’s real.”
 
    “Oh, it’s very real, my dear. Just as a heads up though, because your husband didn’t take the journey with you, you may want to proceed slowly. It may take him a bit to catch up to where you are. I assure you though, as I said before, I’ve seen amazing results many times with just one person completing the journey. So, go slow, but have faith that things will work out the way they should. Which, by the way, may not always look exactly like you think they will.” Joan said, smiling.
 
    “Ok, wonderful,” Amy said, not really listening to Joan anymore because she was so focused on seeing Jim, “Thank you. Thank you so much!” Amy gushed, blowing Joan several air kisses.
 
    “You’re very welcome. I wish you all the best.”
 
    Joan walked Amy to the door, “Farewell.”
 
    “Bye!” Amy said and hurried to her car.
 
****
 
    It was almost 6 PM when Amy arrived at her home in Presidio Heights. It was a Friday, and as an optimistic gesture, Amy had arranged for the kids to stay with her sister for the weekend. Jim would be home soon, and Amy could barely contain her excitement. She put her things down and went about making everything just so for the big reunion. Then she went upstairs and put on the low-cut, fitted dress that Jim had recently commented on. “Nice dress,” he’d said when she’d worn it to a disastrous date night they’d recently had. But everything was different now. As she dabbed on a bit of red lipstick and finger-combed her mid-length icy-blond hair, she heard the door downstairs open.
 
    “Hello?” she heard him call.
 
    “Hi! I’ll be right there.”
 
    Amy floated down the stairs, smiling. Jim looked as handsome as she’d remembered him during the journey. Stylish and business-like, in another Armani suit.
 
    “Are you going out?” he said.
 
    “No, just thought I’d put on something nice and make you a little dinner.”
 
    “Ok,” he said hesitantly, “That’s good because I need to talk to you about something important.”
 
    Wow, Amy thought, is he already coming around? She was thrilled and rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, while Jim stood motionless.
 
    “What’s going on?” he asked. “Why are you smiling like that?”
 
    “I’m happy to see you,” she said, planting a firm kiss on his mouth.
 
    “Yeah, right. What’s wrong with you? Do you want something?”
 
    “No. I’m just tired of fighting. I love you. And I’ve just decided to let all of that go. I want things to be like they were.”
 
    “I’m not sure it works like that.”
 
    Maybe this wasn’t going to go quite so quickly, she thought.
 
    “Things are going to be different. You’ll see. Are you hungry?”
 
    “I guess,” Jim said.
 
    “Ok, great. Why don’t I pour you a drink, and you can relax while I make dinner?”
 
    He looked at her with a confused expression and loosened his tie. She could understand him being puzzled by her sudden warmth. Usually, when he arrived home, she didn’t even acknowledge him. And then, they’d sit through dinner, speaking to the children, but never to each other. After that, she’d tuck the kids in, take a bath, and be asleep before he got into bed. A similar routine would take place in the morning. These days, aside from fighting, they only spoke to each other out of necessity: coordinating kid’s schedules, bills that had to be paid, repairs to the house. Amy was fairly certain they hadn’t inquired about one another for the last three years. And it’d been even longer since they’d had sex.
 
    Amy brought Jim a Scotch, while he sat on the sofa, then hurried back to the kitchen to make Steak Au Poivre - Jim’s favorite. Amy dimmed the lights and lit the candles.
 
    “Dinner’s ready, honey,” she called to him from the dining room.
 
    Jim seemed reluctant as they sat down to eat, but Amy leaned in and smiled as she asked him about his day, and eventually, he warmed a bit. He even laughed at a humorous story she told him about one of the moms from their kid’s school, who swore the large bandage across her nose was due to a surgery to “improve her breathing.” For the first time in years, they actually seemed to be enjoying each other’s company, and by the end of dinner, Amy was convinced the Love Maestro’s magic had worked.
 
    But then the evening took a turn.
 
    “Look, like I said, I need to tell you something.”
 
    He plopped down a stack of papers on the table in front of her. She stared at them. She saw the words “Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco," and then “To (name of individual being served): Amy Phillips."
 
    “What is this, Jim?”
 
    “Look, Amy, I haven’t been on a business trip the last couple of weeks. I’ve been staying at Cami’s house.”
 
    “Who’s Cami?” Amy said, remembering as she asked that that was the name of one of the moms at the kids' school.
 
    “You know,” Jim said, “Hunter’s…”
 
    “Are you talking about the one from school?” Amy asked, remembering the mousy, brown-stringy-haired woman he was referring to.
 
    “Yeah,” he said quietly.
 
    “Why would you be staying at her place?” She asked cautiously.
 
    “Amy, I want a divorce. These are divorce papers. I really hope this can be as painless as possible. I think you’ve wanted this for awhile.”
 
    That had been true before, but not now.
 
    “Please, Jim. I can finally see how terrible I’ve been to you. I know now how I pushed you away. And all of the other awful things. Please, don’t do this.”
 
    “That seems like pretty strange timing,” he said, suspiciously.
 
    “It’s hard to explain right now,” she said, wondering if she should tell him about the Love  Maestro.
 
    “It’s not just about you. I’m in love with Cami. I’m sorry, it just happened.”
 
    “It just happened? When? How?”
 
    “It doesn’t really matter. After her husband died, we just started talking a lot at Nicholas’s soccer games. She needed someone to talk to, you know.”
 
    Tears began to run down Amy’s face.
 
    “Come on, Amy. You haven’t loved me for some time now. You just want what you can’t have now.”
 
    “No, it’s not like that. I see things differently now.”
 
    “Whether or not that’s true, either way, it’s just too late. Can we please make this as amicable as possible? For the kids' sake? I know we have the prenup, but I’ll give you whatever you want.”
 
    What she wanted now, though, was Jim. She wanted to plead with him but could tell from the look on his face that it was useless.
 
    They sat silently for several minutes.
 
    Finally, Amy spoke, “Ok. If that’s really what you want.”
 
    Amy began collecting the dinner dishes.
 
    “You can keep the house. I’ll be at the St. Regis until I find a place. I’m just going to grab some things.”
    Amy watched Jim walk upstairs, then turned and walked into the kitchen.
 
****
 
    Amy woke the next morning in her king-sized Fretted-sheeted bed feeling as if she’d been punched in the stomach. How could things have gone so wrong? She lay in bed going over in her mind the events of the night before. She stared at the ceiling, becoming increasingly depressed and unable to move until it felt as if she might be consumed by the large luxurious bed. She briefly thought about willing herself to get up. But since the kids were at her sister’s until tomorrow, she reached over to her bedside table, took two Ambien from a bottle, and went back to sleep.
 
    When she awoke again, it was dark, and she was mad. She jolted out of bed and went to her closet. She threw on some jeans, a sweater, and her Jimmy Choo motorcycle boots and ran down the stairs to the garage. She screeched out of the garage in her silver Land Rover, barely avoiding slamming into a passing car. Then she drove, fast and hard, to the Victorian across from Dolores Park.
 
    She double parked her car without even turning the hazards on and raced up the stairs to Joan’s door. As she reached the top of the stairs, hand curled tightly into a knocking fist, she saw the silhouette of a person through the sheer curtain on the door. She started as the person opened the door slowly. It was Joan.
 
    “I was expecting you,” Joan said.
 
    “What?” Amy shouted, confused, and then, “What the fuck, Joan?”
 
    “Please don’t shout, I like to to be respectful to my neighbors.”
 
    “How about your clients? Do you like to be respectful to your clients? You fucking promised me, Joan. You’re a crook and a fake, and I’m going to expose you for what you are!”
 
    “Amy, dear, why don’t you come in. I would usually never allow anyone in without an appointment, but I can see that you’re quite distraught. I’ll make an exception this time, and perhaps I can help you to see things more clearly.”
 
    Joan turned and walked up the interior stairs, leaving the door open and Amy standing there. Amy hesitated a moment and then walked up the stairs after Joan. Joan headed directly into the room with the red curtains and Amy followed. They both sat in the chairs they’d been in the day before.
 
    “Now, what is it that’s troubling you, Amy?”
 
    “What’s troubling me?” Amy asked sarcastically. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the goddam psychic.”
 
    “No, dear, I’m no psychic. I just feel energies.”
 
    “I’m sick of your hocus-pocus bullshit. I paid you a thousand bucks to fix my marriage, and now he wants a divorce.”
 
    “Well, dear, actually, I never claimed to be able to save your marriage. I promised to rid you of the hatred that you felt for your husband.”
    “Yeah, so that I COULD SAVE MY MARRIAGE,” Amy screamed.
 
    “Well, do you now feel love for your husband, or, rather, soon-to-be ex-husband?” Joan asked.
 
    “Yeah. But now he wants to be with some other woman!”
 
    “Well, who is this woman? Does he say he loves her?”
 
    “It doesn’t fucking matter who she is. Yes, he says he loves her. And he’s been shacked up with her for the past two weeks!”
 
    “I thought you said that the two of you were still living together?” Joan asked.
 
    “We were. He was supposed to be on a business trip.”
 
    “Ah, I see,” Joan said, “Well it sounds like the geographical separation had already taken place then. I told you that could be tricky.”
 
    “Oh, sure, that’s convenient.”
 
    “Look, Amy, as I mentioned, these things don’t always end up looking the way you think they might. You’ve been able to, once again, feel love for this person who has been your husband, who is the father of your children. You’ve been able to develop empathy and compassion for this person and to see the error in some of your own ways. Perhaps you can find solace in the fact that this person that you love has found happiness?”
 
    She stared hard at Joan and was suddenly exhausted.
 
    “Never mind. I don’t even know why I’m here. What’s the point? Sorry, I guess. I’ll go. ”
 
     Amy rose from her chair, defeated, and Joan walked Amy to the door.
 
    “Bye,” Amy said and walked down the stairs.
 
    As she walked to her double-parked car, she heard Joan call out to her, “Amy.”
 
    Amy turned and looked up at her, illuminated by the moonlight. She seemed like some sort of heavenly being at that moment, and something clicked inside Amy. She knew that Joan was right. She truly was the Love Maestro.
 
    “I’d like to leave you with a quote by Ramana Maharshi: ‘Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.’”
 
    And, with that, the Love Maestro turned and shut the door. Amy stared at the closed door for a bit. Then she got into her car and drove off, feeling at peace for the first time in longer than she could remember.