The screaming woke me. A thought tugged in the back of my sleepy mind; I shouldn’t have waited.
“Ma Maaaaaa Ma Ma Maaaa,” a tiny voice said. I opened my eyes, searched for the clock, and moaned. The moaning may have been a remnant of the pleasure I had just given up in my unfinished dream, or it may have just been the disappointment in not seeing any sunlight while hearing the cries of my thirteen month old daughter. She was the light of my life. Her big sister filled a lot of space in my heart as well. It was dark out still, but the full moon shone through the large arched picture window in my bedroom. It was a great view anytime of the day or night. In the winter time, it seemed to settle in the window much of the night. It was getting into late spring, and I knew my view of the moon would start to change from my bedroom, making this too-early awakening much tougher on me. If I had to wake so early, I preferred to have a good view or at least some natural light. I didn’t need sunlight when I woke to a bright and smiling face that only wanted to see me each and every day at five in the morning.
It seemed the actions my husband and I were going through in my interrupted dream were just memories now and only appear to me in dreams. Life with two small children had taken over, and the actions it took to create those beautiful little lives were something we only saw in movies. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t remember the last time I had two hours to devote to a movie. If I had two hours to do nothing, I was sleeping or lying awake thinking of all the things I should have been doing. But I never really had two hours to do nothing.
The screaming ceased, but she was shaking her crib rail and muttering, “Uh Oh. Uh Oh,” which meant she’d dropped something out of her crib, and anything in her crib was probably important since it just spent the entire night keeping her comfortable and safe. I knew I should probably go get it for her.
“I’ll get her,” I mumble to the snoring lump beside me.
I was kidding myself again. Not only did he not hear me volunteer to get out of our warm cozy bed to rescue our daughter from her little jailhouse, but he never heard her sleep piercing scream. Though I felt very safe around this man I loved so dearly, I was convinced our house would implode around him, and I’d have to wake him to tell him to go into the light. This is what our lives had become. The kids woke up; I tended to them. Motherhood had become my life. I knew he would, if he could hear them in his sleep. While he slept, I managed their every need. Once awake, I figured I should just get up and deal with it. I was too tired at night to stay awake much past the sun going down. He was too overworked to go to bed early, so I let him sleep during most of our early mornings. However, he usually tried to get up so I could sleep, and I just got up anyway. I had been losing the battle for sleep more often than not.
In the hallway, I almost bumped into my three year old in the near darkness. She was bright eyed and cheery in the moonlight coming in through the window of the guestroom. Another beautiful view. Where was the sun? Why were they awake this early?
“Mommy, Bella woke me up. She bloomed. You have not bloomed yet, Mommy. Can I eat all my oatmeal, and then I can have a lollipop.” No, I hadn’t bloomed yet, but maybe morning blooming would come with the intake of coffee. Wiping my eyes, I wondered if she asked a question or gave me a detailed plan of action for her early morning. I couldn’t begin to think of lollipops yet, and I wasn’t even sure if we had oatmeal.
“Emily, I need to go get Bella, and then we can talk about breakfast and candy when we get downstairs. And after I have something hot and caffeinated in my body,” I said quietly, thinking about the other hot thing I’d rather have in my body, bringing my mind back to my unfinished dream. It was only a dream. I needed to wake up and get into Mommy mode. “Go on downstairs, and I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said to her, trying to sound authoritative and all-knowing but wondering how I would lift a sixteen pound baby out of the crib without dropping her while half asleep in the dark.
“Good morning, my little butterfly, flutter by, flit flit flutter bug butterfly. Good morning,” I whispered to my youngest daughter. It didn’t matter how tired I was; the sight and smell of my babies would wake me and fill me with smiles. A wonderful and warm feeling washed over me. As hard as it was, it was life.
We met Emily downstairs. I managed to scrounge something healthy for my children to eat for breakfast. It turned out we had oatmeal after all. And fresh strawberries. Bonus, I thought to myself, having passed the Mommy test for the day. As I sipped some very hot Breakfast Blend, I began to come to life. I doubt it was the actual caffeine that woke me, but rather the idea of a stimulant and something hot in the morning. It could be only hot water; it would wake me up just the same. But I did love the taste and warmth of coffee.
As the kids ate, I turned on the laptop I kept on the island in the kitchen and checked my email. I stayed at the kitchen counter, checked on the status of our flight, and looked for any news regarding our planned trip out to Virginia. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I was disappointed when there was no news to be read, like maybe a cancellation. I did, however, manage to drink an entire cup of coffee while standing there. While my attention was on coffee consumption, my girls managed to eat about half of their strawberries and oatmeal, and Bella managed to smear the rest on her jammies and high chair tray while Emily’s bowl was upside down on the floor.
“Emily, do you have your books packed yet? We are leaving tomorrow,” I said to my three year old as I read the email confirming our flight out to Virginia the next day. She was only three years old; I couldn’t exactly expect her to pack her books, but I had asked her to pick out a few favorites to take on the airplane. I knew I’d end up reading Cinderella over and over again for three hours straight, but I was also hoping the new movie I picked out would keep them both busy on the cross country flight. I remembered getting a deck of cards and wings when I flew as a small child. Today, parents take an entire playroom to entertain our children. But these are the days of sitting on tarmacs for hours and hours without knowing why the plane is not in the air, so we have to be prepared for anything. Especially with kids.
“Mommy, I just want to take Cinderelly,” Emily replies. This much I knew.
“Okay, sweetie, but maybe we’ll take some extra books just in case we decide we want to read something else, too.” Or in case we lose ‘Cinderelly,’ I thought to myself, imagining the fantastic story in a nice big trash can sitting at Gate B32 at Denver International Airport. I was a little tired of Cinderella. Maybe I knew a girl couldn’t dance with one man for an entire evening with a bunch of other women standing around watching, and then marry him the next day when his aide brings her the shoe she just happened to leave at his house. I’m cynical. Fairytales didn’t impress me much, but I’ll let my girls live them until the day I bring them into the real world. They could live in their little fairytale bubble, and Cinderella was a favorite.
With the children fed and hot coffee in my tummy, I headed upstairs to shower. I met Chris, my husband, on the stairs and told him my plans, asked him to check the flight plans one more time, print our boarding passes, and keep an eye on the kids, so I could shower without little hands all over the glass trying to touch Mommy through the shower door.
“Remind me to tell you my dream later.” I snuck in a little grab as we passed on the staircase. I may have felt older and unattractive being a mother of two little girls, but I still liked to flirt and play. I couldn’t find time or energy to actually complete the task of lovemaking.
We built our dream house two years earlier. I was reminded of how much I loved the house each time I walked into any room. My bathroom was not huge, but it was beautiful with seventeen foot ceilings and mirrors I couldn’t even reach without a ladder. I always felt like a princess when I was in our Master Bathroom. When I was there, I wanted to pamper myself and not just pee or shower. I was a housewife though, and I was reminded of my non-princess status when I had to pull the ladder out to reach and clean the mirrors. The windows were so high onl
y soaring eagles could see my post baby naked body walking around. And of course they were so high, they never got cleaned, so it was not a worry anyway. I was not going to bother with cleaning either the mirrors or windows though. I planned to stand in a hot shower, shave my legs, and maybe sit on the built-in bench while the hot water ran down my face and back, waking me up even more. I needed all the rejuvenation I could get. Our shower was a great place for a lot of things. The bench was great to sit on, great to put my feet on while I shaved, and I thought it was a great place to connect with my husband. But usually his showers were at five in the morning, and my showers were spent with little hands all over the door and conversations I couldn’t really hear with a three year old. Chris and I didn’t really have time to connect in the shower or out.
The shower was a great place think. In less than twenty four hours, I would be flying back home. As each year passed, it grew harder to go home. This time it was almost frightening. So much time had passed between me and home. The place, the people, the lifestyle. So many things had changed over the years. The water running down my neck and face was hot and hid the tears running down my cheeks. The shower was also a good place to cry. And think. And cry. And wonder why I was crying.
My mind began to wander to another time, another place. Another song. I’d never forgotten the lyrics. A song written for me by Will, in a time when we knew we loved one another, but he was backing away and beginning to withdraw from me.
Another place, another time
You would have been so good for me.
Another you, oh it’s in your sign,
you could have been, oh so good for me.
Your lost soul,
searching me,
finding me, longing for you.
Oh, another place, another time,
I would have been so good for you.
Another me, oh it’s in my sign,
I could have been, so good for you.
My lost soul,
it is searching you,
found you wanting me.
Oh another place, another time,
oh you know, I would, would you?
Ohhhh, Another place, another time.
Would you-oo?
Will sat in a rickety little boat with his old guitar singing to all the people lined up on the beach awaiting the start of the regatta. His new song, ‘Another Place, Another Time,’ was written about us. I sat near some tall grass almost hiding from the crowd enthralled with the sound of his voice, his talented fingers running up and down the neck of his guitar. I had given him a new, beautiful guitar, and though I wanted to see him play it, and I wanted to take offense because he wasn’t playing it, I knew he’d never bring it on to the boat where it might get damaged. He did cherish his Takamine guitar I had given him. I wished he’d cherished me as much. I sat there with sand on top of my toes and grass tickling my cheeks wondering why, if we were so perfect, we’d only be a great fit if it were another time. When would it be time for us?
I picked myself up off the shower floor. There were times when I needed water to drench my tears, hide my emotions, and swallow my sorrows, I just sat right on the drain where I felt like I was in a warm rain. I wiped the tears from my eyes, reeling from the memory of the beginning of the end with Will, and tried to shake off the hurt, sorrow, and questions I still had after all those years.
I was a happy person. I felt lucky. I was Nikki Ford, formerly Nikki Jackson, before I married my wonderful husband, Christopher Ford. And he was wonderful. I loved him, and I had loved him for many years. Nikki Jackson once loved a man named Will Westerly. The one who got away, so to speak. The Romeo and Juliet summer love which didn’t last. It lasted more than a summer. It lasted two years, actually, and those years were the best of my life. They were a time in my life when I was who I wanted to be. I was a free spirit, happy, and young. I was a songwriter, an artist, a painter in love, with dreams and hopes. Will was the great guy who never wanted to get married and never wanted kids. After two years of bliss, we had to walk away. From each other. Our hopes and dreams were different. He walked away from me. He walked away from my dreams. And then left me with a broken heart.
My family and I had been invited back home, to Deltaville, Virginia, to attend his wedding after all these years. The wedding of the man who never wanted to get married. I was happy for him. And for her. And I wasn’t sad it wasn’t me; I was already married. It was just bittersweet; I guess. And for it all, I cried. Or maybe I cried because I was so tired and couldn’t seem to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Maybe I was crying because I missed sex, and I didn’t know how to get it back. Maybe I was crying because I was going back home. Home was always hard for me to envision. Home was Colorado with my husband, my children, and our cat. But home was also eighteen hundred miles away where I grew up. And it tended to stay the same while I grew and changed, but it also changed each year in ways that hurt my heart. Even without a wedding, change is tough to look at in the face. The shower was a place to let it all out and cleanse my entire system. When I exited the shower, my body and face were both red from crying and from the hot water running down my soft skin. I was glad to not only be free of little hands all over the shower door, but also free of Chris for the moment. I would have hated for him to see me cry. I think he would have hated to see me cry, and not because he’d want to hold me and sooth and comfort me, but because he’d be uncomfortable, would wonder what he did wrong, and turn and walk out of the room anyway. I was glad to not have to face him. I was pleased to have an alone moment. More tears were freed from my eyes.
The rest of the day rushed by in a blur. Getting to the other side of the country alone was a lot of work. Dragging two kids along was next to impossible. There were a lot of things to pack and prepare before getting two small kids to the playground or the mall. To get on an airplane or in the car for a long trip, we might as well take the entire house. My day was spent packing it all up, arranging and rearranging suitcases and carryon bags, and negotiating with a three year old over what could and couldn’t be taken and with my husband over what was needed and not needed. He was an extremely grounded person and traveled often for business. He told me to leave the kitchen sink at home and reminded me entire wardrobes were not necessary because laundry could always be done while visiting my family in Virginia. I still managed to sneak some extras into the luggage because it’s what mothers do. I tried to come and go prepared. It was the least I could do to feel prepared for the trip.
Chapter Two
They say you can’t go home again. I managed to do it about once a year. Each time I did, I was astounded at the change. Boulder changed each year with more and more people moving in, old neighborhoods falling down, and eight thousand square foot homes peppering the Front Range. But for me, coming back to Virginia and noticing the amount of change was almost painful. There didn’t seem to be much progression in the area where I spent my childhood, just tree growth and age. It was the aging all around that pulled at my heart strings. We are all aging, I knew, but Deltaville seemed to be on warp speed for aging but not for growth.
The Richmond International Airport had changed over the years. It was bigger and maybe even better. When we got off the plane, we followed the signs to baggage then to car rentals, spent the next thirty minutes loading the car, before finally leaving the airport. For an airport, it was actually a fairly easy and quick process. I was grateful for efficiency with our children tired and hungry after the long flight. The drive down interstate 64 east towards the Chesapeake Bay was uneventful but served as a reminder that the few trees in Colorado were planted generations before, keeping the views lingering forever and the skies vast. The skies in that part of Virginia weren’t visible beyond the tree line. Nothing was visible. I could feel claustrophobia settling inside my stomach once we were in the car. The interstate was a tunnel of tall, skinny pines. I could only see about a quarter of a mile ahead of myself. After years of growing up in the area, I knew what lay beyon
d the trees. Deltaville, the town where I moved when I was only six years old. The place where I spent my childhood, staying out in town until sundown, or when my dad whistled to let my sister and me know it was time to come home. Deltaville, the boat builders’ capital of the world, or so I thought when I was growing up. They did have a sign at the entrance of town touting they were the boat building capital of the Chesapeake Bay. At a mile wide and three miles long, surrounded by water, it sure was a beautiful place to spend a childhood, but driving down the interstate heading toward the exit that would take us to Deltaville, I felt a sense of dread. This wasn’t just a visit home to see my family. This was a trip to say goodbye to someone I once loved; goodbye to a love which was never allowed to flourish and grow. This was a journey of acceptance where the past met the present. Where Chris and Will would maybe shake hands. Where Will could look at my daughters with wonder. Maybe I was hoping for too much there; he never wanted children either.
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