Wild Horses

A novel, based on a true story

by Rebecca A.

 

Chapter Twenty-three.

Two weeks before Steve's trial Julia gave birth to a healthy seven pound baby girl. Dan flew me down to Jackson, and Pris met me at the airport, and we both went to see her and Pete and the baby. They all looked wonderful. She had Julia's face, but she had Steve's eyes, from her grandmother I suppose. Pris took about two hundred photos, and I took a mere twenty with a camera that Dan had lent me. I hugged Julia and got to hold the baby and joked with Pete about how many identities the baby would grow up with. It gave me a small shock to see Julia and Pete together with the baby and realize that they were parents. They were only a few years older than me, and here they were with this small, very dependent little person who needed them so much. When I looked at Julia nursing the baby I almost wanted to cry. It was all very, very beautiful, and yet very sobering too.

While we were there I finally got to meet Mrs. Hammond. She swept into the room and made a beeline straight for the baby, and started off talking to Julia without even acknowledging any of the rest of us. I didn't really mind, because it gave me a chance to take stock of this woman. Steve's mother. She had already seen the baby before, but that seemed to make little difference, and she fussed and spluttered over the child as though she'd never seen a baby before, let alone had two herself nearly twenty-five years earlier.

Valerie was a good looking woman, although I could see that her drinking had taken its toll. She had the same gorgeous bone structure that Julia did. When Julia introduced us I saw her eyes for the first time, and I could see a lot of Steve in them, until Julia mentioned that I was Steve's girlfriend and whatever sparkle had been in them went cold. She eyed me up and down and seemed to find me wanting, so she turned back to Julia without even saying hello and continued talking as though neither Pris nor I was even in the room. I looked at Pris and she shrugged. The two of us sat down in the chairs at the side of the room and talked quietly to Pete for the next half hour until Mrs. Hammond left.

Julia looked good, although I could tell she was tired. Pete looked even more tired, but it was obvious the two of them were very happy. I joked with Pete about anarchy and children. Pris ventured that kids were anarchic enough without needing any political philosophy, and Julia laughed. Pete, she said, had told her he was going to get respectable now that he was a father. "As if", she said, smiling. Pete looked both guilty and offended at the same time.

Pris and I had dinner with Pete that night, and then stayed overnight in Jackson in the same scummy motel on the north side of town that Pete was holed up in. The Hammonds still weren't really acknowledging Pete as the father of their granddaughter. He pretended not to mind "that bunch of asswipes" as he called them, but it was obvious he was hurt. I said I hoped that they would come to their senses for the sake of the baby, but looking at Pris and Pete I could tell that none of us thought that was very likely.

Coming back to Atlanta was hard. I was glad I had been to see everyone, but I knew that not seeing the baby would make prison seem doubly confining for Steve, and I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to talk to him about it. I made sure to get the photos developed before my trip out to the prison on Monday night, so that at least I had something to show him, but I couldn't help but feel as I passed them across the table that I was watching him on the brink of losing it. I was right, I could see in his face that he was both happy, for Julia, and tormented, for himself. I hoped Julia would be able to come back to Atlanta to visit soon, so that he could at least see the baby.

Over the next three visits I could see that Steve was getting worse. He'd been moved into solitary confinement after a fight. I was still allowed to see him because of my paralegal credentials, but he was denied other visitation rights, and only allowed out of his cell for one hour a day, alone in the yard. I knew only too well what he was going through. I had sustained myself at Brand through books, and Steve had music. His guitar playing was extraordinary now. I had never heard such intensity before. I arranged to have his Gibson brought in, and one afternoon we played together, Steve on the 12 string and me on the old Ibanez, singing some of the old songs we'd last performed more than eight months earlier. At first I thought the guard was going to stop us from playing, because after all it was hardly a legal conference, but he relented and stayed out of sight and let us continue. It was beautiful, but sad, too, because both of us were reminded of how things had been before Steve was arrested. We sang some Neil Young together.

"I was lying in a burned out basement

With the full moon in my eyes

Hoping for a replacement

When the sun burst through the sky"

Each time I visited in the next month I hoped that we could continue playing, because I had thought that they might have helped him get through the times alone, but somehow even in solitary Steve managed to get heroin, I guess from one of the guards, and he was glassy-eyed when I saw him. He was still prepared to play, but somehow I didn't have the heart for it.

"There was a band playing in my head

And I felt like getting high

I was thinking about what a friend had said

And hoping it was a lie."

He was lucid and clear again on the Friday evening before he was due to go to trial. Unfortunately I wasn't in great shape that night. It had been a long, tough day at work while Bill was preparing a big case, and I was exhausted by the time I arrived. I had started that morning at 7.30am, and apart from all the work I had been doing for Bill and Shelley I was trying to help Bob's assistant Debbie finalize some of the stuff for Steve's trial, too, so I stayed at work until 5.30 instead of my usual 3pm Friday finish.

As I was finishing up Elaine called me over. "Emma, I got something back from Social Security -- something about your file." I swallowed and asked what the problem was, but Elaine said she was just mentioning it so we could make some time to meet on Monday. I knew what the problem was -- the numbers wouldn't match up. I had no idea what I would do when she confronted me with the evidence, but I would have to think of something quickly.

I didn't make it out to the prison until 7pm. I was surprised but pleased to see Steve happy and apparently drug free. When we were alone and out of sight I hugged him, and he kissed me for the first time in almost a month. It was beautiful. I thought to myself afterward that I would never be able to kiss Wiley again, because there was only one man who would be able to move me like that. We broke apart nervously, and made small talk for a while, before Steve touched my hand and told me, quite out of the blue, how much he loved me, how much he had always loved me.

***

On Saturday night Wiley drove me home after we'd been out dancing with some friends. I was high from all the exercise, and probably still a little drunk from some beer we'd had earlier at his friend's house. So when he turned the engine off to talk to me before I went inside, I was relaxed, and not at all nervous as I had been the first time we'd dated.

Wiley was talking about his Dad's business. We often talked in the car after we'd been out together, and when he talked about serious personal stuff he often looked straight ahead through the windscreen rather than directly at me. As we sat there that night he was staring ahead as he talked about his plans for the future. Encouraged by me, he had started to think that he could do medicine if he put his mind to it, but he still wasn't sure how to break that to his parents.

"I think they'll be okay, Wiley. They'll probably be pleased that you've decided to follow your heart." I smiled reassuringly.

He turned to face me. "I've always been following my heart, Emma." He leant across the car and I could tell he was going to kiss me. I remembered my vow of the night before, but I was weak, and I didn't offer any resistance. His lips met mine, and his arm went around me and his other hand moved to my shoulder.

I don't know why I didn't resist him that night. I can't entirely blame the alcohol, or the fact that dancing with him always left me sexually charged. It wasn't any of those things on their own. It was that I liked him, and although I loved Steve I was lonely. I was lonely. Even though I didn't get the charge from him I got from Steve, it was a beautiful kiss. Different than Steve's, but beautiful. For a few moments I almost forgot where I was, and let myself go, but eventually I pulled back. "Wiley, I --"

"-- Shhh," He said, running his hand over my shoulder and down my arm to take my hand. "It's alright, Emma."

"No, Wiley, it's --"

"-- Let it go, Emma. You've been good to him, but you can't live life like a nun. He'll understand."

I pulled back further. "What do you mean?"

"I know about Steve, Emma. I know how hard it's been for you."

I was taken aback. Were we talking about the same thing? "What do you know?"

"Well..." He moved his arm from around me so that he could sit up straighter and give me a little bit of space, although he kept holding on to my other hand. "I was, you know, intrigued by who the heck this mystery boyfriend was who you never seemed to go out with, even though you said he was in town. And I remembered the name of your band... So, I was working at my Uncle's a few months ago and I think I said something about how great your singing was and how you used to be in a band, and this other guy who works there said he'd heard the band. He was in the audience the night you ... the night that the shooting happened." Wiley looked down at our hands, and then back up to my eyes. "I wasn't trying to pry, it was just something I found out."

I nodded. I didn't know what to say. I was sorry he'd found out that way. I wondered how hard it had been for him to learn that he was seeing the girlfriend of a junkie murderer? "I should have told you, Wiley. I'm sorry. I didn't know how to."

"It's okay, Emma. You were right, it really wasn't any of my business..." He put his hand to the side of my face. "I can't imagine how tough it's been for you."

I didn't know what to say. When I didn't say anything Wiley kissed me again. For some reason I let him keep kissing me. Then I think something broke inside me and I started crying, sobbing huge, desperate sobs and gulping for air in a very unromantic way. Wiley put his arm around me again and tried to console me. "Shhhh. It's okay... it'll be okay."

Eventually I cried myself out and we both sat there in the car, not saying anything. It felt good to be in his arms, and eventually I lay my head on his shoulder to relax. When I turned my face back toward him he kissed me again. I sniffled, broke the kiss, and then giggled. "Sorry. I'm a mess, huh?"

He didn't say anything, just kissed me again. And then again. I raised my hand up to the back of his neck. He kissed me more passionately. I put my other arm around him and he began to kiss my neck. I think I moaned. My neck is ... it's my weakness. I felt his hand move to my shoulder, and then, a few moments later, to my breast. He was still kissing me, little feathery whispery kisses across my neck and behind my ear, and then he began to stroke my breast. I felt his hand undo the top button of my blouse, and then the next button, and then begin to caress me through my bra. I didn't care. He was whispering in my ear, very softly, between those feathery kisses. "I love you, Emma... I love you. I've never forgotten you since that first night we met, in Oxford."

I wasn't really hearing him. My insides had turned to jello. He had his hands around the back of my blouse as he kissed the front of my neck and then down, down. I could feel him undo my bra, and then feel his finger stroke my erect nipple, then both of them. He nestled his face in my chest, and slipped the bra up over my breasts so it lay on my chest above them. He had his hands on both my breasts and his face in my cleavage, and then his mouth was on my nipple and I think I gasped. It felt so good. Oh, it felt wonderful. Ohhhhhhh...

He moved one of his hands to my shoulder and then to my neck, to caress it. Oh god. I wanted him so much. But we couldn't...

I felt his hand go from my neck down to my leg, and then underneath my skirt. I raised his head from my chest. "Wiley..."

He lifted his head briefly. "It's okay, Emma." Then he sucked on my nipple while his hand caressed my other breast.

"No, no, it's not, Wiley. Not here." I lifted his hand from my breast.

He lifted his head again, and kept it up. "Emma..."

I slid away from him and pulled my bra down over my breasts. It felt awkward getting them into the cups that way. "No, Wiley. We can't."

He looked at me with a wounded look on his face.

"Wiley, I just can't. I'm sorry."

"Sorry, Emma." He straightened up and took his hand off my leg.

"Well, then we're both sorry."

"I'm not really sorry," he said with a small grin.

I laughed and hit him gently. "Bastard. Taking advantage of me like that."

"I do love you, Emma," he said more seriously.

"I know. Oh, Wiley, I don't know what to do."

"It's okay, Emma. I love you, but I recognize ... you know, you love Steve, and ..."

"It's not just that, Wiley. I'm very... very fond of you, too." I couldn't bring myself to say love. I think I did love Wiley. Not the way I loved Steve, but there was something there in my heart for him all the same. But I wasn't ready to say that then. "But it's not just Steve, it's... well, there's other stuff, too. But I can't talk about that." I sat up and straightened my clothes.

"I'm a patient guy, Emma."

"I've noticed." I said. "Although not so patient tonight."

He smiled a slightly sad smile and reached out a hand to stroke my hair. "I don't want to make life difficult for you, Emma. You let me know if you change your mind, okay?"

***

Sunday morning I made my way out to the prison. It was a pleasant morning, and I was on the side of the bus that got the most sun, and in any other circumstances I think I might have been tempted to nod off during the journey. But my trips out to the prison were never very lighthearted ones, and I'd been more worried than ever about Steve in the few weeks leading up to the trial, especially as his drug use had increased. Instead I sat on the bus and brooded about the forthcoming trial, and the certainty that Steve and I would never be together, free, again.

The guard admitted me to the lobby and I made my way across to the checkpoint to have my bag inspected. The guards had long since stopped frisking me for contraband, which at least gave me some idea of how drugs were getting into the prison.

As I made my way across the ten feet or so of floor I caught the eye of Jerry, the head guy on duty that morning, and he averted his eyes from mine. I was taken aback. It wasn't as though I could call any of the screws friends, but over the ten months I'd been coming to the prison I'd gotten to know them pretty well, and Jerry had never behaved that way before.

"Morning," I said to Keith, the guard who would normally search my bag.

Keith looked nervously at Jerry, and then turned back to me quietly and said, "Morning Miz Donaldson. I'm 'fraid we can't let you in this mornin'."

"Pardon?" I said.

"If you're here to see Hammond," Jerry said, finally giving me his attention, "then we can't let you in."

"What? What do you mean?" I looked around, as though somebody else could help explain what was going on, and then I saw Dan and Bob Douglas coming through the door from outside.

Dan met my eyes and I knew that something terrible, horrible, was about to happen. He and Bob crossed the floor in what seemed like slow motion and he took my arm. "Emma. They called just after you left. It's Steve. He's dead."

 

***

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Everything fell apart. Everything. I don't recall what I said. I don't know if I said anything at the time. I don't even remember leaving the prison. I do remember the inside of Dan's Jaguar as he and Bob drove me home -- back to the Arsenaults', I mean. I wasn't really sure where 'home' was any more.

I didn't cry. I didn't cry at all. For a few hours I just went through the motions of living, nodding when people spoke to me and drinking the things they gave me. A doctor came to take a look at me but I don't remember too much about that. By late afternoon Cindy and Dan had decided it was okay to leave me by myself so long as I took the medication the doctor had left and slept. Cindy counted out two pills for me and I swallowed them and put myself to bed. It was while I was lying there, before sleep, that I thought of Steve, in the prison the night before, calmly taking too much junk, alone in that gray blank hole of a cell while I lay in Wiley's arms, betraying him. And then I cried.

I didn't dream. I suppose it was the medication. I had been half afraid of sleep, afraid of what Steve would say to me when I dreamt, but whatever drugs the doctor had prescribed knocked me out completely. I didn't wake until early Monday.

It wasn't quite light yet outside. I lay in bed looking out through the window at the color of the sky as it slowly began to lighten. My head felt woolly and thick. I suppose that was the residual effect of the drugs. A little part of me was surprised how calm I was. I remembered the things Bob had said the day before, about Steve's overdose and the call that he had received at 5am Sunday, and I remembered the call that had come through from Pris in the afternoon, trying to cheer me in some small way. I remembered Cindy and Dan's concern, and Cindy carefully rationing the sleeping pills as though she was afraid I would overdose. And I remembered my tears the night before. But that morning what I felt was different, something calm, almost resigned. I wondered whether it was the same emotion Steve had felt before he had shot himself up that last time. I knew the overdose was deliberate.

Mostly I just felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness. The last time I saw him hadn't given me clues about him killing himself. Not that I had recognized. He hadn't said goodbye with any more gravity. He had been clean, and he had told me he loved me with more fervor than usual, but I had put the intensity of his kisses down to his being drug-free for the first time in weeks.

I thought of his face, and his arms around me, and the feelings I had when he touched me. I thought of the time we had spent together, in Brand, at the cabin the night Travis was killed, at the river near Oxford, in the bar at Elroy's. I heard his voice, in my head, singing the songs he loved so much. And then I thought him singing "Tired of living, is easy to do," then the interview room at the prison. And I thought of some of the other inmates I'd seen.

I felt hollow, as though everything that ever mattered had been suctioned out of me.

I got up and put on my robe. Dan would be getting up soon for his morning run, and I wanted to be on my own. I padded down the stairs to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice, then carried it over to the window. The sky was just beginning to be tinged with yellow. In a few moments it would be light.

I sat down at the kitchen table and noticed the bottle of pills on the kitchen counter. I leant over and picked them up. Take two at night, the label said. I held it in my hand and looked at the remainder of my orange juice. Then I undid the top of the bottle and smoothly, in one motion, poured the entire contents, maybe 30 pills, into my mouth. 'Fuck,' I thought, as I raised the orange juice to my lips. 'It's too many, I'll never be able to swallow them all.' I got about half of them down and knew I had to spit the remainder into my hand. Quickly I stood and spat out about fifteen pills. They left a horrible bitter chalky taste in my mouth. I went to the fridge and got out the orange juice, then put the remaining pills back into my mouth and swallowed them with the orange juice straight from the container.

Then I slowly walked up the stairs to go back to bed and wait for death to come free me.

***

 

It was because I had to get the orange juice again that I fucked it up. If I had been able to swallow all the pills in one go I would have calmly screwed the cap of the pill bottle back on and replaced it on the counter and nobody would have noticed for at least a few hours, and by that time everything would have been over. But when I got up to get the orange juice a second time I still had half a mouthful of pills, and the horrible taste they left in my mouth as I expelled them into my hand interrupted my chain of thought so I forgot to screw the cap back on, leaving it and the bottle on the kitchen table like a bright red flashing alarm for Dan to find when he came downstairs a few minutes later to begin his morning run. He didn't even come up to check on me first, he just dialed the number for the ambulance immediately and yelled for Cindy. I think I can dimly recall that shout, but I could be imagining that. Your brain does strange things when it's just about to slip into unconsciousness.

It was Pris's face I saw first. She was sitting right next to the bed, with one hand clutching mine under the hospital blankets. The first thing I though when I saw her was that the light on her face from the lamp over my bed made her short dark hair shine like it was sprinkled with gold. She saw me open my eyes and the look on her face made me snap them shut again. "She's awake," I heard her say, but I didn't hear anything else and she say anything else.

I didn't want to talk to any of them. I still didn't want to talk to anyone. I kept my eyes closed and lay still, hoping they would go away. I kept still for what seemed like fifteen minutes, believing they would think I had gone back to sleep and would leave without saying anything. But when I opened my eyes again. they were still there, Cindy and Pris seated in the chairs beside the bed and Dan standing behind them.

If I felt worthless before I took the pills I felt even more worthless now. Fuck, I couldn't even commit suicide properly.

"Emma, I know things have been bad, but everything is going to be okay," Dan said gently.

I stayed mute.

"It's alright, honey, you don't have to say anything," Cindy said. Looking at her eyes I could see genuine compassion. That made me feel worse. I didn't want everyone to feel sorry for me, or feel sympathy for me. I didn't deserve any of it. Looking at Pris and Cindy and Dan made me feel even more in debt to them, and even more undeserving, and when Cindy opened her mouth to say something else that enormous well of self-pity I was collecting inside me swelled, and a few tears ran down my cheeks.

Pris reached over with a tissue to wipe the tears from my face. The look of concern on her face was too much for me, and I burst into great, heaving sobs of pity, for myself, for Steve, for everyone who had ever had the misfortune to meet me and watch their lives turn bad.

"I, I can't..." I said.

"You don't have to," said Pris. "You don't have to do anything."

"You don't understand. It's not just Steve, it's everything." I was gasping out my words between sobs. "It's me. I just can't --"

"It's all right, Em," Pris said, and she stood up and took my head in her arms and let me sob into her sweater. "There's nothing wrong with you."

The enormity of everything I had to say sat in my mouth like a huge wad of cotton. I couldn't begin to think how I could get words out that would mean anything. I let her hold me for a long time.

Eventually I stopped crying. "It's alright," Pris said again.

"You don't understand." I sat up, still hugging Pris as she hugged me.

"What don't we understand, honey," Cindy asked gently.

"I'm a boy!" I blurted out. I really hadn't meant to. Although I had run a scene in which I confessed to Pris over and over again in my head I had always imagined telling her calmly, and carefully, in a way that wouldn't make her think of me as a freak. I had never managed to get the scene to play right in my head, and at that moment I understood why. There just isn't any calm and easy way to say something like that.

"You could have fooled me,' Pris said lightly.

I hesitated, and then threw caution to the wind. "No, really!" I pulled myself away from her and looked straight into her eyes. "My name is Michael Boyle, and I was at James Brand for rape and murder and I escaped with Steve and I'm a boy."

I could see Pris and Dan exchange glances as though they thought I was crazy.

"Goodness, so you used to be a boy" Cindy said. "Is that all? Honey, you don't want to worry about that."

We all looked at her.

"Some things make sense, now, but you shouldn't worry about a little think like that. I've known lots of girls like you, without half your charms," Cindy continued. "Daddy's house always seemed to be full of them. I sometimes wondered whether half the girls I met through the music business weren't really boys. Have you ever met Amanda Lear? She's a friend of Mick's. I think she's Salvador Dali's mistress now. A little spot of bother about gender never stopped her from getting ahead in life."

"You don't --"

"-- Don't be silly," she said. "It doesn't matter what's between your legs, Emma, it's what's in your head that counts. And you're as much of a girl in there as I've ever seen. Now, what was this other nonsense about rape and murder?"

I looked at Dan, and then at Pris. I think Cindy being so matter-of-fact about my revelation had suddenly made them believe in what I had said, and I could see shock in Dan's eyes, but a kind of recognition in Pris's. She reached out her hand and touched me on the cheek. "I believe you, Emma, if that helps."

"I'm sorry," I muttered, and turned to Dan. "I'm really, really sorry. I didn't want to deceive you."

"I'm not sure I do," Dan said. "Believe you, that is. No offense, Emma, but you don't look like... well, you know. And I think I know you well enough to know you'd never murder anyone."

I looked at the three of them, looking at me, and I drew a deep breath and began to tell them my story.

 

***

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Five.

I was discharged from the hospital the following day. Dan and Cindy came to pick me up. Pris had been there almost continuously ever since she'd flown in. Although I was still feeling hollow and miserable I had to concede that it made a difference to me, having her around. It especially helped when the doctor showed up to talk to me for the first time. Unlike my previous stay at Northside they found out all about my odd physique this time, because they'd had to undress me to remove the fouled nightgown I was wearing when I was brought in. The doctor was trying to be discreet but I asked Pris to stay, and it helped to have someone who cared about me present to fend off some of the more difficult questions about how I came to be the way I was.

I didn't tell him the truth, of course. One of the first things Cindy had said when I finished explaining myself was that I should keep the how and why of my situation to myself until after I was discharged, and it turned out to be good advice. I pretended to the doctor that taking hormones had been entirely my idea. He seemed shocked enough by the whole thing that he didn't delve too deeply into detail with his questions.

After I got back to Dan and Cindy's Pris made sure to be with me almost all the time. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the three of them were making sure I wasn't left alone to do something stupid to myself. Over the next few weeks I understood how stupid it was, but at first I just felt so depressed and powerless that I would have seized almost any opportunity to try again if I thought it might have worked.

It was Pris who managed to get me thinking about life again. As opposed to dwelling on everything that had already happened. Her first question to me after I had finished telling her my story had been "so, do you want to be a boy? Is that the problem?" I realized, for the very first time, that I was much more comfortable being Emma than I ever had been being Michael. It wasn't just the way my body was that made me feel that, it was something inside myself. In the past I had told myself that I was happy being Emma because of Steve, but now that Steve was gone I couldn't rely on that anymore. I reached inside myself and I saw ... Emma. For better or worse, that was who I was. There wasn't any Michael. He belonged to a world that was years ago and far away.

The one thing I hadn't counted on having to deal with was Wiley. He had been begging Dan and Cindy to let him see me for at least two weeks before I relented and said I was ready. I wasn't, but there really wasn't any way for me to put him off any longer. I knew even before I saw him that he would be upset about me trying to kill myself. He was, of course, but he held that in for the first few minutes after Cindy let him in to see me in the living room. We were alone, standing about ten feet from one another, trying to negotiate the space between us without injuring one another.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, I think so," I said.

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm not about to slash my wrists, if that's what you're worried about."

"Emma, don't. I'm not trying to make you feel bad."

"I know. I'm sorry, Wiley."

"Well." He paused and looked around the room before his eyes came back to me again. "I was surprised. But then I heard about your boyfriend, and --"

"Wiley?"

"Yes?"

"I don't really want to get into the reasons why, okay? I'm sorry. I don't want to dwell on it too much. Yes, I was screwed up. I'm sorry about that. I'm okay now. Well, not okay, but, you know..." I shrugged and sat down. Wiley came and sat next to me.

"Um. So..." I began. I wasn't sure where I wanted this to go, but I knew that denying everything wasn't going to work any more. "So, there's something I have to tell you, and it might go some way to explaining why. But it might also mean you won't ever want to see me again."

"I doubt that, Emma. About not wanting to see you again, I mean. What are you going to tell me? That you've done something terrible, I bet."

I started to interrupt, but he shushed me.

"No, wait. It doesn't matter, Emma. I don't care what it is, I just want you to know that I care about you, and I know you're hurting and I know it will take you a long time to forget about what happened to Steve --" He must have seen my expression change because he quickly corrected himself. "Not that I'm saying you'll ever forget him. But, you know, I'd like to think that you care about me, too. And I love you, and whether we have any future together or not I'd like you to know that you can count on me to be there when you need me."

"Wiley, I..." I wasn't any surer of where to start than I had been with the Arsenault's at the hospital. I sat for a few moments to collect my thoughts.

"It's okay, Emma," Wiley interrupted. "Whatever it is, it's okay."

"Wiley, I'm not who you think I am," I began. I looked him in the eyes and then it was so hard to say. "I'm, I'm not really a girl."

At first he looked puzzled, then he smiled. "You're growing up, Emma."

"No, Wiley. What I mean is that I used to be a boy."

His smile faded and he looked puzzled for a moment, and then a wave of fear passed briefly across his face and he looked for a few moments, almost as though he'd been confronted with a gun. "What?"

"What I said. I used to be a boy."

There was an agonizing silence. I could see his eyes move across my face, and then my chest, and then that look of confusion cross his face again, and then the look of fear.

"You, you... You had a sex change."

"Not exactly. Not, um, not yet."

"Oh, my god." He stood up, and took several steps away from me. I stood up too. He stepped toward me as though he was going to touch me. The expression on his face told me he wasn't sure whether he knew that I was real or not. "God. You're not joking, are you?"

"No, Wiley, I'm not."

He took several more steps back.

"Emma... Emma. What's your real name?" He held up his hand. "No. No, I don't want to know that."

"I had to tell you, Wiley."

"Uh huh."

Neither of us said anything for a few moments.

"So, you and Steve were..." Wiley began, but his voice petered out. He shook his head as though he was trying to clear it. "Emma. I don't know if I can discuss this right now. I don't know if I can still feel the same way about you. I don't know... I don't know anything, not any more."

He looked me directly in the eyes for a moment, and then turned and left the room. A moment later I could hear the front door open and then close. He was gone.

Pris was in the room almost immediately after Wiley had left, hugging me tightly and holding my head to her breast. "Don't go thinking about it too much, Emma. It's for the best. If he can't love you the way you are..."

***

Wiley came back three weeks later.

Pris had gone back to college. I was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea before bed. Dan and Cindy were still out at a business dinner. It was so unusual for someone to knock at our door without an invitation that I was briefly startled. There aren't too many people go door to door in Buckhead, especially at 11.00pm. I glanced out the window next to the door before I opened it. He must have noticed me move the curtain to do that, because our eyes met through the glass. It looked like he had been crying.

Hesitantly I opened the door. "Wiley."

"Hi, Emma. Uh, do you mind if I come in?"

"Um, it's kind of late, Wiley."

"Uh, yeah. I know that. It's just..." He looked around, then back at me, and shrugged. "Only for a few minutes. Please?"

I was reluctant to let him in, but I swung the door wider, and he came into the hallway. I led him into the kitchen. "I'm just having some tea. You want some?"

"Uh, no." He shuffled his feet. The thing is, Emma... I came to say I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" I stood next to the kitchen table and picked up my tea. Wiley came across and stood close. Close enough to touch me if he wanted to. I was momentarily nervous.

"Yeah, you know. I behaved like a jerk."

"I dunno, Wiley, you know, if that was the way you felt --"

"It was. But I was, well, confused. I mean, it's not something anyone ever said to me before."

'Hah, I bet." I laughed quietly, bitterly. "So you have a bunch of questions, I guess."

"Well, maybe, if you want to talk to me about it."

I wasn't sure about that. "Wiley, you really hurt me."

"I know. I know. I fucked up. Emma, I'm sorry."

"I mean," I started, then stopped. "I had to tell you, Wiley. Up till then, through everything, the thing with Steve, you know, you stuck by me. I misinterpreted it, I guess. I thought if you were just trying to get into my pants --"

"There was that too," Wiley smiled. He pulled my hair back from my face and took my chin in his hand to turn me to face him. "Emma, stop torturing yourself. It's okay. Yes, I love you. Yes, I've been in love with you since the first time I saw you at that party all that time ago in Oxford. So yes, the attraction I felt for you, well, there was a big physical component. But you should know me well enough by now to know that a pretty face and a great body aren't enough for me. I fell in love with you, with the you that's inside your incredibly beautiful body --"

"It's alright, Wiley. Stop. Okay."

He kissed me, and I let him, and we hugged, and I let him do that, too.

***

Pris made me promise to use some of my free time to come back to Mississippi. I was reluctant to go, because there were so many ghosts for me there, but she laid the trump card on me right away. Elroy. Elroy had called me almost every day since I had been released from the hospital. Pris told me he had wanted to come and see me but she had persuaded him that I needed time before I saw too many people. Now, Pris said, it was time.

The other trump was the baby. I hadn't seen Lindy, as Julia and Pete had called her, since immediately after her birth, in Jackson. They were all living back in Oxford, "far enough away" from Julia's parents that Pete didn't feel too uncomfortable.

I flew into Memphis, and Vanessa met me at the airport. I hadn't seen her since that time after our first gig in Memphis, but she hadn't changed at all. She swept across the gate lounge like a force of nature, and gathered me into her arms before I could properly say hello. When she let me go again I could see scores of people staring at us, but I didn't mind. I still didn't know Vanessa all that well, but I couldn't help but like her style. It was easy to see why she and Cary had been friends.

Vanessa and I caught a cab downtown, to the Peabody. When I had said that I wanted to overnight in Memphis Cindy had insisted I stay at the Peabody. For once I didn't argue. I had never forgotten the place after the first night I had met Vanessa there, and I had never stayed in a proper hotel before, just scummy motels on the road while we were touring. It turned out that Cindy knew someone who knew someone who knew the CEO of the company that owned the place, so I got a good rate. I put all the charges on the card Dan had given me, as we'd agreed.

After I had checked in Vanessa and I sat downstairs in the bar, and I enjoyed myself watching Vanessa intimidate the waiter into not carding me. She gave me news from Cary, who was happily shacked up with a sugar-daddy industrialist twice his age. I had sent Vanessa a letter after my release from hospital, so she already knew about Steve's death, but I had to fill her in on everything that had happened to me before that, and the events since. We talked on through our third vodka and tonic, and then went a few doors up from the hotel for burgers and beers. We were sitting at a table in the burger place when two cops came in and sat at the table behind me. For the first time in my life I didn't become anxious. I had nothing to fear from the police now. I had a place in the world, a kind of family again, and people who loved and protected me. For the first time in my life I felt like I belonged.

At noon the next day Pris arrived at the hotel to drive me back to Mississippi in a shiny new Volkswagen Rabbit convertible. "Cindy convinced me it was okay for Daddy to finally buy me a car," she said as the porters loaded my suitcase into the trunk. "But I think he's grumpy because he hasn't seen it yet. Pete and Julia helped me pick it out."

Julia had moved out of our old apartment and into a small house on the south side of Oxford, not far from where Pete's old place had been. He had a studio in the garage of their new place, which he used mostly at night as a place to paint and write and do whatever illegal things he was still doing. He spent all day taking care of Lindy while Julia went to classes. All of Oxford was scandalized about them "living in sin", which made Pete happy as a clam.

The first night I was back in Oxford we stayed in. Pete cooked, and Julia and Pris and I talked and I got to play with the baby. "Pris," Julia informed me, "isn't nearly clucky enough and makes a terrible baby sitter, Emma, so we were kind of hoping you'd move back here and take it on for us." She looked completely serious and I must have looked worried, but then she laughed, and I knew she wasn't serious. Pris scowled, but from what I could see that first night back Julia was right -- Pris was perfectly lovely to the baby, but it was obvious children weren't her thing.

It was very different for Pete and Julia. Children were their thing, and they were very happy. Lindy filled their lives completely, but in the very best possible way. Some people become terribly boring after they have a child, because all they can ever talk about is their child, or the world as it effects their child. As I played with Lindy that night I could tell that she was the absolute center of everything for them, but although I could see that they weren't getting much sleep there was a lovely calmness about both of them, and they never allowed the conversation to get bogged down in 'baby' stuff. They both went to bed much earlier than they had in the days when I'd last lived in Oxford, and they were super-attuned to every movement Lindy made, but they were great company and I loved seeing them both again. Especially Julia. I wasn't conscious of it that night, but later I realized just how happy I was for her, and how good it made me feel to be around someone who was so happy in herself.

The next day Pete offered to drive me over to Elroy's, because he had some business to do over near there. Neither of us said much as Pete's Microbus rattled its way toward Tupelo with Lindy asleep in the back, but if I had been scared about confronting Elroy since my attempt at suicide, I needn't have been. As soon as Elroy saw me he swept me up into a hug. We both began talking and it wasn't until at least an hour later that we paused and looked at one another and laughed. It was a Friday, and Elroy had to prepare for business that night, so I helped out behind the bar, and with some office work that Elroy had neglected. It was almost like old times. That night his new house band was on, a bunch of young Tupelo boys whose enthusiasm made up for their lack of finesse. While I was watching them my mind went back to those happy times we'd first jammed together, clowning around and exploring songs we barely knew. I was just beginning to tear up when I felt Elroy's hand go around my shoulder. He hugged me and then he started swaying to the music with me. I smiled, and we swayed together and I felt much better.

It wasn't until very late that night as he drove me back to Oxford that he lectured me about what I had done, but he tempered it by saying that he remembered the way he had felt when his wife and daughter had been killed, so he couldn't say he didn't understand it.

"There's only one thing I want from you, Emma," he said. "I want you to have a life."

I spent a week in Oxford. It felt good to be back around the people I'd come to love, but there were so many reminders of Steve that I found it hard to keep myself together several times. I knew that there was no way I could go back there permanently, no matter how much I loved Julia, Pris and Elroy.

 

***

 

My job with Tickenor, Douglas and Bremmer was over. I'm sure Bob and Bill would have considered taking me back, but I had taken too much time off work and everyone there knew I had tried to kill myself and I really didn't think I could face seeing everyone there all at once. I phoned Bill to apologize for letting him down, and I went downtown to have coffee with Shelley. We agreed to stay in touch, and over subsequent years we became firm friends. Bob Douglas remained a great ally and managed to sort out my social security problems without raising any undue suspicions.

One night a few weeks later, Dan sat back in his chair after dinner and said quietly that there was something he and Cindy needed to discuss with me. The way he said it sounded ominous. Although he and Cindy had been wonderful, and although it seemed to me at least superficially that my revelation to them hadn't changed their feelings for me, I couldn't really believe that Dan could still feel the same way about me as he had before he knew. And I very much doubted that Cindy could feel the same way about a scruffy half-boy-half-girl from the Chicago projects as she had about me before. I couldn't help but thinking that things must have changed between us, no matter what they said when I was in hospital.

I was wrong, of course. Dan invited Cindy and me into his den, and sat me down and offered me a drink. I think I must have been shaking, afraid of what was coming. Where would I go? How could I support myself? There was Wiley, but..."

"Emma, what are you going to do with your life?" Dan began as soon as he sat down.

"Pardon?"

"Well, you're very bright. It seems a shame to have you stuck as a clerk in some law firm."

"I don't think I have that job any more, sir." I took a gulp of the whiskey he had poured for me. It burned my throat.

"No, I don't suppose you do. But even if you did, I hardly think it's what you want to do with your life, is it?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Enough with the 'sir'. I thought we got over that last year."

"Uh, yes. I think it's the desk." I giggled. "It has a kind of formality, you know? Like I'm being interviewed."

Dan smiled. "Yes, I guess it does. Mmmm. Perhaps you are being interviewed. Emma, have you thought of going to college?"

"Uh, no sir. I don't even have my high-school diploma."

"Yes, I know."

"You're certainly smart enough to get one, if you apply yourself," Cindy said.

"I suppose so."

"Well, here's the deal, then." Dan said decisively. "Cindy and I have been talking, and we'd like you to keep on staying in Atlanta, if you want to. I understand you are back on speaking terms with young Wiley --"

"-- He's not, we're not ... in a relationship. I'm not ready for that yet." I said.

"-- Well, all in good time. If you want to keep staying here, we'd love to have you. You've become part of the family."

Dan continued on. He and Cindy were offering to provide for me as long as I promised to sit my high school equivalency and apply for college the following year.

"It's a very generous offer, uh, Dan." I said. I looked over at Cindy to let her know I was including her in my thanks. "I don't know that I really deserve it, but --"

"Nonsense, Emma. Just don't say no." Cindy said.

"Thank you."

"That's better. Um, there is one other thing," Dan said.

"Yes?"

"Your, um, future." Dan said, hesitantly. "You meant what you said to Pris, about always being Emma?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Cindy was thinking..." Dan said. "She knows some people, and they know something about this, and there's a doctor in Casablanca. Do you know about this?"

I shook my head. "Not much. I discussed it with Vanessa, that woman I told you about in Memphis? She knows a little bit about it. I think there are doctors in America that do it too."

"Is this what you want?" Cindy said.

"I think so. I think I'd just like to be like everybody else."

"Well, you can't go to an American doctor until you're twenty-one, apparently."

"I didn't know that."

"Yes, but you can go overseas now, if you want."

I shrugged. "Um, there's one problem."

"Cindy is offering to pay for it." Dan said "From her own money, nothing to do with me."

I was momentarily stuck dumb. I looked at Cindy. She smiled.

"If you want it, Emma."

"Um... This is all a bit... ah, much." I finished the last of my whiskey and looked back and forth between them. "It's just... a bit unexpected... I don't want to seem ungrateful, but can I think about it for a while?"

"Of course." Cindy walked over to the whiskey decanter and came back to pour us all another drink. "But that's not all we wanted to talk to you about tonight. Emma, everything you've told me... Well, it seems like everything has just *happened* to you. You haven't made things happen. You've had some horrible things..." She seemed to be at a loss for words for a few moments, and she looked away for a few moments, but eventually she collected her thoughts and turned back to me. She looked me very directly in the eyes. "Emma, the thing is, you can either go through life just letting things happen to you, or you can make things happen. you can take control of your life and make whatever you want of it."

I didn't say anything, but I was thinking of what lay ahead of me. No education, no skills, no money. It was easy for Cindy to say 'make whatever you want of it' but she wasn't the one with a criminal record and a false I.D. But she must have seen the doubt on my face, because she went on.

"I don't mean you have to do it on your own, Emma. You know that Dan and I care about you, and we'll help you out any way we can." She anticipated me beginning to interrupt her and she raised her hand. "No, don't interrupt, I don't much care for your 'I don't deserve it' remarks. Dan and I are quite capable of deciding what we can and can't do with our money, thank you very much, and anyway this is my money. My point is, just giving you money isn't going to make you happy. I'm very happy, we're both very happy, to help you in any way we can, but it's going to take effort from you. Ambition, commitment. Emma, you've got to want *life*."

I didn't say anything for a few moments. Cindy was right, of course, and in different words she was echoing what Elroy had said in a gentler manner. I knew that. But I wasn't sure how I could be what she wanted. I had never felt ambition. There were things I enjoyed, like singing, but I couldn't think seriously about that as a career, and I had never considered my own life in any terms other than the present. Maybe it was because I had spent so much of my adolescence in Brand, and never had a reason to think about what I would do when I got out. Or perhaps it was that I couldn't conceive -- then -- any normal life for myself after what Blaha had done to me.

Then I mentally slapped myself. I was falling into the exact same trap Cindy had just described. I was dwelling on the past, and on all the reasons why I was too fucked up to do anything with my life. I needed to focus on the future.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Emma," Cindy said gently.

"Huh?" I said, coming out of my reverie. "Uh, no, um... you didn't, sorry. I was just thinking, and, you know, you're right, actually."

"I know that," she said, smiling.

Dan laughed. "She's always right about stuff like that," he said. "That's why I married her."

***

That night I had a very vivid dream. I dreamed I was performing, to a huge crowd in the old cafe on Division Street, which seemed to have expanded to the proportions of the big place we had played in Memphis, with a band comprised of Steve, Brett, Bo and Elroy. Leon was on stage, too, holding a guitar but not playing. From the audience I could hear a voice calling me, calling for more, and more, insistently. I could see Vanessa and Julia and Pris in the front row, and behind them were a few people from Oxford with Shelley and Anthea from work, and then beyond them Cee, standing next to Mary Wozecky. When Cee stepped aside I saw Cindy and Danny standing with my Mom, all smiling. They were the ones stamping their feet and calling out. Steve was playing right next to me, rocking his guitar around me and smiling and singing. My Mom was calling to me, but she was calling me Emma.

 

***

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Pete may have been an anarchist, but he was a gentle man, and I can't believe he would have been the one to start it. In my mind I can see him trying to settle Julia's father, trying to use humor to take the sting out of whatever family horror had just struggled to the surface of the conversation. But I never met Mr. Hammond so I don't know whether or not he had a sense of humor. I do remember that Steve had told me he was a gun nut, and that he had a vicious temper, and I think after one of the stories he told me when we were in Brand I always associated his father's name with the image of my own vicious and brutal father. Which means I'm probably prejudiced and will never make sense of what happened anyway.

The police report went something like this: there was a family argument, and it got progressively worse, and Mr Hammond stormed off and returned to the kitchen of their house in Jackson a few minutes later with a pistol. According to the statement the police took from Julia before she died at the hospital, Mr Hammond aimed the gun at Pete, and Mrs Hammond stepped between them and somewhere in the rage the gun went off and Mrs Hammond was hit. Pete attacked Mr Hammond and the gun discharged and hit Julia, and then Mr. Hammond shot Pete at close range. After that he turned the gun on himself. For some reason he never thought of the four year old child sleeping in the bedroom on the other side of the house, for which we should all be grateful.

Mrs Hammond survived. It was in all the papers, but I didn't read the papers. Pris called me and told me, and she and I went to Jackson with Wiley and Dan and Bob Douglas. There wasn't anything we could do, of course. Julia died in hospital before we got there.

Oddly enough I didn't cry at the hospital. Cindy's first thought was about Lindy, and she and I spent a half-hour tracking the child through the maze of hospital bureaucracy until we found her, and all I could think about was how much she meant to Julia. When the nurse told us that Lindy would probably be put into state-managed foster care the thought of tears was the furthest from my mind. I held little Lindy's hand and looked over at Dan and Bob, and then at Cindy. There wasn't any way I was going to let that happen, and I wasn't going to cry either. I made Dan promise me he would help me work out a way to take care of her.

Based on Julia's will, and on some work Bob did, and on Mrs. Hammond's complete disinterest in the baby, we managed to get child services to release Lindy into Dan's care, and we all went back to Atlanta together, to the big house in Buckhead, where Cindy redeemed all the nasty things anyone had ever said about her by being the soul of sensitivity and going out of her way to make everyone feel as relaxed as we could in the circumstances. It was only then, when I could relax and feel that everything was going to be alright, that I cried.

When I finished crying I phoned Wiley, and told him he would have to take on a lot of responsibility if he wanted to have any kind of relationship with me. Starting with a child and marriage.

***

With Dan and Cindy's encouragement I started college. Initially I planned to study law, because I knew a lot about it from working with Bob and I thought I could make a difference to society by helping people. But I was wrong. As Cindy said, I lack the show-off gene that's necessary to be a good lawyer. I transferred into arts and sciences, and after some hiccups while I went part-time to look after Lindy, I graduated summa cum laude with a major in English. Ironically the subject I had the most trouble with was music. I never could study theory properly. Elroy told me it was because I was too rock and roll for academia. During my breaks from college I played some gigs with John Davis and did some session work as a backing singer with some bands in L.A and Memphis, including a bunch you would certainly have heard of. At Elroy's urging and the invitation of a well-known A&R executive I was persuaded to cut an album in 1985, mostly of songs I had written after Steve's death, but although it was well reviewed, and got me a lot of invitations to perform with more famous people, it never sold well and I didn't see any real money from it.

Wiley and I kept seeing each other, and in my sophomore year we married. He finally got the courage to talk to his parents about what he wanted, and then went on to study what he'd always wanted, medicine. Money was very tight, but we managed. He did well in his studies, and has been well-rewarded by his choice of career.

I decided against having any surgery. I worried from time to time about the possibility of being discovered for what I was, but from what I read of the state of surgical technique it sounded like an unsatisfactory compromise. Wiley said it didn't matter to him, and even though Cindy stood by her offer to pay there were other things that came up that required money and meant I had to borrow from her and Dan, and I felt indebted enough. I think Cindy may have been slightly disappointed that I didn't do it, but if she and Dan ever thought less of me they never said anything.

In 1988 I was seated next to Keith Richards at a dinner that Aaron Carter was hosting at Spago in Los Angeles. Keith was urbane and witty in a quiet, casual way, and when I didn't fawn all over him he relaxed and we chatted cordially. He had a wicked, low chuckle and a talent for devastatingly funny sotto voce remarks about other people at the table. I can't remember anything we talked about, but it wasn't music. I remember being struck by just how ravaged and beaten his face had been by heroin and alcohol, much more than I had ever seen in photographs, and feeling momentarily glad that I had never seen Steve's face drained of its vitality and beauty in that way, but I didn't dwell on the moment and I'm sure Keith never noticed the flash of sadness on my own face that memories like that usually bring.

 

***

 

 

Epilogue.

So here I am, on this day, my thirty-eighth birthday. I'm three years younger than that, of course, but I long ago stopped using my real birthday and used the real Emma Donaldson's for everything. From time to time I've wondered whether anyone is ever going to catch up with me about that, but I suppose once you have enough history in a particular identity it never occurs to people to question who you are, and anyway these days my social security number matches Emma Kennison, my married name. Pete was a thorough man, and I think Bob Douglas may have done a few adjustments to some documents at Dan Arsenault's request.

Lindy is seventeen now, older than I was when I first met Wiley. As I'm writing this she's about to head off East for her first year of college. Wiley is outside helping her pack her little Toyota with more stuff than I thought she owned. Of course she's taking all her music gear, which means more keyboards and computers than I've seen in most professional studios. She's become quite the musician, even if it is on the rave circuit where it seems to me to be mostly knob-twiddling and punching computer keyboards instead of getting down and playing. I can hear her bossing him around, and although I can't see his face I know he's smiling and nodding and letting her have her own way as much as she wants.

He and I have had a good marriage so far. I know he's been faithful to me, and he's been a good father to Lindy. Since she's been talking about college I've been worrying about us, about what we'll do when there are only the two of us, and last night Wiley raised the idea of adopting a couple of kids. I'm thinking maybe surrogacy might be a better idea. He has no children of his own and that nags at me, although he says it doesn't matter to him, but the fact that he's thinking about children at all says to me that it's important to him.

Yes, it still bothers me, too. I would have liked to have had my own children. But I've been very fortunate to have Lindy, and there's no point getting lathered up over something that's impossible. Elroy and I taught one another that, although we didn't ever say it that way.

Wiley and I can provide a good home to more kids, whether they're adopted or Wiley's. We're both young enough to still be able to think about it. Wiley is a partner in a very successful practice here, and three years ago he went in with some friends in the development of a new hospital. I'm happy enough teaching at Georgia Tech, although trying to teach English to kids who spend too much time online and not enough time reading books is sometimes a challenge. We don't have to worry about money these days. We bought a small house last year here in Buckhead. It's around the corner from Wiley's folks, and a few blocks away from Dan and Cindy's place, although they're not here very often these days since Cindy inherited her dad's place in the Bahamas. We see them from time to time when they're in town, and Dan still makes me laugh and smile. He and I jam together with a couple who live up in Roswell, and a few months ago we all played a half-assed gig together at a bar a friend owns.

I don't miss professional music. There was always a buzz from performing in front of an audience, and sometimes I think back to some of the wonderful moments I've had working with some great musicians, but the hype, and the money guys, and some of the no-talents who have enormous egos, all take their toll. The music was great, but the music industry is awful, so eventually I ditched the industry. I still get some royalty checks from 'No Questions', and a hip-hop duo sampled the vocal hook a couple of years ago and I got payment for that, too.

I think I enjoyed singing with Lindy when she was a little girl more than anything else. She was a big fan of Tom Lehrer when she was about twelve, and we used to sing those songs together all the time. "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" was our favorite. That and Dusty Springfield songs. Lindy probably wouldn't admit to liking them now, since she's become so serious about music herself and hates all the stuff I love, but I used to sing around the house, like my mother did, so Lindy knows all those old songs well.

I still see Pris from time to time, although not as much as I used to. Ten years ago she finally came out completely and moved to New York with Barbara, a very striking lawyer she met at a party at Bob Douglas's place one Christmas. They both seem ecstatically happy but she doesn't get back to Atlanta all that often and my commitments don't allow me to get to New York to see her more than once a year. Lesbianism was something that crept up on Pris gradually, but once she'd made the choice she embraced it wholeheartedly.

Elroy sold the bar outside Tupelo and opened another one in downtown Oxford, just off the square. He ran it successfully for six years until he died suddenly, of a heart attack one morning as he was sweeping leaves from the sidewalk outside.

I miss him, and I miss Julia, but what I miss most is Steve. I feel guilty admitting it, because Wiley has been very good to me, and every time I think of Steve I feel like I'm betraying Wiley in some small way. But there are times when I hear fragments of music running through my head, or smell the magnolia on the night air, feel the sun on my skin in a certain way, and I hear Steve's voice in my head, feel his touch on my neck, as though he was next to me again. Sometimes I think I space out for a few moments at those times, and I've noticed Wiley looking at me oddly afterward.

"I remember something you once told me

And I'll be damned if it didn't come true

Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down

And they all led me right back home to you."

Damn, do you know how often the Rolling Stones get airplay all these years later? Sometimes I'm glad Steve isn't around any more so he can't see what happened to those guys, and I can't disagree with Lindy's disparaging remarks about Mick -- she's right. But I can't hear those songs from 'Sticky Fingers' and 'Exile On Mainstreet' and 'Beggar's Banquet' without hearing Steve singing them, and feeling my heart come apart. There isn't a single day that's gone by since Steve's death that I haven't felt that terrible pain of heartbreak and loss, and I know that's not fair to Wiley but it's just impossible for me to overcome. Whatever it was that I had with Steve, it's forged something in me that's been impossible to break. Wild horses couldn't drag me away. Steve wasn't the one who changed my life in the most radical way, but he was the one who showed me how to find my soul. Goddamned junkie bastard, I still love him so badly it hurts.

I'm still not completely sure how I feel about what happened to me when I was a teenager. As I said when I started telling this story, I don't drag the past around with me like a ball and chain, but I admit that I still feel hatred toward Grieves and Blaha. Not for what they made me become -- I have enjoyed a lot of my life and I like who I am now. No, I hate them for their abuse of power. I hate them for their ignorance, and their contempt for the feelings of others.

It was all so long ago, that sometimes it seems like it happened to a different person.

I guess it did.

I'm going to step outside in a few moments to kiss Lindy and wish her a safe trip. We wanted to go up there with her to see her settle in, but either she's too embarrassed to be seen with us or she just wants to be more independent. Wiley and I will hug each other afterwards and settle into this new phase of our lives as empty-nesters, and then we'll kiss and I'll forget all about this story, until the next time I hear the sound of a twelve string guitar, or an old Rolling Stones song, and I think of Steve.

 

fin

 

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