The Namesake 5 (of 5)

Note to readers. Don't read if you don't like poor grammar, this is rough.
This is a work of adult fiction. No resemblance to reality should be inferred or expected.
Copyright… are you kidding?

Edited by Amanda Lynn.

Mom left the room. Outside there was a guard and the hospital staff. What I had inquired didn’t make a sense. I thought I’d sent her in vain. But she was back in some ten minutes. The door was cracked open and I saw mom taking some stuffed animal from the nurse. I guessed I’d heard the name Edwin what probably was the animal’s name.

She came back with the enormous hare in her hands.

“Edwin?” I asked as the animal was put in my arms.

“Oh, you remember,” she whispered and tears glistened in her eyes.

I felt so bad at once for my cheat. This mom so much reminded of my mom from my male life when she was younger and I was still a kid. I didn’t remember her much when I was an adult. First I went to Uni which was another city. Later I was in the army and it was more than a regular two years. When I got home, at last, my mom was killed in a car accident two days after my arrival. So I did remember her mostly as she was young, as young as a mom here.

Now I had Edwin the hare here and I could hug him. I hugged him and poured my grief to him. I wanted rather jump the rope or play hopscotch but I had to kill. Instead of enjoying myself with my new mom and dad, I had to lead them over corpses. Now there was a tingle in my guts. It was the same as it was years ago when my mom got killed. Then it ended. All my pain and grief accumulated in years poured out. I couldn’t fight anymore the same as before. In this new and weak body, I didn’t have the strength to remain calm and to brace myself up.

Mom was here at my side trying to console me. I did remember being in her arms when I cried to sleep.

I was surrounded by the darkness drifting in obscurity. It was so good to have no worries and no duties. It was too good to be true.

There were sounds. And sounds switched all my senses on. At least I was all ears now.

“I want her back, please…” was mom’s voice. Silence followed. Then there was a sound of something swishing against something. Like clothes maybe. I wasn’t sure. I could open my eyes to see, but I couldn’t. I was afraid I was the old Kiesha and not the girl Kiesha. Why else did mom want me back then?

“She needs time to cope with what has happened,” that was dad. “Doc says it’s good to help her rebuild memories.”

“Yeah… I’m not sure she’ll be the same as before…”

“Polly… POLLY, look at me. We will NEVER be the same,” dad demanded. “What she did not every man could do. I sure couldn’t. But she did and she saved us – you, me and herself, our girl.”

Mom was sobbing. I pretended I wasn’t here. I drifted away, maybe to sleep.

I could sense it was light when I woke up. I opened my eyes and mom was here on a chair at my side. I stretched and smiled at her. Mom smiled back.

“How are you?” she asked softly.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What for, baby?”

“For not being a baby.”

“That wasn’t you. That was the guardian angel in you.”

It was too good to be true.

“I don’t remember myself from before,” I tried to explain.

“We’ll move from where we are now,” mom offered.

“What if I fail?”

“You will not,” mom assured me. “You, daddy, Uncle Harry and I, all four of us are leaving behind who we were before. We’ll go by new names now. You’ll be Mackenzie Louisa and we’ll call you Kiesha sometimes. Our family name will be Lang. Uncle Harry will become Geri Clayton.”

“What will happen to the rest of the family? Grandmother and others…”

“They’re told we were killed in a terrible car accident.”

“Oh…”

“Besides the new names we are given there is the new family history to learn. You have a better start because you have nothing to forget.”

I didn’t know where we were about to go. Both special agents Rose Dossett and Brian Malone didn’t say anything either. I didn’t see special agents much. There were security guards at our rooms in the hospital and no special agents. They both came when it was time to leave. They escorted us to the jet port and saw us boarding the charter flight.

“Most probably I’ll never see you again,” Brian said. “But I’ll always remember you. Your insight helped us to save another family.”

I liked this man. I was happy we were leaving. I wished our family would never have business with the FBI in the future, but… Brian Malone’s real professional and it was a pleasure to work with him. I had to forget him for my good. As mom had said we had to forget everything that was before. I had much more to forget than my parents, all sixty-two years of my previous life.

We landed in another airport three hours later and were greeted as Lang family and Mr. Geri Clayton.

Our flight was chartered. There were no announcements on the plane and no tickets. Eventually, I didn’t know where we landed. Local FBI agents drove us to our new home. By the signs on the highway, I got to know we were in Iowa. I never was a great US fan and I didn’t know where this state was. I didn’t remember there was a sign of the city. Mom said it was Evansdale and dad added it’s a suburb of Waterloo.

Collins Avenue was the street where our new home was. The house was enormous big. The backyard was like forty ares, what’s almost one acre. The house was for our family and Harry, sorry Geri. There were bedrooms for even more kids and guests.

I’d wondered that the government had spent so much money on us. Mom said the government only helped to change our identities. We weren’t witnesses and there was no witness protection program for us.

We got here on Friday and we had all weekend to get ready me for school and adults for their new jobs. Dad was offered a position at the environment lab in Waterloo. Uncle Geri was working from home as he did before. He was a programmer for smartphones. Mom planned to find something at one of the local real estate companies.

There were some urgent tasks to complete. Shopping was one of them. I was sure Wal-Mart will do it again but it wasn’t in mom’s head. Dad and Geri were left to buy what they needed and wanted. Mom took me to the mall. I was never the shopping fan.

Even though I was a girl trapped in a man’s body, shopping for me was rather a duty than fun. When I was a kid and up to almost forty years old there was no such shopping like it was later. You had to find or wait to appear of what you needed or wanted and THEN stand in line for it. Standing in line was like a kind of sacrifice. It was sometimes for several hours or even overnight. So NO, I wasn’t a shopping fan.

But I liked it this time. I was with mom. It was our time. Truth to be said, not every her choice I’d approved, but I was a kid. I didn’t know what was trendy.

Our shopping trip took the whole day. We both were exhausted when we got home. Dad and uncle were already here watching TV and drinking beer. Mom ordered pizzas and sleep claimed me when I was still in the kitchen.

I had a dream. Rather it was few dreams, one followed by another. I saw as mom was raped by the man I’d killed the first. Another man was holding mom’s hands and the woman was holding dad’s head forcing him to watch the rape.

Next, I saw myself, that the girl Kiesha, dead. I knew she was dead, not unconscious but breathless. Then I got inside and saw what I had seen after I woke up.

I was broad awake. I didn’t know I screamed or not. It was still dark. It was completely quiet. I was in my new bed in my new room at my new home. On the inside, I felt peace. On the outside, I felt it was so very wrong to be in the place of Kiesha girl.

Until yesterday I was sure I’ll come back to my old self and this body will be returned to the girl one way or another. I knew now for sure it will never happen. Kiesha was dead.

It was Saturday and we, that are mom and I, had some shopping to do. This time it was for school. I did remember what was needed from the last time I was shopping with Harry, sorry Geri.

Yesterday both mom and I were happy and cheerful. Today I was kind of depressed. Mom too wasn’t so bubbly as she was a day before. We both were in the kitchen. Dad and Geri had left already for some manly business.

“I’m not Kiesha, mom,” I whispered with a sigh. “Kiesha is dead. I’ve seen a dream tonight. She’ll never come back. I can’t pretend to be her. I’m Kiesha but I’m not your kid.”

“I know,” she replied.

We remained for some time in silence. Then she sat at my side and hugged me.

“I saw a dream too,” she whispered in my ear. “I saw what Kiesha prayed for the last seconds of her life. Do you know your guardian angel has a name you’re called by your mom? How could you know? You are only eleven. You are my little girl and you’ll always be. Forget you were sixty-two. Forget you were a man. You are Kiesha and I am your mom.”