“No matter what happens … no matter whether or not you grant my wish … I just want to say how much I appreciate your friendship. You’ve been kind and patient and compassionate, helpful and honest and … most of all … been there when I’ve needed you. Thank you.”
“No matter what happens … no matter whether or not you grant my wish … I just want to say how much I appreciate your friendship. You’ve been kind and patient and compassionate, helpful and honest and … most of all … been there when I’ve needed you. Thank you.”
There is a little girl or little boy within every adult, but with Cierra or “Cici” as Terry had christened her shortly after they started working together, her inner child had gone wild over the last year. What started as coming to work with her hair in pigtails, decorating her room in Disney Princess and writing stories where she magically turned into a little girl, had developed into an unhealthy obsession. It had become so severe that the adult’s ability to function at work and in her private life was now in jeopardy. Terry loved her friend dearly and had tried to help her with this problem, but as the mental illness grew, so did Cierra’s dependence upon Terry and her desire to magically transform into a little girl who would be Terry’s daughter and baby sister to the first three.
At about the same time that Cierra’s fantasy wish became a real life obsession, another character entered the story. David, another friend and co-worker to both women, became far more to Terry. Their close friendship had blossomed into a deep and beautiful love. By Cierra’s birthday they had been engaged for several months and a wedding date had been set for July of next year. Cierra was absolutely over the moon for the two of them. No one was happier that these two had found each other than she was, but even that joy became twisted and distorted by her illness as David by taking Terry’s hand, went from friend to fantasy father figure in Cierra’s dream world.
David and Terry had discussed the troubling situation concerning their mutual friend and decided rather than end the friendship, they would try to put up boundaries to maintain their comfort level and hopefully discourage Cierra from heightening her obsession. They continued to take lunch with Cierra at work as they had for the last few years, but they limited contact or invites to activities outside work, especially those at their home. Sadly for Cierra, this meant she rarely ever got to see the girls, her sisters in spirit as she thought of them. Neither David nor Terry fancied having to impose these restrictions on their friend, especially knowing how much she adored the girls, but as good parents they could not in good conscience subject their children to someone as emotionally unstable as Cierra.
Cierra understood and tried to respect the boundaries, but it was evident by her increasingly obsessive behavior and general emotional instability that that her illness was progressing. David and Terry found the time spent with their friend to be less and less enjoyable and increasingly uncomfortable as others at work had begin to note and comment on the unhealthy connection Cierra seemed to have to them. The last thing either of them wanted was attention of any kind as they had decided to keep their romantic relationship secret until after the wedding. Yes, Cierra had been taxing their patience and compassion, but when her illness involved the comfort level of their children or jeopardized their positions at the company, David and Terry had no choice but take whatever action they deemed necessary.
Now at this point, most people would have simply ended the friendship. Certainly, Cierra had given them every reason to do so, but … at least for now, they decided to stand by their friend and not completely shut her out of their life. A simple question would be “Why?” Why would they allow themselves to be put through all that drama by a friend? The answer however, was not so simple. It was more than the fact that they cared for Cierra, which they did very much. It was more than the fact they were kind and compassionate people. It was more than the fact that they knew she was ill and some of her behavior was beyond her control. What perhaps tipped the scale in their friend’s favor was they understood that her obsession about magically becoming a little girl came from the fact that she had never got to be one in the real world.
Cierra was denied her rightful time in play dresses, pig tails, and Disney Princess pursuits when she arrived in this world trapped in a boy’s body. Cierra was transsexual, someone whose physical gender is the opposite of what their mind, heart and soul are. Cierra grew up as an invisible, silent observer to life, watching girls, other girls, have the childhood she could only dream of and cry for. She was thirty before she learned she could do something about breaking out of that body prison she thought was a life sentence. At 31, she began the long process of transition which culminated three years ago when she had gender reassignment surgery. Legally and physically she was now recognized as female and accepted as such by her coworkers. Save for childbirth, she could have as full a life as any other woman her age, but age was the problem. Despite the fact she was physically celebrating the big 5-0 today, emotionally … to the very depth of her heart and soul, she was still that little girl who longed to have and do all the things most any other little girl wanted. She wanted safety, acceptance and love, and she wanted those things where most children hope to find them … with her family. For Cierra that place, that family was the one with her two friends and their daughters.
Terry and David understood and empathized as much as anyone could who had never known what it was like to be born in the body of the wrong gender. Their hearts went out to their friend and they stretched their patience and their tolerance to the limit in trying to maintain the friendship. Terry had spent long hours talking to Cierra, encouraging her while she was in therapy, and trying hard to help Cierra help herself, but in the end both Terry and David realized there was little they could do for her. Today however, was a small exception. No … they couldn’t wave a magic wand and make her a real live playground princess, but they could take her out for a birthday meal and should the little girl peek out, which they were sure she would, they could let her have her evening. For David and Terry, it would be a night where they would spend thirty dollars for food and drink, endure three hours watching their middle aged friend bounce in her seat like an eight year old and then get mauled by a tearful hug monster when they dropped her off at home. For Cierra … it would be a night where she could be as close to her dream come true as she had ever known … possibly ever would know. She could be herself … or at least as close as she could get to it, but most importantly it would be her night with the two people she loved and loved to be with most of all. The fact that she was getting Mexican food just made it all the more perfect. It was with those expectations in mind, that the threesome left work and headed for Acapulco Joe’s.
Joe’s was on the Northwest side of town which was a good thirty minute drive from work in rush hour traffic, but only a few minutes away from what Cierra considered the promised land: Terry and David’s house. The happy couple in the front seat was just that, as away from work, they too could be themselves. The love they shared was evident as their hands found each other and their conversation was warm, comfy and light hearted. Cierra sat where she knew she belonged: the back seat and listened while her friends and fantasy parents talked. Most of the conversation she didn’t understand as it was mostly personal chit chat between David and Terry and when she did find something she could comment on … quite often her remark wasn’t recognized. She leaned back in the seat and smiled as she realized her best friends were giving her the child’s treatment without even realizing it.
Cierra smoothed her knee length pleated skirt and wiggled Mary Janes off her white stocking toes. She shook her head gently just to feel her pig tails bounce which immediately brought a smile to her lips. She snuggled in her navy blue school girl’s sweater which brought much needed warmth to an always cold Cierra. Again the smile returned as she thought about how her Terry was always cold too.
“I got that from my Momma”, she thought … knowing better than to dare say it.
She was being indulged tonight because it was her birthday and because the two people in the front seat loved her. No … they didn’t love her like the daughter she so wished she was … but could never be. They loved her like a good friend and that was all she could ever be. She realized that and appreciated the sacrifice of time, money, and their personal comfort level to give Cierra “her night”. And … like any other kid … she was going to make the most of her birthday and push the limits on this night that she wouldn’t on any other … but … she couldn’t get so swept away that she went too far. She had to be careful that she didn’t abuse this precious one night privilege or the repercussions come Monday at work could be quite severe.
Cierra was already pushing the envelope by wearing her school girl attire and bringing along her pink Eeyore backpack. Fortunately for Cierra and her two escorts, fifty year old women can sometimes get away with cultivating the “little girl” look, so … Cierra’s appearance should get her no more looks than those she normally got due to her questionable gender, although the backpack might push it over the top. David and Terry seemed prepared to take a minimal amount of public embarrassment in her honor as neither had commented negatively on her attire. Cierra also knew she could bounce and be bubbly in the booth. She could sigh dreamily whilst she watched David and Terry snuggle and hold hands. She could ask permission to do things that no adult woman would need to and maybe … just maybe when it was time to say goodbye … she could hold hugs just a little bit longer, let tears flow without fear and drop the “M” word with Terry when she said she loved her.
Cierra pulled out her stuffie from her backpack and held it close as she wondered if she dare ask the question that had been on her mind all day and really for the last few weeks. Would she be pushing it too far to ask this of them? On one hand it was kind of a big thing, especially to her, but on the other … it was just five minutes. How could five minutes really be a “big thing”? It would be totally in private and … they really wouldn’t have to do anything. All they had to do was just be there and the rest would be up to Cierra … or more aptly the little girl who lived within. Of course to ask the big question, she had to ask a little one first and as she readied herself to interrupt the conversation up front … that little question felt awfully big.
“Terry?” asked the mouse in the backseat.
Terry turned away from the man she adored. “I’m sorry. Did you say something Cici?”
Cierra clutched her stuffie a little tighter and nodded. “Umm …”
She forced herself to speak above a whisper. “I was wondering … that is if you don’t mind … could we stop by your house for a few minutes?”
David turned to Terry who had heard the request and gave her the same puzzled look she gave to Cierra.
“Why do you want to stop by our place? You know the girls aren’t there and if they were …”
“Then we couldn’t go there”, Cierra with sadness heavy in her voice, finished for her friend.
Cierra squeezed her stuffie a little tighter. “I … know they’re not there and that’s why I’m asking if we can stop by.”
Terry shook her head, still puzzled by her friend’s odd request. “Then why do you want to stop by the house?”
“Because … well … I want to ask you …” Cierra turned her attention toward the driver. “I want to ask both of you something … something really important and I don’t want to do that in the car or at Acapulco Joe’s. I want to do it at home … well … your home. Please?”
The pained expression on Terry’s face said she really wasn’t too thrilled by the requested detour or the prospect of what Cierra’s question could bring.
Cierra leaned forward. Her blue eyes begged even before her words did. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important and … and … the kids won’t be there … and it’s not really out of the way. I promise it won’t take really long. I … I just want to do this … want to ask you this and I just can’t do it at the restaurant.”
“Oh Cici”, Terry said with a sigh and a frown.
Cierra seeing it all slip away without even getting a chance, pushed all of her chips in. “It’s my birthday wish okay? I’m entitled to a birthday wish aren’t I?”
“You’re birthday wish is to come our house even though the girls aren’t there?”
Terry smiled hoping to defuse what she thought could be a dangerous or at least uncomfortable situation. “Gee Cici … I know you like animals but I didn’t think you’d blow your birthday wish on a visitation with Duchess the cat.”
Any other time she could coax a smile out of Cierra with little more than a wink and a smile of her own, but not this time.
“My wish isn’t just to come to your house. It’s to come to your house to ask you something … and it’s the something that’s my wish. Please … please say yes. It is my birthday you know … pleeeeeeeze?”
Terry turned to the handsome hunk behind the wheel for a little guidance and got the same grin he flashed whenever one of the “other” daughters tried to work her for something. Realizing it was solely on her shoulders to be the good guy or the bad one she turned back to face her friend.
Hope in Cierra’s blue eyes greeted her. “Damn those eyes”, she thought before giving in. “Okay Cici … you win. We’ll stop at the house for a minute, but only a minute.”
“Umm …” squeaked the little mouse again. “Can I have five minutes?”
Terry turned back around and eased down into her seat, “Yes Cici … five minutes.”
“Yeah!” squealed Cierra as she did a victory wiggle in the backseat.
Terry rolled her eyes and looked over at David whose grin had grown to a fully fledged smile.
“Don’t”, she warned.
“What?” he pleaded mock innocently, as he shifted lanes to head for the house.
Terry pointed her finger at him. “Just don’t say a word.”
David sexy smiled and then gave her a wink that brought a smile to her face and finally a laugh for both of them. A giggle from the backseat made it unanimous.
Ten minutes later Cierra’s heart raced as they passed through the black iron gates that lead to the condo she so wished was her home. When they pulled into the garage, Cierra took her time gathering her belongings and her thoughts. This question … Terry and David’s answer … and the five minutes afterwards if they said yes, could be … no would be … the most important event of her life … at least what was left of it. For once … she couldn’t give into fear and she couldn’t fail to give her best. She had to win … win them over just enough for five minutes grace. She had to find the words … and while words were never a problem for the long winded fantasy writer and chatty cat … she had to find the right words … no … the perfect words to describe feelings, wishes, wants and fears that no story she’d ever written had done justice. Her life … the life she’d spent a lifetime waiting to live and may never have another chance to get this close to … depended on her pitch.
Cierra wiggled out of the back seat and picked up her stuffie and book bag. She smiled dreamily as she watched Terry’s hand find David’s as they walked in the back door. She shut the car door behind her and then followed them but dawdled on the way … taking the time to drink in the feel and the magic of the place her heart knew was home, even if no one else recognized her as belonging there.
She stopped just short of the door and looked heavenward. Her voice was a whisper. “Don’t know if you’re there … don’t know if you’re listening … but if you are … please give me this. I don’t think five minutes is asking for so much is it? I’d like you’re blessing on what I’m about to try and do. I’m going to need all the help I can get, but … if you can’t condone this or help me … then please … please don’t stop me. I … I just want one … real … chance.”
“Cici you coming?” came a voice that lit a fire under the dawdler and ended her prayer without an amen.
“On my way Mmm … err … Terry!” Cierra forced herself to correct with a giggle as she bounced pigtails inside.
Cierra walked into the kitchen; voices from the living room told her where David and Terry were. Once again she took time to take in bits of home. The kitchen was always a hot bed of activity on her visits there. There were delicious smells from holiday cooking, loads of chatter and giggles from the girls as they passed through stealing tastes … and asking if it was done yet, but doing little to help things along. It was the place on her last visit she watched Terry and David co-chef the meal and taste test each other’s lips … frequently. Cierra looked at the freezer and then the pantry. She smiled when she thought of all the late night cookie and ice cream runs made here by kids who thought Mom would never know. Oh the innocence of youth.
From the kitchen she walked into the living room. The table was clean and in order now which only proved the girls weren’t home. Cierra knew normally it was usually a hot bed of activity and disorganization. Open school books … and an unhappy kid struggling with fractions … dinner in various stages of eating … a daughter seated with cell phone buried in ear … chairs filled with bums and conversation anywhere from serious to absolutely absurd … were all the things Cierra knew she’d find there any given night.
A turn to her right found the living room and Terry and David seated and waiting for her. She headed their direction but stopped one last time as another right led to the stairs leading to the bedrooms. On her visits there she’d hadn’t spent a lot of time upstairs, but she was familiar with each room and her heart ached to call one of them her own or at least shared with a sister. A glance at the landing brought a smile and a sense of ownership. The landing was “her place”. Well … she had to time share it a little with Miss Duchess the cat, but she didn’t mind the company.
Her thoughts turned to visits past where somehow she always ended up sitting on that landing … petting Duchess and looking through the posts at the family below. It was the perfect vantage point to see everything … to commit every action … every sound to precious memory. A sad smile turned at her lips as she looked at the posts … wooden bars to a prison they were, because even when she was here … she still sat behind them and watched the action rather than be a part of it.
She entered the living room and her eyes went directly to the center of the carpeted floor. This too was another of “her places”. The couch to her right and the chairs to her left and behind her were open seating to all the family members, although certain members claimed their bums had made personalized impressions on certain ones which gave them rights of ownership. Cierra however … chose the wide open spaces of the floor. This kept her close to everyone and if only in her dreams … would give her room to stretch out and color … or pounce into any available open lap … or to just watch television.
“Television”, she thought. From the stories Terry had shared with her she reminisced about all the movie night marathons, fav tv show nights and video game battles that had transpired on that set or the many before it. No … she hadn’t been there, but it didn’t take much imagination for her to see one extra hand in the popcorn bowl or one more sister spooning with the others on the living room floor during a late Saturday night.
The stereo attached to the television held special significance too. The entire family loved music. David and Terry had very good voices. Rose had a great one. Donna had the best bum and the dance moves to go with it. Victoria made her contribution with the guitar or her base. Cierra didn’t have much to contribute on the music front. She couldn’t sing or dance or play an instrument and what music she did like … was as dated and out of touch as she was. But in her dreams of being a part of this family … she knew somehow she would have been a contributor. Even if she couldn’t play or sing … even if she still had a bad knee and two left feet … she would dance. All the girls danced … especially on the weekends where Terry would turn down the lights, turn up the radio and do their own version of Top of the Pops. Yep … even if it was the wobbly legged “Cici Hop” … she would have danced with her Momma and her sisters in the dark. She would have contributed. She would have belonged.
“Earth to Cici!” Terry’s voice gently prodded Cierra and brought her back to the here and now.
David and Terry were seated on the couch. David tapped his wrist watch. “Whatever it is you want to ask … I think you need to ask … that is if we’re going to get a decent table at Joe’s.”
“Yeah Cici”, Terry rubbed her tummy and smiled hungrily. “I’m starvapating over here, so you best get a move on it girl. The clock is running on your five minutes.”
Terry was just gently trying to move Cierra along as she would any of her dawdling daughters. She had no idea of the scope and importance of the question and the five minutes Cierra had asked for. However; the wide eyes and color drained face she immediately saw after her prompt gave her a clue. Cierra’s outburst that followed removed all doubt.
“No … wait! You can’t start the five minutes yet!” Cierra bounced before them nearly jumping out of her Mary Jane’s.
She was begging and on the verge of tears and hysteria. “Please … I have to ask the question first! And … and then if you say yes … then the five minutes start. Okay? Okay? But not before … not before!”
An excited little girl reminding her parents of the rules of a promise … was normal and sometimes even a little cute. Seeing this behavior from a frantic fifty year old in school girl attire was … well … unnerving … uncomfortable and troubling. For Terry it was just another instance of her friend’s mental instability … her never ending emotional rollercoaster ride that had kept her from inviting Cierra over while the kids were at home. Terry dealt with it this time as she often did when it happened at work.
“Cierra”. Her voice was sharp. Her delivery was calm and slow. “Okay … settle down … Chief Antsy Pants. You’ll get your full five minutes.”
The cool, calm and special brand of Terry humor had its desired effect. Cierra stopped jumping and starting breathing once again, but unfortunately she kicked into hyper apologetic mode.
“I’m sorry … I’m sorry. I … I didn’t mean to. It’s … it’s just really important and … I have to do this right … and … and”
“Cierra”, David took a turn at calming Cierra and moving her along. His voice was calm but firm. “You’re fine. Calm yourself and just ask … the … question.”
Cierra nodded several times and then took a deep breath. David and Terry were raising the curtain. It was show time.
Cierra looked into the faces of the two people she loved as friends and as fantasy parents. She saw patience, compassion and encouragement in their eyes. She smiled inside realizing that in all realities and in all sizes … she always looked up to them … even when they were seated.
“Okay …” she started as she fidgeted like the little girl she so believed she truly was. “I have one last thing to say and then I promise I’ll ask the question.”
“Go on Cici” Terry tried to gently push her along.
“No matter what happens … no matter whether or not you grant my wish … I just want to say how much I appreciate your friendship. You’ve been kind and patient and compassionate, helpful and honest and … most of all … been there when I’ve needed you. Thank you. I know I’ve frustrated the absolute ‘you know what’ out of both of you but you never gave up on me. You’re good peeps and no one on Earth is happier than I am that you found love with each other and thanks for making me feel like family even if I’m not.”
“Terry”, she turned to the woman she most wished she could grow up to be like if she ever got a second chance. “Thanks for sharing so much with me. You’ve shared lunch … you’ve shared after hour conversations … you’ve shared your home and your daughters … you’re shared wisdom and hugs and truth and a few well chosen beautiful little lies on occasion that made my day. Thank you … you will always have a special place in my heart no matter what place we have in each other’s life.”
Cierra punctuated her statements with a trademark hug and then knew it was finally time for the main event.
“Okay … okay … now this is my birthday … which is why we’re going out for Mexican and why we’re here … right? Right! So … as we all know … part of the birthday tradition is a birthday wish.”
Cierra stopped momentarily just to be sure the audience was following along. Seeing nothing but undivided attention and growing impatience … she pressed on.
“Well … I think we all know what would be my birthday wish. Right? Right!”
Once again she did not give them a chance to answer the no-brainer.
“But … we also know that wish can’t come true … so … I would like to ask you … both of you … for my second choice … my second best birthday wish … which is sort of kinda related to first wish … but not exactly the same or it wouldn’t be the second wish … it would be the first one … so that’s why it’s the second one …”
“Cici”, Terry had to derail the runaway C-train before her birthday dinner became a day after breakfast. “Just ask the question … please.”
Cierra nodded and then took a deep breath. “My question … my second best birthday wish is … can … could … I have five for fifty … just five minutes of the life I’ve always dreamed of and being your little girl as my gift for the fifty years I’ve spent living in a body and life that should never have been mine?”
“The only thing special for me about this birthday is the fact I’m spending it with the two of you. I don’t feel like celebrating fifty years of life that was mostly a lie and barely more than existence, but if I can use this day to wheedle permission out of you to try and reach for the stars … then I’ll use it. Look … I’ve got all the ingredients for the recipe. I need an ounce of faith … I’ve got an ocean. I need an ounce of magic … being home with the two of you on my birthday gives me that and then some … so … all I need now is your permission to try.”
“Really Cici?”
“Now wait!” Cierra jumped in quick, seeing the disapproving look on her dream parents’ face.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
David grumbled. “I don’t think you know what I’m thinking.”
Cierra wouldn’t … couldn’t be deterred or even frightened from making her pitch. She had to stay strong and stay focused. Every word had to be the perfect one to describe feelings, wants and needs that sometimes seem to defy description no matter how many stories she had written. She had to make them understand something … believe in something that was almost beyond both … and she had to do it fast or she’d lose her audience. She had maybe two … three tops … minutes to convince them to give her a chance to do something she didn’t know if she could do … but desperately needed to try. She had three minutes to get the five minutes she’d been waiting fifty years for.
“Look … I know how that sounds. It sounds crazy … and yes I’m a few sandwiches short of a full picnic … and I’m sick … but I’m not totally bonkers. I know … trust me … I know … I can’t really be your daughter … not for five minutes … not for five seconds, but I want … if you’ll let me try … to get as close to it as I can … as I probably ever will.”
David had skepticism and a bit of discomfort written on his face. Terry wasn’t optimistic where this was leading, but her curiosity outweighed her pragmatic pessimism.
“Okay … I’m sure I’ll be sorry for asking this, but just exactly what do you have in mind?”
“Well ……” Cierra mimicked Bewitched’s Samantha as she nervously squirmed.
“Umm … I just want the little girl … the … what I figure to be about 87% of me … to come out as much as she can … to come as close to living in the real world as she will ever know … to … to make the dream come true … just this once … just for my birthday … just for five minutes. That’s all … just … five … minutes.”
Tears welled in Cierra’s eyes. She tried to fight them. They were getting in the way of well chosen … too important words.
Terry sighed sympathetically. Her friend’s pain touched her heart but it was old pain and one she couldn’t understand Cierra’s need to constantly revisit.
“Cici”, her voice was soft but strong enough to cut through the tears. “I wish you could have your five minutes … but what you’re asking isn’t possible and you know that. You’re … you’re making yourself miserable with all this and honestly … I just can’t understand why … why you keep torturing yourself like this.”
“Why?” Cici forced a smile through tears. “That’s a good question. I … I don’t know if I really have a good answer … but I’ll try to give you an honest one.”
Cierra looked down at her ridiculous school girl attire … ridiculous for a fifty year old woman. She clicked the heels of giant Mary Jane’s together a few times wishing they were the magic “ruby slippers” from the Wizard of Oz and then smiled realizing that they’d done their work already as she was finally home.
“Why?” She forced to meet Terry and then David’s eyes. “Because … this”, she waved her arms up and down her body, “Isn’t who I am.”
“This!” She nearly shouted as she pounded her chest. “Inside here … this … IS … who I am and I’m so tired … so very tired of not being me. I’m tired of looking at life and the playground through the windows of a body prison. I’m tired of writing it ... dreaming it … crying for it … praying for it … needing it … hiding it and hurting for it. Why? Because I know who I am and I just want to be me and … and if that me is as much madness and fantasy as it is real little girl … well … then so be it, because whatever it is … it’s my heart and soul and the only thing in this world that makes me feel alive and want to be alive. I … don’t know if I can really make you understand … make either of you understand, but maybe … maybe I can show you … show myself … exactly what that 87% really is … and what she can do … if you’ll just give her … me … both of us five minutes to try.”
David, the second Irish Quiet Man, added a few well chosen words of his own. “Cierra, you may be a little girl on the inside … I don’t know … but you’re still a grown woman on the outside and what I don’t understand about all this is why you think you need to come here or get our permission to be who you think you are. Can’t you just … I don’t know … let this 87% of yours out … whenever you want to at home?”
Cierra nodded, “I do let her out … or she lets herself out … sometimes when I’m home … sometimes … anytime … any place she wants to … quite often at work and almost always whenever I’m around the two of you.”
Knowing looks from the audience confirmed the numerous “ Little Cici” sightings both had experienced during their shared lunch, the occasional hug and pounce, and most often for Terry during those long after hour chats.
“But … coming here … coming home … seems to bring her out even more … as if she … she was pushing that 87% to over 90. I feel it. Sometimes … being here, being home with the family, brings her so close to life, that … that … it feels as though all I’d need was your permission, an ounce of faith and drop of magic to make her flesh and blood real.”
Alarm bells went off for Terry. “Cierra … no matter how you feel … you know you can’t … you know there’s no magic that is going to …”
“Make me a flesh and blood real little girl? Yes Terry”, she confirmed with a heavy sigh. “I know … I’ve known everyday … every waking moment for quite awhile now that there is no magic to save me. In fact … who knows … maybe I’ve always known it was impossible, but wouldn’t … couldn’t admit it to myself. As much as I wish it would … I know there isn’t going to be any fairy tale magic to transform me. All that I can hope to happen is the most that can happen in the real world. I … just want as much as I can have … all there is I can reach … and my best chance … maybe my only chance for this is right here … right now … with the two people I love the most and want to be with the most.”
Cierra looked from eyes to eyes and could see her plea was trying to be understood. She had to push … and she had to push now.
“Terry … you’ve tried to teach me a lot of things and one of those was to appreciate the here and now and not worry so much about the past and the future. Remember?”
Terry nodded even if she didn’t remember the exact conversation.
“Well … that’s what I’m trying to do. Right here … right now I’m home and I’m with the two of you. Chances are I may never be back here again. I don’t expect an invite for Christmas and who knows where any of us will be by the time my next birthday comes round again. I could lose you both tomorrow, so I have to seize today … and it is my birthday which well … entitles me to a wish and maybe a little indulgence … okay … maybe a lot of indulgence?”
Cierra looked from face to face to see if the thin ice she was skating on was about to break. Seeing no signs of cracking she pressed on.
“The only thing special for me about this birthday is the fact I’m spending it with the two of you. I don’t feel like celebrating fifty years of life that was mostly a lie and barely more than existence, but if I can use this day to wheedle permission out of you to try and reach for the stars … then I’ll use it. Look … I’ve got all the ingredients for the recipe. I need an ounce of faith … I’ve got an ocean. I need an ounce of magic … being home with the two of you on my birthday gives me that and then some … so … all I need now is your permission to try.”
Terry looked at David and then back at Cierra. She was uncomfortable and understandably so. It showed on her face and was obvious in her words. “Cici … I know this means the world to you. We both do … but … I don’t think … I don’t see … how this is good for you … no matter what happens during your five minutes. I think … you’re going to be disappointed. And even if some of your magic happens … you’re going to be even more miserable when those five minutes … when this night comes to an end … because that is the one thing I’m sure of … this night will end and you’ll still be who reality says you are. And that really worries me.”
Cierra knew her friends words of concern and cold hard reality weren’t meant to be cruel. They came from the love Terry felt for her and were meant to spare her great pain by making her see and feel a smaller amount now.
Cierra weighed her words and shared her own heartfelt thoughts. “Yeah … it worries me too. The higher you soar when you fly … the further you drop and the harder you hit when you fall. I know that. I really do … but I gotta try to fly if I can. I have to!”
Cierra rocked and wrung her hands. She was afraid … afraid this whole thing was going to fail without ever getting a chance to succeed. Words … she had to find them and they had to say it all. She opened her heart when she opened her mouth.
“You’re right … you’re always right. No matter what happens … those five minutes and this night will come to an end. We’ll have enchiladas at Acapulco Joe’s. You’ll take me home. I’ll hug you both until you pry my arms off of you. I’ll cry. You’ll tell me goodbye. You’ll drive away … and then my birthday is over. Nothing … nothing that happens in those five minutes will change that anymore than it will change the fact that I’ll be back in the empty house, alone and wishing I was still in the back seat and heading home with you.”
“So why?” David had to ask, resisting his natural urge to stay back and stay quiet. “Why do it? Why torture yourself then?”
Cierra didn’t hesitate. The answer came straight away. “Because I’ve got the rest of my life to live knowing that my dream will never come true … that maybe come my next birthday I won’t be spending it with you. Because … I’m going to be in that house … probably alone … definitely sick … definitely hurting and having a hard time trying to find any joy in turning 51. Maybe … maybe the only thing I’m going to have to hold onto … are the memories and the knowledge that for just one night … for just five minutes … I was as close to being home … to being me as I will ever know. That’s all I’m asking really … is a chance to make a memory … a chance to live and chance to belong to the place and the people I so want to belong to.”
David shook his head. “It just hardly seems worth it for five minutes.”
“I’d trade the rest of my life … for five years … five days … even for five minutes of just being a real live little girl … your daughter … and here at home.”
Terry sighed. “But you won’t be a real live little girl … not for five minutes or five seconds.”
“But maybe I’ll be as close to it as I will ever know … and the feelings … the joy … the love … the magic … the satisfaction of knowing I made it home … that will be real. And … this place is real … and you and David are real and … that’s a lot … maybe all there is for me and I just gotta try to reach it no matter what happens … even if nothing happens.”
“And what if something does happen?” Terry proposed; still keeping both of her high heeled shoes soundly on the ground. “But what if it isn’t what you expected? What if the stress of all this just … just …”
“Pushes me over the edge?” Cierra finished for her and then answered her question.
“Then at least two people who know me and who love me will be here to call the men with the little white coats to come take me away.”
“Oh Cici”, Terry sighed.
“Look … maybe something wonderful will happen and if so … I want you to be here to see it … to share it with me. And if something … not so wonderful happens … I want you to be here to be sure I get whatever help I need.”
“And if nothing happens at all?” David offered a third alternative Cierra hadn’t considered.
“Well …” Cierra mulled over that scenario in her mind. “Umm … then I guess after about thirty of the most embarrassing seconds … and the biggest let down since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s secret vault on national television … I’ll hand you back the last four minutes and thirty seconds and we’ll go get tacos … but I don’t think nothing is going to happen. I’m just sure … really sure … that something’s gonna happen … even if I don’t know what.”
Terry and David made eye contact once again. Cierra felt they were deliberating telepathically, but she hadn’t finished with her final statement or presenting evidence.
“Wait!” She startled both of them with a shout.
Cierra picked up her book bag from the floor and starting digging through it. “I got one more thing … one more thing to show you. Please … please wait before you make up your mind. Please?”
Both Terry and David had to smile. Whether or not they granted Cierra her five minutes of fantasy fame, the picture of the girl in school uniform digging through her back pack and begging their indulgence was all kid.
“Found it!” Cierra smiled triumphantly as she pulled a card from her back pack and presented defense exhibit B … B standing for birthday card. She handed it to Terry for inspection.
“Do you remember when you gave me this card? It was the first birthday I shared with you.”
Terry held the well worn “Velveteen Hallmark” in her hands. She didn’t remember the card, only the fact that she’d given one to her friend. When she opened it … she saw why Cierra had produced it and why it had been so precious to her.
“See … see what the message is?” Cierra pointed to the inscription:
Believe what you want on your birthday.
“And see … see where you underlined Believe? You knew … you knew then what I wished for and … and out of the kindness of your heart … you were giving me permission … permission for a single day to believe what I wanted to believe … to believe my dream came true … to believe I was that little girl and your daughter and that’s all I’m asking for now. I’m just asking to … to continue the tradition.”
Terry handed the card back to Cierra who immediately took it to her chest like a cherished stuffie. Terry watched her hold it and silently cursed the day she’d selected that card. Yes … she knew then what Cierra wanted … what she wished for and yes … when she underlined “Believe” … she was giving her friend permission to indulge that belief a little … to live the dream on this special day … but she didn’t know then just how obsessed … how desperate … how sick her friend was or would become. Had she known that … she never would have encouraged her … which now brought both her and David to a very difficult decision. Do they encourage her now? Could this just push her over the edge or could it really give her some small joy that might actually help her through the aloneness that she feared would come? Could this indulgence make it better, make it worse or really change anything at all?
“Five minutes” She made her final argument. “Five minutes can’t be worth all that much to you can it? You have each other and the kids for the rest of your lives. All I’m asking for is five minutes … five minutes to belong to this place and to both of you. Five minutes to breathe … to feel … to be happy … to have a future … to grab everything I can while I can and then hold onto the memories for the rest of my life. Look … I’ve been wrong for fifty years. Can’t I be right for just five minutes?”
Tears welled in Cierra’s eyes as she searched Terry and David’s for any sign of compassion or permission.
“Five minutes for fifty years … that’s all I’m asking … five for fifty.”
“Assuming … we say yes”, Terry started cautiously.
Cierra’s eyes lit up at the Y word and she started wiggling and giggling as if the five minute clock was already ticking.
“Now hold on their Chief Happy Pants.” Her fantasy mom stopped her with a trademark “Terry-ism”. “I’ve got a question.”
Cierra put it in park and nodded with eyes and ears wide open.
“What I’m curious about is … just how do you expect to get this five minutes? Do you have a magic wand in your pocket?”
As Cierra considered the question, Terry’s fingers did a bit of walking along David’s leg awakening the magic wand in his pocket and eliciting a whine and whimper from her main man.
“No magic wand”, Cierra stopped Terry’s fingers from doing their walking.
“Actually … I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to make it happen … or even if I can, but I always feel that part of me so strong when I’m with you … and now is no exception. I can feel her wanting to break out of prison and I’m just going to try and open the door if I can. For once … I just won’t hold her back. I’ll turn her loose. I … I think … I hope that if I can just close my eyes and open my mind and heart … that she’ll come out … at least as much as she can and then … we’ll just see what happens.”
David believing turnabout is fair play did a little playing of his own as his hand wandered lazily along Terry’s hip. “But no matter what happens … you know your body isn’t going to change … and you don’t really expect to get so lost in being this little girl or these five minutes that you are going to be totally unaware of the truth … of the fact that you are really a fifty year old woman?”
Cierra smile fell as David’s chilling words of cold reality took the wind from her sails. “Yes … I know my body won’t change. I’ve known that for every minute of every waking day for a long time, but as far as everything else that could happen inside my five minute universe … I don’t know. I’m hoping that maybe being inside the five minutes will seem like … like it’s going to last forever and that I’ll have a tomorrow and whole bunch more after that. You know … kind of like I’ll be living in a little bubble where reality can’t come in and ruin my five minutes. Or … maybe I won’t completely forget the gimpy legged fifty year old who pushes cartons down the line all day … but maybe she’ll just slip quietly away for awhile and give the little girl a chance to play. She has before you know … there’s been a few times when the body didn’t get in the way and I sort of left the adult behind.”
“Terry”, she turned hoping for confirmation. “You’ve seen her before … you know … when I was really happy?”
She grinned and rolled her eyes as the image of her oldest daughter came to mind. “Like when Rose comes to work?”
On cue she gave David a sample. “Rose …eee!” She cried as a smile stole her face and she bounced in her shoes.
Terry giggled, “Defense exhibit B … the bouncing Cici.”
David didn’t voice it, but he did have to admit he’d seen glimpses of something half his coworkers size and forty years or more her junior. Most of the time, that was who hugged him and who he allowed to do so.
David looked to Terry while Cierra looked back forth between them like she was watching center court at Wimbledon.
David nodded and Terry gave the court’s decision. “Okay Cici … you’ve got your five minutes, but … BUT”, she quickly added ground rules, “if … this gets out of hand … then it has to stop, and … I don’t know what you expect either of us to do … but we won’t do anything we’re not comfortable with … and … when we say the five minutes are up … this ends … and it ends without begging or crying.”
Terry weighed her last words and quickly amended them; knowing Cierra’s water works were always on standby. “Okay … no begging.”
Cierra was so excited that expression of thought into words was almost beyond her but she tried. “Okay … okay … I’ll be good and … and no begging and … and you don’t got … have to do nothing I think. You don’t have to say yes to anything I say or ask … just … just don’t say no, okay?”
Cierra didn’t wait for an answer; she just took a few steps back and closed her eyes. Her audience watched as breathed deeply for a few seconds and then in barely above a whisper she began to sing slowly.
| “There is a castle on a cloud, I like to go there in my sleep … |
David raised an eyebrow. “What is she singing?”
“Les Miserable … you know … the musical I made you sit through … the one about the mistreated little English girl? This is her song … Castle on a Cloud … where she’s wishing for a better place to live and someone to love her.”
They both watched with curiosity and concern as Cierra finished the first verse.
Castle on a Cloud from the musical Les Miserable
“It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t being punished for being bad. I … I was just stuck … stuck inside … but not no more. Maybe it was God’s fault … and maybe it wasn’t but it don’t matter no more. Now I’m outside and I’m whole … and I’m a real girl and not a lost one. I’m not sad and I don’t live on TG Misfit Island anymore!”
“Mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom.”
Terry and David watched their friend stand center stage. Their appeared to be no physical transformation … but it was obvious something was happening on the inside and escaping to the outside in a single word.
“Mom … mom … mom,” she continued.
When Cierra’s eyes fluttered opened it was as if they were waking from a long deep sleep, but with each “mom” she uttered they sparkled a bit more and that smile returned with vengeance.
“Mom … mom … mom … mom … mom”. Her eyes were trained on Terry. The bouncing and wiggling kicked in and then ignited an explosion of happiness that couldn’t be contained and had to be shared.
“Mom … mom … mom”, she cried as she pounced on Terry like a giant lap kitten. The pounced prey shifted position on the sofa to accommodate 140 pounds of flying hug.
“Mom … I can say it now … mom … I can say it as many times as I want … mom … mom … mom … mom … mom … and … and it’s okay to say it … I’m allowed to say it. I’m supposed to say it. Mom … mom … mom …”
Her voice trailed off as she lost herself in the hug and the right to say to Terry the three letter word she’d always dreamed of saying … mom … so small … so simple and yet so full of love and magic for the little girl who could finally say it aloud.
“I love you … Mom”, Cierra said, savoring the sound and meaning of the sentence she had so longed to say to Terry.
“I know you do.” Terry confirmed the obvious as she patted Cici on the back.
Reluctantly, Cierra took her head off Terry’s shoulder and her weight off her lap. When her feet hit the carpet she turned to her next would be victim. David leaned back into the cushion … bracing himself for an attack he feared would come but hoped would not. 140 pounds of flying hug could cause damage and he wasn’t wearing a cup.
Cierra smiled and took a tentative baby step toward him. Yes, he was sitting down and even if he were standing … Cierra was still a good inch taller, but from where she stood in her five minute bubble, David seemed a towering imposing presence. Her hand reached out as if she wanted to pet a dog she wasn’t sure would bite.
She so wanted to drop the D word, but fear got the better of her and she retreated silently to the center of the room but not without a loving smile that spoke for her.
“Home”, she said softly as her attentions turned to her surroundings.
“Home … home … home.” She repeated, each time a little louder and a little surer.
“I’m home! I’m really … finally home … and … and I get to stay … and I don’t have to leave … no invites … no bus trips back … no goodbyes … home … my home … I belong … I finally belong here and … I get to stay forever and ever and ever.”
“As long as forever and ever means age 18”, David couldn’t resist joining in the spirit of the game ... although it was quite obvious to both he and Terry, for Cierra this was no game.
Cierra, like most kids her age, whatever that was, had selective hearing loss and never heard David’s gentle tease. She was too busy breathing in the life she’d always dreamed of.
Cierra spread her arms out and did a “Wonder Woman” twirl. Her smile and her pleated skirt spread.
“I belong here”, she sighed dreamily as she stopped before dizziness threatened to claim her.
“And”, she pointed first to Terry and then David. “I belong to you and you too.”
“And I belong to my sisters.” Another wave of new found reality hit her.
“Sisters! … I got sisters … I’m not alone anymore. I don’t have to play all by myself. I … got … sisters! I got a whole bunch of sisters and they got me! Rose and Donna and Victoria oh boy!” She squealed.
She turned to Terry and David, her eyes sparkling and her voice filled with more hope and happiness than they’d ever heard in it.
“And … and … my sisters … I know they’ll love me … even if they don’t know it yet, but they will I just know they will. They’ll accept me and they’ll love me because … well … I’m their sister now. Sometimes … sometimes they won’t like me ‘cause we’ll fight and that’s okay ‘cause that’s what sister’s do.” She added with a giggle.
“Rose … Rose … Rose”, she said getting happier each time she repeated her big sister’s name. “I know she’ll be happy I’m here … ‘cause … ‘cause I’m green!”
Terry and David looked at each other and did a duet as they turned to face the girl all in blue and white. “Green?”
Cierra nodded and then gave her silly parents a frustrated look. “Green … you know … Earth friendly cause … cause I’m not a new kid … I’m a recycled one!”
Two pairs of eyes rolled as both imagined Rose their “Green Peace Princess” and Cici the junior tree hugger joining hands on a mountain top, drinking Coca Cola and wanting to teach the world to sing.
“And Donna … Donna’s gonna love me too cause … cause she can use me to tease you Mom.”
Terry knew better but couldn’t help herself. “Okay … I have to know … how’s she going to use you?”
“Cause … cause when you tell her I’m her new sister … she’s going to say “Gee Mom … I go have a baby and then you have to go out and get a new kid. Competing with your daughter is so … lame.”
Terry didn’t laugh but David did, at least until he saw Terry wasn’t.
“And … Victoria will be happy too … although …” Her voice trailed off as her smile faded. “Maybe not so much … cause now she’s got to share both of you with another sister … and I’m kicking her off the little princess throne, but …”
Cierra’s smile slowly returned. “I’ll be her little sister and that means she gets to be all mean to me … and tease me just like Rose and Donna do her, but … I’ll get to pester her and drive her crazy too … so yeah … that’s a push. I’m pretty sure I can work with that.”
Terry and David watched in amazement as Cierra continued to glow and go. “Oh I can’t wait till they come home and get to see me.”
Cierra’s smile turned mischievous. “And I really can’t wait to hear how you’re gonna explain where I came from: Wal-Mart? Kids’R’Us? Second prize in a raffle at work? And … and I don’t care what you tell ‘em. That’s your job … mines just … just to be me.”
Cierra’s eyes went wide. “Me … me … I don’t even know … who me is?”
She looked to her parents. “I know I’m yours and … I know I’m home and I know my sisters, but who … who am I now? Am I still Cierra … Cici?”
David didn’t know what to say, but Terry did. “You’ll always be Cierra or Cici.” She confirmed with confidence and a grin.
“I’m Cierra … I’m Cierra …I’m Cici … I’m ME!” She stated proudly as she did a little victory dance.
“But …” the Cici shuffle stopped. “What do I look like?”
Her eyes didn’t make contact with Terry and David’s. She didn’t want them to answer. She wanted to see for herself. She took a deep breath and then released it slowly as her eyes searched the room for a mirror … her heart … her mind hoping to see a body that matched her soul. Spying the mirror on the far wall she started for it, but then stopped suddenly.
“Don’t matter”, she whispered and then repeated it louder and with more assurance. “Don’t matter ... it don’t matter what I see.”
She turned her back on the mirror, knowing the reality of its reflection was no longer her reality. She looked to Terry hoping to find a truer reflection of herself.
“I’m not ugly am I Mom? I’m pretty aint I? Pretty just like you … like my sisters … just like every girl. I’m pretty no matter what that stupid old mirror says. Dumb stupid mirrors don’t know nothing! Right Mom? Right?”
“Yes Cici”, Terry gave her the confirmation she searched for. “You are pretty … you are beautiful and you always have been.”
Cierra drank in the praise like water to someone lost in the desert and in many ways that is exactly what she had been … lost, but now … now she’d found herself and the love and the home she’d been searching for.
“I … I don’t know how old I am?” Cierra crossed her arms and bit her lip as she thought. “Hmmm … well … I’m really happy. I mean REALLY happy and … and I love you both and wanna be just like you Mom and … and … I want us to do things together … and I think you both know everything … and … and you don’t embarrass me and I don’t think you were put here to make my life miserable and I don’t think the world is coming to an end tomorrow and … and I don’t have a cell phone growing out of my ear.”
Cierra weighed the evidence and reached her conclusion. “I guess that means I’m not a teenager yet!” She giggled. “And I’m glad too cause their weird.”
Weird was an appropriate word for the moment … while uncomfortable and a concerned would also do nicely to describe the feelings both David and Terry had as they watched their friend seem to lose herself within this five minute fantasy. And as the clock ticked away … it seemed Cierra was drifting further away … deeper and deeper into Cici’s world.
David had made eye contact with Terry several times already … silent communication asking her if she thought this was getting out of hand and should they pull the plug on this fantasy before it went any further. The look in Terry’s eyes said “No … or at least not yet.” She, like David had agreed to “not say no” and so far they’d sacrificed both their comfort levels enough to keep their word. They wanted Cierra to have her five minutes and they were willing to endure a pounced lap and a bit of embarrassment to give it to her, but … there were limits … limits as to how far they would go and how far they should let their friend go … so far neither boundary had been reached.
“School!” another revelation came to Cierra. “I … get … to … go … to school! Yeah!”
She looked down at her book bag and began inventory. “Book bag … school uniform … school girl! Yepers all here and I can’t wait to go … can’t wait to freeze to death on the bus stop or have motion sickness by the time we get there or … get a face full of water from the fountain … or to smell the varnish on the floors … hear the radiators clang … cueing up for the toilet … cringing every time my teacher screeches chalk on the board … braving the mystery meatloaf.”
Cierra faced scrunched up as she shivered. “Mom I wanna take my lunch.”
Terry didn’t have time to approve or deny her daughter’s request as Cici had returned to her dream day at school. “And sunshine on my face as it comes in through those big windows … and my desk … my books … my hand raising … my chance to get it right … to do it right and … and to make you proud when I do and … and even when I don’t because you always be proud of me as long as I try … and at the end of the day … no matter how bad or how good … someone will be there to greet me … to take me home … and to listen to what I did … no matter how boring or how bad. And homework … I’ll have homework and tests to study for … and I know it will be hard sometimes, but I’ll get it ‘cause I know you’ll be there to help me.”
Cierra pointed at the dining room table. “There … we’ll sit right there and we’ll do it together. Me and you and maybe sometimes my big sisters … but I’ll learn … and I won’t have to do it all alone in my room no more because … because you’ll make time to help me. You’ll be here and you’ll care and … and I just can’t wait to go to school. It’s going to be the best time ever!”
Cierra let out a contented sigh as she returned from her dream day at school. When she looked at David and Terry the skeptical looks on their faces said they didn’t share her enthusiasm about school and quite frankly neither would any of Cici’s new sisters or for that matter, any other normal child who dreaded eight hours of imprisonment in the public school. The adult who’d been banished outside the bubble understood this and did her best to explain to her friends why it would be different for Cici.
“Okay … okay … I know … kids don’t like school … at least once they been there for awhile, but … don’t you see … I’ve never been there … well … okay … sure I’ve been there … but … but … this little girl has never been there … can’t you see the difference. Before … all I ever did was watch, wish and dream … while the boy went through the motions … and everything was always so wrong, but now it’s my turn and I just know it’s going to be right. So don’t you see? It’s like my first day at school … and really it is … and every kid gets excited about their first day. So much I finally get to do and I can’t wait to do it and … and yeah I know … once I get there and really start doing things … it all won’t be rainbows and sunshine and smiley faces on my papers. Being a girl in school won’t make it perfect and pain free … it will just make it right. I promise you … I’ll see the darker side … so give the public school system and the playground a few days to shatter my dreams and skin my knees and I’m sure I’ll be just as miserable about “Day Scare” as my sister’s are … because I am just like my sisters. I am... a real … girl.”
Another wave came and nearly knocked her to her skinned knees. “I am a real girl … an honest to goodness and badness … real girl. Do you know what that means?”
“I think I’m afraid to ask.” Terry smiled tongue in cheek.
“I know I am!” David grinned as he played it safe.
Memories from outside the bubble intruded … but it was all right. They didn’t define her any longer. She wasn’t trapped within them. She could look them in the eye and not be afraid. When she spoke it was clear the adult had snuck in and now shared a small part of the stage with Cici.
“I’ll tell you what it means … it means I’m … I’m not this brave soul any more that had to endure loss and pain and suffering and surgery to eventually become the best man made woman that $20,000 and Thailand could create … no … now … I’m just a dumb … old … plain … goofy little girl … who had it all handed to her on a silver platter the day the Doctor said I was a girl. I’m going to have absolutely no idea of how precious the gift I have is … or how fortunate I am to be born in the body that matches my soul. I … I’m going to take it all for granted … and that’s the way I guess it has to be … because the only way to know otherwise … to truly know just how precious it is to have the body … the gender that matches you soul … is to not have it and I’ve already been there … done that … had the dilators to prove it and I never ever wanna visit that place again.”
Cierra shook her head and stepped back from her words and those memories as if they could still reach her and pull her back in. She shook her head. “Oh no ... that’s not me anymore. I’m just dumb … but not so dumb ‘cause I know you will teach me … both of you will … and not so old … ‘cause I am the littlest sister … and not so plain … ‘cause I’m pretty and I got that from my momma … but yes … I’m a goofy little girl. I’m a whole lot of that and I love it.”
Finally the happiness, the joy, the excitement and the satisfaction of a lifelong dream pushed the adult back into the shadows again and the child could no longer contain herself. She had to explode … and she did.
“I’m ME! Cierra squealed. “I’m YOURS! I’m HOME! I’m HAPPY!” Cierra jumped up and down … her child’s enthusiasm and her adult weight causing knick knacks to wobble on the bookcase shelf and Terry and David to wonder if the floor could hold her.
Both had promised not to say no … but the disapproving looks on their faces rained on Cierra’s victory parade. She stopped when she saw them … but she wasn’t defeated or about to be dissuaded.
“I know … I know … I’m TOO happy. REAL kids don’t get this happy … don’t appreciate what they have. You’ve told me that loads of times … but … I wasn’t always like most real kids. Most real kids don’t spend the first fifty years of their life stuck in prison … most real kids aren’t invisible to the outside world … most kids … get to be kids … at least a little bit … but I never really did … at least not the right kid.”
The shadow of the adult continued to play hide and seek in Cici’s world. Memories intruded into the bubble.
“I was always this messed up lonely little boy … who never fit in … never felt right … wanted clothes and hair and toys he couldn’t have and didn’t know why he wanted them … only that he did with all his heart. Lonely … so lonely for friends, for sisters for anyone to play with … for parents to put down their newspaper or their novel to spend just a little time with him … and tired of waiting for angels to come make him a girl and give him those things or … or just take him to heaven so he could ask God her questions.”
Deep sadness was on her face and in her voice as she returned to the many nights she’d hit rock bottom and her knees had hit the floor. It was always the same question: “What did I do God? What did I do so wrong that I have to be punished like this?”
For over forty years she’d waited for answer … tonight she found it herself.
“Nothing! I didn’t do nothing!” Cierra said with relief and conviction as her smile returned like sunshine from behind dark clouds.
“It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t being punished for being bad. I … I was just stuck … stuck inside … but not no more. Maybe it was God’s fault … and maybe it wasn’t but it don’t matter no more. Now I’m outside and I’m whole … and I’m a real girl and not a lost one. I’m not sad and I don’t live on TG Misfit Island anymore!”
She ran to Terry … she had to share her joy in a hug. She wrapped arms round the Mom of her dreams and gushed. “Finally … finally … I’m getting to play the role … live the life … that I should have been born to play! Everything …”
Her arms swept the room. “Everything I ever wanted … I ever wished for … that I got sadder and sicker because I couldn’t reach … couldn’t have … couldn’t love myself without … couldn’t be me without … has finally come true. Don’t you see? All my dreams … all my prayers … all my stories … have finally come true. It’s … it’s like today is Christmas and my birthday and every holiday rolled into one for the last fifty years and I’ve got everything I ever wanted right down to the pony!”
“Pony!” David sat up straight. “Pony? Who said anything about a pony?”
Terry giggled as Cierra kept pouring it on. “And … and I’m not sad … I love Eeyore still … but I’m not sad and blue like him. I’m … I’m not the princess of pessimism no more. I’m happy … really … really happy for once … for the first time in my life and … and I’m entitled to be Pollyanna if I want to. It’s my birthday! Damn it!” She punctuated her gleeful gush with a stomp.
Two hands quickly covered her mouth as both of her eyes went wide. And in that moment … if not before … Terry and David truly saw the little girl they’d been listening to.
“Damn it? Really?” David said with an alligator smile.
Terry shook her head. “My … what a little potty mouth you are girl”.
Cierra looked down and squeaked. “I’m sorry … I … I didn’t mean to. I … I just got excited.”
When she looked up expecting to face the music … she found it was a happy tune as both her parents couldn’t contain their laughter.
“Oh Cici … I love you.” Terry laughed as she found it harder and harder to not lose a small part of herself in Cici’s bubble and unbridled joy.
This turned Cierra’s frown upside down and got Terry a pounce for her efforts. Cierra hugged her tightly but couldn’t sit still long as she was back up and bubbling over once again.
“You know … anything and everything is possible now … nothing is too late … nothing is outside my reach … except the cookies and David’s Gatorade.” She added with a giggle.
“Cause … with the two of you and my sisters I’m part of a real family now … and … and oh my goodness … over the river and through the woods … I got grandparents too. Thanksgiving road trip … yeah! And … and I know they’ll like me … cause I’m cute and easy to spoil.”
Cierra succumbed to the giggles. She was drunk … drunk with delight.
“I wanna do a cartwheel!” She asked but mostly informed and quickly readied herself to do so.
“Cierra Marie!” Terry shouted in a voice all of Cierra’s sisters knew well and respected. Cierra froze, proving she was a quick study.
Terry had promised not to say no … but she wasn’t going to sit there and watch her friend with the heart and enthusiasm of a child risk cartwheels on arthritic fifty year old knees.
Terry shook her finger. “Not in my living room and not on my watch!”
Cierra sulked. “Ohhh … kay”, but she was still too high to let one missed cartwheel opportunity get her down.
She filled her lungs full and then sighed dreamily as she released it. “Do you smell that?”
David sniffed the air. “Last night’s chicken tacos?”
Cierra shook her head.
Terry scrunched her nose and frowned as she sniffed. “Victoria didn’t clean out the litter box like I told her to.”
Cierra giggled and shook her head.
“No … no … its home … it’s … sweet … it’s … it’s …” Cierra sniffled and frowned. “Okay it is the litter box … but it’s still home and I still love it even when it does stink.”
“I think I’m going to have a diabetic coma”, David groaned and got a stern glance and an elbow to the ribs for his remarks.
Cierra cupped her ear. “Can you hear it?”
Both Terry and David shook their heads … wondering what “home” sounded like, other than three girls fighting.
Cierra sighed. “Neither can I … and that’s the sweetest silence I’ve never heard.”
“What?” Terry said what her soul mate was thinking.
Cierra’s smiled drained away as she left home for a moment to go back to the dark place. “The voice … I can’t hear it anymore ‘cause it knows it can’t hurt me now. It wouldn’t dare try to come here ‘cause … ‘cause it knows you two would kick its butt.”
“Whose butt?” David didn’t have a clue.
“The voice … the icky black voice that won’t be quiet … that always says bad things to me. It … it tells me I’m bad and I’m wrong … and … I’m stupid … and no matter what surgeries I have … or what I call myself … I’m still just a boy. And … it tells me how ugly I am … and how sick I am … and hopeless everything is … and how I can’t do nothing … and it tells me to be scared of everything … and … and it tells me how I can’t love nothing and how nobody can love me and how I gonna end up all alone.”
“Oh Cici”, Terry’s heart broke for her friend and girl who would be her daughter.
“Stupid voice!” Cierra cursed angrily. “Always whispering in my head … always telling me to watch the girls play … and then torturing me by telling me I can never really play with them … encouraging me to write the stories and dream the dream and then when I do … it laughs at me and tells me that nothing I wish for … or believe in … will ever come true … and everything is hopeless … but wait … there’s more! That voice … that voice is so bad ‘cause after it tells me everything is totally hopeless … it tells me not to worry. It tells me I can stop the pain. I can always quit … I can go to sleep … and not hurt no more and … it won’t stop telling me that … teasing and tempting me with that … dangling death in front of me every time I get really … really sad.”
This time David didn’t need to search Terry’s eyes for permission. Cierra was crossing the boundary into something neither wanted to hear and Cierra didn’t need to experience. This was turning dark and nasty and they couldn’t sit by … not as friends or fantasy parents and let someone they loved sink deeper into self destructive madness. They had to burst her bubble and pull her out … fortunately for Cierra she found the strength to walk out on her own.
Sad tears threatened in Cierra’s eyes for the first time since the five minute meter started running, but she sniffled them back finding strength and a joy she never had until now.
“No … no tears”, she ordered as she shook her head. “Not gonna be sad … already cried enough … and besides … I can’t hear that stupid voice no more. It can’t hurt me no more … not now … not in our house … and not on my parent’s watch. Never … ever … again!”
Cierra nodded solemnly and swallowed, “But … I think I could be pretty good at sports … for a girl that is … and … and I know it wouldn’t be as much fun for you … like it would be if I was your son … but … I’ll try really hard and I won’t cry and … if I’m tall I bet I’ll be good at basketball if my knees aint busted again … or I’ll play baseball … or maybe even football … and that would be cheaper for you then if I was a boy ‘cause you won’t got to buy me a cup … just pads.”
David’s face turned crimson as he dropped it against his chest and whined. “Five women in the house … I’m always buying pads.”
Cici regained control, but anxiety crept in as she feared her tearful outburst may have crossed the line with her parents. Praying they weren’t going to send her back early … she found the courage to meet their gaze. First David, then Terry … and yes … whilst there was concern in their eyes … there were also love and encouragement. Wind filled her sails as joy filled her heart and once again this mix of adult and child was living the dream.
“Hey … I’m an off the rack girl!” She had yet another epiphany.
David looked to Terry who couldn’t translate, but Cierra quickly did. “Don’t you see? Now … when I get something at the girls’ section at Target, I don’t have to lie and tell the sales person it’s a gift for my niece. I … I don’t have to take it home and hang it on the wall and wish I could wear it. I don’t have to spend hours on line searching sites and hoping to find a giant sized copy without a giant sized price tag. I don’t have to find a sympathetic and discreet seamstress to create an adult reproduction of a classic princess masterpiece and I don’t have to wait six weeks to be able to wear it. And … when I do wear it … I can wear it outside … and not just at some camp for other lost little girls like me … but I can wear it outside … everywhere … and … and anywhere I go if people see me wearing it … they won’t think I’m pretty weird … maybe … just maybe … they’ll just think I’m pretty.”
Cierra was feeling very pretty and very happy with the simplest of childhood joys … simple and plain as an everyday play dress … but to a little girl who never had one of her own … it was as if she was wearing Cinderella’s ball gown and as the clock continued to tick … she too like the fairy tale princess had lost track of time and the fast approaching midnight.
Cici was still laying waste to the Girls’ section like Sherman through Atlanta. “And you know what else will be so great? I won’t have to take the original outfit back to the store … and return it saying that my niece didn’t like it or that it didn’t fit … because I’m the niece and now it will fit and ‘I’ will like it and …”
She stopped mid gush, smiling devilishly at David and Terry, whilst she waggled a finger in their direction. “I … won’t have to pay for it ‘cause you … get to!”
“Lucky us”, Terry groaned, smelling burnt plastic in the air and marvelling at how her bank account seemed to shrink when her friend did.
Cierra did a pirouette and bubbled over more. “Everything is possible and nothing is impossible … and I’m warm and safe … and happy and home and loved … and … and it’s all just … just …”
“Perfect?” Terry tried to give Cierra her next line.
Cierra’s eyes went wide and her pig tails bounced as she shook her head. “No … no Mom … not perfect … I had perfect. I had perfect in my dreams and I had it in my stories and … and I could find that in a fairy tale or any 50’s sitcom on TV Land. No … not perfect! Never again perfect. I’m not the perfect little girl and … I know you’re not the perfect parents … and this won’t ever be the perfect life … but it’s the perfect life for me and I know this is the perfect place for me and you’re the perfect parents for me. I don’t want perfect anymore … I just … want … real.”
Cierra closed the distance to Terry. She reached out a hand and Terry took it. It was cold to touch as always … but the look in Cierra’s blue eyes was pure warmth.
“Mom I … I know you didn’t want another kid … especially one with a past, but you brought me home anyway! Thank you … thank you both.” She shot a quick smile David’s way.
When she turned her eyes to Terry again … mist filled them and her voice struggled with the emotions of her words. “And I know something else … as much as I wish you could … I know that you can’t love me as much as you do the girls … I mean c’mon … their your babies and I’m not … but that’s okay ‘cause I’m gonna love you back so much that I’ll make up the difference. And … and I don’t really expect you to do all the things with me that you did with them when they were my age … because well … you’re probably tired of doing all that stuff … but … but that’s okay … honest it is … cause you know what? I’ll take whatever time and attention you got left to give … and I’ll be happy to have it because tomorrow when I wake up … I know … well at least I think … I won’t remember the old me anymore. I’ll just be one of the girls … treated equally and at least seemingly ... wanted and loved just as much as them … and because you’re both such wonderful parents … that will be one beautiful little lie in my life that will never be ruined by the truth. You’ll never … ever … let me know that you love me less.”
Despite Cierra’s insistence on keeping the living room a tear free zone … a few stray one’s rolled down her cheeks and a light mist threatened in Terry’s.
“And … I don’t know how old I am but … but I’ll try to grow up really … really fast so you won’t be stuck with me so long.”
The devil smile peeked out as she did a 180. “No … no I won’t grow up fast will I? I’ll probably wring every minute of childhood out of every day … kicking and screaming all the way to bed. I’ll never want to go to sleep and probably never want to leave home.”
“Sorry ‘bout that.” She apologized with a sad frown, but the sparkle in her eyes said there was little sincerity in it.
“But … even if you are stuck with me for a whole long time, I promise you that you won’t regret bringing me home.”
A smile peeked through the mist. “Okay … so maybe sometimes you will regret it … like during Christmas shopping … or when I need braces … or when you want to use the phone or the bathroom … but I promise you … I will make you proud and I will make you laugh and I’ll make you glad that you gave me this chance … that you saved my life by giving me one with you. Oh I’m going to try so hard to be the best kid I can be. I mean it. I’ll … I’ll be the ‘tryingest’ kid in the whole … family.”
“You’ll have to go a long way to beat Donna,” Terry couldn’t resist. “But I’m sure you’ll be trying ... in every sense of the word.”
“Oh Mom!” Cierra sighed. “You know what I mean. I … I’m just going make you … going to show you … that you did the right thing. That’s all.”
Terry squeezed Cierra’s hand. “We know that Cici … we already know that … no matter what happens tomorrow.”
“And Mom? Member how I was always scared of things … everything? Well … I don’t feel so scared no more.”
She glanced out of the corner of her eye at the gentle giant just a few feet away. “Well … maybe just a little scared … but only of the things I probably should be scared of and … you wanna know why I’m not scared?”
“Sure …” Terry drawled.
“Cause I’m not alone no more. I’m a princess in the castle and you’re the wise queen and … you’ll teach me what not to be afraid of … and … and …”
Cierra’s eyes darted to the right. “He’s the brave knight and he won’t let nobody ever hurt me and … and you’ll both teach me how to take care of myself too … ‘cause that’s what parents do right? They teach kids how to take care of themselves so they can grow up and leave their parents alone.”
David nodded … smiling appreciatively, “I’m starting to like this daughter more and more.”
Cierra giggled and instinctively stepped toward David for a hug, but stopped mid pounce fearing she might be sent to the tower without her supper. Discretion being the better part of valour she returned her attention to the Queen Mum.
“And Mom … I just want you to know something else important too. I’m not going to have any babies for a real long time because I’m not going to make you a … a … you know … “m to the g?” … like Donna did … and sides I just got here being a kid … I don’t wanna quit having fun and be a momma yet.”
David was tempted to ask just how a fifty year old transgender woman without the baby making mechanism was going to pull off the second Immaculate Conception, but was afraid that Cierra might just explain how.
Terry winced at the thought of being a grandmother twice … even in her friend’s fantasy world and quickly commended Cici for her “willingness to wait.”
“Yep … and … I’m going to go to college too, but that’s after I finish high school … and I’ve decided I’m going to like boys … but even if I liked girls … I know you wouldn’t be mad at me ‘cause … it’s okay to love who you love … isn’t it?”
Terry fumbled the surprise pitch that Cierra had just thrown her. “Well … yes, that’s umm … true, but … but when it comes to love … you don’t really choose which …”
“And … I was thinking …” Cierra cut her off, paying no more attention to her mom’s reply than her new sister’s normally did. “I hope at least some of me is still the same as before … ‘cause if I left all of me back there in the other life … then that means none of me is here and if none of me is here … then … well … none of me is here … and I think that means I’m not really here at all doesn’t it?”
She whirled round to give David a turn on the hot seat. “Do you think some of me is here or none of me is here … or … do you think I’m not all here?”
David opened his mouth … but no words were forth coming. Terry’s had hers covered trying to keep from laughing. Cierra waited the maximum three seconds that most hyper “however old she is” kids do and then moved on without an answer.
“Oh … and just so you know … you’re back on the parent point system too … just like you were with Victoria when you first came here. So far … you’re doing pretty good with me I think … but I’d watch it if I were you.”
“Point system? And I need to watch it?” David leaned forward … losing himself a bit in the bubble and tempted to tell Cici just who watches who around the place, when her body and her attentions directed themselves once again to Terry.
“Mom do you think that I still like to write and draw and that I got a good imagination? I sure hope so … I hope I didn’t leave that stuff behind … cause I like writing … and now maybe I can write things other than dumb stupid second rate TG fiction all the time… and maybe I can write a zillion different stories … instead of the same one a zillion times … and I’ll probably be a little crazy … and a little weird … but you know … not the really bad kind like before … just the kind that makes me sort of fun and interesting … kinda like you Mom. And oh yeah … do you think I’ll talk too talk much just I like I used to before?”
Terry didn’t need to consult the magic 8 ball to proclaim “It is certain.”
Cierra seemed to continue to pick up speed and intensity as her time dwindled. “I wanna join Green Peace and save Polar bears like Rose too! And … I want Little Mermaid stuff in my room … and … and … oh yeah … I wanna room too. Do I have to share with Victoria … or do I get my own room? I don’t mind sharing ‘cause I like to cuddle … and I said I would be good. Umm … I don’t like meat neither just like you Mom … so I only wanna eat chicken and fish sticks and pepperoni ‘cause pepperoni aint meat … it’s a pizza ingredient … and … and can we go to Target this weekend ‘cause I don’t think I got no clothes.”
Terry leaned back against the cushion, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded the woman child before her. Yes … her eyes still beheld the middle aged woman in school girl dress … but her ears and her heart were seeing and feeling someone younger and oh so familiar. Cierra’s lists of wants and string of endless questions without waiting for proper answers were déjá vu. She’d heard it so many times before from her “other” daughters. She had to remember to tell Cierra she was running true to family form after all this was over. Terry knew it would put her friend over the moon.
“Is there anything else Cici?” Terry gently teased and tempted her.
Cierra thought for a moment and then smiled as she nodded. “Yeah … please. I forgot to say please.”
Terry shook her head and chuckled. “Sounds to me like you’ve covered about everything haven’t you?”
“Almost …” she turned away from Terry and found the courage to address the Brave Knight once again.
She edged dangerously closer to him and then met his eyes. This was a delicate subject in a delicate situation, but it was important and she had to brave it. Her voice started as a whisper but picked up volume as she picked up steam.
“Umm … I know … that umm … if … if you were ever going to have another kid … I mean well … you can’t have kids ‘cause you’re a boy … I … I mean a man … because men don’t have kids … that’s what girls do … and I’m a girl and you’re not … but what I’m trying to say …”
“Then just say it Cici”. He gently nudged her along with a father’s patience.
“Umm … well … it’s just that I know you would really rather have a son, instead of another daughter … but … but … if you think about it … what’s one more cup of oestrogen when you’re already drowning in an ocean of it … right?”
Cierra smiled nervously … hoping her "A" material would get a laugh from the tough crowd. She had to settle for a grin from old green eyes, but it was enough to give her the courage to continue.
“But … I was thinking ‘bout stuff and … and … I think I still like sports … so maybe … if you want to … you could help me with sports kinda like if I was a boy, but I hope you won’t holler at me a whole lot. I don’t like it when you holler.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Then don’t give me a reason too.”
Cierra nodded solemnly and swallowed, “But … I think I could be pretty good at sports … for a girl that is … and … and I know it wouldn’t be as much fun for you … like it would be if I was your son … but … I’ll try really hard and I won’t cry and … if I’m tall I bet I’ll be good at basketball if my knees aint busted again … or I’ll play baseball … or maybe even football … and that would be cheaper for you then if I was a boy ‘cause you won’t got to buy me a cup … just pads.”
David’s face turned crimson as he dropped it against his chest and whined. “Five women in the house … I’m always buying pads.”
Terry smiled sympathetically at the lone source of testosterone in the house. Cierra gently tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up to meet her smiling gaze. “Whatever I played … I’d try really … really hard to make you proud of me. I promise I would.”
David looked into the eyes of a child … yes a child … despite what his mind knew to be physical fact … his heart was forced him to see an alternate reality. Somehow … someway … he was having a Cici sighting. As impossible as it had to be, there was a little girl standing in front of him … begging for his approval … his love and for a chance to include him in the waning moments of her magical measured by minutes existence. The brave knight was as powerless against this princess as he was the others who dwelled her. He spoke honestly and easily.
“I know you’d try Cici … with all your heart you’d try to make us proud.
Cierra positively glowed. David’s praise was food to a child who had been starving for so long.
She needed no other encouragement. “And I know you’ll come to my games to watch me play and … and …”
She turned to Terry. “And you can come to the game and watch both of us!”
“Both of you?”
Cierra nodded. “Uh huh … you can watch me play and watch him close so he don’t get thrown out for hollering at the stupid refs.”
Terry and Cierra giggled as David gave them both the evil eye, “Really? Really?”
When Terry stopped giggling, she reached out and grabbed hold of Cierra’s skirt, pulling her big little girl toward her. “Cici … sounds to me like you have your whole future planned out.”
Cierra shook her head. “No … I don’t. I don’t really know what’s going to happen tomorrow except … that I’ll be me and I’ll be here with the people who love me and … and the rest is what I … what you … both of you … help me make it and that’s all I really want to know, but …”
Her pixie smiled fade. “In my other life, the old me knew the future … because every day was ‘bout the same except maybe … just a little bit worse sometimes. Then … I knew what was going to happen but I still couldn’t change it. I mean … I could change some things, but nothing that really mattered. I couldn’t change the things I needed to change … the things that would make a difference. My life … was well … full of guarantees.”
Terry eyed her suspiciously. “C’mon Cici … guaranteed? You really believe everyday was destined to be the same? That you couldn’t change anything that mattered?”
“Uh huh … pretty much.”
Cierra paused … thinking back to life before … a Cici’s life “bfm” … before five minutes. “I was guaranteed to wake up and be sad because I didn’t wake up here or I didn’t wake up in heaven. I was guaranteed to look in the bathroom mirror and see a reflection that wasn’t mine and that I hated more and more every day. I was guaranteed to pedal my bicycle into work no matter what the weather because driving was one of my ten thousand phobias I couldn’t conquer. I was guaranteed to come to work carrying bags of candy and granola bars and other gifts … desperately trying to buy a place in your life and a type of love from you that you didn’t have to sell for any price.”
Cierra turned to David. He was not unscathed from her life before. “And … I was guaranteed to corner you in the break room and torture you with pointless conversation and a hug when I knew all you wanted was to get your coffee and get back to the lab.”
Shame and frustration was etched on her face when she looked at Terry again.
“It was guaranteed that I’d light up like a Christmas tree as soon as I saw you walk in … and I was guaranteed to never smile on the days you didn’t. And … during the course of the day I would say your name twenty times, but it was guaranteed that beneath my breath I was saying ‘Mom’ every time.”
She looked to David and then back to Terry. “It was guaranteed that the highlight of my day was our thirty minute lunch together. Most of the time … I didn’t really bring much to the table aside from yogurt … and truth be told … you’d probably both been happier to just have a cosy little lunch on your own … but it was guaranteed that if you were both here … I was invited. It was guaranteed that whenever I sat across from you … you’d both let your guards down a little … and let your fingers do the walking on each other … and it was almost like being home at the dining room table. I felt forty years younger and three feet shorter watching and listening to the two of you … and that was the best guarantee of all.”
A sweet smile of remembrance from lunches past snuck in but faded quick as she continued down the mental list. “And I guarantee you that if you were at work when I left … I’d have to come in and say goodbye and hope you’d let me stay awhile … even if it was just to run and fill your water bottle … or fix you a cup of tea. Those things weren’t much to you, but to me … they were guaranteed joy because I was a daughter helping her mom. And it was extra special if we shared granola bars and you told me about the girls or smiled and listened when I told you stuff … and if I made you laugh … oh if I made you laugh, I guarantee you I was over the moon, but then … then I had to come back down again because it was time for you to go home. It was guaranteed that I’d walk you to the car … ask you to send my love to everyone … as I do every … single … night. And then … I’d watch you drive away … unless … unless it was Friday which is guaranteed hug day and I’d get my weekend fix first. And then … it was guaranteed I’d watch you until your car disappeared … hoping when I knew there was no hope or no reason … that you would stop and come back for me.”
Cierra stopped and sighed heavily. “And then I’d cycle home to my little English tea cottage with a bedroom built for Barbie. I was guaranteed to find Muffin the cat waiting for me, but no one else. I’d put on the kettle … put in a frozen pizza and then go to the computer to continue working on yet another fantasy story where … where this …”
Cierra waved her arms round. “Finally came true … but up until now … was guaranteed to never come true no matter how many times I wrote it. And it was guaranteed that over the course of tea, pizza and tapping keys … that I would think of both of you and the girls and wonder what you were doing that night … wondering how I would fit in and knowing that I would … if only I could. And if I got really sad … or scared … or couldn’t write or daydream anymore … I’d sit in my rocker and rock or walk the floors until bedtime and then I’d climb the stairs, get into my Eeyore nightshirt and wiggle under my Little Mermaid comforter. It was guaranteed that I would wish you both good night as I blew a kiss to your picture on my nightstand and then I’d continue the time honoured tradition of asking the powers that be to please let me wake up the next morning … finally home and finally your daughter or … not wake up on this Earth at all … and … one more guarantee. I guarantee you that I’d wake up around 3 a.m. and that stupid voice would start again … and it would remind me that you weren’t just down the hall and you never would be … and then I’d cry and go back to sleep.”
Cierra shuttered from a cold soul deep and memories of a life that was slowly killing her. David and Terry were helpless do anything else other than let her release the poison.
“The weekends … oh how I hated the weekends! They were even worse, because it was guaranteed I would not see or hear from either of you for two whole days, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be looking for you, ‘cause I guarantee you that every time I heard a car pull up I’d run to the window hoping to see it was the two of you coming to collect me. I guarantee you I’d beg the phone to ring hoping it would be you calling to invite me over … but knowing it wouldn’t be … because there was no reason to invite me over and every reason not to. It was guaranteed to be 48 of the loneliest hours I’d ever spend … and yes … I know what you’re thinking … you’re thinking I could break that guarantee. I didn’t have to sit in the house alone all weekend … I just choose to. You’re right … I could go out and be around people but I couldn’t come home and I guarantee you that was the only place and the only people I wanted to see, and finally I guarantee you that if I wanted any sleep on a Sunday night, I’d better take a pill, because I’d be so wound up about Monday … happy to be seeing you but so afraid I’d say or do something stupid when I do … that I couldn’t get to sleep.”
Cierra finished with a heavy sigh … expelling the sickness and sadness of a life recently past. “Gosh … that all sounds pretty bad huh?”
She looked from face to face. “I mean … when you step back and look at what I was … and what I did and … how I used to live … and … and what I did to both of you … oh wow … that’s … that’s just sad … really sick and really sad and I’m so sorry for the things I did to you … and so grateful that you stuck with me and gave me this chance … and now …”
The smile returned like the sun from behind dark clouds. “I don’t have all those guarantees no more … but I do have some … and I think there the good kind! It’s guaranteed that you’re stuck with me now. I mean even on the days you don’t like me so much you won’t get rid of me. It’s guaranteed that were stuck with each other forever and ... and don’t worry … it won’t be so bad. I know you’re going to like me ‘cause after awhile I bet I’ll kinda grow on ya.”
“Like mould on soap?” David couldn’t resist a little lab humour.
Cierra shrugged her shoulders and giggled. “Maybe! And … it’s guaranteed that I got sisters and even if we fight …”
“No … there’s no IF to that one … that’s another guarantee.” Terry exercised her experienced Mother’s prerogative, “Sisters ALWAYS fight.”
“And even WHEN we fight”, Cierra corrected herself. “We’ll still love each other and I know we’ll be there for each other … and a part of each other’s lives for the rest of our lives … no matter how far away life takes us … we’ll be connected always!”
“And … I know there’s no guarantee about what life is going to throw at me tomorrow, but what is guaranteed is that you’ll both be here to help me face it. I guarantee you that every wonderful thing that happens I’m going to want to share it with you and every good thing I do … I’m going to want you to be there to see it ‘cause I guarantee you that nothing makes me happier than making you proud and … and I guarantee you that when bad things happen and I mess up really bad … I’m still going to come to you … even if I know I’m going to get in trouble or hollered at … because I can come to you … because I’ll WANT to come to you and I know after you get done being mad … you’ll listen and you’ll care and you’ll help and you’ll still love me, because that’s what good parents do and you’re the best!”
Cierra pounced on Terry, sharing her overflowing “hug energy” and then sent an “air hug” to David before starting again. “But I know … even with the best parents in the whole world … sometimes life kicks you in the bum … and I know I’ll have some problems and maybe some bad ones … maybe I’ll even get sick in the head again … but I don’t think I’ll be transgender again, because … I think that’s probably double jeopardy or something and they can’t do that one to me again. But … whatever happens … I guarantee you I won’t be so scared ‘cause you’ll teach me to be brave and I guarantee you I won’t be so naíve and dumb ‘cause you’ll teach me things and I guarantee you I’ll believe I can do almost anything and beat almost anything … especially the things people tell me I can’t … because I love you and I believe in you and I trust you … and because you feel the same way about me … you’ll teach me to find those things within myself … just like you did my sisters, and that’s one of the very best guarantees of all!”
Cierra reached out and offered hands. Each took the one closest. “And I know it’s not guaranteed that I will ever find my soul mate like the two of you did … or that I’ll get married and have a family and then get paid back by my kids for all the rotten things I did to the two of you … but I hope so … ‘cause I want to know big girl love and I wanna be a big girl … but for now … I just wanna be a little one first … and get there one day at a time just like every other girl.”
Cierra blue eyes risked contact with David’s green. “And … I hope someday I do find me a handsome prince that I can love like Mom loves you and makes me happy like you do her, but … I know that’s not guaranteed. What IS guaranteed … is that I have a chance … a real chance for all those things … just as in my life before … I was guaranteed to have no chance at all … especially when it came to love ‘cause to me … even on the high side of forty … men … were fathers and uncles and love was something with a fairy tale knight or prince. It was giggles and blushes and at best a playground kiss or crush. It … just couldn’t be grown up ‘cause I wasn’t grown up and I never would be.”
Cierra searched Terry’s eyes for understanding. “Does that make any sense?”
Terry gave it to her with a knowing smile and nod. “Actually … it makes perfect sense.”
Cierra lit up and gave her best brave smile. “And you wanna know something? Even if I’m not lucky enough to find a brave knight like you did and … and I end up living by myself with a cat in a little English tea cottage … I’ll never be alone … not really … because I’ll always be connected to you and my sisters … even if you all do runaway and change your phone numbers ‘cause you know I’ll find you. That’s a guarantee too!”
Terry winked at David. “And she means it too. I guarantee you.”
“Mom … David”, Cierra squeezed their hands and poured her heart. “And the bestest guarantee of all is that this isn’t a dream … it’s not one of my stupid stories … it’s … it’s not thirty minutes of lunch magic … it’s not me being on the outside looking in the windows … wishing I was on the inside and knowing I never will be. Oh don’t you see? You came … I waited and waited and I hurt and … I almost gave up but I didn’t ... and in the end you came … you came and took me home and now it’s all guaranteed. I’ll always be loved … and accepted … and part of this family. I’ll always belong … which is all I ever wanted … and that’s the best guarantee of all ‘cause it lasts forever and ever and that’s … a really … really … long time!”
All the bad that was … and the good that now was … finally overwhelmed the big little girl and she wrapped arms round half the team that brought her home and hugged Terry tight.
David had one eye on the coupling and one eye on the clock. As much as he hated to be the bad guy, normally leaving that job to Terry who enjoyed it too much … he felt he had no choice but to be.
“Uh … speaking of time Cici … I think you’re about out of it. I’m afraid your five minutes are almost up.”
Terry glanced over at David warning him off with a look, but the words were already in the air. Perhaps it was her women’s “institution” as Cici often called it or perhaps she knew too well the woman who would be her girl … but she had a feeling Cierra’s re-entry into reality wouldn’t go well. The look of horror that her friend gave her when she pulled back from the hug confirmed it.
“Five minutes? Five minutes?” She repeated, taking a step back and shaking her head as an old reality was forcing itself into the new one.
“No … not five minutes … no … no ... it’s forever!” She tried to convince herself but it was pointless as the damn had burst and all hell came flooding back in. It was midnight for Cici … the ball was over and the magic was coming undone.
Cierra closed her eyes and drew in a breath. When she released it … the life in her body seemed to leave her. When she opened her eyes the sparkle had faded and the blue was almost grey. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“I … I’m sorry. I … I just wanted to try … to try extra hard ‘cause … ‘cause now I understand … and … and well … I just think I could get there you know. I think if I tried with … with all that I am … that I could make something happen."
“No …” she sighed now defeated as her hands and her hopes dropped and the voice returned to whisper once again.
Tears fell and Cierra’s wobbling legs said she was soon to follow. David reached out to grab her with a firm hand and Terry did the same with her voice.
“Cici!” She commanded and the little princess raised face to do as ordered.
“Listen to me … there’s no need for all those tears and all this drama. You know we don’t drama here. Do we?”
Cierra shook her head and tried to comply but the pain … the loss was too fresh and too deep and she couldn’t stop the waterworks.
Terry’s heart was breaking for her friend who so wanted and needed her insides to be her outsides. Her voice softened as she sought the words to ease the pain and dry the tears.
“Honey … I know you hurt. I know it hurts real bad … but it’s going to be okay and you’re going to be okay. Now listen to me … you’ve had your five minutes … and it was a wonderful five minutes. You got everything you wanted. You … got to be home … and you were our daughter and … you finally got to do all those things you wanted to do.”
Terry’s soothing words seemed to have the opposite effect on her distraught friend. Anger filled Cierra’s eyes. Her words were frustration laced and came in an explosion.
“No … no … no … no! I didn’t do them. I didn’t DO anything! I wasted it … my one and only chance and I wasted it.”
Cierra shook her head. Tears started again … and self hate poured out with them. “Stupid … stupid … stupid! I had five minutes to live and … and I blew it. I can’t believe I wasted it. Oh Cici forgive me … I wasted it.”
David looked to Terry for translation, but the look on her face said she had none.
“Cierra”, Terry said slowly and softly. “I don’t understand. How can you say you wasted it?”
Cierra wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to explain through the pain.
“Cause … I stood right here and did nothing but talk. I talked about how wonderful it is … and … and how horrible it was … and I talked about all the things I was going to do and how wonderful it would be … but I didn’t DO ANYTHING! Don’t you see … I had five minutes to live … to get in the game … but I sat on the sidelines … watching and talking … but never doing? I stood on this spot … I didn’t move six feet … I didn’t do any of the things I finally had the chance to do … I … just talked about them. I wasted it.”
Her face dropped again and the volume of her voice followed. “I was still sitting on the landing looking through the railings … still sitting at the computer tapping keys … finally inside with a chance to do so much and what did I do? I did nothing … nothing at all … but talk … talk … talk.”
Cierra’s blue eyes begged Terry for an answer. “Why Mom … err … Terry … did I waste my time? Why didn’t I do … instead of talk? What went wrong? Why did I blow it? Why? Why was it almost like … like something just got in the way … something held me back and keep me from doing?”
“Maybe …” David gave an honest answer to the question he wasn’t asked. “It’s because … for as much little girl as you are … or believe you are … or get the chance to be … you’re still a fifty year old woman. Now I know that’s not what you want to hear or think about but it’s the truth Cierra. That part of you exists and no matter how small a percentage you reduce it to … it’s still there … still awake and no five minutes of magic can wish it away. The adult was clearly sharing with the child. It’s why you spent so much time talking about how bad it’s been … why you seemed to have the appreciation and understanding of an adult but the heart, desire and need of the child.”
David smiled sympathetically at the lost girl. “Look … I’m no doctor or therapist … maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but in my opinion you didn’t do anything wrong or waste anything. I think you did all you could do. I don’t think it’s possible to be more child than you were. The adult is always going to be there like … like an anchor weighing you down … and it won’t let you forget that for all your heart … you’re still a grown woman … and maybe talking and writing and wishing is as close as you can get to it. Maybe doing … really … I don’t know … playing or … or whatever it is you think you should have done is just beyond you … beyond the amount of child within you to overcome the adult who will always be with you because as much as you hate it … this is reality and that’s the truth. Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong … maybe you just never really had a chance to do anything more. Maybe that’s all there was and you were as close as you could get. I’m sorry Cierra. I’m truly sorry.”
Both Terry and Cierra were amazed not only by the amount of words coming from their normally silent sentinel but also by their depth and insight into Cierra’s situation. If there was any doubt that he cared … truly cared … it was lost when he finished. Terry’s hand found its way to David’s. The look in her eyes told him that his gentle honesty was appreciated.
Cierra stood there silently, weighing David’s words, wondering if he could be right and hoping that if he was … there was still a way round the truth. When she reached her decision, her eyes went wide.
“Yes … yes … David, I think you’re right … at least about part of it. The adult isn’t ever really going to go away. It’s part of who I am … not a big part … not what I think truly defines someone: their heart and soul … but it’s still a part of me … if only in body and experience. And … I can’t wish it away … because if I could … well … my fantasy five minutes would’ve become real and lasted a lifetime. “
Cierra waved her arms across her body. “This doesn’t truly define me … but it is part of me … and always will be.”
She tapped her forehead. “And there’s so much in there that I wish I could forget … that I wish I could wipe away … that no kid could know or should know … but reality says I’ll carry those memories and those scars with me until death or Alzheimer’s takes them away. Yes … the adult will always be here and maybe it will always be in the way of the child … sort of like an anchor weighing her down or a tether that will allow her to only come into this world so far and maybe … maybe I did reach the length of my tether in those five minutes and I had all there is … or maybe … just maybe … not.”
Hope … mixed with desperation flickered in Cierra’s blue eyes as she looked between Terry and David, knowing her time and their patience were running short.
“Look, I’ve always thought of myself as having a foot in both worlds … adult and child, but most of the weight … my 87% if you will … rests on the one wearing the Mary Jane. Now during my five minutes … it felt as though Cici … my foot wearing the Mary Jane … almost carried all the weight, but not quite. It was almost as if … if … the adult foot still had a small part … a little toe if you will … still touching the ground … still interfering … still keeping the child from being all she can be … keeping me … keeping her from doing.”
Cierra went quiet. Her mind raced and her eyes darted back and forth as a few more precious seconds ticked away.
“David … how much time do I have left?”
David a bit startled … struggled to find the clock. “Umm … actually … you’ve only got a few …”
“Thanks that’s all I need!” She never got the official count and in reality didn’t want it.
“Terry … Mom,” she turned to her fantasy family matriarch. . “Look … I don’t know if I can … can … lift the anchor or stretch the tether or … or … get that adult little toe up off the ground … but I’d like to try … please … please with whatever little time I have left … can I try … can I try to bring the little girl all the way home … or as close to it as I can? Please … let me try … let me try with everything I have … and see what happens.”
“David … please … please let me try.” She begged for the king’s permission.
Terry looked up at the clock and then at David and then back at the face filled with hope, hope she didn’t want to dash … but in all honesty if she truly cared about her friend, could she encourage it?
“Cierra … I’m not trying to be cruel … neither of us want to be … but the truth of the matter is … you already tried … and … something did happen … we both saw it. You came home … you were living it … or maybe at least as much as you ever can. Honey … I know you want more … you want to DO more, and with all my heart I wish you could … but I’m afraid there isn’t any more for you and trying to get closer … trying to stretch the tether or raise the toe, is only going to frustrate you and hurt you and … well … I know you asked us to not say no … but as your friends and someone you think of as parents … I’m not so sure it would be very responsible of us to agree to allow you to do something that could be so harmful for you.”
“Terry’s right Cierra … I think you’re wanting more than you can have and it’s just going to upset you to try for more. Why not just be happy with what you’ve had and cherish the memory … and … we’ll go get some enchiladas at Joe’s. How’s that sound?”
Cierra closed her eyes and drew in a breath. When she released it … the life in her body seemed to leave her. When she opened her eyes the sparkle had faded and the blue was almost grey. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“I … I’m sorry. I … I just wanted to try … to try extra hard ‘cause … ‘cause now I understand … and … and well … I just think I could get there you know. I think if I tried with … with all that I am … that I could make something happen. Look … I know I can’t do magic but maybe I could do something magical. I can’t get rid of the adult … but maybe I could push her so far back that she wouldn’t get in the way of the child … that I could stretch that tether even if I couldn’t break it. And yes … if I tried and I failed … it would hurt … but when this is over it’s going to hurt a whole lot any way. I … I just wanted to try for all there is … all that I could have. That’s all … and I’m sorry if I asked too much or seemed ungrateful. I just wanted to come home and to be me … as much me as I possibly could.”
Cierra dropped her head again. Her hand went to her eyes to wipe tears away as she struggled to find her composure and a brave smile. Terry looked to David who read her thoughts and offered no silent objections.
“Cierra”, Terry started causing her friend to look up quickly … tears and a hint of fear in her eyes.
Terry’s reassuring smile calmed her. “Look … it’s probably not good parenting or good friendship … or good sense, but … if you want to try … to try for something more … then go for it. We’ll give you your last minute and I hope with all your heart you find what you’re looking for.”
Life breathed back into Cierra’s body and eyes. “Oh thank you! Oh thank you! Oh thank you! I promise you won’t be sorry. I just know I can do it. I just know I can!”
Terry giggled as Cierra pounced her for a hug. “Well if you don’t … it certainly won’t be for lack of enthusiasm.”
David sensing an impending lap kitten coming his way, tapped his imaginary wrist watch to let her know the clock was running. Cierra noted the warning and wasted no further time. She stood in the middle of the room taking deep breaths as if she were about to go deep sea diving. When she spoke it was as much to herself as it was the audience.
“Okay … you can do this … you want to do this … just concentrate … open your heart and let it happen. You can lift that little toe if you try.”
Cierra closed her eyes and made her plea. “Please … spirit … God … guardian angel … whomever … whatever … help me … and if no one’s there and I’m just talking to myself … then self listen up. Big girl part of me … I know you’re here and maybe you’ll always be … but if you can’t go away … can you … I don’t know … can you go to sleep for a little bit? For a minute … just a minute … can you let me play without being there … without me knowing you’re there? Can you give me a minute all to myself? Please?”
A few moments of silence passed before a soft … if terribly out of key voice, sang the second verse of Castle on a Cloud.
| "There is a room that's full of toys, There are a hundred boys and girls. Nobody shouts or talks too loud, Not in my castle on a cloud.…" |
“I’m sorry Cici … but in the real world you can’t be the little girl you want to be. Yes … you can put your hair up in pig tails and carry Kiwi around and colour till your heart’s content, but we both know that you’ll never wake up and truly be the little girl in body that you are in soul. Just as in the real world … I can never be your Mom … David can never be your Dad and the girls can’t be your sisters. It’s impossible.”
Cierra’s blue eyes surpassed the brilliance of blue they had been earlier. They were sparkling sapphires which made Terry covet them all the more.
The fullness of her eyes and the look on her face said that Cierra was awake and then again … not so much. She slowly panned the room … almost as if she’d never seen it before.
“Cici?” Terry called to her … hoping if the child was there she’d answer, but Cierra stayed silent.
After doing a 360 she stopped and turned her inspection inward. Her left arm rose from her side and her hand moved toward her chest … stopping inches from her heart and then cautiously … gently … she tapped it. A smile turned at the corners of her mouth as she finally broke silence.
“Me” She said softly in a voice that was childlike in its in delivery if not truly in tone.
“Me” She repeated with more assurance as she tapped herself again.
“Me” She stated louder and with a broader smile.
The hand lifted off her chest and reached upward until it made contact with a pig tail. It closed round the hair and gently tugged it.
The smile spread yet again as she repeated. “Me”
The hand released the hair and slowly moved downward. Her eyes followed it as it came into view. Eventually her hand rested on her skirt. Her fingers played with the pleats and followed one until its conclusion at the hem and her second word came.
“Mine”
She grabbed hold of the skirt and tugged it. “Mine!”
“Me and mine?” Terry broke the moment as she tried again to get her friend’s attention. “Well Cici … you certainly sound like a kid.”
This time she made contact. Cierra turned to face Terry … tilting her head slightly to the right … almost like a dog hearing a whistle. Cautiously she took a wobbly step in Terry’s direction and then extended her arm toward her … her hand flattened and her fingers stretched to within a few inches of Terry’s chest, but would come no closer.
Terry searched her eyes and saw only those of a tentative child looking back at her. Treating her as one … whether she truly was or not … Terry’s voice was soft and non-threatening.
She smiled and almost sang, “Cici?”
She knew she’d made contact at Cici as her friend’s eyes flashed in recognition of her name.
“Cici”, Terry repeated and found the same reaction.
Terry raised her hand slowly … extending her fingers “Ciciward” and stopping just short of Cierra’s. She wanted Cierra to make the next move … to make contact herself. She thought that was a good idea, but honestly … she had no idea …and like Star Trek … she was going where she’d never been before … maybe where no one had ever been before.
Cierra’s fingers inched forward and then gently touched Terry’s. Terry smiled offering silent encouragement which Cierra took as her fingers intertwined with Terry’s.
It was then Cierra dropped her third word … and like the first two it started with an M and also like the first two it was very much in a child’s repertoire.
“Mom”
It was said without doubt … without fear … and with loads of love. It was followed by a “Cici-launch” and another 140 pound landing in Terry’s lap. It was not however followed by a string of 37 repeats like it was the first time. Once spoken … straight from the heart and without interference seemed to suffice as she held onto Terry tightly and rocked quietly in her arms.
David watched the action unfold silently and for the moment kept his distance. He wasn’t exactly sure who or what had opened her eyes when Cierra finished her song. Perhaps she had reached the inner child or perhaps she’d pushed herself over the edge. Either way he would stay back for now giving his friend the chance she’d asked for, and while he never considered Cierra a danger to anyone other than possibly herself … should she show any indication to the contrary … he would put a stop to this … whatever it was … immediately.
David’s lack of participation was short-lived however as Cierra’s pounce and hug with Terry seemed to energize her and give her courage she hadn’t had in her previous outing. This time when she bounced off Terry’s lap she pounced into Jeff’s without so much as a by your leave.
“What the …” David cried as he tried to brace himself for the incoming hug missile. Cierra was spot on. The spot being the centre of David’s lap. This new Cici while starting out timid at first … came on ferocious in a hurry and had no trouble saying the one word to David that Cierra or Cici Classic couldn’t.
“Dad”
Like with Mom … she said it only once, but it echoed through her every action.
She smiled and sighed as she hugged him tight enough to restrict blood flow to his extremities. She held the hug as David held her and then seconds later she was up again and exploring her surroundings.
David kept a watchful eye on Cierra as her attention turned toward the living room door. She immediately crouched into a defensive posture and then stalked the front entrance. David leaned toward his beloved and whispered. “Is … is she for real? I mean … has she…”
He took a finger and twirled it round by his ear; making the universal sign for insanity. “You know … has she lost it?”
Terry too was maintaining a parental vigilance on her friend who continued to inch ever closer to the door. “I … honestly don’t know. I don’t think so … well then again … maybe she has …or maybe she really has put the adult to sleep for a little while.”
“You mean like she’s totally gone into another personality? Like … like Sybil or something?”
Terry shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know … but the way she moves … the way she looks at things … the few words she said … you have to admit … it is eerily childlike.”
David shook his head and shivered. “I think it’s weird like … like if she’s not play acting … then maybe we need to call someone or take her somewhere. It’s one thing to indulge her inner child, but this is … is … I don’t know what it is, but if the kids come home …”
“Outside!” Cierra shouted as she touched the door, stepping back like she’d been burned by fire.
Cierra shook her head and took another step back. “Outside … no me!”
A passing car came by and its lights flashed in the window drawing her attention there. She pointed to the glass, shaking her head and repeating. “Outside … no me!”
She immediately moved to the centre of the room which seemed to be a safe place as her body language relaxed and the smile returned. Her attention was then drawn to a picture on a shelf and she moved over to investigate.
David motioned toward the door and then the window. “What the hell was that all about?”
Terry was already pondering David’s question before he’d asked it. She continued to watch Cierra focus on the framed picture while she gave her best answer. “I think … and mind you I’m only guessing … but Cierra was always saying how … how she felt like she was on the outside of our home … our family … looking in … always wanting to be inside where we were … well … now she is … and I’d say that things like doors and windows lead to a very scary place that she doesn’t want to go back to: outside … outside looking in.”
David scratched his goatee. “Okay … I think I get it … it’s all kind of crazy and yet I guess it makes sense. This little girl … was trapped inside Cierra’s body and always looking outside, but now that she is outside … she wants to stay inside with us because she doesn’t want to go back outside to look in?”
Terry smiled at her smart guy and gave her best posh Brit, “By Jove, I believe he’s got it!”
David rubbed his forehead and groaned. “No … what I got is a five minute headache that’s lasted for nearly an hour. Now look Babe, Cierra’s our friend … and I don’t mind allowing her to … to be herself … or the self she believes herself to be … but I think this is getting out of hand … and I think we should pull the plug before this goes any further.”
Terry raised a hand stopping David before he could throw a butterfly net over Cierra.
“Okay … I admit … this is weird … but I don’t think she’s gone crazy and I don’t think she’s in danger and I’m sure we aren’t. Why not let her run just a little bit more … let’s just see what happens and if she really gets out of control or something we’ll stop it.”
David watched Cierra staring almost hypnotically at the pictures on the shelf.
“I … don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Terry begged her love with a smile. “Please … for me … for Cierra … just give her the rest of her time. It might be the only chance she ever has to be free.”
“Well …” a smile turned at David’s lips admitting defeat to the woman he could never refuse anything.
“Me!” Cierra shouted as she crashed the moment and thrust a picture between the two soul mates.
“Me” She repeated as she handed it to Terry who cradled it in her hands. The picture was a portrait of the three daughters when they were little. It was always one of Cierra’s favourites when she came to visit and by the way this version had taken to it, it was one of hers as well.
Cierra gently placed her finger on Rose.
“Roze”
She moved to Donna and struggled more to find the word.
“Dunna”
And then to Victoria
“Viggy” was the closest she could get to Vicky; the nickname of Terry’s youngest.
Finally she pointed to what seemed to be nothing more than the left hand corner of the picture … but to her … was obviously everything.
“Me … me … me”
David squinted to see who she was pointing at; only to see there was no one to see.
“I don’t get it … what’s she pointing at … and why is she saying me?”
This one Terry knew without doubt. Terry tapped the place Cierra had touched seconds ago. “She’s pointing to where she would be … if she could be … right in line … just after Victoria.”
Cierra nodded which signalled she was perfectly able to receive and understand communication … even if her powers of sending seemed almost undeveloped.
Cierra picked the picture up and held it to her chest. She closed her eyes and rocked before she slowly walked it back to the shelf.
“I wonder … why it she’s having difficulty speaking.” Terry thought out loud. “It’s like she really struggling … almost fighting to get the word out and when she does … it’s distorted.”
David reached over, gently laying his arm on his love’s shoulder. “Beats me … but it does remind me of what you said about Donna when she was little … you know … that really bad speech problem she had?”
Terry lit up and rewarded her brave and brilliant knight with a kiss. “Yes … of course … just like Donna … that makes perfect sense.”
“Okay” David smiled dreamily savouring the taste of her lips. “So explain it to me.”
Terry kept her Mom monitor on Cierra who had moved from in front of the shelf and was now standing at the bottom of the stairway and looking at the landing.
“Poor little Donna had no problem hearing or understanding … but her speech skills were severely underdeveloped and she really struggled to communicate. She used to get so frustrated when no one could understand her.”
“I get that … I do, but … how does that apply to Cici.”
“Well mind you … it’s just a theory but … think about it … she’s been inside all her life … a spiritual entity if you will … and for forty years unable to do anything else other than listen and see and think. The physical world has been outside her reach … so things like speech skills would be … almost non-existent … she’s barely more than mute. And that would explain why she needed to touch herself and me. Again … that’s all part of the physical world … the world outside and until she actually touched herself and us … she had no proof any of this was real.
“My pace!” Cici proudly proclaimed; drawing Terry and David’s attention to the stairway. Cierra had climbed the stairs to the landing and was pointing at the carpeted base.
She brought her finger to within a few inches of the carpet and then looked to her mom like any child would for permission. Terry nodded; giving it and Cierra plopped herself down on the landing. She smiled as she ran her hand across the carpet and then up to the railing to trace her fingers along the posts.
Terry watched her Cici continue to explore the outside world while continuing to share her thoughts with David. “It always was her place … that’s where she always ended up … petting Duchess and peeking through the railings watching the rest of us play video games … remember?”
“Yeah … she always did like that spot … sort of like a perch where she could sit and see all the action … but not be a part of it.”
Whether Cierra heard and understood David’s remarks or just picked that moment to make her move … she made it. She was down the stairs in a flash and over to her back pack that she’d left centre of the floor. David and Terry watched as she dumped the contents out. Books, crayons, small toys, candy and a stuffed koala spilled out. Grabbing “Kiwi” and some dishware she returned to the landing and began placing everything appropriately.
David watched with a puzzled stare. “Now what the heck is she doing?”
“A tea party”, Terry knew instantly as soon as she saw Cierra put the kettle centre of the landing. “Of course … it’s making sense now.”
“So you want to enlighten me?”
Terry watched as Cierra carefully sat four settings and leaned Kiwi against the railing.
“Don’t you see … this Cici is here to do … every other time she’s been here … she’s talked and she’s watched but like she said … she doesn’t want to sit on the sidelines any longer … she wants in the game.”
Terry stood up and took David’s hand. “And so do I.”
“Care to join us for tea love?” she polished her best Brit again.
David remained firmly seated and firm in his stance of non attendance at imaginary tea parties … especially when the hostess is a fifty year old woman currently completely off her rocker.
“Uh … no I don’t do tea … imaginary or otherwise … and I’m not trying to rain on her tea party but do you really think we should encourage this any further. I mean c’mon Babe … aren’t you worried about Cici?”
Terry glanced over as Cierra continued setting the places. “Sure … I’m worried, but I’ve been worried about Cici long before this meltdown.”
“Yeah … I know … but there’s one of two things going on here. One, she’s just play acting all this and if she is … she deserves an Academy Award for her performance … or … she’s broke on through to the other side and I’m thinking maybe we better start pulling her back over before she goes so far she never comes back.
David started to get up but Terry sat him down again gently with a look and 135 pounds of weight in his lap. His bum eased onto the sofa. Terry’s soft bum in his lap raised other issues, but not the one Terry was currently prepared to address.
“No … she’s not faking this or playing this. This is Cici … this is that little girl she’s been trying so desperately to get us to see and no … I don’t think she totally lost it … because she understands us … at least as well as a child her age … whatever that is … would. I think … and it’s only a guess … that she got her wish … the adult is still there … only sleeping or at least quietly sitting back and watching the action ... giving her a chance to play. I think … at least for now … we should encourage her because when the adult comes back … maybe the memories she makes here … assuming she remembers any of this … will be ones that get her through those long days and scary nights of being a little girl trapped in a big girl’s body and alone in a big girl’s world.”
David mulled Terry’s theory as he shifted his lap to accommodate his love. “Okay … say I buy that, but what if our Cierra … the adult version … doesn’t come back when we tell her that her times up? What if she just stays this way?”
Terry laid her head on David’s shoulder. “Vicky gets a roommate and we get an extra tax deduction?”
The king was not amused. “I’m serious Babe.”
Terry searched those gorgeous green eyes and knew he was. “Look, I don’t really think she’ll stay that way. I think I know how to bring her back … at least I’m pretty sure I can … but if I can’t … then I guess will go with plan B.”
“Plan B?”
Terry giggled. “B for Butterfly net. You catch her in the net and I’ll call the guys with the little white coats to pick her up, but … in the meantime … for just a few minutes more … let’s indulge her … let’s give her a chance to do what she’s spent her whole life wanting to do. And besides if she’s totally gone … then a few more minutes won’t make any difference any way.”
“I don’t know … I’m just not comfortable.”
While David squirmed under the pressure of Terry’s request and the soft derriere resting in his lap, Cierra finished setting service and showed up sofa side. She smiled and reached out a hand to each.
“Come …pay ….”
Cierra took their hands and then pulled them toward her.
“Come …pay wiff me … peas.”
The amount of effort it took for her to organize that sentence weakened her and her knees nearly buckled. When Terry added a please of her own … David’s heart gave before Cierra’s knees could.
He motioned for Terry to get up and then quickly joined her. “I can’t believe I’m going to an imaginary tea party hosted by a fifty year old five year old.”
Terry giggled and smiled sympathetically as she kissed his cheek. “Poor David … look on the bright side … at least you don’t have to play Mum”
“Do what?” He barked as Cierra pulled him and Terry over to the landing.
Terry had been correct. Cierra played “Mum” as she served tea and imaginary biscuits to her three guests. Conversation was a little light, but fun and joy were two lumps heavy for Cici. She was having the time of her life … a life in the outside world measured now by minutes … possibly seconds and she wasn’t wasting a single one.
The tea party never gave the tea a chance to get cold as it was over in barely more than a minute as Cierra showing signs of attention deficit disorder dropped her cup and dashed back to her book bag to find a new plaything.
That extra minute that Terry and David had promised Cierra was quickly becoming half an hour and Cici sans any adult interference was living it to the fullest. She was on hyper drive now and moved from activity and toy like a HD-AD kid who had missed a medicine dose. Terry was quite familiar with this behaviour as two of her daughter’s suffered the same condition.
David and Terry watched as Cierra bounced about finally doing the things that in the past she’d only dreamed and written of. One by one, she marked her other rightful places in the house. She sat at the dining room table and bounced in the chair she silently proclaimed to be her personal princess throne.
She walked into the living room and tossed down her colouring book centre of the floor. She dumped out her 64 Crayola pack next to it and then joined them as she spent the next five minutes on her belly colouring inside and outside the lines. Once she’d put the final touches on Belle’s ball gown … she was up and in front of Terry showing her the fruits of her labour. Both Terry and David complimented her on her work which made her glow with pride, but Cici wasn’t satisfied until her work was bestowed the highest honour possible. Pulling Terry from her comfy spot on the sofa, she led her to the kitchen and pointed at the Childers-Stone Art Gallery … also known as the refrigerator. Cierra beamed when Terry used a magnet to hang her work in the ultimate place of honour.
From artist to musician … she begged them to turn on the television and hook up Guitar Hero. Last Christmas … she’d sat on the landing and watched her spirit sisters take turns testing their skills as video musicians. On her birthday she joined the band as she went from groupie to rock star and attacked both guitar and drums with enthusiasm and effort. Skill however … was lacking and her point total made her a distant third to David and Terry, but it didn’t matter. She was doing … and she was having fun … and that’s what mattered.
From the television to the radio she bounced … and more bouncing followed as she coaxed her Mom centre of the floor and coaxed a few dance moves from her. David tried to stay back, but Cici wasn’t having that as she even managed to draw him in for a little bootie shaking hustle.
The dancing seemed to take the wind out of Cierra’s sails, so while she charged her batteries … she coerced David into reading her one of the storybooks she’d brought along. She snuggled next to Terry while David walked Little Red Riding Hood through the forest to her Grandma’s house. Cici got her second wind shortly before the Wolf’s big mouth could eat Red, and she was up and on the move again before the Woodsman could save the day. Terry watched Cierra sift through the contents of her backpack. Picking up and discarding items … searching for just the right thing to fill the next moment. The smile on her face said she was having the time of her life.
Time … Terry didn’t know if Cici was aware of time or not. Was she rushing because she knew the seconds were ticking and she was trying to grab and do everything she could get her little hands on … or was she behaving the same as any other little girl who’d been grounded for forty years and was finally getting the chance to come out and play? What she did know was that Cici was doing and Cici was happy and that was all that really mattered.
Cierra eventually found the treasure she was searching for and then scampered over to David with it. She handed him a small ball and then took several steps back from him. She cupped her hands together and waited for him to toss it.
Both Terry and David realized straight away this was Cierra’s best effort at being a sports oriented tomboy for the father who didn’t have a boy. David was visibly touched by her heartfelt desire to please him … to spend precious minutes trying to give him something … during the borrowed time she’d been given to collect as much life for herself as she could grab.
David gently tossed her the ball. His aim was true as it hit her dead centre of the cradle her hands had made, but in Cierra’s hurry to catch and return she failed to secure the ball and it tumbled from her hands and onto the carpet. She dropped her head when she dropped the ball. She braced herself for the storm that was sure to come as a result of her failure.
Precious seconds passed in silence before she had the courage to raise her head and meet her quarterback and father’s gaze. Much to her relief and surprise she was met by a smile and words of encouragement and instruction from her coach. Picking up the ball she wobbled a toss close enough to David for him to catch and he gave her a second chance. The second toss was as true as the first, but the outcome was different as she followed her father’s advice and pulled the ball into her when it hit her hands. Once realizing, she’d actually caught it … she did a touchdown dance worthy of the Super bowl.
The game of pitch and catch went on until one of Cierra’s return throws eluded David’s outstretched reach and nearly took out Terry’s favourite vase. The game was then called due to Mother’s insistence and Cierra was off again grabbing more life as the second hand chased her.
After the game ended, she grabbed her backpack and headed for the kitchen. She stopped at the door … waved bye to her parents and then disappeared through it. David stood up … prepared to give chase … fearing Cierra might be heading out to the nearby playground to take this show on the road.
He didn’t have time to grab his jacket as she returned almost as soon as she left. She waved again as she entered the room. She tossed her backpack on the dining room table and then went to the living room where she flopped centre of the floor and stared at the television. When David shook his head and looked to his beloved for translation. Terry’s best guess was that Cierra had compressed an eight hour day at school into about eight seconds as her return to the castle mirrored that of the other princesses.
Her most daring undertaking however was setting up Terry and David’s wedding. The actual event was still several months away and Cierra the adult and co-worker would be in attendance, but Cierra the daughter of the house wanted a certain part in the play and used a few more magic minutes to make sure she got it.
First she positioned David at the bottom of the stairs and then led Terry to the top. Waiting for the wedding march only she could hear she started down the steps tossing jelly beans in lieu of rose petals. Terry chuckled as she watched Cici spread candies on the carpet. Her friend had desperately wanted to be the flower girl for their wedding, but it was a request she couldn’t possibly grant the adult. As she took her first step down, she carefully avoided a “green flower” and smiled … happy the child was going where the adult could not. When Terry reached the bottom of the stairs, David didn’t wait on Kiwi to pronounce them man and wife. He kissed his bride immediately. Cierra missed the lip lock; however, as once again she was off to her back pack and in search of more adventure.
What she found in her seemingly bottomless backpack was a copy of the Little Mermaid which she immediately took to Terry and David and begged them to watch it with her. Time was the enemy for the little princess and it was pounding at the door of her castle. Terry knew there really wasn’t time for a movie … but the want in Cierra’s blue eyes was enough to buy her at least a few minutes of movie magic.
Terry put the movie in and returned to the sofa. Cierra wiggled into the space between her mom and dad and then laid her head in Terry’s lap. She was all quiet smiles once the movie started … raising her head only once and that was to beg Terry to sing along with Ariel when the Little Mermaid sang Part of Your World. Rose had always asked for that … so Terry being a firm believer in “you can’t do for one child what you won’t do for all” … gave into Cierra’s final request. The music and Terry’s voice combined to make sandman magic as by the time she’d sang the final note, Cierra was fast asleep in her lap.
Terry brushed her hair gently and smiled as Cici’s exit from the waking world had been true to form for most small children. She’d played until she’d literally dropped.
David watched Cierra sleep and spoke in a respectful whisper. “So … is it over? Is she ….is umm … our fifty year old going to be back when she wakes or is Cici going to have a third puberty?”
Terry sighed as she played with a pigtail. “I think the adult will be back … but if not … I still think I know how to bring her back … at least I hope so.”
David looked at the living room clock. “Well … whatever magic you have up your sleeve I think you need to use it. I know you don’t want to wake ‘Sleeping Beauty’, but her five minutes are pushing two hours and if we’re still going to Acapulco Joe’s we need to get this show on the road.”
“I know … I know and … Rose will be bringing Victoria home in less than an hour.”
Wishing she could let Cici sleep the sleep of the innocent, but knowing she couldn’t … she gently woke her.
“Cici … Cierra Marie … you have to wake up honey.”
When she received no response she shook her gently. “Cici … time to get up.” “
Exercising a mom’s right to cheat. She didn’t play fair. She played the taco card. “Cici …we’re going to Acapulco Joe’s!”
Blue eyes fluttered open and made contact with Terry’s.
She smiled and tried to deliver a sour line with as much sweet as she could. “Cici … I’m sorry … but it’s time to go.”
Cierra shook her head and fear filled her eyes. Tears were on the verge of following. “No … no … stay … peas stay.”
The little princess was still holding court although it was hard to tell as goodbye’s reduced Cici to child level whenever she had to deal with them.
“Home” She wiggled off the couch and stood her ground in front of Terry.
“Me … home” She waved her hands round the room.
“Me … stay … peas.” She smiled and nodded through her tears hoping Terry would return both and allow her to stay.
When she saw neither, she dropped to her knees and looked from parent to parent. “Stay … home … peas …”
Summoning up all her energy she focused her thoughts on speech. “Pleeeeeeeze … me …I be good … home stay home … no go back.”
David looked away and tears welled in Terry’s eyes as she had to be the bad guy. She patted the cushion next to her and Cierra took her place there. Terry looked at the tear stained face of a shivering fifty year old woman who was really just a little girl … at least in every way that truly defines a person. She was being who she was … and yet could never be.
Terry took her trembling hands and steadied them with her own. It was time … she had to do what must be done. She would do it gently if she could … but she had to do it. She hoped she could find the best words as she knew in her heart there truly were no magic ones.
“Cici … this is very important and I need you … ALL of you … and that means your … your other half … your adult umm … your big sister. Can we call her your big sister?”
Terry searched Cierra’s eye for a sign of understanding and acceptance. Cierra nodded; silently acknowledging that all of her was listening.
“You always want me to treat you as if you were one of my daughters … telling you the same things I’d tell them whenever you’d come to me with a problem … and many times I have. Well … there aren’t many of your wishes that I can make come true for you … but that one I can. I will talk to you like I would one of the girls. That means while I do love you … and Cici I do love you … both of you … big girl and little … I’m going to tell you the cold hard truth and without any beautiful little lies. I’m going to give it to you the way I see it and some of it is going to hurt … hurt a lot … but it’s the truth and anything else less … well … isn’t. Now all I ask from you is to listen … and just think about what I’m saying. I can’t make you accept it or believe it or … or take any of the advice I give you. Just like your “Gilmore Girl” spirit sisters … it’s up to you to decide what you want to do with it. Okay?
Cierra nodded. Terry’s touch had stopped her trembling and tears, but now she was rocking gently. Terry knew that was one of her comfort mechanisms and allowed her that knowing the amount of comfort Cici was about to get from her words probably wouldn’t be much.
Terry looked deep into her friend’s eyes, hoping she really was reaching a 100% share of the Cierra-Cici listening audience. “Honestly … I’m not really sure what to tell you that I haven’t told you a hundred times already, but … I’m going to try again and hope that since I seem to have a direct pipeline to the little princess at the moment …”
Terry smiled and winked when she said “little princess” which immediately got her the desired effect by coaxing a return smile from the Cici.
“Perhaps maybe this time … the words will sink into that hard head of yours … Little Miss Stubbornbutt”
A giggle escaped Cierra’s lips and her rocking ceased. Terry had relaxed the audience as much as she could. Now it was time for the truth.
“Cierra I know you love me and David and the girls very much and more than anything in the whole world you wish you were our daughter. Trust me child … WE KNOW … but … except in your stories … your dreams … your five magic minutes on your birthday and in that big heart of yours.” Terry lightly tapped the centre of Cici’s blouse. “That wish of yours can never come true.”
Never was never a good word for Cierra … and Terry lost the smile and dry eyes when she dropped it.
“Hey … hey” She tapped Cierra on her nose and gave her playful scowl. “No tears … I mean it … no tears … dry ‘em up Chief Cries-a lot”
Cierra sniffled and Terry continued with the bad medicine. “I’m sorry Cici … but in the real world you can’t be the little girl you want to be. Yes … you can put your hair up in pig tails and carry Kiwi around and colour till your heart’s content, but we both know that you’ll never wake up and truly be the little girl in body that you are in soul. Just as in the real world … I can never be your Mom … David can never be your Dad and the girls can’t be your sisters. It’s impossible.”
Tears welled again and this time Terry let them fall without reprimand, granting her a moment to mourn the loss of a lifelong dream.
“But …” She squeezed Cierra’s hand, trying to follow the bitter pill with a spoonful of sugar. “If I could …if …”
She turned to David, her eyes asking a question that he understood and answered with a smile and a nod. “If we could … I swear to you … I’d pull a magic wand out of my butt or sprinkle moon dust in your hair and give you your dream.”
David growled. “Uh … it’s going to have to be the moon dust for me … because there aren’t going to be any magic wands anywhere near my butt.”
Terry rolled her eyes and Cierra had a much needed giggle.
Terry reached up and tugged a dangling pig tail. “I mean that … no beautiful lies … witch's honour!”
She raised two fingers to just below her nose to make the magical V sign that Bewitched’s Samantha had made famous and Cici had often used in her stories.
“I would do it in a heartbeat Cici and we’d adopt you and we’d promise to starve, beat, and generally mistreat you every bit as much as I do your sisters and I’m sure your loving sisters could be counted on to do the same for you. Yes Cici … we’d do it … and … yes Cici you were right. We wouldn’t do it because we wanted another crumb snatcher or needed another reason to overdraw the checking account for school clothes or … or … because we want a little more “whine” with the evening meal … no … we’d do it because we love you! Trust me, we must love you because you are the only child we’d ever let slip through that door that I thought was permanently sealed after Victoria. And … I agree with your therapist Maggie … if it was really possible to make you a real … live … little girl … I think it would fix you. I think it would finally make you happy and honestly … I don’t think anything else ever will.”
Confirmation from both Terry and Cierra’s therapist Maggie was the ultimate vote of confidence. Cici was beaming.
“Now … I think you’ve got David and I totally overrated as parents … but we’d take the job and not just because you love us and need us but because after all you’ve been through we’re not trusting your second childhood to anyone else. Of course there is also the fact we’ve got quite a bit of time and effort invested in you already. Look child, there’s no way we’re letting anyone else get credit for your future success.
Her eyes twinkled with a mischievous smile. “Besides … even if we did decide not to keep you and dropped you at the front door of the convent … I’m sure the Nun’s would track us down within in a few days and bring you back mumbling something about you being Rosemary’s Baby or the Anti-Christ in pigtails, so … we might as well keep you and save a lot of explaining in the afterlife.”
Cierra was giggling and even the David couldn’t suppress a chuckle or two. Terry was glad to see the joy in Cici’s eyes. “And yes … I suppose you would be a “trying” kid in every sense of the word but a good one too … good at spending our hard earned money … good at driving us nuts … good at fighting with your sisters … good at creating dirty dishes and dirty laundry and great at avoiding washing either. Oh yeah Cici … you’d be every bit as good as your sisters, but ...”
She sighed heavily before delivering the next dose of bad medicine. “The truth is … there are no magic wands or moon dust or heartfelt lifelong wishes that will ever make that happen and I’m sorry but that’s the cold … hard … totally unfair reality and I know reality has been pretty unfair to you. You were born in the wrong body … born during the wrong time and probably born to the wrong parents. I know that … I wish it hadn’t happen to you and I thank my lucky stars that it didn’t happen to me or my girls. My heart goes out to you … but there’s nothing I can do to change those things and neither can you … all you can do … is what I’d tell my girls to do and that’s to make the most of what you got. Reach for you want and never accept you can’t do something until you’ve tried, but … if you find something you just can’t do or can’t have then you have to accept it and move on. That’s what I wish you could do Cici … accept some things that you can’t have or can’t change and move on. Does that make any sense to you at all?
Cierra hesitated as if it Terry’s words were working their way deep down to where the adult was. A few seconds passed and she nodded. Terry rewarded her with a smile and a hug.
“Now … do you want to know something that will make you smile?”
Cierra nodded and flashed the promised smile. “I do believe in you Cici and it doesn’t matter what your true percentage is or how much of you is really sugar and spice or fantasy and illness because you are real … real beyond the physical and ... I … see … you. I’ve been seeing you for a very long time, not always so much physically.” She poked Cici lightly on her nose pushing the smile button.
“But I’ve seen you peek out of Cierra … sometimes in her smile or her eyes or a giggle or in one of the stories you collaborate on with your big sister, but I’ve seen you. I see you every day. Remember … I’m the one who said you made up 87% of the partnership. Now do you believe that?”
Cierra nodded. “Good … then … you don’t need to keep trying to get my attention 24-7 do you? I … know … you … are … there. You don’t have to convince me by bouncing all over the factory and my office screaming … look at me! … look at me! … or getting all pouty puss when I don’t pay attention to you … so chill child … okay?
Cierra nodded again. “And you know I love you … and I know you love to hear it … but I never gave constant attention and reinforcement to your sisters and I won’t do it with you. Don’t expect me to say I love you a hundred times a day or you’re going to be one disappointed little girl. I love you Cici and I love your big sister too, and that love I give freely … so … while I appreciate all the yummy yogurt, granola bars and chocolate you keep bringing and I keep eating … you don’t need to do it … because you can’t buy more love from me. I’m already giving you all that I can. Just remember … bringing me Take 5 bars won’t make your place in my heart bigger … it will just make my butt bigger … so ease up okay?”
Cierra acknowledged with a giggle and David’s sexy smile said he approved of big butts.
“And little Miss Copy Kitten … I know you want to grow up to be just like me … but I want you to grow up to be just like you … so please don’t try so hard to do everything I do … or like everything I like … or always agree with everything I say. There is only room in this world for one Terry Lynn Childers-Stone and my big butt is parked in that space … so you need to get a life all your own. So please … just be the friend and little girl who makes me laugh … just be Cici … because you’re the best person for the job. Got it?”
Cierra’s solemn nod said she did.
“Now … during one of your drama princess rambles you were talking about how we don’t invite you here and all the reasons why … well … some of what you said was true … you do make us feel uncomfortable sometimes and the kids can’t understand why you get so emotional and cry and I can’t always explain it to them because I don’t always understand … but the main reason we hesitate on inviting you is not the effect coming here has on us … but the after effect it seems to have on you. You go to pieces when it’s time to say goodbye and then you go home and cry and rock for days and drive yourself crazy. We worry about you Cici and no matter how much you say you love being here … I’m almost afraid to invite you because sooner or later we have to take you back and I hate seeing you go through all that. And honestly … I don’t know what to do about that problem.”
“So see Cici … I’m not all knowing … all powerful. I can’t make it all better … and I can’t be there for you on those long and lonely weekends or at three in the morning when you wake up scared … and for as much as I love you and we love you … we can’t always watch over you and always be there for you … hell we can’t even do that for MY girls … but … there is someone … someone who loves you very much ... who has always been there for you and always will.”
Cierra gave Terry a puzzled stare.
“You’re other half … the owner of the 13% … your big sister!”
Cierra frowned and sighed sadly.
“Yeah … yeah I know … maybe you don’t think so much of her, but you should. Considering she only has 13% to work with … I think she’s a pretty amazing woman. Think about it … she hobbles in here and goes to work every day just to keep you in crayons and stuffed animals. She sits at the keys for hours and hours typing your story. She turned her bedroom into a play place just for you. Nearly everything you have in this life is courtesy of her. She takes you everywhere she goes and encourages you and gives you loads of attention. She loves you with all her heart and hurts because you hurt. Her whole life revolves around you and … she’d die just so you could live in this world … because if you ever got that wish and became a true flesh and blood little girl … what do you think happens to her? I’ll tell you what … she goes poof disappear forever. Now if you ask me … I think that makes her a pretty special big sister and maybe … you ought to try and show her a little more love and maybe you ought to cut her some slack sometimes. You’re awful hard on her I think. It’s not her fault you’re stuck in here and if she could I know she would pop you out but she can’t … so quit kicking her in the ribs all the time. Give her a break. Maybe … just maybe … you might let her enjoy her 13% once in awhile. You think you can try and let the big girl enjoy being a big girl now and then? She’s always putting you first and trying to give you your time centre stage. She just gave you five of the most magic minutes ever. How about you give her a few of her own? I would be very proud of you if you did and I’d be very happy too because I love my big girl friend and I haven’t seen much of her in a really long time. So … you going to quit pestering your big sister and let her have a night out now and then?
Cierra smiled. “Oh … kay.”
“Good girl … now,” Terry looked deep into Cierra’s eyes. “I’m talking to you Miss 13% adult … Cici and I have reached an agreement … and now you and I need to. Girlfriend … you need to get out more than your inner child does. I’m serious … your fifty years young not old. I think you need to extend your life beyond Cici, the four walls of your English tea cottage, the factory and visits to this castle. I just wish you get out there in the world and give it a chance … of course heaven forbid that you might actually find something in the adult world that you might like, because then … then you’d be untrue to the impossible dream wouldn’t you? It would be like cheating on the 87% wouldn’t it? Well … I’m a mother of three and I have dedicated most of my life, most of my energy and about all of my money to my kids, but I always found time for “me time”. It may not have been much. It may have just been a soak in the tub whilst they all slept … or a snuggle with a sexy man.”
She winked at the handsome hubby to be. “But the point is … every mom needs time off to just be a woman … and every big sister needs a break from watching her little one … so for heaven’s sake girl … take a break now and then … do something for yourself? Okay?
The little girl didn’t nod or say she’d understood but the look in her eyes told Terry the message had been received.
“And … this is for both of you. I don’t know what the future holds for you. Maybe … it’s as bad as you fear. Maybe … we’ll lose touch once one of us leaves here and our only contact will be greeting cards and the occasional letter. I don’t know. And maybe … you’ll never connect to anyone else and you’ll spend the rest of your life … hobbling around a factory somewhere until you can’t do it anymore and then you’ll spend your remaining days alone in your cottage. I don’t know … I hope not. I hope your sickness … your sadness and your obsession don’t totally consume you. I hope you have other people in your life because I hate to see you alone, but … if that happens … then the only advice I have for you is to cling to each other … and hold onto the good memories ... and remember when it comes to memories ... fantasy and reality are equal.
Terry’s last remark drew a wide-eyed stare from Cierra and David stepped in to rescue the perplexed princess.
“What I think Terry’s saying is that when you experience something ... at that very moment ... it might be fantasy ... it might be a dream ... or it might be reality ... and those are all very different, but ... once that moment moves into the past … it becomes a memory. And memories are equal ... it doesn’t matter if they come from real events or fantasy ones ... the feelings, the emotions, the pictures in your mind that make up that memory are all just as real ... and just as valid.”
Terry squeezed Cierra’s hand. “That’s right honey and that’s really important, because honestly I don’t know what’s happened here today ... how much of this is reality and how much is fantasy but it doesn’t matter, because once it becomes a memory ... and oh my Lord I do hope you can remember this ... the joy, the love, the games, all of it ... will be just as real in your heart and in your mind as they would be for any other little girl spending a day at home with her parents.”
The mention of “home” seemed to trigger something deep inside Cierra and she leaned against Terry hugging her tight. “Home … home.”
Terry rubbed Cici’s back and then gently lifted her chin to meet her gaze. “Can I tell you what home is for me?”
Cierra nodded as she cuddled. “Home is … any place that I’m loved and accepted for who I am and not just the place where I live. So … if you can believe that ... then ... in that way ... this can be your home too … because everyone here loves you and accepts you for who you are Cici.”
Cierra raised her head and her eyes lit up. “My … home?”
Terry smiled lovingly. “Yes Cici … this is your home and …” she took Cierra’s hand and placed it over her own heart. “And you’ll always have a home in there with me … wherever I go … because I’ll have a place for you in my heart.”
“Umm … speaking of going?” David had to interrupt as he pointed toward the clock.
Terry nodded as she fixed one of Cici’s fallen pigtails. “Now … my little Messypottamus” that’s enough chatter. I need you to clean up this warzone you created and get everything into your backpack. Understand?”
Cierra stood up and nodded. Terry gave her a wink and then a light swat when she turned. “Now scoot!”
Terry moved over to snuggle close to David while Cierra carried her backpack like an Easter basket filling it with all the playthings she’d drug out.
David put a strong arm round his love. “So … umm … is McGann and Associates going to get their factory worker back or do we have to enroll her in day-care?”
Terry glanced over to see Cierra collecting jelly beans. “I still think I can help her find her way back … at least I hope so.”
David kissed his beloved on the cheek. She turned and smiled. “What was that for?”
“For Cierra … for being so good with kids … in all shapes and sizes … and … because I love you. Is that good enough or do you want some more reasons?”
“That’s enough reasons … how about more kisses?”
The two pressed soft lips a few more times before Cierra returned with full back pack in hand and broke the moment and the lip lock.
David groaned. “Kids … always kids.”
Terry stood up and looked Cierra in the eye. There was no easy way to say it … so it just needed to be said straight out.
“Cici … it’s time to go now … your five minutes are up.”
Cierra nodded … she was trying to be brave … but tears and trembling started again. Terry pulled her into a cuddle … hoping she could calm her and bring Cierra back home. Terry’s voice was soft and love-filled as she finished the song Cierra had started.
| "There is a lady all in white, Holds me and sings a lullaby, She's nice to see and she's soft to touch, She says "Cici, I love you very much." I know a place where no one's lost, I know a place where no one cries, Crying at all is not allowed, Not in my castle on a cloud. |
Terry finished the last note and when she did Cici’s crying subsided enough so that she could speak clearly.
“I love you Mom.”
Terry answered without hesitation and without a beautiful lie. “I love you too Cici.”
When she broke the embrace and searched Cierra’s eyes. She knew her friend had returned. How much she remembered of her over extended five minutes … might be discussed over dinner, but more likely over tea and after hours in Terry’s office at work.
A reassuring nod from Terry in David’s direction ... made him breathe a sigh of relief. He really hadn’t wanted to fetch a butterfly net.
Cierra looked at each of them timidly. Her question proved she had at least partial memory. “Umm ... do we have to go to the mental hospital now?”
Terry looked to David who hesitated before shaking his head and answering dryly. “No … I don’t think so. The enchiladas and tacos are better at Acapulco Joe’s and I’m starvapating.”
David gave his girls a wink and then headed toward the kitchen and the garage beyond. Terry and Cierra giggled and followed behind him. Cierra’s hand brushed Terry’s as they walked ... and she started to pull it back, fearing she’d crossed a boundary. Terry reached out and took it, squeezing it lovingly ... letting her know that as far as hand holding was concerned ... Cierra’s five minutes could run into overtime.
Two minutes later they were on the road to Acapulco Joe’s and the scene in the car was very much the same as it was before they’d arrived at David and Terry’s. The two adults were in the front chatting away and half singing to the radio. Cierra was holding Kiwi and staring out the window.
Her thoughts were rushing ahead to the night’s conclusion. She was going to cry when David and Terry dropped her at her flat. Nothing would change that ... but when she walked in to that empty room ... she wouldn’t be walking in alone. She would have love in her heart from two very special people who gave her a chance and a home, and she would have the memories in her mind of five magic minutes where she stepped outside her shell and lived.
She didn’t know if it would be enough to silence the dark voice ... to make peace with the past or to comfort her during the long lonely nights to follow. She didn’t know if she really understood all that had happened or how it had happened and she wasn’t sure if she remembered all the advice Terry had given her, but one thing she did know for sure: For five minutes ... the little girl lived ... loved and died ... and all 100% of her was going to hold onto that memory for the rest of her life.
Hugs and Love
MaggietheKitten
*Special thanks to Sephrena for posting and making it look pretty.
**Castle on a Cloud is from Les Miserable.