A/N: My heart really wanted me to write this. It kept me up a couple hours past when I would have normally fallen asleep, scribbling furiously into a beaten-up green notebook. So here’s the first part of something that’s quite dear to me, for reasons I might not yet even know. Tell me what you think, okay?

Peace, Love and Cher, Patricia

Mary

Driving to work today, it was black. The sky was overcast with clouds hanging damply over the big oak trees of the swamp roads, and the pavement seemed to swallow its yellow lines whole, leaving a black tar mess of things.

I looked up at my rearview mirror, glancing, getting a good taste of what I had already passed; but, there was nothing there. Nothing at all. Just a black, inky, foggy, muggy space. I sighed to myself, turning off the shortcut road that is usually so cheery and gay, with the sun peering between branches and the alligators swishing happily through the thick, muddy water, and onto the main access road.

I took a deep swig out of my coffee mug, setting it back down in the cup holder, and made a tiny, almost noiseless, sigh. This whole Savannah world was blackened, and the only remotely sunny thing about it was my bright yellow top. I hooked onto exit 62, scooted over two lanes of traffic in order to be in the right-hand lane, and turned into the parking lot.

Gethsemane MMO & After-School Program was fated from the day it was created, I’d decided. Gethsemane, beautiful as it was, was where Jesus had been arrested. And nothing was more apparent that some days when the whole place shook with shrieks of injustice from small children, and the staff felt they were living their very own personal Hells.

I turned off the car, removed my keys from the ignition, shut the door behind me, and walked up the steps to the front door. Gethsemane used to be a house on a main road, but the occupants (a very old couple) had passed away and willed it to me. And being their only granddaughter, I guess that would be only fair, hmm?

The old, oaken door creaked open, and I waved to the receptionist, Linda, who sat playing Solitaire on her laptop, back against the bookcase with all the registration papers inside of it.

“Anything today?” I asked her, hopefully.

“Nothing, Mary,” She said quietly, furiously clicking her mouse to finish up the game and rack the cards up to make them bounce across the screen. “But the natives are getting restless.”

“Who’s still here?” I shouted, almost angrily but mostly out of frustration. “The kids get here from elementary school in ten minutes!” I peered into the front most room that contains the MMO kids, and saw only two – Beth and Billy. The twins. Of course. I mean to say something to their mother every day about how she can’t just leave her children here when the staff aren’t prepared to take them on, as MMO is over by 2 each day and it’s 3:20 now…but I never do. She just blames it on her commute.

The Little Mermaid was on the television screen, flashing bright colors of crabs and undersea adventures, but the two little three year olds were barely paying attention. Billy glanced up from where he’d been playing with the velcro on his shoes, shuffling across the creaking wooden floorboards to the cubbies, and yanking down his backpack, flicking through its contents and pulling out a very battered piece of paper.

“What’s that, Billy?” I chirped, trying to make him feel good or at least crack a smile.

“A picture I finger-painted.” He said flatly. “I don’t think mommy will like it very much.” Beth turned around, flicking her Mary Jane shoes like they were a pair of castanets.

“She won’t,” she said with a venom that I didn’t think even a three year old was capable of possessing. “She doesn’t like anything we make at school.”

“I’m sure that’s not true!” I said again, but Beth had already turned around, sighing as if she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and watching the dancing mermaids.

The door slammed open, and I could hear the tennis shoes squeak on about thirty different sets of little feet as they rushed to the after-school care room, swinging backpacks at each other and regaling each other with stories they’d begun to tell on the van, laughing as each story becomes more and more outrageous. Several of the five year olds, the Kindergarteners, the babies that I had taught in the MMO just a year before, raced to the doorway to hug my legs as tight as they could and plant a kiss on my cheek before scurrying to get their snacks.

High-heeled shoes clicked into the building, and I could feel the tension mount in the reception area. I stepped into the hall and headed in that general direction to save Linda some face.

“Hi, Mrs. Davis!” I said, just loudly enough so the twins could hear my voice. The television and VCR immediately shut down, and I could hear a few protests to see who could get out of the door first to see their mother. Mrs. Davis sighed, murmured something about her commute, yanked a pen from the cup on Linda’s desk without asking, and scribbled down the checkout time next to both her kids’ names.

“Mommy!” Billy screeched, rushing down the hall, sliding on a floor rug and colliding with the backs of his mother’s legs, as Mrs. Davis had probably forgotten that she had to take her children back from us, not just sign them out and leave.

“Hi Billy.” She said flatly, yanking him off of her and straightening her skirt. Prim little Beth clopped down the hall at a dignified pace, her little face composed as she carried her brother’s finger-painting.

“Look what I made, Mommy!” Billy shouted, snatching the painting from his sister and ducking around to his mother’s front side, waving it in her face.

“Yeah. Great. A duck. Let’s go.” She pulled the door open, and Billy’s face absolutely fell. It’s blatantly obvious with the copious usage of brown and green that Billy’s painting was a tree, not a duck, and even a person who had no idea what it was would say something along the lines of ‘that’s pretty! Tell me about what it is!’ and find out that way.

The worst thing to do is to crush a child’s enthusiasm for the world, which is exactly what has happened to Billy and Beth Davis. Beth is almost unsalvageable, so callous and cold to all her little friends, but Billy still has a spark in him, a little light that still believes in fairies, magic, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. But now that his sister can help him contribute to putting out the light…we don’t know how much longer he’ll last.

I ruffled his brown, floppy mess of hair and smiled at him, wiping the traces of what wanted to be tears from the areas just beneath his eyes.

“You’ll be okay, Billy,” I said quietly, gesturing at the picture. “I’ll put this on my desk. Would you like that?” He nodded furiously, violently, his head nearly falling off. I smiled and hugged him tightly before pressing gently on his little back in the direction of his mother.

“Where is your brother?” Mrs. Davis snapped, and Beth sighed, answer back nonchalantly and with a bored lilt to her voice, “I don’t know.”

“Here.” Billy said sadly, stepping down the front steps and to his mother’s car, the lights in his Spiderman shoes giving out pathetic flashes of light with each step. I shut the door, not wanting anybody to see the tears welling up in my eyes for these children.

Billy

My mommy used to play with me, and she was real nice. We’d play castle and she’d be the dragon and Beth would be the princess and I would kill the dragon and save Beth and we’d all laugh and roll around on the rug and mommy would hit her head on the coffee table and we’d laugh even harder and daddy would bring home a pizza to share. But then one day, daddy got in an accident and he didn’t come home. Mommy says he’s in a coma, whatever that is…all me and Beth know is that it’s not fair for him to be in a coma because it means mommy has to do all the work and makes me and Beth do everything ourselves. All she ever does is lock herself in her office and make important, big-sounding phone calls. And me and Beth just sigh and watch movies or play a board game. But Beth is mean and cheats and throws pieces, and I get hurt…but if I cry to mommy, she’ll yell at me for being a baby, and I’m not a baby, I’m almost four! Beth doesn’t cry. Mommy says that Beth is a big girl. It’s not fair, because I’m a big boy…but she doesn’t give me a chance. She even calls me Beth sometimes when distracted, or even Oreo, and that’s the name of our Dalmatian puppy! (he is very silly and licks me a lot). I want to be a king when I grow up, so I can make everybody who is like my mommy not allowed to work anymore…and then we can hug again. Everybody can hug, ‘cuz it’ll be hug day and that’s all you’re allowed to do on hug day. Don’t raise your voice or shout … hug. But that won’t happen, ‘cuz my mommy won’t listen to nobody, not even Miss Mary when Miss Mary asks mommy to pick us up earlier than she does. It’s dumb, what mommy does. But I don’t care anymore…I’m starting to feel a rock in my heart where the fairies used to live…you know, the ones that talked to me and played games with me. No more of that for me, I’m a big boy. And big boys don’t cry…