|
Title: Fragments Summary: Stephanie writes children's books in her spare time -- a series of stories about a girl named Samantha Ann. All her books are about Samantha, but she couldn't tell you why. If you're looking for closure, this is the wrong story for you. It's rated G for clean language and good morals, but the lack of resolution means it's rather depressing. I'd rather warn you now than have people send me frustrated requests for a sequel. There won't be one, though there may be other ventures along this line sometime in the future. (All these little stories are distracting me from the monster I've been writing for months. I should work on that one more and these less.) Comments other than sequel requests are welcome at o-cha@universe.digex.net She tosses and turns in turbulent sleep. Strange images flash before her closed eyes. Faces that should be remembered -- they seem important, and a sharp pang of loss accompanies them. The boy looks young, the couple might be his parents. What's so special about this family that they invade her dreams? Throwing the covers off, she picks up the phone to call home. She wants to hear the story again. The story of her adoption. Perhaps these haunting images are of her birth family. She knows she's a little old to be wanting the story told again, but it's just one of those accepted things by now. She calls every time she wakes up from the dream. She's been having this dream for a long time. No one else would call at this hour - Meg Graves knows it's her daughter, and answers the phone "hello, sweetheart, " instead of just hello. She doesn't mind retelling the history again and again. The child must have been through hell; you could see it in her eyes when she showed up at the door that night. Shivering, clothes in tatters and fastened incorrectly, eyes so wide with fear that the whole adult world was reflected in them. If all it takes to calm her is a little repetition, it's well worth it. Meg thinks she calls more for the routine than to actually hear the words. And that's okay, too. Meg and her husband John don't fear their daughter's wish to meet her birth family. They'd like to meet them, too. John wants to hurt them badly for whatever they did to make that sweet child run away in the middle of the night; make her block out the first eight or so years of her life. Now, more than 20 years later, the poor thing is still suffering. Therapy doesn't seem to help -- it only frustrates her that her mind hides these things and she doesn't know how to get at them. Meg talks to her for about ten minutes. Calms her. Tells her nothing more than the truth. Doesn't make excuses for the gaps in the story. It's the same as it always is. Once the turbulence of the vision is over, they go back to sleep in their respective beds, to dream of nothing. Stephanie Graves loves her job as a kindergarten teacher. She dresses with care, chooses a brightly colored sweater, pulls her dark auburn hair back into a ribbon. She's tried teaching older grades, but she just doesn't have the same enthusiasm for it. There's something about the freshness of children that age, the fact that you get to shape life-skills instead of the three R's, that makes it fun. Makes it feel more important. She wonders about her own kindergarden years. Why she can't remember being five. What memories shaped her development, her heterosexuality, her fear of needles and her weakness for hazel eyes. She's read the psychology books and knows that everyone experiences a certain amount of amnesia about their childhood, but it's unusual to have so many years gone. Not an image, not a face, not a single memory from before she was adopted by the Graves'. Not even a clue as to what her name had been. Today in class, Miss Graves talks about family. Brothers and sisters. Moms and dads. She asks the kids to talk about their homes, and as always, someone asks her about hers. She tells them the same thing she says every year -- how she was adopted, what that means. A handful of her former students come back later in life when they're told about their own adoptions; she's been teaching for ten years now, and has had some kids come to visit her from high school to talk about it. They all say that her discussion of it in their early youth helped them to deal with it later on. They all tell her she should be a psychologist. She smiles and hugs them, and goes back to her kindergarteners. The first thing a psychologist would tell her is that she's trying to recapture her childhood through her students. She doesn't want to hear it, because she knows it's right. She hopes every day that some little comment, some gesture, some anecdote or event will spark a memory of her former life. She's been teaching for ten years now. It hasn't happened yet. Stephanie writes children's books in her spare time -- a series of stories about a girl named Samantha Ann. All her books are about Samantha, but she couldn't tell you why. She's just always liked the name. The current story is about cooperation. In it, Samantha is fighting with her older brother about what television program they are going to watch. Stephanie knows that most of the kids who read her books live in multiple-television homes, but it's important in the story that there's only one, and they have to share. Other stories have been about Samantha's trip to the beach with her family, finding a stray dog, her first day of school. Regular kid things that Stephanie never got to experience herself. The books are sweet and teach morals. Parents like them, and they sell quite well. Stephanie would use the money to search for her birth family, if she knew where to start. The only thing she's thought of is to check missing persons records from the area in which she was found, but no one of her description was reported -- it turns out that Meg and John had done that already. They had to for the adoption agency to let the paperwork go through. So Stephanie lives in her apartment in the Boston suburbs. She vacations with her parents on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. She lives through her work, through her books. It's hard to have a relationship when there's so much of yourself you can't share. It's hard on someone new to put up with the nightmares and the frustration. The man who illustrates her books is a possibility. He's attractive - brown hair and perfect hazel eyes, tall. He's even got this adorable little mole on his cheek. But she doesn't really think of him in a romantic way. He's much more a close friend. He's the brother she never had. Or never knew. The End |
|
Title: Glimpses This story follows "Fragments" and is a response to Rhondda's Halloween Challenge. I wanted to respond to the challenge, but didn't want to do the "M&S go to a party" theme, which I think has been done much better than I could do it. So, instead, I'm giving a sequel in what may be a series of vignettes toward the end of giving Sam her memory back. I don't think "Fragments" is what really happened to her in the show, but it's fun writing, and hopefully fun reading, too. Summary: Stephanie Graves begins to get waking flashbacks about her early childhood. Follows "Fragments". Stephanie Graves strongly encourages her kindergarten classes every year to dress up for Halloween. It's fun to be someone else for a day; someone entirely of your own choosing and design. She sometimes thinks that she stresses it so strongly to them because *she* wants to get dressed up, too. Sometimes she thinks there should be more to life than just being Stephanie Graves. Sometimes she's certain of it -- at this time of year more than most. The name always helps her class get into the spirit. Miss Graves has her classes paint shopping bags with gray reflective paint, and then she puts their names on them, like little tombstones. Decorating them with cute little pumpkins and black cats helps to remove the macabre touch that Jenny Stevens' parents had complained about one year. The bags are easier to see when trick-or-treating after dark than those silly orange pumpkins, and personalized, too. Kids love things with their names on them, she had discovered. Stephanie had thought about integrating this yearly project into the series of childrens' books she writes, but it just seems too special to share. She includes her teaching experiences in her writings, but she likes to keep the two as separate as possible. She doesn't want her students appearing in her books, and she doesn't think she can have her character, Samantha, do this project without it projecting too far into her own life. But, today as class winds down and the students are dismissed to their busses, Stephanie is thinking more about her books than usual. Well, not her book, exactly, but her illustrator. He's invited her to a party. Stephanie lays out her black pants, turtleneck, gloves, and mask. She stuffs her sack with pillows, then ties it around the neck of the stuffed cat. The head of the animal peeks out with almost lifelike curiosity. She's a catburglar. By the time the doorbell rings at 7:00, she is ready. Her long brown hair is pinned neatly under her cap. She slings the bag over her shoulder and skips downstairs to greet her escort. He's dressed as a little boy. Denim overalls with soiled knees, red and white sneakers, and a baseball cap. He looks adorable, and her heart melts to see him. She's always had special feelings for him, but never as uncontrollable as the tingle at the back of her neck. He smiles at her, a genuine little-boy grin, and offers his arm. They depart into the night. Stephanie adjusts her mask on her nose after a sip of punch. The man at her side wants to dance again. She nods and accompanies him to the floor. It's a slow song. She's never actually touched him before, though they've worked together for years. Come to think of it, she's never been this close to him before, either. The physical proximity is tantalizing. Every part of her body screams in lust for him, and always has, but her mind just isn't interested. It would feel wrong to be romantically involved with him... but resting her head on his shoulder and breathing in the scent of him is strangely comforting. She looks up into his hazel eyes. So green tonight, and so deep. His eyes smile even when his lips don't. When the feelings of being close to him turn scary, she glances at the mole on his cheek. It's just him, she tells herself, and he's safe. Safe isn't something Stephanie is used to. Feeling grounded isn't something she's used to either, but something about the little boy who's still bigger than she is -- something about his eyes makes her feel ... Home. Parents. Dad in a suit. Mom crying. Brother, laughing and teasing. Throwing a baseball. Stratego. A rush of faces, nameless, and again that familiar boy with the maddening smile on his face....strange. There's no other word for it. She feels strange. Longing, perhaps, for that part of her past she doesn't remember. The family she was born to, whoever they are. She snuggles closer in his arms, glad for the mask which hides her tears. The End |