The Inspiration …
A story …
“Sarah, meet your baby brother.”
She smiled at the small being at her side, loved him instantly, whispering to him “I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. Cross my heart!”
Sarah bravely protected him from closet monsters, later coaching him through algebra and offered him insight into the female brain (which confused him more than algebra).
Caught up in a life she refused to share, Sarah rarely called. Until tonight. From the hospital where the doors were locked and her wrists were bandaged. He gently stroked her hair.
“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. Cross my heart.”
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Now, your turn.
His hair didn’t match her hair, because he didn’t belong to her, except that he did. He Did!
He was of royal blood, House Plantagent, born to rule. And she… she was a wet nurse from the livery stable on Straight Street.
His mother didn’t want to him… hadn’t been to visit for 51 days. But this little Benjamin belonged to that distant queen and not the livery girl.
She would raise him, watch him grow and someday watch someone else hold him and call him son. Who was she to complain, just the livery girl – not royal… Not royal…
My mother was much too young when she gave birth to me. We had to flee home when I was still an infant, but wherever we were at the moment, I knew that I was her life. For all that was given to me in my life, for all that I preached and prayed and suffered, I never would have had the life I did without her unconditional love. As much as my Father gave me, what she gave me was precious, and however much I suffered at the end, having her watch me die, I know she suffered more.
“Stephen,” she mumbled as her eyes fluttered open. “I am still alive,” she whispered resignedly, looking at her bandaged wrists. “I thought you were in Afghanistan.”
“I was at Camp Lejeune, being redeployed to Africa.”
“Harold beats me, I just couldn’t take it anymore,” Sarah explained.
Stephen’s mouth tightened to a grim line and a cloud seemed to pass across his face. He twirled on his heel and left the room.
Harold heard the front door crash open. The clop of boots on the stairs sounded like death was coming up. The bedroom door slammed open.
“You are something bad…”
Never mind.
Good luck, DC.
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