SPOILER ALERT

The holiday and its visitors are past. It was wonderful to have my brother’s four very energetic children romping through our lives these past days but the quiet that closed in after they left is pleasant, too, if not a little sad. The next holiday looms with no children;  I feel the slowing pace that has become December for me.

It makes me think of Aggie. She had faced the end of 1959 not knowing where Stella was, faced having to make some sort of holiday for Willie and Horace. Faced her own part in what occurred. Faced how unstoppable the freight train of our fears can be.

I’m a little afraid to put my hands back on the keyboard and say to Aggie, “Speak.” I never have thought of her as me until now. Being Mrs G, who lost her child by accident, was so much easier.

The truth is that I am all three women in this book.

I am Stella—scared and alone and separated from the ones I really want to be with.

And I’m Mrs. G—well-meaning and desperate, seeking comfort (or redemption) in a well-baked chocolate cake.

And now I know I am most certainly also Aggie—broken, rageful, so very scared that the stones I’ve kicked off the cliff in a huff will have a murderous velocity by the time they find a target.

This post was originally written November 29, 2009 for the private blog of my writing group, Novel-ties.