Past Forward Volume 1 (11 page)

I’m scared.

Tears splashed onto the page and Willow
brushed them away. She’d been alone, frightened, and had no way to
call for help.

“If she’d only had a cell phone,” Willow
muttered to herself. The next entry caught her eye and she
continued reading, fascinated.

Willow is perfect. I knew it was a girl. I
just knew it. I’ve prayed about names for six months, and Willow is
my agreement with the Lord. I just hope He accepts it. I’ll raise
her to be like the man in Psalm 1. I will raise her not to accept
the counsel of the wicked, to stay out of the path of sinners, and
to keep free of mockers. I will teach her to delight in the Law of
the Lord and make it hers as well. She will, if love, instruction,
and prayer can make it happen, be like a tree planted by our stream
bearing fruit for His glory.

And God will allow her physique to fit her
name. She will not be a short, squatty “Willow.”

Labor was horrible. I will never have
another child. I will not marry, and I won’t ever allow myself to
be vulnerable to a man again. Childbirth is truly the curse that
God promised.

I’m still bleeding. It’s been a week. I
thought it would stop by now. Anytime I try to do anything, it gets
worse so I’ve been sitting a lot. I hold Willow and tell her all my
plans for us. I need to pull out the medical book and reread that
section.

I was afraid I’d resent her. I gave myself
permission to call social services if I couldn’t handle it, but
she’s the only thing that feels right about this whole ordeal.
She’s so tiny and helpless. We’re going to be good friends. Like
Mom and I were. I miss my mom. I need my mom.

Tears washed over her cheeks. Willow mopped
them up anytime they threatened to fall on the page. Once her
vision blurred, she blinked them back and read some more. The
morning passed as she read of those first years of her life.

Her little footprints are so adorable. I put
them in here, but I doubt they’ll be good for anything. I don’t
know how to get a birth certificate. I don’t even know if I want
her to have one. She’s safe if she isn’t traceable. But what if
something happens to me?

She has a birthmark. It’s on her right
shoulder at the back. Maybe that’ll be identification enough later
in life. Surely, we’ll see a doctor sometime. That’ll be proof of
her existence.

November’s entries were fascinating. Willow
read of learning to survive and thrive in a life that she’d always
known. The most basic survival skills were new and difficult for
her mother. Things she took for granted, her mother had to learn
the hard way.

I have to start chopping wood in the
mornings while Willow naps. I keep running out of wood at night.
I’ll have to light the furnace if it gets any colder. I need to get
ahead. I’ve started a “journal of living” for ideas of when to do
what tasks. Wood chopping needs to start in September at the
latest. It was cold by the middle of October. Froze twice.

I need a cow. I don’t know what to do. I
can’t use all the milk I’d get from one, but Willow seems to need
more than I can produce. I keep eating oatmeal and taking the herbs
recommended in my book, but it isn’t working. She’s not getting
enough. Maybe the book I ordered on natural living will come today.
Maybe it’ll have another idea. Maybe I should order canned milk.
Maybe I should give up. I don’t think I can do this. Maybe.

The pages turned slowly under Willow’s
fingertips. Her mother’s research was painstakingly slow and
methodical. The hunt for a lactating goat in the middle of winter
nearly failed, but by January, Willow played in her walker as her
mother built an outdoor pen for Cleopatra—their first goat.

The bottles arrived today, and today I
milked Cleo for the first time. The pen is almost finished, but
Cleo doesn’t seem to mind the barn too much. Willow didn’t care for
the milk, but she was hungry enough to drink some. I think I’ll
stop offering her the breast. It’s clear she’s not getting enough
from me, and if she rejects a bottle in favor of inferior food…

I got behind on wood chopping while building
the pen. There is a balance to all of this work. I think I need to
be careful just how much of it I plan for myself. I have to make
sure I don’t leave us floundering like this.

I hope I’m doing the right thing. I miss
Mom. I miss breakfasts with Dad. I want to share Willow’s latest
tooth and her giggles, but I can’t. I have to protect her—and them.
I don’t trust Steve’s father.

Do they worry about me? Have they looked for
me? Will some detective show up on my doorstep and tell them where
I am? Maybe I should change my name. Or would that be even more
obvious? I should ask Mr. Burke. I’m so glad I found him.

Willow remembered the kind Mr. Burke who
brought her interesting books and toys on his annual visits. She
had an entire shelf of gifts he’d brought her stored in the attic.
He’d been the closest thing to a grandfather Willow had ever known.
She’d cried when Nolan Burke showed up at their door on one
September day and told them his father had died unexpectedly in the
night.

She read faster. It was only 1987. She
needed to find anything that referenced her existence before her
trip to town the next day. Slips of paper marked places where she
could reference other journals.

By milking time, she’d waded through the
nineties and was working in the new millennium. These she
remembered vividly. The fingerprints in her mother’s journals had
always seemed like a growth chart that made no sense. Now she
understood. This year, her birthday would arrive, and she’d be
fingerprinted to prove she was the baby of long ago.

“So Ms. Freeman—”

“Renee is fine.” Renee Freeman glanced over
the journals Willow had spread before her. “Kari did a good job
documenting.”

Bill nodded absently. “So this is good?”

“I think with this information, the
affidavit, her medical and dental records, and possibly a DNA test
submitted to the judge, we’ll have a declaration without too much
trouble.” Renee’s voice sounded confident.

“How long will it take?” Willow’s voice
sounded insecure for the first time since she’d opened her mother’s
private thoughts to scrutiny.

“We’re on the docket for Friday morning in
Rockland. You should be there by eight-thirty.”

Willow turned to her lawyer, stunned. “The
city? I have to go—I’ve never been—”

“Never?”

Bill spoke up for Willow. “Kari came into
the city very rarely, but she never brought Willow. Appointments
were at their property whenever possible, especially before Willow
was old enough to be left alone for a day.”

“Do I have to go? Mother was terrified of
the city.”

“You have to be there. You’re petitioning
the court. If you aren’t there, they won’t hear the case.”

“And when it’s over I’ll get my birth
certificate?”

Renee explained that the judge might require
the DNA testing results before he authorized the birth certificate.
“You’ll submit DNA to Dr. Weisenburg’s office today.”

“How will I get to—”

Bill’s hand rested gently on her arm. “We
can go over that after we’re done here.”

“I think I
am
done here. I’ll go get
the test after I hear if I need one. I still have time to eat
before the movies open, so I’m going to go now.”

Willow shook Renee Freeman’s hand and nodded
at Bill. “See you later.”

“I’ll find you at the theater. We have to
discuss your trip to Rockland.”

“I’m going to see the movie about the space
ships and things. It looked interesting.”

Without another word, Willow left the office
and walked toward the diner at the corner of Elm and Main Streets.
While Bill and Renee wrapped up their business, Willow sat at the
bar on a retro-looking, chrome barstool and ordered a patty melt,
chocolate shake, and fries, feeling all the while like a character
in a novel. The sights, scents, and sounds of the diner flooded her
senses making what had almost been fantasy a new reality.

Bill stood outside the theater, two tickets
in hand, waiting for her as she sauntered down the street to the
front doors of the Fox Theater. “I got us tickets. Want
popcorn?”

Willow giggled unexpectedly and nodded.
“Just in case.”

Uncertain what she meant by those words,
Bill ordered a large popcorn. Willow nudged him. “Extra-large.”

“Hey, you’re back. Feeling better?” The
concessions attendant looked surprised to see her.

“Yes, now that I know how to handle motion
sickness. And,” she pointed the bucket, “I’m prepared just in
case.”

As they settled into their seats, Bill said,
“Motion sickness?”

“I went to see
Eight Cousins
on
Saturday night. It was nice, but I got sick so—”

The lights dimmed, the previews started, and
Willow stopped mid-sentence. Bill leaned close and whispered, “You
got sick from
Eight Cousins
?”

Her crushing reply came in the form of a
hand full of popcorn—in Bill’s mouth. He chuckled as he chewed and
gazed bored at the selection of coming attractions. Though barely
the middle of June, Halloween horror flicks leapt from the screen,
startling Willow, who subsequently sent a shower of popcorn flying
over the teenagers in the row behind them. Protests drowned out her
quick apology, until Bill turned around and scowled back at the
crowd.

“It was an accident. She said she’s sorry.
Chill.”

The next picture featured several displaced
super heroes who called themselves
The Mighty Mayhem
. The
screen erupted with battle scenes between the untrained and
frightened heroes and their macabre foes, sending Willow cringing
into her hands. A titter rose from the group behind them, but
Willow only heard the screams of terror as a hero fell from the
Eiffel Tower. A merciful “Coming July 4
^th
” stamped
across the screen before he hit bottom. Her sigh of relief escaped
as a Christmas cartoon followed.

“Well that one looked interesting and less
than terrifying anyway,” whispered Willow as the introductory
credits began to roll. “Am I going to regret this movie
choice?”

Bill shook his head. “There are a couple of
battle scenes and some intimidating Warlords, but it’s mostly
lighthearted—nothing like those previews.”

Ominous music hovered in the background as
the screen filled with people wearing cloaks and making speeches.
Suddenly, the camera panned to a family watching a debate on their
home monitor. The boy jumped, wings flying about him, as he whirled
excitedly in the air. To Willow, he looked like every illustration
of an angel she’d ever seen. Entranced, she watched as the room
full of people voted to escape their tyrannical overlords and
settle on a hidden planet, mistakenly thought to be a moon, several
galaxies away.

She cried as the Warlords chased their space
house-ships as they flew away from the planet their ancestors had
claimed as home for millennia. Bill gave up any pretense of
watching the movie and watched Willow. He’d never seen anything
like her absolute fixation and emotional involvement in the scenes
flying before her at lightening cinematic speeds.

Cultural misunderstandings by the delegates
made the audience laugh, but Willow frowned, confused. Bill grew
familiar with her profile, and from the slight furrow of her brow
and tensing of her jaw, he learned to predict, with surprising
accuracy, whether she would smile, frown, laugh, or cry. During the
two and a half hour movie, he learned more about Willow Finley than
he’d ever learned about her mother in their ten-year relationship.
Near the end, he realized that she’d relate to the movie in many
ways as the months passed and she entered normal life.

Unaware of Bill’s fascination, Willow sat
entranced by the story emerging from the scenes before her. Through
the triumphs and tribulations of the exiles, she seemed to embrace
their vision and immersed herself in their lives. Sometime between
the first delighted catch of her breath and the final word spoken,
Bill began plans for integrating himself into the life of Willow
Finley.

The credits scrolled across the screen after
the final scene. Willow turned to Bill, beaming. “It’s so much more
enjoyable when you can actually follow the story. That was
wonderful!”

“
Man lady, you gotta get
out more!” quipped one of the boys behind them as he sauntered down
the aisle to the doors.