A Most Excellent Midlife Crisis - Robyn Peterman Page 0,79

knew the little girl. She was me.

The screen went to static again, and I yearned to see more. Pictures flitted by of Alana and Michael waltzing and me singing at the top of my lungs for them. Images of riding on my father’s shoulders as my mother grinned and painted her toenails. Quick snapshots of being put to bed by two people who adored me.

My eyes welled with tears behind my closed lids. My heart was completely filled and devastatingly empty at the same time.

The pictures faded and morphed into my mother with the ghosts. She was compassionate and kind to the dead. They adored her.

“Alana,” Birdie warned. “You need to stay away from that woman. She’s bad news.”

Birdie zipped around my mother like a little tornado as my mother slid into a car and put a key in the ignition.

“Ethel, I know,” my mother whispered, glancing around warily. “She’s got my Daisy. She said she would make a deal.”

“Bullshit,” Birdie hissed as she flew through the roof of the car and sat in the passenger seat. “Where’s Michael?”

“Away,” my mother said through clenched teeth. “He can’t know about this. She said he’d be cast out of Heaven.”

“And you believe her?” Birdie demanded.

“No,” Alana said. “She’s a despicable liar, but she has Daisy, and I’m getting her back no matter what I have to do. Clarissa made it very clear if Michael showed up, she would slit Daisy’s throat.”

“I don’t like this one damn bit,” Birdie hissed.

My mother rested her head on the steering wheel and choked back a sob. “Neither do I.”

My stomach crashed to my toes and I wanted to scream for my mother not to go. I wanted to beg her to call Michael. I wanted to save her.

I couldn’t. She was about to save me.

The images came faster now and the sound was warped.

My mother arrived on a bridge. I sat on the ground crying. The Angel of Mercy stood above me with an ugly sneer on her face. The moon hung low in the sky and sent an eerie glow over the dark water below.

The argument was garbled between the women and making out the words was difficult, but not impossible. However, the action was tragically clear.

“Send her home,” I heard Alana scream.

“She has no home,” Clarissa hissed. “She should have never been born. Michael is mine and you tempted him away. He loves me. He always has.”

Alana simply nodded to appease the insane Angel.

Clarissa bent down, grabbed me by my dark curls and yanked my head back. I screamed and cried harder.

“Send her to my mother. Please,” Alana begged. “She is an innocent in this. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“The child’s the product of a whore,” Clarissa snarled. “Say it. Say it and I will send her to your mother instead of choking her to death while you watch her die. However, there’s another price to be paid.”

“My daughter is the product of a whore,” my mother whispered with tears streaming down her face. “Send Daisy to my mother.”

“And what can you give me in return?” the deranged Angel demanded.

“What do you want?”

“You. I want you dead. It’s the child of the whore or the whore herself. Your choice.”

Alana answered without a second of hesitation. “Send my baby to my mother. That’s my choice.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her eyes wild with insanity.

“I’m sure,” my mother said, blowing me a kiss. “I love you, Daisy, and I love your daddy with all my heart. I always will. Do not forget.”

Clarissa waved her hand and laughed manically. In a golden flash of light, I was gone.

My mother and Clarissa remained.

The next few minutes were some of the worst of my life. Clarissa’s wings burst from her back and swept my mother into the air. She made no sound at all as Clarissa beat her almost to the point of death and then hurled her broken body over the side of the bridge.

My scream of agony was involuntary. Birdie squeezed my hands gently. I had to remind myself this had happened a long time ago. It wasn’t happening now.

I knew my father had erased my memories, but he was never aware of this one. That I knew for sure. I also knew it was never fully erased. Gram’s story now made sense, how I cried for days when she tried to speak of my mother. So many sad and tragic puzzle pieces were clicking together.

“Birdie, I still don’t know where she is,” I whispered with