Friday Eight

I got to Swensen’s before my Cajun cowboy did and that, for me, was a good thing. I’m not overly fond of ice cream, but I do love going to Swensen’s. The gorgeous jewel-toned stained glass, the marble topped bistro style tables, the 1940’s soda fountain feel of the place. And the people watching; so interesting it’s enough to make one wonder if ice-cream is some sort of truth serum and that day there were a lot of conversations to listen to. Yes, I suppose you could call that eavesdropping, but hey – public place, public conversation. Whisper or go somewhere private if you don’t want others to hear!

I purposely chose a table next to a couple sharing something known as “the Earthquake”. Picture a mixing bowl filled to overflowing with ice cream, fruit, sauce, whipped cream and a variety of toppings and you’ll get the idea. Takes forever to eat finish it, if you even can, and that only happens when you’re sharing. With at least three friends.

The two with the earthquake were obviously having a discussion of earthquake proportions. They were so intense: hard to tell if they were making up or breaking up. I wondered if there would be enough ice cream – even in something like the earthquake – to sort out whatever they were going through.

The door opened and my (the?) cowboy walked in. The man at the counter greeted him by name and nodded in my direction. What the hell? Did I have some secret sign on my forehead? He asked for coffee and a slice of hot apple pie, no ice cream. Two of us at the best place in the city for premium ice cream and neither of us having any. Figures. Not surprised at the pie, though. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who would say no to fresh apple pie, with or without the ice cream.

He came over and sat down at the table. “Glad you showed up. Is your dad ok? As much as can be expected, that is?”

Can’t hate a guy who is concerned about someone you love. And given that I made what money I had at the time from baking for friends and family I couldn’t really hate him for eating pastry and still being slim in the hips. Some people have lucky genes.

“Yes, or at least he knows where I am, if not the why and with whom. But then again I don’t know about the why and the who either, so no surprise there. Not much I could tell him, is there?”

“So, do you think we could start over?”

Starting over; I’d thought that a million times, both with Jims and with mom. Wishing that I had done things differently. Told them things when I had the ability to do so. Done more with them when I had the time, said fewer hurtful things. Isn’t that what anyone wants, a chance to do some things again? Not everything – thirteen was not a good year for me. But some things, yes. And starting all over with whatever was going on with the hot Cajun and my maybe not dead brother…yes, I’d like to start over.

“Please?” I nodded.
“Bonjour, I’m Remy LeBeau. I work for a group of people who knew your brother. Do you have a minute to sit and talk with me?”

“This is only because you said please. So yes, I have a minute. Hello yourself. I’m Evina Sulwen Yates, Evi to my friends. Feel free to call me Evina”.

Fiction Friday Seven

I slid of the bench and watched him walk away. Not because he was worth watching – which he totally was – I just…watched. He was right about not worrying my dad, so I headed back to the hospital. Everything seemed the same, which I found confusing. How can the world not be different when someone you love is dead? Or when they are, perhaps, dead and yet not dead?

I scuffed my way through leaves that had fallen and then started gathering them the way we did when we were little – like every kid does - trying to find the brightest reds and the most flaming oranges. We used to bring them home to show mum, and I swear every time she managed to make us feel like this time, this time we’d truly found what must have been the very best leaves of the year. She’d press them with an iron between sheets of waxed paper, to show dad when he got home. For someone who died far too young she managed, somehow, to imbue our lives with wonder and the ability to find joy in small things. Please heaven may I do even half as much with my life as she did with hers.

Approaching the hospital doors I slowly dropped all but one red and one orange leaf. I think I was intending to take them home, or give them to day. At any rate, in the end I looked down at the two left in my hand and changed my mind. I waited for a gust of wind and launched them into it and watched them fly away; it was a day for letting things go.



I hate hospitals. Sad faces, fearful faces, lost and angry souls. You’d never think that life starts in hospitals too. The long dingy corridors always felt they were overrun with rivers of sorrow, rivers that I would have to wade against to get where I was going. I don’t remember much of that bit of that day at all. I remember the leaves, and I remember telling my dad I was going out for a bit, to call me if he needed to. I had enough money for the metro and a train home if they needed to leave without me. I didn’t say I was meeting a friend; even that small a lie felt as though it would be too much, as if he would break if the smallest harm touched him. He was, for a while, more akin to a leaf from later in the season: folded in, brittle, without colour. More sorrow for the river to claim.

Fiction Friday Six

Man - or woman - this Fiction Friday thing is WAY harder than I thought it would be. I suppose that makes it worth doing, yes? Really, though, I'm a bit stubborn and I have some pride at stake: I'm the oldest of the three of us trying this thing out. If they can keep up with it so can I. With the occasional miss. Because I have a family. And a job. And Choreography to remember. And a diploma to earn. To the other Friday Fiction writers, I'm curious: do you go back and edit what you've already posted? I have. Not the posts themselves, but the originals in the file that I'm saving them.

Regardless - here y'all go. Fiction Friday Six:

The cowboy took his hat off and ran a dark hand through the even darker curls that had been hidden under it. “Merde”.

I don’t know if he thought I was looking stressed out or if my sprirograph – patterned multicoloured dress (hand made by yours truly) and pink hiking boots combination was making him stressed, but something was not going as planned. And that’s when he asked me out. Sort of. Okay, not at all, but that’s what it felt like then. Seventeen, remember?

“Look. There are some things that you need to think about, some arrangements that need to be made. Go talk to your dad and meet at Swensen’s in an hour”. He got up and stood there, waiting. I stayed where I was.

“Really, Monsieur le Cowboy? And I’m trusting you why, exactly?” Ha. I didn’t care – much – how good looking he was. I wasn’t going to let him assume I’d jump if he asked me to. Which I probably would have, but he didn’t need to know that, did he?

His lips curved in a bit of a smile as he shook his head. “Let’s try this again: I’d like to talk to you. Over ice cream. Your dad doesn’t need to have any more worries on his plate right now so go let him know where you’ll be. And as to why you should trust me?” The curve got a little bigger. “Let’s just say that I was warned you could be stubborn, and that if I ever needed to get 'L’il bit off her l’il butt’ I should tell you that Jimmybean says‘tag, you’re it forever'”. And he left.

Jimmybean. No one but me ever called James that, or knew I did. We were a team: Jimmybean and Sunbeam (my full name is Evina Sulwen Yates). Everyone just called him Jims. And no one but no one was with us the last time I saw him. We’d been joking about getting too old to play our own version of tag – Martian tag in the woods with flashlights – and when I left I kissed him on the head and said tagyou’reitforever. The Cowboy had it right: merde.

Fiction Friday Five. Finally.

I stood up, metaphorical fists up and ready to fight for answers if I needed to.
“That’s alright, ma’am, no need to get up”. Ma’am? Really? At least it moved me from hot anger and confusion to cold anger and sarcasm. “Whatever you say,
Cowboy: have a seat”. Yeah, he picked up on my not being thrilled with being called ma’am by some out-of-place stranger who’d just thrown me for a loop or ten.

I remember him apologizing, something about respect for the lineage. I’d no idea what that meant, but I had more things on my mind at the time. He tilted the hat back a bit and looked down at me with dark brown eyes. Like dark hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. Seriously, what movie did he just walk out of? I was surprised he wasn’t chewing on a piece of straw. Maybe I should have told him to light a shuck. Instead I just moved over and made a space for him on the bench.

“So…how much do you know about what’s going on?” How much did I know? Dick all, dickhead. Not that I said that. I just looked at him. And he sighed. Guess he’d worked out the nothing part on his own. Which meant he’d have to start at the beginning.

I learned quite a bit that afternoon. Not everything, not what I wanted to hear the most and certainly not enough. But something, at least.

In the beginning, the gatekeepers were more like guides, or sages. People who could help you navigate your dream, if needed, or interpret your dream if that’s what you wanted. Over time, people stopped keeping track of their dreams, and those that interpreted were no longer being sought out and started to be seen not so much as sages as charlatans. Eventually, although they continued to exist, they stopped doing – publicly - what they were doing and it truly was only charlatans that talked about dream interpretation. Not everywhere – there were cultures that understood and revered the dreamscape, and travelled between that world and this with ease. Some of those peoples are still with us and their wise ones and elders are regarded with respect.

As a reader, I was not surprised to discover that some of our greatest works of literature are actually retellings of events that true dreamers had experienced in their dreams, and that some great writers created worlds and stories so vivid and fantastical that when people read them, their dream lives were inspired and the dreamscape grew in response.

I may not have been surprised, but I’m still undecided about whether I wanted to know that. It’s changed how I look at certain books. And movies, songs and poetry. All art, really. Which came first? When are you imagining something and when are you just remembering a dream-event?


I sat on the bench thinking about this for a bit. I guess more than a bit because the cowboy gave me a nudge, eyebrow raised. “Still with me?” I nodded. Philosophical discussion of creativity could wait.

“Bien. So, in 391 AD something from the dreamscape made it to this world. Whatever it was had been running, so to speak, the dreams of a Coptic Pope. The end result of that was an actually influencing of the actions of the man, to irreparable harm to the world. It’s possible, likely even, that something similar had happened before, but this was the first time that we know for certain it happened”.

We? What, was he there? Is this some clumsy time-travel con? So help me if he was some psychic hoping to pull money out of a grieving family I’d shoot him where he stood, gorgeous specimen of manhood not withstanding.

Some of my uncertainty must have shown in my face, because he smiled and tucked a strand of wayward hair behind my ear. “No, T’evi, I am not that old. Not quite. But that event was what brought the remaining true dreamers together to prevent it from happening again. That is when guides became gatekeepers and the dreamscape became well-watched again. We all know that date, and we all feel it a little bit, no matter when we were born. You’ll feel it too, when you become a gate-keeper”.

In case you’re wondering: I already knew my cowboy was from Louisiana. My family is Acadian on one side (Celtic on the other), so I have plenty of relatives in the state and I know that look and accent inside out. Calling me Petite Evina, or the more colloquial T’evi was not surprising. My friends sometimes called me L’il Bit when they were in a teasing mood. I am five one – if I am feeling boastful- and sometimes I swear my hair is the heaviest thing about me. I know being overweight can be a nightmare in school, but let me tell you being referred to as “that little boy” when you’re seventeen – in shorts and a t-shirt no less! – is no picnic either. People really don’t like different. And boy howdy I was different in more than just size. A tiny ginger who confused dreams with real life, an optimist who named her fourth grade go-cart “the happy mobile”, a book worm with a book or two a day habit: I was not spared. Fortunately I had a firm group of friends, and that made all the difference. Yes, sounds like glurge, but one good friend can make the difference between a life worth living and suicidal despair. And I had enough good friends that my life – death, oddness and all – was a sunny one. But you probably guessed that with the happy mobile.



Back to the bench with hot cowboy. I might have called him Bayou Boy, but boy he most certainly wasn’t. His name, as I eventually found out was Remy LeBeau. Très beau, but I’ve got a story to tell here, time to move on. And we did, but remember what I said about not learning enough? I wasn’t lying.

Be free, little nestlings.

Ok, yes, I missed a Fiction Friday.
And now here we are on Thursday and I am in a bit of a panic. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow, yes? And dad – this may end up being part romance despite being mainly fantasy so you may want to skip the “Fiction Friday” entries!

Today I want to write about kids. Now to be clear…I am NOT talking about the two I’ve had or the two I’ve just gained via marriage. So no comments on how I’m being too hard on my Mr.’s kids, ‘k?

I just found myself wondering – after reading various blogs, and listening to various co-workers and friends talk about parenting – when we started going to such great lengths to cater to our children? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people decide to not move to a new house/neighbourhood/province that would be best for the parents and the family in general because it would upset the children: "They have friends in the neighbourhood, how can we make them move"?

When did that happen? I know the high rate of divorce has changed a number of things. For the first ten years of single motherhood I worried away at various methods by which I could move to British Columbia to be closer to my family. And then one day I finally woke up and realized that while I was not responsible for making sure my ex had a good relationship with his kids, it behoved me to at least not make it well-nigh impossible. Neither of us had money for travel, so if I’d moved that would have been just about the end of him getting to see them. So I stopped planning. Yes, it might have been good for me to move, but I would not take my kids away from their father nor would I advise anyone to take their child away from a parent.

I even know one woman who passed up what would have been just about the sweetest job (for her, at least) in the world because it would take her five year old out of Regina. To move to Saskatoon. Really? At five one has a social circle so important that it leave it would be the end of all things sweet and good?

I am not trying to downplay how difficult it can be – especially if your child is an introvert – to move to a new city. In fact, we’re doing some crazy driving so the youngest can finish elementary school at the same place she’s always been. It’s not that big a deal, and this is her last year. Might be different if she were in grade one, though.

But back to my original question: why all the extra accommodation? And does this not teach our children that the world will bend to fit them? I know single parents that won’t date because their pre-teen (and some post-teen) kids don’t “approve”. I’d like to know if those kids plan on keeping that parent company for the rest of their lives. Or do they “allow” their parents to move on…once THEY’VE moved on?

And food – don’t even get me started on food. Too late. A woman I used to work with made FOUR different suppers. Sometimes just three, but basically, a granddaughter who lived with them was very fussy. Daughter, moderately fussy and quasi-vegetarian. Husband was a “serve me meat and potatoes, period” type of guy. And instead of making supper for herself and leaving them hungry with a “fix your own damn meals then” she made different things for each of them. Macaroni or pizza for the little one, salad and perhaps some of the macaroni for the daughter, salad and perhaps something for herself and steak and potatoes for the hubby. Variations of this, night after night after night.

Me, I had a doctor that said no little kid will starve if you have food available. So I made us all a supper. I made sure there was a side they were likely to enjoy, but what I made for supper is what we had for supper. And once I cottoned on to The Boy not eating supper but having multiple sandwiches at nine, late night snack became whatever we’d had for supper re-heated in the microwave. And guess what? Neither of them starved (although skinny boy did occasionally cause me ill-founded concern) and they are both fairly adventurous eaters. They even like things I don't, like calamari. And I made a point* of getting them involved in the making of supper. So even if they eat horrible meals when they are on their own, I know they are both capable of cooking well.

*I’d like to pretend that’s because I was a brilliant mom. Actually, it’s because I was a single mom. There is only so much one can do at one time, so if potatoes needed peeling whilst I was chopping something up, then someone got potato duty. Or Shrimp peeling duty, or beef browning duty. Whatever it took to get things done.

Recently (wish it had been decades ago) I was listening to a woman on CBC talk about parenting. She said that the whole family should be able to do things for the good of the family. There is nothing stopping a four year old from opening a dryer and pulling the clothes in it into a basket in front of the dryer. A five year old can set a table. Kids can do laundry. And mow lawns. And clean house and make meals. But it seems to me (this is now me speaking again, not the CBC person) that this is happening less and less.

I think being a single mom was, in a way, a good thing. I think if I’d been married to someone with money and been able to stay home I would have done everything. Instead I had to get help where I could, which meant the kids. They may not appreciate it, but it helped make them the independent young adults they are today. Not perfect, but capable.

Fiction Friday Four

I can’t even recall which shocked me more at the time, Jims not being dead or my dreams being real. I remember the man, though. One tall drink of water with his long denim clad legs, broad shoulders under a worn blue chambray shirt, and wearing, in Montreal of all places, a cowboy hat. Which he totally carried off, as it happens. It suited him somehow.

Seventeen years old, mired in grief and overwhelmed with hormones I thought he’d walked off the cover of some Louis L’Amour novelette. Dead handsome and those legs…I would have paid good money at the time just to watch those legs. Yeah, he was too old for me - by a few hundred years, as it happens – but seventeen was a very in-between age for me: too naïve in some ways, but losing my mother as a child and now Jims, too old as well. So when Mr. Cowboy suggested meeting somewhere quiet I agreed. He said there were some things he needed to explain. Ya think? Damn straight there were.

I slipped away from my family – not hard to do, the three of us left reeling with grief – and took the back stairs out of the hospital and headed for the park that fronted the hospital along its whole length. I never could figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If I was confined to a hospital bed, what would a park be for me: a bit of green peace to break the monotony of grubby off-white walls or a constant reminder of what I was missing? Right now, though, it was a green oasis in the middle of a busy city, somewhere I could listen to what this stranger had to say without risking my own safety by being completely alone. Naïve, maybe: stupid not at all.



So long ago, but I remember everything so clearly. The day had some heat to it, as sometimes happens mid-September. The sun was warm on my face, with a light breeze blowing. Not hard, just enough to tease my wildly messy hair. Tea-coloured hair my dad always said. Wild curls that I never bothered about, preferring to let it float in a halo around my head or – an indication I was being serious – pulled back in a tight braid away from my face. I could hear birds in the trees, and every now and then the sound of leaves falling mingled in with the sound of the remaining leaves stirring on their branches. Traffic sounds too, but muted by the size of the park. I looked up and saw the Cowboy striding towards me (merciful heavens, those legs!): time to find out what the hell was going on. Time over for the calm before the storm.

Fiction Friday Three

So, guardians: you’re probably wondering about that. We’re to be found in every corner of the globe, in every walk of like. Keeping these two worlds as they are means we don’t talk about what we do, though, so you’re unlikely to know if you’ve met one or not. I figure your chances are fifty-fifty. I myself don’t know the exact number, and while we are aware of – and use – more doors than the one we guard we don’t even know how many of those there are, or where all of the ones we do know about are hidden.

Being a guardian isn’t something you ask to do. It isn’t an inherited position either, although there have been crews with siblings or cousins working together. I’ve even met a father and son who were on different crews but worked the same ring of doors. That’s how it works: one crew per door, several doors per ring and all the rings together is the Protective Company of Guardians. Hey, I didn’t name the thing; the company’s been around since, well, ever. No one really even knows when it got a name, story goes that there was a time when the gateways were open and well used and there was no need to keep flesh and blood humans out of their world and nightmares from there out of our world. That sure must have been something.



I became a Guardian the day my brother (also a guardian at the time, although I had no idea) decided that things were better on the other side of the gate and that guarding it wasn’t what he wanted in life. He’d guessed I might be guardian material (hey, I had to have one person I could talk to about my “true” dreams without being laughed at, and he was it, alright?) so before he went through the door for the last time he wrote one note for his crew, and a more detailed one for the ring leader. Yes, that’s where that expression comes from. There are a lot of things in this hidden life that aren’t so hidden.

Seventeen years old, grieving for a brother who had just died, a mess in more ways than one and into my life walks a total stranger who - one nine word sentence – turned my world inside-out and upside down.

“Your dreams are real, and your brother isn’t dead”.