(aka Bike) Part 1404 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad
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Billie was awake, “I’ve been thinking, Mummy.”
“Oh good, all those school fees are paying off.”
“Mummm–mmeee.”
“What were you thinking?” I asked sitting on the edge of the bed.
“About what happened–I nearly killed Sister Maria.”
“I don’t know about that, I was there.”
“Yes, you saved her didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“She’s going to be cross with me when I next go to school, isn’t she?”
“I don’t think so, but it might be nice if we take her some flowers and a letter of apology.”
“Will you help me write it?”
“I tell you what, you do it first and then I’ll help you from there, so do a rough draft first and I’ll help you, okay?”
She sat up and hugged me, “Thank you, Mummy, you’re the best mummy in the world.”
“I think that might be a slight exaggeration, so how about we say the best one in this room–but only until you have some children yourself.”
“But I can’t have children–can I?”
“I didn’t necessarily mean you gave birth, but adopted or fostered some–that’s how I started.”
“And look what you ended up with.”
“I have the loveliest children I could wish for, and I love you all.”
“Thank you, Mummy.”
I hugged her and kissed the top of her head, “C’mon we’re keeping Stephanie waiting.”
I left them to it, having sat with them both to explain what had happened at the church and its consequences. Stephanie’s eyes nearly came out on stalks when I mentioned the accidental stabbing.
“So, this woman survived?”
“Yes, of course she did, so you’re not working with a pair of criminals–besides it was an accident and Billie was in a strange place before and throughout the episode in the chapel.”
I left them to it, making some bread for the morning and doing myself a boiled egg for my tea. I love boiled eggs, they were the first solid food I ate after surgery, when I had to cope with clear soup and milkless tea–yuck. Years later I heard someone had drunk Bovril, I wished I had instead of the tea.
I’d made a bowl of cereal for Billie which she ate, and I’d done a quick omelette for Stephanie with some ham and mushrooms. She wolfed it down, then she and I shared a cup of tea, while I breast fed Catherine.
“Watching you do that, I can’t really believe you’re not a natural female.”
“I thought I was the officially deluded one.”
“Yeah, sure–you’re one of the sanest people I know.”
“Could I have that in writing?”
“For a fee, yes.”
Billie went off to play with the others and I shouted, “Ten minutes and then it’s bed time, see if Gramps will read to you.”
“How is she doing?” I asked Stephanie, closing the kitchen door.
“Okay–today was traumatic but she said she saw some woman standing behind you pouring blue light into you when you were trying to save the nun.”
“She saw it?” I gasped.
“So she said.”
“Today’s incident is quite bizarre, but what would you say if it had been suggested by someone I respect, that it was all designed to make me communicate with the Shekinah?”
“I’d say you were absolutely barking, why? This is the sort of paranoid delusion associated with severe mental illness and some personality disorders of a sociopathic type.”
“I thought you might.”
“You’re definitely a cycle path.” She sniggered and I rolled my eyes.
I explained about the energy–she knew about some of it–but was astonished when I suggested I’d actually brought one or two back from the brink–I didn’t like to say i was raising the dead, she might have Christian qualms about that.
“So, let me get this right, you feel that some ancient Hebrew goddess is channelling this energy into you for you to heal people?”
“Yes, in a nutshell.”
“What does she get out of it?” Stephanie had asked what I’d been thinking for some little while.
“I’m not su–I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“Quem Jupiter vult perdere, dementat prius” said Stephanie.
“Something about Jupiter sending madness. It’s a long time since I did any Latin.”
“Those whom God destroys, he first sends mad.”
“Oh, is that a diagnosis?”
“No, it was something that I learned verbatim in my first lecture on psychiatry. From then on I saw it as a challenge to try and stop as many destructions as I could. Sometimes I win, but not always.”
“Do I detect an element of hubris?”
“Possibly, psychiatrists are apparently the group of medics most affected by the God complex.”
“I just thought they were all mad?”
“Perhaps, but as they say it takes one to know one.”
I made us some more tea. Sitting down I glanced at Stephanie’s abdomen. “What are you staring at?” she asked suspiciously.
“Are you seeing anyone at the moment?” I asked her.
“Why, what did you see–cancer?”
“There is something growing there.”
“Oh hell–can you fix it–I mean blue light it, or however you term it?”
“No, I can only help things which are broken.”
She looked at me, “Waddya mean?”
“You’re having a baby.”
“What? How can you tell?”
“I just can.”
“This Shekinah thing?”
I shrugged.
“Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“No, only that it’s healthy.” I lied but she wouldn’t thank me for saying.
“Shit–how did you do that?”
“Could you be pregnant?”
“I shouldn’t be, I’m on the pill and he used a condom to be double sure.”
“Well, you are.”
“Shit.”
“Stephanie, please don’t abort it, will you?”
“I think that’s for me to decide don’t you?”
“It is, but I have a feeling you need to have this baby.”
“So it can screw up my life?”
“No, look, I’ll help all I can with babysitting and so on.”
“I need to think about it.”
She left a little while later in a sort of daze. I was bit worried for her driving and asked her to let me know she got home safely. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her, but the energy was insisting I did. Now she’s going to avoid me and what will my kids do when she’s on maternity leave?
Tom had put the younger children to bed and read to them, I checked on Danny and he was lying there staring at the ceiling. “What’s the matter, kiddo?”
“Oh hi, Mum.”
“What’s on your mind?” I asked sitting by the bed.
“Billie told us what happened–pretty frightening.”
“So why does that make you think?”
“Well, is she cracking up?”
“Certainly not.”
“She’s not going to stab one of us is she?”
“No, of course not, she’s fine.”
“She was going to do a Trish, wasn’t she?”
“A Trish?”
“Yeah, chop her goolies off.”
“Was she?”
“So she said.”
“I don’t know.”
“Makes me sweat just thinking ’bout it.”
“Well don’t then.”
“Mum?”
“Yes, Danny?”
“Thanks for being there for us all.”
“Darling, I do my best to be there for you all as much as I can, but we’re a family so we’re all there for each other, not just me.”
“Yeah, course.”
I bent down to peck him on the cheek and he put his arms round my neck and kissed me on the cheek instead. Once more I went downstairs with a glow in my whole being.
“He kissed you again, did he?”
“Who?” I gasped at Si.
“Danny, who else?”
“How d’you know?”
“You have something about you, which I recognise from the last time he did it: either that or you’re ovulating or pregnant.”
“I wish,” I sighed.
“We can go and have another try,” he said his whole face lighting up.
“C’mon then,” I couldn’t turn him down again–well I could have, but I happen to love him.
Comments
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1404
Cathy preggers! THAT would show her.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Darn Stan,
I second _that_ 'fer sure' :)
And I think Ang has toyed with that numerous times, it's soooo damned *oops wrong adjective (?)* tempting to have her pushed another two, three, steps to acknowledge the rightfulness of her claim to femininity.
But she's avoided that all this time, because maybe she believes _that_ is the way to end this series to soon, or it short cuts or stems the flow of inspiration for continuing the story. Which would be a big shame.
It's like those on and on going serials where you _know_ she and he are meant for each other. Destination up ultima forma, in excelis deo, ad infinitum. But! It's not happening. It's close, it looms on the horizon, and then they shirk away again..
These are the feuilletons ( hi Ang ;) ) you keep reading, seeing. But it'd be nice though.. Still.
Jo-Anne
THAT might be enough to actually convince her!
And it would indeed be painful...maybe it's time for Cathy to really feel the power of the Shekinah, to whom anything is possible (I guess-maybe she would consider it a creative, healing thing?). I'm pretty sure something dramatic is in the works, and I truly hope that, like the Shekinah, it is a creative and not a destructive thing. Besides, it would be a very interesting storyline!
Wren
When did Danny turn
so sensitive?
Nice
Cathy is getting all sorts of viewpoints and clues now. Shekinah is making sure that other people can see her so that Cathy can't blame it solely on personal delusion or hallucination.
Her wiggle room to still ignore the overwhelming evidence is getting less and less.
Will her obstinate world view get finally shaken to its foundations?
Coolness.
Kim
Shekinah moves in mysterious ways...
“I shouldn’t be, I’m on the pill and he used a condom to be double sure.â€
So either the pill was ineffective and the condom was perforated, or Shekinah's being sneaky / devious again. Given what Shekinah's been up to recently (including showing a physical representation of herself to both Trish and Billie), I'm inclined to think the latter - and it's part of her latest devious plan (whatever that may be). Hopefully this time the pregnancy and birth will be conventional, Stephanie won't feel the need to name her child Catherine (or some variant thereof!), and Cathy won't be asking Maureen to build another annex to the farmhouse...
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
causing Kathy to get pregnant for real would really mess
up too many possible storylines on how this saga goes. not to mention would send more than one person to brink of insanity and really create a mess @ this point. I'm thinkin specifically billie. no I think kathy's fate lies on taking care of those she already has that depend on her and coming to some terms on what this goddess wants of her besides doubting herself(Kathy) so much. I've never seen anyone that seems to believe she's a woman yet go out of her way to grasp the fact she is one now.
.
Some of that I think is she hasnt from time since fated meeting on a bicycle with Stella the 1st time...hasnt had alot of time to sit back & reflect what has occcurred since and really come to terms or fact she was, is, and always will be a woman. Maybe that's the whole proverb in a nutshell on all this other going on.
.
Either that ..OR.. she's still lying back in that hedge back in chapt. one dreaming all this ....... NOW THAT WOULD BE Angharad's style ......
(smiles)
As always,
A good story. Stephie is getting some of the Cathy treatment. It would be funny if people all around Cathy converted whilst she remained the doubting Thomas.