Previously on Wings of Light:

--- *** ---

"I don't have time for games, Judy! Open the door!"

"Sir, you're nothing than an embarrassment and troublemaker! The police will be here within a few minutes after I phone them."

--- *** ---

"Rare bird, are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. It doesn't hurt at all. Just everything today for me is coming a bit too much."

--- *** ---

"In the late hours of the afternoon, five police officers were brutally murdered by the infamous serial killer Cayden Gray inside the bar Felicity and in front of the bartender's eyes. Moreover, it's confirmed by one of the police officers who was outside and tried to stop him by wounding his knee under the name Lydia Jane Morrison that he threatened her, but the only survived policewoman didn't give him a chance to be the next victim. Anyway here's Lydia's short commentary on the happened. I saw that tall, dangerous bad guy leaving smugly the bar as if he's already done with the dirty work and washing his hands of murdering the cops, who meant trouble for him. Blood was dribbling from his butcher knife even he showed it to me how much blood he's collected from the dirty work of his. I was sure it was him. Cayden Gray. He's pleased as punch. He thought he'd kill me and ending up like my co-workers. He was wrong. I was the one who shot him cleverly in the knee and I scared him so much that he limped, trying to escape and dodging the bullets I shot until I was out of ammo which pissed me off. At least, I tried to weaken him and slow down his pace until he kicked me in the crotch and I ended up on the snow, being on my knees as he was out of my sight. The kick was unarguably strong."

"No! Just no."

--- *** ---

"I'm pretty impressed by your hobbies, dear! I knew it you've somehow a tremendous talent in sewing clothes and being such a sweetheart to the children."

"Thanks! You know how special are the children to me even if they're my grandchildren, they mean the world to me!"

--- *** ---

"Good for that police officer, but it's such a shame he isn't arrested!" 

"Because that policewoman was actually kicked in the crotch so that to wash his hands of his business!"

--- *** ---

" My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted ! Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted ! I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay ! A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day ! The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted."

"Mama!" 

--- *** ---

"Why? Did you lose somebody significant from your family or something else?"

"No, no, no! It still haunts me after reading it and overthinking it."

--- *** ---

"Good for me!" The Michiganian's hysterical sniffle ramped a tempest of wider, despondent waves, colliding in the living room's walls, propping her forehead on her hand after ending the phone conversation with the former ambitious Monsignor. Crystalline chubby twin tears trickled on her cheeks, heavy rain of despondency poured on her youthful, porcelain complexion, shadowed by the partly dark room. Her frail heart flimsily sunk in the mist, profound ocean of her melancholy. "Now, I and Timothy are already dead! Judy will fucking kill me for letting him to know her little secret and hobby for describing her own thoughts and emotions in a journal even suicidal." The earpiece was stilling grasped in her hand, fingers curled circa the gadget, whereas unpropping her forehead and daubing the river of crystal tears with the pad of her finger, sniffeling. Her heart was aching yet at the gut-wrenching thirteenth page's paragraphs and the suicidal vibes, highlighting the negativism of the former nun towards herself. The physical and mental ounce, burdening her train of thoughts and shoulders with extra weight of delusional charlatan facts about her and poured in paragraphs of self-hatred and self-criticism.

All of a sudden, the blonde was caught off guard, muting her uncontrollable sobs, readjusting the earpiece back to the phone, gulping hard the bittersweet lump, bubbling up in her throat at the uneven background noise of masculine, familiar footsteps approaching the living room, whereas silently echoing in the hall. In the interval, the young lady lifted up her gaze from the floor up to the askew opened door. A mammoth, veiny hand clawed the askew opened door, swinging it widely opened and Madeleine was embraced by her recently awake older brother in comfy pyjama-clad muscles, gnawing on her lower plumpish lip disquietly.

"Maddie, what on earth is going on?" At the moment, the young man scooted up to his younger sister, seating alongside her and dangling a strong, muscular arm around her middle, supporting her back, whilst reclining altogether on the cozy couch and pressing a platonically affectionate, feather peck on the top of her head, his pale lips grazing her golden, crispy soft scalp. Meeting her woeful stare, her hazelish-brown irises spoke galore of emotions, controversial to the sheer happiness and genuine satisfaction, Madeleine was finely reluctant to avert her stare from Roman, in fact, their parents have always taught their heirs of the impending generation to flicker up their eyes with the person they're currently conversating, regardless if it's their worst foe or their closest friend. "Shh, shh, you'll be good!" The drastic lowered voice, accented his Michigan lilt was soothingly tingling angelic anthems to the blonde, molting in snuggle, tossing back her head on the sofa's backrest, swaddling in soft, benign comfort and sedating her bones and muscles from mobility. Suddenly the young woman snaked her both alabaster, pajama-clad arms around his shoulders, clinging her petite-frame to him, burying her face in the crook of his arm. "Maddie, you can tell me anything! I'm your older brother and I'm the sole man that can hear your pain and roar." The fingers, grasping the linen shirt's pyjama frail fabric were stubbornly rumpling and steadily clenching the fabric with long, slim as flute stings fingers.

"It's not about me, Roman," Crystalline, sticky tears drenched Roman's earlobe and the nape of his delicate, alabaster neck,dew glistening and dancing in the corner of her frequently blinking jewels, fertiziling tears her vision. "But it's about my friend and I told her boyfriend about her secret journal, where she wrote a couple of suicidal, ridiculous paragraphs which have nothing to do with what kind of a person she's except sometimes she's sometimes angry with Edward for when he doesn't have his regular breastmilk." Delighting soaks spiked the older man's shoulder, stimulating his sensitive epidermis beneath the lapis linen pyjama shirt. It has been awhile since the young man has seen his younger sibling despondent and folded by self in tears, consoling self in the heavy rain, poured her overall porcelain, youthful complexion and the liberty of tears delightingly staining her facial attributes with her black sorrow, gray pain and pale heartache and vivid memories.

"You've every right with Timothy to care about Jude and her condition even noting the hints of her suicidal humor." With a heavy sigh, fresh, burdening oxygen coursed through the young man's fragile lungs, vague smile flourished on his lips, optimism and pragmatism cusping and feuding. "As a friend of hers or Timothy as the closest person who's next to her, in fact, they live together some stuff which may be personal mustn't be as personal as to keep it for herself solely. For example, her current emotions and feelings even hints of suicidal thoughts and intentions even if they're poems being written or readen," In the meanwhile, the Michiganian daubed with her delicate fingertips the last, drying tears and withdrawing her face from the crook of Roman's arm. "If I was you or Timothy and found out about this journal with these suicidal thoughts, poured in a few paragraphs or words at least, of course, I'd rise the topic in front of her what's wrong and hopefully she spills the tea about her pain!"

"But it was written like months ago this stuff. Just a month before to meet each other."

"Even better! No matter if it's a few years ago or today, it will still arouse my interest what prompt gave her to write it to prevent the suicide!" Meantime, Roman rubbed his sister's back encouragingly, lovingly and ushering her to get from the couch, consequently lifting up their rears from the couch and guiding her slowly and steadily up to the kitchen. Still, Madeleine meekly, humbly followed her older brother's instructions up to the kitchen without questioning blandly, bluntly. "It will cease from existence the suicidal thoughts or the suicide which once burdened her after a sober, long discussion with a trusted person from her inner circle, psychologist or somebody else who can help her."

"I know! That's what I'm trying to do for Jude's good and preventing the suicide she may have thought and plotted for months, however, I'll never forget the day I found her journal somewhere in their house," When the both young adults already set a foot inside the kitchen as Roman was sitting on the kitchen table unlike the blonde, lingering on the countertop with a retrieved empty glass and filling it with fresh, lukewarm water, pooling her glass and sitting alongside her older brother. "It was the night when she was on a first date with that psychopath and Timothy was instructing you about their son!" The vividness of the young lady's memories refreshed her whirlpool of thoughts after sipping in a tiny gulp from her glass of liquid, hydrating the corners of her mouth, organs and throat.

--- *** ---

--- Flashback ---

--- 4th of February, 1966 ---

"Edward only cries and fusses whenever he doesn't receive his regular breastmilk per a few hours at least or he needs some attention and affection." Femininely docile, subtle footsteps echoed on their way to flee the children's room which was oblivious for the both gentlemen, whereas the seriousness and nonchalant sternity, puncturing the former pious man of the cloth's behest, lingering on his tongue and standing beside the crib. "He's a specific baby. He doesn't trust easily strangers and he's quite bashful around them, you know! Except for Maddie when Jude and your sister met for first time." Meanwhile, wicked, mischievous chuckle clicked the roof of the young woman's mouth after tiptoeing out of the both men's sight and sneaking up to the former members of the clergy's bedroom, pursing her roseate, cherub lips pensively. Her hazelish-brown jewels glanced back behind her back per a couple of seconds, making sure either Timothy or Roman haven't fled the children's room and acknowledged her absence.

Once the flower store saleswoman's trembling petite, smooth hand lowered to the doorknob and docilely, hushingly swinging opening the door in no time, her lips popped up after entering in the both former devotional members of the church's bedroom and shutting the door behind her, ambling up to the former nun's nightstand drawers.

"It's show time." Emphasizing the whisper, she cleared her throat as the Michiganian squatted past the nightstand, opening one of the drawers and rummaging until something larger, solider was teasing the pads of her fingers at last and snatching the personal jounal of the former promiscuous jazz nightclub singer promptly, opening its leather cover without averting her stare. Gulping the soar lump in her throat with struggle, her honey brown jewels scanned the first pag, blinking restlessly. Moreover, the young lady's sixth sense what Judy would obscure as secrets and unshared thoughts, emotions and feelings in a dynamic roller coaster of felicity, ire, sorrow, irritation, calmness and serenity ignited her childlike pryingness in her embers, ashy coals illuminating her adrenaline to discover what was her friend's hobby in writing and pouring her entire imagination and heart in whether poems or paragraphs, illustrating her lifestyle and the every day episode. An eerie flat line itchily thrived upon her rosy-coloured, plumpish lips and sensing the surprises awaiting her shortly after scrolling through flipping the pages from the first up to her recent progress.

The personal journal of

Judy Martin and her life

After her delicate, dainty fingers caressed the first shoddy page of her friend's journal, thus her fingers maneuvered to flip the forward page, scrolling through the first pages and realizing the paragraphs were perfectly normal. Further, some of the pages were clearly blank with no text, mapping the entire or partly its sheet of paper.

For example the fourth and eighth page attracted candidly the young lady's attention, her attention focused utterly on the personal journal of the former devotional woman of the cloth.

31st of October, 1965

First Halloween as a platonic family

Well, Edward has already grown with a month more since his birth! But also a week and a couple of days added to his first month anniversary after emerging in this crudely cold world.

Today was Halloween! Abundance of superstitions about this day as much as Friday Thirteenth. Even though the nightmares were still haunting me, I was dressed up as the angel of death for Halloween, while Timothy was dressed up as pilgrim unlike our son who was actually a bee. A fricking bee!

In spite of we had somewhat disagreements, of course, it didn't ruin our Halloween at all! We decided to trick or treat by passing a several houses on our way to our small Halloween journey around Vermont's countryside. The majority of the people who gave us candies and variety of sweets were spectacularly friendly and open-minded even we had small talks with some of these that loved to chat even with strangers unproblematically.

Halloween hasn't been my favorite season holidays, in fact, the majority of the kids were tickled pink to dress up as spooky supernatural creatures or some classy horror movie psychos, giving to the strangers creeps. However, I'll never forget this Halloween even though we weren't couple with Timothy at all and the people still thought the angel of death was dating even being married to the British pilgrim with the bee.

After trick or treating, we threw a private party in our house after our son was put down to sleep, because he's just a baby. One month old! Fragile! Exhausted! He deserved rest and he's still growing and it wouldn't be okay keeping him awake all night!

Page 4

"How sweet!" Sweetly melodious, fuzzy snicker escaped her tongue after perusing warily the paragraphs without skipping a remarkable detail behind Judy's portrayal of her first Halloween with Timothy and Edward. "There should be a romantic novel about the angel of death, falling in love with the English pilgrim and having a baby bee!"Her chapped lips parted in the scoff, throughout twirling her berry-coloured, wet tongue and licking them to hydrate them, obscuring the twinkling glimmer of her chapped cherub lips to be as obnoxious as cut lip after a road accident. Fingertips cradling yet the fourth page and her reproductive thoughts fertilized the constructed paragraphs, dwelling shortly in the realm of her reverie, out of sight, out of reality and envisioning the parents and their love child's Halloween celebration. "How about to go back to eighth page?" In the interim, her dainty fingers flipped a few more pages until the eighth chaffing the corner of her smoky quartz eye and managing a wary scan momentarily. The honeyed whisper escaped her throat boldly as if a protagonist from the movies was narrating nonchalantly, neutrally a monologue.

8th of November, 1965

Late Fall Picnic

I didn't have any clue after we finished with our breakfasts and Timothy was like within less than a half an hour we shall leave home. At first, I was thinking it was some kind of a game until he didn't want to spoil so much by ruining the surprise.

I was childlike curious what on earth was going on and he just told me it's a surprise by starting to pack our luggage for our woods' picnic and walk. Of course, Edward was with me whilst Timothy was entirely responsible for the luggage!

We started with the long and finely healthy hike in the woods. It was magnificently gorgeous! The leaves have already tumbled down from the trees. The crispy fresh fall wind was playing and fanning our hairs.

Even though we were almost silent during our hikes and picnic with Timothy, we somehow communicated and raised topics that were neutral and they were out of the church's question even about our painful, gloomy past we've been through and struggling to overcome for almost two months after the nightmare's ending.

The late fall sun was saturatingly smiling at us. We ate, drank, talked and walked. Timothy was telling me about his family background and how he was raised. He was actually raised in a strict, sufficiently pious to attend the church household. Solely his youngest sibling Anna and John weren't religious at all. They were rarely attending the church and oversleeping some morning family assembles. Furthermore, Timothy's mother Scarlet is more open-minded and less problematic than his father, according to him.

Page 8

"And the diapers are supposed to be changed per a couple of hours just like these pads which the ladies wear during their period even overnight before bed." In the meanwhile, Madeleine was snapped out of the reverie realm after heeding cautiously her older brother and her friend's conversation, situated yet in the children's room. Her caramel brown pools flickered up back at the shut the door, gulping a soar lump sluggishly with great deal of efforts and massaging her throat muscles. "Especially when the diaper is full and stinks of, you know!" The former holy man's tongue guttily conjugated the instruction sternly, scarcely dithering to avert his gaze from the younger man's lapis lazuli jewels. The honesty and candor essentially blended and forged the instructions and the solemnly took vows of Roman to keep his promises of looking after the infant with his bobbed head in agreement and posing questions when something baffled or was certainly arcane for assimilation.

"Phew! Those gentlemen will scare the hell out of me if they dare to step here, while I'm trying to discover the skeletons hiding in Jude's closet after reading her journal's writings." After girding in a whisper herself after slowly and steadily shifting her attention back to the middle-aged woman's personal diary, meanwhile, the Michiganian licked her lips after earnestly scrolling through the pages frictionlessly until her caramel brown irises landed on thirteenth page and perusing the content, paged up on the sheet of paper. Fingertips timidly steading the page to not flap forward or backward, quirking an eyebrow after inspecting eagerly the sheet of paper's content.

15th of November, 1965

Nobody is supposed to read it. Nobody!

It has been almost two months since I'm out of this hellhole, where I was a nun, a patient and became a mother for first time. Miracles and nightmares haunted this place. It's true.

But what is actually the purpose of the life? The nightmares still haunt me. I've the strong feeling that they're still appearing in my vision, whether asleep, drifted in a completely different realm or on the contrary, when I'm fighting with the reality from daylight up to night time until I fall asleep.

I don't know if I'm able to trust Timothy even forgive him. He gave me everything. Home, food and everything even helping me to give a birth when nobody was around even a doctor with rich medical knowledge and experience.

Timothy is going to be much better without me, raising on his own Edward. I'm just a horrible mother or at least I feel like a monster. Sometimes I scoff at Edward, but I can't blame him. He's a baby.

I'm a heartbreaker. I'm just a broken lunatic, who deserves nothing. Briarcliff should had been my morgue and grant me the enternity to reunite with the wretched souls or whoever they're in heaven or purgatory, to apologize from heaven or the purgatory to Timothy for wasting weeks.

I've sometimes wondered what it feels like to be dead. To be peaceful forever. To not move a single muscle and bone. To not hear the people's mourning. To feel the spiritual immortality.

Just I'm wondering yet f I'm still loved. I feel lost without God and without family. Nobody gives a damn about me. I feel nothing.

Timothy is way much better parent than me in parenting own son.

I'm just...

"No, no! This must be impossible!" A sharp reminder punctured the juvenile flower saleswoman's stung widened irises in mortification and nonplus, chewing on slowly and steadily her lower plumpish chapped lip. Her heart rate increased rapidly rabid with the unchanging drums in her ribcage and pulsating into her ears, obnoxiously distinctive for her. Flush crawled underneath her well-carved cheeks with morello blush, embellishing her facial skin superficially and stiff-neckedly. "She must be joking about this horseshit with portraying her suicidal thoughts!" Within another elapsing minute in inspecting warily with ultimate focus, darted to the sheet of paper, her heart sunk and twin chubby tears welled in her eyelids, reluctant to sob even solely distinctive for herself.

All of a sudden, series of masculine, dull footsteps chattered against the polished wooden planked, stable flooring of the corridor, bulking the young lady's attention and snapping her focus out of the diary and putting it back in the drawer and pushed forward untouched, bearing a semblance of forgotten, private space after straightening her posture and her knees featherly brushing the carpeted flooring shortly before her petite-frame was standing fully.

"In addition to if you have any further questions about the cherub angel, ask me right away before," Once the Michiganian headed towards the shut bedroom door and the door swung opened in the corner of the both men's eyes, their bones and muscles paralyzed and transfixing their inquisitive gawks on the young woman after stepping in the hall with a foot proximity, catching them off guard. "Glad to see you, Maddie!" Vaguely mischievous smile decorated her porcelain, palish complexion and her grinning softly at the gentlemen. Her face was flamed with amicability, shutting the bedroom door.

"Are you ready to go on operation save Jude?"

"Sure!" Bobbing humbly, strong-willedly in a strong agreement, the older man cleared his throat softly, managing his mammoth, creamy as baby skin hand to pat amiably, weakly Roman's shoulder, pursuing for his lapis lazuli embers to link them with the rigid textures of probity, igniting the inward blazes. "And Roman, take a good care of Edward Ralph, while I and your sister are going to find Cayden's address in the police station!"

"Of course, Tim! I will keep an eye on your son." The older sibling of Madeleine reached for the British compatriot's colossal, veiny hand, taking and squeezing it firmly without breaking off the substantial eye contact. "Moreover, be careful guys if you're about to break into that psychotic bastard's house especially you Maddie!" In the interval, his younger sister managed a nod, emitting hoarse, healthily sardonic snigger, tickling the corners of her mouth and muffling the loud, rich tones with a hand over her pink mouth after shooting a promising glance at Madeleine. "I don't want this psychotic piece of shit to ruin you and lose you! I don't even want to think what he's capable of."

"I promise we'll be fine and deal somehow with that charlatan!"

"Chin up!" The young man's lower eyelids crinkled, seconds before the former pious clergyman to join his friend and hop up in the cab.

--- *** ---

--- End of Flashback ---

--- The Next Morning ---

--- 17th of February, 1966 ---

The promising morning approached quicker than an early spring heavy rain, pouring in the entire town. The pallid daylight in the wee hours of the morning streamed through the kitchen's curtain-opened window, bathing the room in glamorous silver light.

The both former members of the clergy were already awake since an hour ago after feeding their own son, bathing him and changing his diapers, besides taking a fresh morning shower and currently seating on the kitchen table as Timothy has snatched surreptitiously his girlfriend's journal from the library and dumping it on her seat. At the moment, the infant was sitting in his high chair, shooting his honey brown irises at his mother and the once stray kitten, roving around the former nun's feet whilst awaiting for the pot of water to seethe lastly. Stephen's recurring vapoury mewls hummed in the silent kitchen except the mild, quiet droning of gradually boiling water for the coffee. Her hazelish-brown eyes sheened down at the kettle until she zinged up to the lowest drawer with large package of granules for cats, consequently lugging it up to Stephen's bowl and pouring beehive of granules after the series of jubilant mewls and purrs escaped the young kitten's tongue, nuzzling against the former sleazy nightclub singer's fuzzy slippers.

"How are you feeling, rare bird?" In the meantime, the younger man posed the question caringly after glancing at their ray of sunshine after Judy brought back the large package of cat food back in the lowest drawer and her dainty, flimsy fingers pushed casually the drawer after bending down. The sychronisation of the charcoal gray kitten's still growing, childish teeth munching the crispy, dry chunks of granules laced his tongue hungrily and passionately.

"I'm good!" In a mere cough, subsequently the older woman cleared her throat and propping with her both viciously clawing hands the counter, facing her lover with a vague, optimistically bright smile, her honey brown orbs more alight than before after instantly accomplishing a genuine eye contact. "Much better than yesterday and the chaotic stuff that was going on in the bar!" Emphasizing the entire sentence, she glimpsed at the charcoal gray cat after eavesdropping the hungry symphony of his teeth munching the chunks and filling his empty stomach, her stomach growled until one of her petite hands slithered from the countertop to her round, soft belly, cradling the soft fat beneath the large-sized, unworn T-shirt of the British compatriot. "What about ya too?"

"I'm slightly worried." Suddenly the mirth fell from the Bostonian's parchment face, discoloring her attributes in no time once Timothy emphasized his recent mood in the wee hours of the morning. His heart sunk at the vivid thoughts after scanning the text on thirteenth page of his rare bird's personal diary.

"What exactly worries ya?" Photogenically concerned pair of caramel brown jewels was fixated on the British aristocrat's ducked head, almost losing the sight of the eye contact. An anxious flat line was grimaced her face, her nude pink lips bleaked and not wearing any pattern of joy. "Honey!" The silence spoke the foreign, arcane language of trouble and the unexplainable theories behind the silence until the solution was found and figured out eventually. The bizarreness of the uncommon hush was reopening the old chapter, paging up paragraphs of negative, inexlorable emotions and feelings that were usually brewing and cooking inside her ogans and nerves.

"Mama!" All of a sudden, their baby boy abruptly intervened in his both parents' intense conversation, babbling his mother's friendly, loving nickname, spreading his both pudgy, pajama-clad arms in the thin air and flickering up his hazelish-brown embers at the middle-aged lady.

"Is it something about you?" Meantime, the British aristocrat shook his head in disapproval, shortly before vowels and syllables pricking his tongue tip.

"It's not about me," The strawberry-coloured, almost dry tongue of the former priest attempted to conjugate the confession, lifting up his gaze from his shuffled shoed convenient slippers clad feet up to his rara avis's piercing gaze, begging for a rectitude in his confession and true motives in the hidden message of his revelation. "No matter if it's awhile or whenever it's, it's something about you, Jude!" The durability unrustiness of their crossing stares at one another intensified the atmosphere that was dividing their small space, sharing with one another after Judy approached the kitchen table, stroking gingerly, lovingly her son's dark, crispily soft hair and racking the hairs between her fingers.

"About me?" With an ordinary, ignenous nod the blonde quirked an elegant, feminine eyebrow quizzically."I'm pretty confused. We don't have any further problems and we're trying our best to work on our relationship even forgetting about the past we're coping with."

"It's not about our past except this diary with your suicidal motives and paragraphs." When the younger man yanked the diary from the free seat, lifting it up to meet the former licentious jazz nightclub singer's eyeing, Judy choked with a bitter lump, pumping in her throat in the caught-off guard prospect, flaming widened her eyelids at her personal journal. Galore of questions submerged her thoughts and questioning herself how her boyfriend found about her personal journal. How he dares stucking his nose in her personal paraphernalia without her direct consent? Who told him about her remarkable paraphernalia? Why he questions something which she has written three months ago and now raises it as a topic on the dining table in the morning?

"W-What suicidal motives and paragraphs?" Stutter was almost dying in a whisper, squinting up at his handsome facial attributes, contoured in pure seriousness. Her fingers lingered on her baby son's crispy soft chestnut hair, admiring his youthful, ethereal grace with his inherited attributes from his both parents. "What are ya even the hell talking about?"

"Thirteenth page!" After his long, pristinely meaty fingers scrolled through without a glance, inwardly counting the page's number which he has skipped until his fingers cradled the feeble, frail sheet of paper's material and leaking the suicidal paragraphs with the entire pessimism, sorrow, curiosity about the afterlife and the sentiment of immobility after embracing with open arms and encountering the death, itself, illustrating what the pen that was once grippled between her fingers has composed as content. "It's from 15th of November, the last year."

"Indeed, howsoever, who told ya about my journal?" Suddenly mild annoyance punctured her enquiry, ire and apprehension, blending in a single potion of angst flamed her honey brown pools after Timothy handed her diary to peruse momentarily each paragraph attentively and reflect wisely.

"I won't answer your question unless you let me know what gave you the right to be suicidal even consider it as a salvation." In the interim, the water in the pot commenced dancing seethe, keeping the former holy woman's wits about the seething liquid for the morning caffeine beverage and scooting up to the hot plate, stopping it and setting the pot on the counter, whereas gathering two plain white mugs for hot beverages from the kitchen cabinet above her and pouring the hot liquid in the mugs, peaking up to the rim of the cup.

"I was in depression. A postpartum! Inner voices were despondending my spirits and making me wonder what it would be like to be dead," At the moment, the former nun gripped the mugs' handles and ambling up to the kitchen tableand handing to her lover his cup of caffeine beverage, seating against him. "And I'm a heartbreaker and deserved absolutely nothing and I felt then I lost without God and without family. I felt like nobody cared about me even if I was dead and that Briarcliff should have had been my morgue and apologise ya for wasting yar time for me." After timidly sipping from her mug of morning coffee, consequently caffeine greased her teeth and tongue, whilst the former ambitious Monsignor left aloof his mug on the dining table for a few more minutes until it diminishes the temperature. "And I thought ya would be much better without me and yar much better parent than I." Her ivory fingers absently were playing and toying with the marble handle, casting a lowered gawk at the brown liquid, licking her coffee-stained cherub lips. The hoarseness in her revelation didn't fade away.

"That's not true!" Meantime, the former ambitious Monsignor vouched with vague fretfulness, accentuating his refutation of the blonde's utterance. "What you have written on this page is an absolute exaggeration! Yes, you broke my heart when you were with Cayden, but the rest of the stuff you mentioned from the journal isn't basically true!" Once the British aristocrat mentioned in outstanding emphasis the infamous serial killer's name, thus the middle-aged lady lifted up her eyes from the caffeine beverage up to the younger man's cocoa brown jewels.

"What about the nightmares?"

"Instead of paying a visit to psychologist nearby in Vermont, you consulted with my younger sister Anna. She's definitely the big-shot in psychology and spent a handful of hours on the phone to help you," Timothy's glimpse was casted on their ray of sunshine until his cocoa brown orbs fixated on him, managing to bring a couple of delicate, virginal fingers up to his well-carved, creamy cheek and cradling it beneath his fingertips. "And considering the time you've spent on the phone, listening to your pain and worries even the nightmares you used to have, she truly cherished every precious second of listening to your desperate voice until she advised you what you shall do to overcome your fears and nightmares." The middle-aged woman brought to her face with a couple of fingers of her both hands the porcelain cup, inhaling culpably the mouth-watering, luster aroma of freshly brewed, hot coffee in the wee hours of the morning even during the coldest days of the year. She felt like a vulnerable, small and naïve child with a cup of hot chocolate in third point of view's prospect with inhaling the insatiable fragrance and zapping her frosty fingers naturally, effortlessly.

"I was thinking sometimes I was actually a pain in the neck for yar sister!"

"Even when she was somehow disquiet or something, that doesn't mean you were pain in the neck for Anna!" In the meanwhile, Judy's glossy, naturally mauve lips grazed featherly-light the mug, gulping a few tiny, innocent sips, whereas her boyfriend's fingertips lingered on their baby boy's creaminess, roundness of his cheek. "She's incredibly selfless and loves to hear what tortures the others' mentality and give them a piece of advice shamelessly! But also she really wants to meet you in person and she has told me this every time I speak to her."

"Fair enough! I'd also love to meet her in person, nonetheless, I think thanks to me, ya had to pay a big bill for phone in late November." Suddenly Judy's damp, cherub lips curled in the retort, puncturing her self-consciousness with her Boston lilt.

"It doesn't matter what a big bill I owed to the phone company just because of seeking an advice and help from my sister. I'm glad she helped you so much and her advice and help were worth hours and bunch of energy." Thereafter the British compatriot shifted his temporal attention to the infant, baby talking to him in mumbled velvety whisper after resting his forehead against his, stilling the doting, light caress, abrading his alabaster facial skin with the flatness of his fingertips. "She has listened to abundance of young and old people, complaining what their inner voices from their depressions and suicidal thoughts have whirled and twirled in their minds and thanks to her, they carried on with their own precious lives." At the moment, the former man of the cloth withdrew his yet young-looking, lily-white complexion from his own son and slipping his fingers downward to his jaw, cradling it lovingly and his chocolate brown pools eyeing the older woman's palish with light-heavy wrinkles, mapping her face. "Even if I owed a thousand dollars bill for phone, it's not a hot-shot at all. We're pretty wealthy, thanks to me and my British family! You don't owe me any dollar." His pale-pinkish, plump lips parted in the irony, shortly before grabbing his cup of coffee and sipping of it for first time. The series of jubilant babbles and cooes alongside the gentle purrs after Stephen endearingly finished with his meal and brushing his fluffy, small head in one of his foster owner's shuffled feet under the table hummed in the background as background noise.

"So as I owe ya a thousand of apologies for the night I fled with Edward without warning you wherever I go, in fact, to pay a visit to Mother Claudia in Connecticut by catching the train!"

"I was deadly concerned about you back then and Maddie told me why you wanted to flee Vermont for Connecticut for a couple of days."

"It was also because of Cayden after leaving the custody."

"I fully understand you to go in Connecticut for a few days to see Mother Claudia and what you've been through in the past weeks and days even that dilemma with Cayden," In the meantime, the former aspiring Monsignor left aside gently, cosily his marble cup of caffeine beverage on the kitchen table with his only free hand, whereas the Bostonian managed to purse thoughtfully, absent-mindedly her lips. "But without informing me not only wherever you go, furthermore what's on your mind and what bothers you," Shaking rebukingly his head, opening his mouth in a sarcastic, dark chuckle. "I cannot help you except to wonder what on earth is going on and to try think of deep, surrealistic theories, trying to guess what even sparkles in your mind. Every worry of yours is also my worry! We're just part of each other." The meaningful eyeing which the younger man darted to the former devotional sister of the church, she nibbled her upper lip vulnerably, gulping hard the bittersweet, confining lump in her throat and her throat muscles dancing and crinkling.

--- *** ---

--- An Hour Later ---

As soon as Andrea woke up to the glacial, motionless corpse of her love interest Harry on the sofa after poisoning himself with the blended mix of beer and bleach in the can as he snuck up in the middle of the night for the bleach and experiment, whilst Andrea was drifted off sleep and the television was lowly humming, the hooker spent a handful of hours mourning over the fresh, surreal death of her own love interest. First and foremost, she got rid off from his emptied beer can with bleach by throwing it in the trash bin and turning off the television, besides phoning Nikita and explaining to her in details about Harry's spontaneous death. Miraculously the nurse promised the Wisconsinian she'll arrive in her one-story house soon.

First and foremost, Nikita and Andrea have been friends for a couple of years since Nikita emigrates in Vermont. The both women haven't contacted one another for weeks and the blonde could always rely on the Afro-American anytime for some aid or piece of advice even urgent medical help, in case, whether if somebody from her inner circle or herself was confronting the unremitting medical issues in any daily's episode.

After drinking her morning coffee, in order to opt to persevering her crush's haphazard death, succumbed by bleach's poisoning in his beer can, she didn't eat anything, nor changed her outfit since the night before. The single mother was seating on the cozy, icy threshold, burying her face in her folded legs, facing forward her thighs. Her hands were blanketed in chilly blanket due to the austere, chaste blizzard slapping the windows with swarm of tumbling crystalline, tiny snowflakes.

All of a sudden, the sound of pulled off car up to the one-story property caught off guard the single mother, lifting up bashfully her face from her thighs to hold her gawk, fixed on the vehicle until its owner and passenger hopped out and eventually emerged in her sight, approaching her. Nikita wasn't alone at all and appreciating the company of the attorney, who was an old friend of hers. The Polish-American and Afro-American were eventually approaching the Wisconsian emphatically, flickering up widened her midnight black pools at the sight of her old friend accompanying the Texasian.

The dreams were confronting the absolute reality or rather the trance and hallucinations after mourning frequently over Harry's death was succumbing her vision even vortex of thoughts. Moreover, Nikita has never raised the topic about Gus's recent condition and acknowledging Andrea that he's still alive and healthy, barely struggling with any health issues. Little did she know if the dreams could be creatively crafted and dwelling her in the reverie realm without an escape unless the crude reality was barriering her and dolling her up in sheer sapience's armor and discernment, although her naivety and compassionate nature.

"Andrea," Meanwhile, the both younger adults strolled up to their old friend, slightly bending against her to draw her attention promptly after the prostitute averted her eyes from them for a split second to cleanse every senseless, goofy comment after her mind crafting it perpetually. Her frail heart squelched every liter and quantity of her drumming heart's blood, fertilizing the cells and sensing the boiling blood beneath her facial skin erupting suddenly. "You shouldn't be worried at all! Once it's over, we'll take care of the business." The younger lady cupped under the middle-aged's chin, supporting the intensifying, fresh eye contact, whilst the Polish-American cleared his throat gruffily and fixing his tie under the winter pantaletot, guarding his skeleton. "I know how much Harry meant the world to you." Andrea meekly, sheepishly managed to nod in agreement, confirming her words for a reassuring absolute truth and emotional arc. "I can fully understand you and that's why we're here."

"Lydia sent me there." The younger man uttered the syllables and vowels sluggishly after his tongue struggled to conjugate them after reuniting with the Wisconsian a few years after his mysterious disappearance from her life and scarcely acknowledging his current status. An arcane gasp escaped the middle-aged blonde's tongue, a vibration and resonance grinding her throat. At the moment, the single mother couldn't help but stare helplessly like a wounded hare at her ex-boyfriend with a weak, mournful smile, wearing galore of amalgamation patterns, indicating her happiness mixed with upsetness. "Because she was beyond busy with some underaged drugged adolescents and dealing with their shenanigans after having a house party in their friend's. She gave them some time to sleep and relax until the real torture begins." Mild sardonism accented his utterance, emitting a husky, woeful giggle after managing to lower his colossal, amusingly warm hand to stroke his ex-girlfriend's halo ringlet of silken gilded strands, framing her round, full profile. She melted in the delicate touch. "But it's unbelievable we're finally seeing each other a few years after this plane crash and my mysterious disappearance!"

"Gus, you don't have any idea how much I yearned this to happen," After straightening her posture from the threshold, meantime, she threw her alabaster, pajama-clad arms around his broad shoulders, clinging her blatantly chilly body to him and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "To find me and tell me that everything is alright, despite your mysterious disappearance! I'm not even joking!" Beaming, dainty smile decorated the nurse's dark, still youthful complexion.

"So as I do but I didn't want to upset you more!" Whilst rubbing the small of her back after hooking up his strong arms, circling her middle, his warm breath faintly brushed her earlobe. "Nonetheless, I tried my best to look for you and I didn't find any track of you. I was in coma after the plane crash and I was hospitalized. I couldn't find anything associating me with you or something that is associated with you." With a heavy sigh, fresh, rusty oxygen coursed through his lungs and his fingers cradling her bony middle with mildly flabby skin. "My mind was barren! The plane crash was inescapably a dirty work to think of and consider what consequences left after me and the others that passed away or have luckily survived, however, being conveyed in the hospital for cure!" After breaking off the hug, thereafter they maintained a platonic, appropriate proximity as he tucked a fistful of wild, aureate tresses behind her ear and eventually tracing the well-carved curve of her jaw, his turquoise embers drinking his ex-girlfriend's midnight black that were Pandora's Box of paradoxal misery, concerns and frustration. Blush powdered her cheeks due to the gentlemanly molting touch, dredging her flesh.

"I'm sincerely sorry for upsetting you Andrea and leaving you with cluster of questions that were unanswered and almost impossibly opened for abundance of theoretical answers."

"I'm rather sorry to hear what you've been through after this. The coma. The hospital. The amnesia. The attempt to find me and somehow to collect a tad information about me and have an access to my residence." The velvety softness of blonde's voice was chanting soothingly serene tunes to the lawyer's ears like angelic anthems, encircling the abbey's façade. The building of God. The holy home of the priests, nuns and priestesses. The building of holy icons. The façade of prayers. The façade of any hallowed fragment.

"It's so sweet to see both of you reuniting after everything you've been through but haven't you forgotten we've a business to do," All of a sudden, the Afro-American snapped the both former lovers out of their comfort zone they've excavated with their elating reunion, the graveness contouring rawly her facial features. Earning pair of light and dark irises, darted to her, they flamed seriousness and colder nuances. "Have you, Gus and Andrea?"

"Nikita, I think I've to back you up but it's ages since I saw Andrea and she truly means the world to me as a friend!" The attorney winked gamely at the doctor and heading towards the front door which swung opened after Andrea opened it graciously for them, stepping aside to let her friends to collect Harry's corpse and inspect it before transporting his dead body to the morgue.

"Where's Harry?" Nikita posed the question professionally, abiding serious and the mirth dumping her face shortly after getting back to the business.

"O-On the couch in the living room." In the interim, the prostitute instructed the younger adults to follow her as they were heading to the living room, stammer limping forward and backward in her throat.

Shortly after they stepped inside the room and approaching the sofa, the attorney and nurse surveyed warily Harry's corpse, paying a great deal of attention to the details from head to toes until the lawyer opened with a couple of fingers the young man's mouth in a wide O, snorting in inhale the foul breath of stiff bleach and beer, flaring his nostrils.

"Urgh! Bleach and beer! Interesting, howsoever, promisingly dangerous combination of pleasure and demise!" A frustrated gasp was preproduced from the top of the lawyer's brittle lungs, fanning his nostrils and withdrawing decently approximate distance with the dead body and rolling his lapis lazuli jewels abruptly, half-heartedly.

"I was asleep and I didn't have any clue he would sneak to the kitchen and nobbling the bleach!" Tearful timbre punctured her Wisconsin lilt, gnawing on the raw part of her upper lip, whereas her heart sunk in the mist, abysmal ocean of misery and submerging every flimsy fragment of her heart. Gut-wrenching coldness trickled down her lower abdomen. "And I just woke up in the wee hours of the morning and expecting the morning snuggle and the first person to say good morning to me until I woke up next to his cold corpse, being the first ever person in the morning, behold him helplessly deceased and poisioned." She spread her hands defeatedly after earning Gus and Nikita's piercing, jaded eyeing, starkly glistening their seriousness.

"That's so weird and I don't blame you for being unable to react on the right time before everything was too late for you." In the meanwhile, the attorney averted his irises from Andrea and meeting the nurse's amber orbs for approvement, tilting his head. "Nikita, cat got your tongue?" His pale-pinkish, cherub lips parted in the scoff, raising an arch of his dark, thick eyebrow.

"Bleach and beer! The bleach reacts with alcohol or acetone to form chloroform. This chemical is potentially dangerous and it can knock you out even cause a fatal death or at least, an organ damage."

"Damn! His organs waved the white flag early and I'm still blaming myself I didn't wake up earlier to ensure him a transport to the nearby hospital," Stilling the tearful undertone and the dancing circle of syllables and vowels, the hooker bit her tongue when she was cut off by the doctor and slightly flinched as soon as the lawyer scooped her in a kindhearted, tight hug, blamelessly muting her complaints.

"And chloroform is a very dangerous chemical which is fatal for the victim especially if he's took insane or inappropriate doses. Furthermore, it troubles their breathing and suffocates them, leading to the inescapably impossible for rescue consequences!"

"Oh wow! As a student in high school and studying Science, I didn't have the brain size of Wisconsin at all!" The Wisconsian's blunt confession ruthlessly tingled tunes in the both adults' ears, whilst the Polish-American folded his arms overall his torso. "I was just a failure in Science."

"Andrea," Emphasizing her name, Andrea pursed pensively her lips once Gus snapped at her. "Due to the fact that you weren't the big-shot in Chemistry, that doesn't make you an awful student and stupid!"

"I know, I'm just admitting what I used to be in the Science, Gus!"

--- *** ---

--- A Few Hours Later ---

In a few hours of hard work and welcoming cluster of clients, assaulting the flower store to purchase either plants or flowers, the both flower store saleswomen' budget in their business increased significantly. The low humming of the radio was droning as a background noise, whilst the Michiganian was drinking her afternoon herbal tea and the former nun jotting down in the notebook the recent budget.

"Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart! How the music can free her, whenever it starts! And it's magic, if the music is groovy! It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie! I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul! But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll!" Do you Believe in Magic by Lovin Spoonful was recently humming on the radio, the vocalist's eloquent, tuneful voice puncturing the chanting.

The afternoon was embraced by the dim sun dimming the flower store's interior, in spite of the glacial, headstrong blizzard.

"Anything new to spill about you and your relationship with Tim?" The juvenile blonde's inquiry lingered on her tongue after sipping from her herbal tea, squinting up at her mentor with her hazelish-brown embers, igniting childlike inquisitiveness and selflessness.

"He's the same caring and down to earth gentleman and we discussed earlier the journal and about Connecticut." Licking devouringly, wonderfully her plump rosy-coloured lips, moistening them whilst deliver to her protégé the answer she's looking for from the inquiry, begging for an answer in a New York minute.

"What about it?" Tea-stained lips produced the enquiry, mischievously, mirthfully grinning at the older woman, eyeing her radiantly her photogenic, dazzling facial features for her age.

"Of course, he told me that everything I've written on thirteenth page is a total horseshit except that I broke his heart when I was with Cayden," Heavy sigh flushed her constricted chest, nibbling her lower lip agitatedly. "And we can deal with Cayden though he didn't truly like how I don't inform him at all."

"Needless to mention that you're bringing him worries and trouble once he took an utter responsibility over you and sharing a roof with you and your lovely son," After blatantly, smugly slurping a tiny, guiltless sip from the mug of tea, the former pious woman of the cloth's fingers were playing starkly idle with the pen, grasped between her dainty fingers. "And you're just like a rolling stone. Leaving home and disappearing like a ghost in the thin air without even telling him, diminishing the percentage of his worries over you!"

"Regardless if I tell him or not, he'll be fabulously concerned about me!" The former licentious jazz nightclub singer inhaled inwardly, succumbingly the alluring fragrance of swarm of plants and flowers, scrapping her bottom lip between her front ivory teeth and peeping onward her desk and unwrapping her fingers from the pen subconsciously. "Nevertheless, as many times he's a clear disappointment, so as I do but for both of ya! And the straightforwardness and hardly obscuring the secrets between us is the key to heal our relationship."

"If you believe in magic don't bother to choose! If it's jug band music or rhythm and blues! Just go and listen it'll start with a smile! It won't wipe off your face no matter how hard you try! Your feet start tapping and you can't seem to find! How you got there, so just blow your mind!"

"You're goddamn right and it's twisting your arm to continue to be with him!" Madeleine's Michigan lilt was dancing on her tongue and across their facial attributes with her tea-stained breath, fanning amicably Judy's attributes like a summer breeze.

"I swear and I'm going to take an oath for telling him whatever is going on with me, instead of keep questioning him what on earth is going on with his rare bird." In the meantime, the young lady left aloof her cup of tea on the bureau, her fingertips tipping and toying with the fragile porcelain material, grazing her delicate skin. "It makes a great deal of sense!" Clicking her tongue complacently, consequently Madeleine pursed her lips for a split second.

"Exactly!" All of a sudden, the older lady haphazardly smacked a light-heavy, guiltless slap across her protege's facial attributes, subsequently leaving crimson finger prints overally her cheek and flummox broke her facial expression. The Michiganian averted her gaze from her friend, biting her lip unnerved and stroking gingerly with her spider white fingers the light-heavy searing pain of the slap.

"That's for telling Timothy behind my back what I was writing in my diary." Attached stern twain of caramel brown embers to the juvenile saleswoman, ruefully smiling to her and elaborating the heavy breath after her tongue crafted the words. Hypodermic disdain and embarrassment flamed in the juvenile flower store saleswoman's smoky quartz pools, leveling out to the herbal tea's remaining quantity, pooling the cup. "Do not make a fool out of me, rumormonger!"

"I-I'm trying to protect you and I'm far crying from gossiping and prying, Judy!" Nervously nibbled between her front ivory teeth yet, she glanced back at her mentor skeptically, piercingly and caressing delicately the red-protracted fingers-clad cheek. "Doesn't it hurt you how much I gave from myself and so as Tim did to prevent these childish dilemmas? The suicidal thoughts which every adolescent struggles with. Choosing Cayden as an ex-crush of yours over the family and the friends you've and sacrificed every ounce of themselves you to be as safe as houses." The sharp timbre, puncturing the young blonde's riposte, earning her mentor's quirk of her thin, elegant eyebrow didn't startle and fidget any ounce of her figure and facial expression. "You think I'm some kind of a traitor and prying in your personal stuff in a New York minute? No, I'm the one who helps."

Suddenly the door swung opened at recently arrived customer, seeming unfamiliar to the both ladies, although they could ideally assimilate her addiction to the blue color and commonly being part of her daily outfits, attracting instantly Madeleine and Judy's attentions and lugging them out of their verbal battlefield.

"Good day, ladies!" A slight, affable smile plucked upward Cassandra's lips, eyeing them graciously shortly before shifting her attention to the opulent collection of plants and flowers.

"If you believe in magic, come along with me! We'll dance until morning 'til there's just you and me and maybe, if the music is right! I'll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night! And we'll go dancing, baby, then you'll see! How the magic's in the music and the music's in me!"

"Good day to you! What we can help with?" Madeleine and Jude uttered fluently the syllables and vowels, tinging their northern lilts in unison.

"I'm looking for something blue. Something exotic." The brunette's dark eyes landed on the plants and flowers, circling her as soldiers, sent to the war.

"We can recommend ya bunch of blue exotic flowers and plants!" The formality, accentuating the Bostonian's exclaimation amalgamated with amicability was distinctive for the young mother, despite her trust issues and persistent nature. "For example delphiniums, daisies, chrysanthemums and many more!"

"I'd like delphiniunms since they're my favorite flowers."

"Good! Mine are actually the marigolds." The younger woman's revelation surprised the brunette as the young blonde attempted to plucking the boquet of azure delphiniums from the tall, lekythos vase. "For whom are these delphiniums, ma'am?" After handing the purchased boquet when Cassandra paid a dollar for the delphiniums, she nuzzled the purchased flowers and nuzzling her delicate nose tip against the petals, relishing their authenticity. "To impress your girlfriend or for a funeral?" The Michiganian's rosy-coloured, plump curled in the punchline of the joke, although the former pious holy woman's tongue clicked and dented a raspy, merry snicker and joining her friend's choir.

"Save your breath, ma'am! They're for my mother."

"That's clearly nice gesture to do for yar mother, young lady! I'm certain yar mother is a great person and you strongly love her." In the interval, the Michiganian pursed her lips, sipping from the mug of lukewarm herbal tea, throughout hydrating her organs and corners of her mouth. The brunette managed to a broken nod, sensing the woeful, ineluctable tearing off of her heart on thousand of pieces at the thought of Andrea and how much she's forsaken her mother, due to the contrition and odium of her and her current occupation. Regardless her mother's occupation, she's still somehow potently loved her to bones and Cassandra's heinous intentions of evading her mother even more treating her far from what she deserved were battering her conscience. Her spider pale fingers were still snaked around the purchased boquet and eyeing the both blondes with a rueful smile. "Is anything wrong? Does she suffers anything and have to pay a visit to her in the hospital?"

"Yeah, do you believe in magic! Yeah, believe in the magic of a young girl's soul! Believe in the magic of rock and roll! Believe in the magic that can set you free!"

"No, no! She's rather suffering for losing her love interest after he mixed bleach with beer and," After Cassandra took a deep breath and nibbling on her lower lip continuously as her front teeth grinded on the raw spot of her lip, thus her mind battered the words and constructing them in the impending utterance until its formulated. "And I realized that we're all human with our tragedies and emotions and feelings! My mom doesn't work something that's not out of this world, tho!"

"My condolescences go for yar mother's love interest! I'm sincerely sorry to hear it." Clearing groffily her throat and flexing the gulp with her throat muscles, consequently she glimpsed at the Michiganian and shifting her utter attention to the stranger. "Look what, young lady! I'm nobody's attorney and I'm not judging anyone when it comes up to their occupation and their background unless it's somebody as vicious as Cayden. Even if yar mother is the president of the USA, a nun or a drug dealer, it's your mother and ya mustn't underestimate her just because of the job she's currently working."

"She's a prostitute and you expect this to be perfectly normal?" All of a sudden, the young mother snapped at the middle-aged lady, clinging the boquet to her chest, grinding her jaw after gritting her ivory, still firm teeth. "It's abomination to sell your goddamn body for dollars for your survival and what about the family's reputation? Doesn't she think of the consequences how the others will look at her even at my children and my husband? Even me?" Emphasizing the rhetorical questions under her sharp, furious tone, it didn't startle the blondes at all. Their blank, jaded gawks were fixated on the recent customer and listening attentively though they'd disagree with her. "And out of the question about the flowers."

"Look what, ma'am! I know that Judy has been through similar path like your mother and she used to sleep with men, of course! Howsoever, it was like twenty years ago." Meantime, Cassandra rolled her eyes dramatically, whereas Madeleine glanced back at Judy with a sympathetic smile, offered to her as a second chance. "Unless something befell her and of course, she changed her mind and she was no longer selling her own body. What about the changes? Definitely, she changed for much better and now she's just the wonderful Judy I know even though I didn't know her ever before. It's never too late to notice some kind of change in your mother or the person you love dearly."

"Ohh, talking 'bout magic! Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe in magic)! Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe, believer)! Do you believe like I believe (Do you believe in magic)!" The music's instrumental was petering out in the background, factly, the last paragraph with the lyrics was chanting persistently.

"It's a blasphemy even a sin to not love yar parent even neglect them just because due to their background, job or whatever motive gives ya to belittle them." The Bostonian's wisdom articulated sternly and mentioning one of the ten commandements to the brunette after an ambiguous smile touched her lips generously. "Anyway what's yar name, ma'am?"

"Cassandra Rodham Johnson!" The bashfulness in her Vermont lilt spotlighted her introduction to the both women. "What about your names?"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Cassandra! I'm Madeleine Skyler Wilson and I'm actually coming from Detroit, Michigan." Meanwhile, the young lady shook the Vermontian's hand gently, formally polite and bobbing lightly her head, maintaining the appropriate fixation of her eye contact.

"It's nice to meet ya, Cassandra! I'm Judy Martin. I'm from Boston, Massachusetts." After the introduction and the shook hands, thereafter the Vermontian couldn't stifle a sharp exhale.

"Down in the boondocks! Down in the boondocks! People put me down 'cause that's the side of town I was born in! I love her, she loves me! But I don't fit in her society! Lord, have mercy on the boy from down in the boondocks!" Another song droned on the radio which was Down In The Boondocks by Billy Joe Royal.

--- *** ---

--- A Couple of Hours Later ---

After finishing her full-time work shift in the flower store and earning a tremendous budget through the day, the former devotional member of the clergy got back at home safe and sound even delighted to behold and reunite with her family after spending hours with their absence, craving to keep in touch with them and share galore of stories from their daily lives.

Whilst Edward was in his crib and snuggling with his light brown teddy bear, drew in a tight, clingy hug, in fact, it's his favorite toy, Stephen the kitten was lurking around the house's both floors and examining every detail and room that was facing him unlike the former aspiring Monsignor, who was in the bath and relaxing under the steamy, convenient blanket of bubbles, lathering his stark epidermis. Sucking in a deep breath leisurely the fresh fragrance of bubbles, hot streamy bath, shampoos and soap wafting across his sensitive, flexible nostrils, he dropped back his head against the rim of the bathtub.

The evening hours were approaching sooner than later. The yellow saturating light bulb, hanging over in the bathroom was dimming and obscuring the sunset's filter to bath the room with its somber prospect and brushes the paint of the background.

Every exhale and inhale were gracefully indicating how hedonistically pleased was the former priest after phoning the vet and slightly arguing with him they should bring Stephen in the vet clicnic sooner than the imminent week, the extra cares for two more living souls like an infant and a foster kitten and chores were shoulders' weight and lugging off afterward. Further, he could rarely relax ultimately from every chore and every care he's granted to his family and the two-story mansion's upkeep, during his lover's absence.

Suddenly a few innocently faint door taps caught him off guard and curling his toes up and fluttering open his eyelids and darting them to the bathroom door, gnawing on the rap spot of his lower plumpish lip.

"May I come in?" The Bostonian's inquiry tingled eloquent early morning birdsongs' in his sensitive ears and cherry blush tinging his well-defined cheeks. His heart sunk in oblivion at the thought of his girlfriend entering in the bathroom if his answer was positive and the bids not highly affecting them and their conscience at all.

"Sure!" The British compatriot replied until the bathroom door swung opened as the middle-aged lady set a foot in the bathroom and shutting the door behind her afterwards with a towel, pawing her shoulder carelessly. "My Goodness! For how long have ya been stuck in this bathtub?" Suddenly the former promiscuous nightclub singer flickered up widened her hazelish-brown pools at the sight of her lover naked and exposed with bubbles, solely blanketing his natural nudity. Generous layer of flush battered her face and a vaguely embarrassed smile adorned her roseate, cherub lips.

"Already ten minutes! It's so tiring today and it's out of the question why I'm here." His baby-pinkish, damp lips motioned in the scoff, whereas the former sister of the church didn't oppress a hoarse, healthy snicker, clicking the roof of her mouth and ogling at the younger man's charming, saturating-sheening complexion.

"Yar full of shit! I'm guessing why yar here." In the meantime, Judy was taking off her celeste blazer, followed by her midnight black skirt along with the black, wool stockings and her white shirt with unbuttoning the stubborn, tiny buttons. A complacent, haphazard gasp wasn't stifled by Timothy's tongue and groan amalgamating with the slurping vowels and syllables' soundtrack. "You are sounding quite satisfied and impatient, aren't ya?" The teasing accent highlighted her rhetorical enquiry, nipping her upper lip reluctantly and her epidermis was buffeted with electrifying goosebumps from head to toes.

"Come on, Jude! I know what you're exactly coveting." Even though the younger man overlooked Jude's question, she smugly grinned at him, wickedly chuckling as a sheer hint what the middle-aged lady has craved for through the weeks and eventually one of her dreams are equivalent to the reality. Timothy perfectly knew what Judy exactly yearned for and their current chance of reuniting somehow even leveling out was inevitably persuading them in not missing it rather than something befell either of them and missing their great deal of opportunity. Notwithstanding the circumstances, the both former members of the church have had fantasies of one another, involved in unholy and sexual acts. Their hitching, breathless torsos losing the healthy oxygen after their hips grinding altogether in a recurring sychronisation, breathless and sweet moans and groans almost dying on their tongues, breathy and round breasts with pebbled mauve, small erected nipples brushing against masculinely hairy, muscular torso and perpisation clobbering their palish fleshes with sticky, naturally human sweat with their tightly shut eyelids, relishing their essences interweaving and mammoth, secure hands clawing her swan-curved clad hips.

"Are ya truly sure ya want this?" Once the former licentious jazz nightclub singer's petite-frame was donned in nothing else than her own nudity, thereafter she wobbled up girlishly, coyly up to the bath and joining her boyfriend in the bath, seating inside against him. His smoky quartz irises stung widened in awe at the former holy woman's naked figure with its breathtaking, enchanting attributes, although he ushered her to recline on his bare figure.

"I definitely want it more than anything. I won't regret it for being with you, my rare bird!" After readjusting her posture, subsequently the British aristocrat felt double weight clung to his tall figure and snaking his both muscly, secure arms around Judy's waist for support and providing her comfort, love, warmness and security. In the meanwhile, he nuzzled the nape of her delicate, alabaster neck and sensing petite, creamy hands were clawing his knuckles, kneading them lightly with the pads of her fingers. "You smell of exhaustion and work."

"Mmmm! I know, honey!" Soft, sultry moan grinded in the corners of her mouth after series of peppered delicate, feather kisses, peltering the delicate, frail skin, the former woman of the cloth fluttere shut her eyelids and her lover pursued for her ogle. "That's just perfect!" The pads of her fingers steadily worked on kneading the masculine, rigid knuckles and molting in the cuddle which she shared with the British aristocrat. "Did you phone the vet?"

"I did." After planting another peck on the sensitive skin of the nape of her neck, consequently a complacent groan touched his berry-coloured lips. "We had somewhat disagreements and initially he suggested me to pay a visit to him in the beginning of the next week, despite I insisted slightly earlier, because Stephen doesn't seem in fine condition at all even when we brought him at home a few nights ago with frostbite and half dead."

"That means we shall visit the vet clinic within a few days?" In the interim, one of Timothy's hands was no longer squeezing her waist and managing to reach for the other sponge and lathering it with the soap, thereafter lathering her shoulders gently, cozily and the intensifying silence that was arching them for a split second managed to maintain a purse on the older lady's rosy-coloured, plump lips, relishing how her boyfriend was sponging overally her body and cherishing the gracefully cocking back her head, giving him a better access to sponge the rest of anatomy. Now, her honey brown irises were lingering to maintain for longer the eye contact with the former ambitious Monsignor.

"On Saturday in ten o'clock in the morning!" At the moment, the Bostonian bobbed her head in a solemn agreement when her cherub lips popped up immediately, confirming his utterance and the arranged time for the vet clinic. "Furthermore, I informed him in details what's going on with Stephen and that we found him a few nights ago in the flowerbed half dead with frostbites." After lathering each body part of hers shamelessly, he wringed with his entire strength the sponge and bubble bath's pooling liquid laundering them in a jiffy.

"That's good!" Suddenly she threw her both alabaster, damp arms around his neck, drawing closer to him as his hard crotch poked her pubic bone after wrapping her leanly long, spider legs around his waist, her fingers knitting the nape of his neck eagerly. "Timothy,"

"Yes, my rara avis?" His colossal, veiny hands secured her waist, fingers massaging the flabby, slim waist's flesh and crinkled in stretch marks. Benevolently soft smile brushed his pale-pinkish lips, softening his facial features.

"I've to admit I'm apologizing for my shitty arrogance sometimes even when yar tremendously caring about me, but also for hurting ya through the days and weeks whenever ya questioned my emotions and feelings." Masculine pubic hair was tickling the older woman's buttocks as their faces' proximity was approximately hardly an inch, dividing them.

"You aren't supposed to apologize for something that's inevitably not your fault at all. I completely understand how irritated and stressed you're eventually and that's burdening you." Once the former clergyman's parchment, young-looking complexion approached his lover's, he unwrapped one of his hands from her waist and lifting up to her chin, gripping it with a couple of fingers, tilting her head to meet his enthralled ogle, transfixed on hers. "Everything is going to be okay." Meantime, he captured her roseate, soft as velvet lips in a hardening, streamy kiss, the pad of his thumb massaging her chin featherly, fluttering shut their eyelids and their surroundings were oblivious for them. Her erected mauve nipples were pebbled by the balmy climate after having a streamy bath with the former clergyman and pressing them to his hairy, muscular chest. Their heart rates surrealistically increased and the drums in their chests throbbing vehemently with its pulsations into their ears. As their kisses escalated to ferociously aggressive, thus their wet, strawberry-coloured tongues commenced dueling each other until Jude's tongue won the duel and plugging it inside his mouth, deepening their kiss in a French and her elvish, smooth hands reached for his chestnut hair, combing and playing with it vigorously.

At the moment, the British compatriot's hand lowered to her round, full breast and cupping and palming her hardened nipple, while his pale lips slithered from hers downward to her delicate, palish neck and beginning with the course of light, dainty kisses, peppering her neck until they escalated to vehemently savage with nipping the sensitive skin of her throat.

"Oh fuck! That's fucking awesome. Don't stop, darling!" Her fevered, breathless voice highlighted her cussing, cocking back her head and not paying attention to the strong language's usage. Smug groans and moans coursed through their throats, whereas Judy's hand slithered down to his hard manhood and teasing and jerking it off with her fingers, steadily and strong-willedly working on the stiffness.

"Oh sweet Jesus!" The younger man couldn't stifle the tempting, succumbing touch, pricking his manhood and most of all, his girlfriend jerking it off with her dainty fingers.

"I really want ya inside me. To feel how hard you're for me!" In the meantime, the former holy man salivated her throat and leaving a track of his assault until she positioned his member at her entrance, filling the emptiness and taking their time muster with the length, filling her vaginal walls seconds before the thrusts. They fluttered opened their eyes to take their time to admire one another's facial features after Timothy withdrew from her neck, the thumb kneading her hardened, pink nipple. "Treat me like yar slut!" Then her fingers lingered his overall muscular torso, admiring the ethereal masculinity, grazing underneath her fingertips and pads of her long, slim fingers. Her lips produced a mirthful, tuneful hum, tingling angelic anthems in her lover's ears.

As soon as the younger man started thrusting and Judy's core walls contracted his member's stiffness, sorely painful moans and groans dripped from their tongues until the thrusts were quicker and less painful.

"Timothy!" The Bostonian mewled softly his name, arching her neck and dropping back her head wildly, bluntly. "Oh fuck! Yar hard as rock. Sweet Jesus!" She hissed through her hitching breathing, grinding and rotating her hips violently, restlessly.

"You're so tight, rare bird! Damn!" Timothy's hiss tingled an early morning's birdsong tune into her ears and their uncontrollably bleated shrilling moans broke their facial expressions. Then one of her hands managed to cup her medium-sized, round breast and palming obdurately her erected nipple and the soft fat of her breast, riding the former aspiring Monsignor's crotch incessantly and their fleshes slapping, gnawing on her lower lip idly. Vowels and syllables combated one another, whilst her tongue longed to forge another moan, groan even babble. "You're so perfect, my Jude!"

"So as yar the one who's perfection! You're astonishingly hard. Isn't that for me, sweetheart?" Her lion mane of glossy old Hollywood gilded tresses were bouncing up along with her breasts in choir with each thrust, opening her jewels to meet the former clergyman's ogle. "Right?" Timothy managed a nod in strong agreement, affirming her words with a complacent, cocksure smile, thrieving across his porcelain, youthful complexion.

Within a couple of thrusts, they were approaching their climaxes until Timothy planted his seed inside her core and removed his member from her core, consequently the blonde collapsed on top of him breathlessly, fatiguedly and panting heavily in unison.

"That was fucking amazing! Ya were just incredible." Stammers were almost dying on her tongue tip, her Boston lilt spotlighting her utterance and burying her face in the crook of his muscular, protective arm for comfort. Thick layer of perspiration glimmered in the dimming yellow bathroom and her knees weakened. Her fingers knitted the nape of his neck, whereas her middle was supported by his snaked secure arms.

"You're also amazing, Jude! You don't have any idea for how long I've awaited for this."

"So as I do!" Meanwhile, she captured his baby-pinkish, soft as velvet lips in a sultry, brief kiss, grasping the sensitive skin of his neck. "Oh God!"

--- *** ---

--- The Next Day ---

--- 18th of February, 1966 ---

The day after approached quicker than the summer breeze. Today it was Judy's day off work and having a handful of days to take a break from working as a saleswoman in the flower store with Madeleine. First and foremost, the small family had a breakfast less than an hour ago and Judy took care of the dishes by washing them, whereas Timothy kept in secret the surprise he's prepared for his rare bird by pulling off his cab up to Vermont's outskirts. Moreover, the Bostonian was home alone with her own son, who was currently asleep and the two-month old kitten, playing around the house. Last but not least, Judy was sitting on the porch of the two-story house, perusing the morning's newspaper just of curiosity

At the moment, Louise was pulling off one of her grandchildren Mary Louise up to her house after working a night shift as a booking agent in the hotel. What it was oblivious for the both ladies was that in the luggage carrier the notorious serial killer of Vermont, Cayden has planted a bomb, confusing the black cab for the former clergyman's vehicle. During their driving journey up to Louise's property, she couldn't halt the overwhelming thoughts of her son's demise and most of all, persevere and assimilate mentally and physically his death after paying a visit to the morgue yesterday. The middle-aged lady couldn't blink her eyelid for a single second. She struggled with sleeping and to persevere the insomnia that overtook her in the past days. Last but not least, whilst her hands were stilling on the steering wheel, Mary Louise was consolingly hugging her teddy bear and reassuringly chanting a song which she's learnt from elementary school.

"You're so brightly talented and cheering me up, Mary Louise! I couldn't be more proud of you!" Although the booking agent's attempts to suppress the overwhelming thoughts of her son's death, she tried her best to distract herself with one of her grandchildren and conversate her for abundance of topics. Rueful smile cradled across her conservatively mauve painted lips, glancing back at the speed meter, attempting to control the vehicle's speed with great efforts.

"Thank you so much, Granny! I love you very much!"

The spontanenous silence crawled in the car, seconds before the bomb's explosion and odd feeling plagued the older lady, biting her tongue and her tongue sluggishly struggling to conjugate another utterance.

"Love you too, my cupcake!" Her light embers blazed with nonplus and void, her heart aching and grieving over Harry's death. "Harry!" Her northern lilt bleated the whisper in velvety timbre, solely distinctive for her and tears rimming her eyes.

In the meanwhile, the former sleazy nightclub singer flipped forward on the final page of the morning newspaper, moistening her lips with flapping her tongue outside and eagerly grazing wetly the delicate skin of her lips. All of a sudden, a lethal explosion which was feet away from her home's territory caught her off guard and lifting up her rear from the porch and scramming up to the Victorian style's lacquered iron gates and pushing askew one of the wings by walking away from her property's area. Sometimes the solicitude was mortifying her even with bizarre, unpredictable background noises, disturbing the hush. Her caramel brown orbs widened at the sight of burning car and how its driver and passenger were dying slowly inside the fire.

"Holy!" The only syllables which Judy's tongue opted to forge were for a cuss, her heart sunk and grasping in one of her petite, creamy hands the newspaper after rolling it as a scroll.

Little did she know who were inside the burning car and who was responsible for the searing nightmare. An eerie flat line brushed her lips. It wasn't a smile, nor a frown. Quirking quizzically, baffledly her eyebrow, she meowed a grunt.

The fire was doing its own job. Defacing to pieces every fragment of the vehicle from its surroundings up to the pettiest further objects inside. The ignited teddy bear which was once Mary Louise's favorite stuffed animal, scooped in her pudgy, childish arms until they belonged to nobody. Ashes thickly, marvelously coated the stuffed animal. 

Author's Note: Is Madeleine actually angry with Judy and their friendship is destroyed? Do you think Judy still trusts Maddie? What do you think will happen further with Judy and Tim's relationship after reuniting physically, besides mentally?