“The only thing special for me about this birthday is the fact I’m spending it with the two of you. I don’t feel like celebrating fifty years of life that was mostly a lie and barely more than existence, but if I can use this day to wheedle permission out of you to try and reach for the stars … then I’ll use it. Look … I’ve got all the ingredients for the recipe. I need an ounce of faith … I’ve got an ocean. I need an ounce of magic … being home with the two of you on my birthday gives me that and then some … so … all I need now is your permission to try.”

by Maggie the Kitten

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Terry turned to look at David the same moment he turned to look at her. Their eyes met and they didn’t need soul mate telepathy to know they were both thinking the same thing. When they turned to face Cierra, their thoughts and their voices were one.

“Really Cici?”

“Now wait!” Cierra jumped in quick, seeing the disapproving look on her dream parents’ face.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

David grumbled. “I don’t think you know what I’m thinking.”

Cierra wouldn’t … couldn’t be deterred or even frightened from making her pitch. She had to stay strong and stay focused. Every word had to be the perfect one to describe feelings, wants and needs that sometimes seem to defy description no matter how many stories she had written. She had to make them understand something … believe in something that was almost beyond both … and she had to do it fast or she’d lose her audience. She had maybe two … three tops … minutes to convince them to give her a chance to do something she didn’t know if she could do … but desperately needed to try. She had three minutes to get the five minutes she’d been waiting fifty years for.

“Look … I know how that sounds. It sounds crazy … and yes I’m a few sandwiches short of a full picnic … and I’m sick … but I’m not totally bonkers. I know … trust me … I know … I can’t really be your daughter … not for five minutes … not for five seconds, but I want … if you’ll let me try … to get as close to it as I can … as I probably ever will.”

David had skepticism and a bit of discomfort written on his face. Terry wasn’t optimistic where this was leading, but her curiosity outweighed her pragmatic pessimism.

“Okay … I’m sure I’ll be sorry for asking this, but just exactly what do you have in mind?”

“Well ……” Cierra mimicked Bewitched’s Samantha as she nervously squirmed.

“Umm … I just want the little girl … the … what I figure to be about 87% of me … to come out as much as she can … to come as close to living in the real world as she will ever know … to … to make the dream come true … just this once … just for my birthday … just for five minutes. That’s all … just … five … minutes.”

Tears welled in Cierra’s eyes. She tried to fight them. They were getting in the way of well chosen … too important words.

Terry sighed sympathetically. Her friend’s pain touched her heart but it was old pain and one she couldn’t understand Cierra’s need to constantly revisit.

“Cici”, her voice was soft but strong enough to cut through the tears. “I wish you could have your five minutes … but what you’re asking isn’t possible and you know that. You’re … you’re making yourself miserable with all this and honestly … I just can’t understand why … why you keep torturing yourself like this.”

“Why?” Cici forced a smile through tears. “That’s a good question. I … I don’t know if I really have a good answer … but I’ll try to give you an honest one.”

Cierra looked down at her ridiculous school girl attire … ridiculous for a fifty year old woman. She clicked the heels of giant Mary Jane’s together a few times wishing they were the magic “ruby slippers” from the Wizard of Oz and then smiled realizing that they’d done their work already as she was finally home.

“Why?” She forced to meet Terry and then David’s eyes. “Because … this”, she waved her arms up and down her body, “Isn’t who I am.”

“This!” She nearly shouted as she pounded her chest. “Inside here … this … IS … who I am and I’m so tired … so very tired of not being me. I’m tired of looking at life and the playground through the windows of a body prison. I’m tired of writing it ... dreaming it … crying for it … praying for it … needing it … hiding it and hurting for it. Why? Because I know who I am and I just want to be me and … and if that me is as much madness and fantasy as it is real little girl … well … then so be it, because whatever it is … it’s my heart and soul and the only thing in this world that makes me feel alive and want to be alive. I … don’t know if I can really make you understand … make either of you understand, but maybe … maybe I can show you … show myself … exactly what that 87% really is … and what she can do … if you’ll just give her … me … both of us five minutes to try.”

David, the second Irish Quiet Man, added a few well chosen words of his own. “Cierra, you may be a little girl on the inside … I don’t know … but you’re still a grown woman on the outside and what I don’t understand about all this is why you think you need to come here or get our permission to be who you think you are. Can’t you just … I don’t know … let this 87% of yours out … whenever you want to at home?”

Cierra nodded, “I do let her out … or she lets herself out … sometimes when I’m home … sometimes … anytime … any place she wants to … quite often at work and almost always whenever I’m around the two of you.”

Knowing looks from the audience confirmed the numerous “ Little Cici” sightings both had experienced during their shared lunch, the occasional hug and pounce, and most often for Terry during those long after hour chats.

“But … coming here … coming home … seems to bring her out even more … as if she … she was pushing that 87% to over 90. I feel it. Sometimes … being here, being home with the family, brings her so close to life, that … that … it feels as though all I’d need was your permission, an ounce of faith and drop of magic to make her flesh and blood real.”

Alarm bells went off for Terry. “Cierra … no matter how you feel … you know you can’t … you know there’s no magic that is going to …”

“Make me a flesh and blood real little girl? Yes Terry”, she confirmed with a heavy sigh. “I know … I’ve known everyday … every waking moment for quite awhile now that there is no magic to save me. In fact … who knows … maybe I’ve always known it was impossible, but wouldn’t … couldn’t admit it to myself. As much as I wish it would … I know there isn’t going to be any fairy tale magic to transform me. All that I can hope to happen is the most that can happen in the real world. I … just want as much as I can have … all there is I can reach … and my best chance … maybe my only chance for this is right here … right now … with the two people I love the most and want to be with the most.”

Cierra looked from eyes to eyes and could see her plea was trying to be understood. She had to push … and she had to push now.

“Terry … you’ve tried to teach me a lot of things and one of those was to appreciate the here and now and not worry so much about the past and the future. Remember?”

Terry nodded even if she didn’t remember the exact conversation.

“Well … that’s what I’m trying to do. Right here … right now I’m home and I’m with the two of you. Chances are I may never be back here again. I don’t expect an invite for Christmas and who knows where any of us will be by the time my next birthday comes round again. I could lose you both tomorrow, so I have to seize today … and it is my birthday which well … entitles me to a wish and maybe a little indulgence … okay … maybe a lot of indulgence?”

Cierra looked from face to face to see if the thin ice she was skating on was about to break. Seeing no signs of cracking she pressed on.

“The only thing special for me about this birthday is the fact I’m spending it with the two of you. I don’t feel like celebrating fifty years of life that was mostly a lie and barely more than existence, but if I can use this day to wheedle permission out of you to try and reach for the stars … then I’ll use it. Look … I’ve got all the ingredients for the recipe. I need an ounce of faith … I’ve got an ocean. I need an ounce of magic … being home with the two of you on my birthday gives me that and then some … so … all I need now is your permission to try.”

Terry looked at David and then back at Cierra. She was uncomfortable and understandably so. It showed on her face and was obvious in her words. “Cici … I know this means the world to you. We both do … but … I don’t think … I don’t see … how this is good for you … no matter what happens during your five minutes. I think … you’re going to be disappointed. And even if some of your magic happens … you’re going to be even more miserable when those five minutes … when this night comes to an end … because that is the one thing I’m sure of … this night will end and you’ll still be who reality says you are. And that really worries me.”

Cierra knew her friends words of concern and cold hard reality weren’t meant to be cruel. They came from the love Terry felt for her and were meant to spare her great pain by making her see and feel a smaller amount now.

Cierra weighed her words and shared her own heartfelt thoughts. “Yeah … it worries me too. The higher you soar when you fly … the further you drop and the harder you hit when you fall. I know that. I really do … but I gotta try to fly if I can. I have to!”

Cierra rocked and wrung her hands. She was afraid … afraid this whole thing was going to fail without ever getting a chance to succeed. Words … she had to find them and they had to say it all. She opened her heart when she opened her mouth.

“You’re right … you’re always right. No matter what happens … those five minutes and this night will come to an end. We’ll have enchiladas at Acapulco Joe’s. You’ll take me home. I’ll hug you both until you pry my arms off of you. I’ll cry. You’ll tell me goodbye. You’ll drive away … and then my birthday is over. Nothing … nothing that happens in those five minutes will change that anymore than it will change the fact that I’ll be back in the empty house, alone and wishing I was still in the back seat and heading home with you.”

“So why?” David had to ask, resisting his natural urge to stay back and stay quiet. “Why do it? Why torture yourself then?”

Cierra didn’t hesitate. The answer came straight away. “Because I’ve got the rest of my life to live knowing that my dream will never come true … that maybe come my next birthday I won’t be spending it with you. Because … I’m going to be in that house … probably alone … definitely sick … definitely hurting and having a hard time trying to find any joy in turning 51. Maybe … maybe the only thing I’m going to have to hold onto … are the memories and the knowledge that for just one night … for just five minutes … I was as close to being home … to being me as I will ever know. That’s all I’m asking really … is a chance to make a memory … a chance to live and chance to belong to the place and the people I so want to belong to.”

David shook his head. “It just hardly seems worth it for five minutes.”

“I’d trade the rest of my life … for five years … five days … even for five minutes of just being a real live little girl … your daughter … and here at home.”

Terry sighed. “But you won’t be a real live little girl … not for five minutes or five seconds.”

“But maybe I’ll be as close to it as I will ever know … and the feelings … the joy … the love … the magic … the satisfaction of knowing I made it home … that will be real. And … this place is real … and you and David are real and … that’s a lot … maybe all there is for me and I just gotta try to reach it no matter what happens … even if nothing happens.”

“And what if something does happen?” Terry proposed; still keeping both of her high heeled shoes soundly on the ground. “But what if it isn’t what you expected? What if the stress of all this just … just …”

“Pushes me over the edge?” Cierra finished for her and then answered her question.

“Then at least two people who know me and who love me will be here to call the men with the little white coats to come take me away.”

“Oh Cici”, Terry sighed.

“Look … maybe something wonderful will happen and if so … I want you to be here to see it … to share it with me. And if something … not so wonderful happens … I want you to be here to be sure I get whatever help I need.”

“And if nothing happens at all?” David offered a third alternative Cierra hadn’t considered.

“Well …” Cierra mulled over that scenario in her mind. “Umm … then I guess after about thirty of the most embarrassing seconds … and the biggest let down since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s secret vault on national television … I’ll hand you back the last four minutes and thirty seconds and we’ll go get tacos … but I don’t think nothing is going to happen. I’m just sure … really sure … that something’s gonna happen … even if I don’t know what.”

Terry and David made eye contact once again. Cierra felt they were deliberating telepathically, but she hadn’t finished with her final statement or presenting evidence.

“Wait!” She startled both of them with a shout.

Cierra picked up her book bag from the floor and starting digging through it. “I got one more thing … one more thing to show you. Please … please wait before you make up your mind. Please?”

Both Terry and David had to smile. Whether or not they granted Cierra her five minutes of fantasy fame, the picture of the girl in school uniform digging through her back pack and begging their indulgence was all kid.

“Found it!” Cierra smiled triumphantly as she pulled a card from her back pack and presented defense exhibit B … B standing for birthday card. She handed it to Terry for inspection.

“Do you remember when you gave me this card? It was the first birthday I shared with you.”

Terry held the well worn “Velveteen Hallmark” in her hands. She didn’t remember the card, only the fact that she’d given one to her friend. When she opened it … she saw why Cierra had produced it and why it had been so precious to her.

“See … see what the message is?” Cierra pointed to the inscription:

Believe what you want on your birthday.

“And see … see where you underlined Believe? You knew … you knew then what I wished for and … and out of the kindness of your heart … you were giving me permission … permission for a single day to believe what I wanted to believe … to believe my dream came true … to believe I was that little girl and your daughter and that’s all I’m asking for now. I’m just asking to … to continue the tradition.”

Terry handed the card back to Cierra who immediately took it to her chest like a cherished stuffie. Terry watched her hold it and silently cursed the day she’d selected that card. Yes … she knew then what Cierra wanted … what she wished for and yes … when she underlined “Believe” … she was giving her friend permission to indulge that belief a little … to live the dream on this special day … but she didn’t know then just how obsessed … how desperate … how sick her friend was or would become. Had she known that … she never would have encouraged her … which now brought both her and David to a very difficult decision. Do they encourage her now? Could this just push her over the edge or could it really give her some small joy that might actually help her through the aloneness that she feared would come? Could this indulgence make it better, make it worse or really change anything at all?

“Five minutes” She made her final argument. “Five minutes can’t be worth all that much to you can it? You have each other and the kids for the rest of your lives. All I’m asking for is five minutes … five minutes to belong to this place and to both of you. Five minutes to breathe … to feel … to be happy … to have a future … to grab everything I can while I can and then hold onto the memories for the rest of my life. Look … I’ve been wrong for fifty years. Can’t I be right for just five minutes?”

Tears welled in Cierra’s eyes as she searched Terry and David’s for any sign of compassion or permission.

“Five minutes for fifty years … that’s all I’m asking … five for fifty.”

“Assuming … we say yes”, Terry started cautiously.

Cierra’s eyes lit up at the Y word and she started wiggling and giggling as if the five minute clock was already ticking.

“Now hold on their Chief Happy Pants.” Her fantasy mom stopped her with a trademark “Terry-ism”. “I’ve got a question.”

Cierra put it in park and nodded with eyes and ears wide open.

“What I’m curious about is … just how do you expect to get this five minutes? Do you have a magic wand in your pocket?”

As Cierra considered the question, Terry’s fingers did a bit of walking along David’s leg awakening the magic wand in his pocket and eliciting a whine and whimper from her main man.

“No magic wand”, Cierra stopped Terry’s fingers from doing their walking.

“Actually … I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to make it happen … or even if I can, but I always feel that part of me so strong when I’m with you … and now is no exception. I can feel her wanting to break out of prison and I’m just going to try and open the door if I can. For once … I just won’t hold her back. I’ll turn her loose. I … I think … I hope that if I can just close my eyes and open my mind and heart … that she’ll come out … at least as much as she can and then … we’ll just see what happens.”

David believing turnabout is fair play did a little playing of his own as his hand wandered lazily along Terry’s hip. “But no matter what happens … you know your body isn’t going to change … and you don’t really expect to get so lost in being this little girl or these five minutes that you are going to be totally unaware of the truth … of the fact that you are really a fifty year old woman?”

Cierra smile fell as David’s chilling words of cold reality took the wind from her sails. “Yes … I know my body won’t change. I’ve known that for every minute of every waking day for a long time, but as far as everything else that could happen inside my five minute universe … I don’t know. I’m hoping that maybe being inside the five minutes will seem like … like it’s going to last forever and that I’ll have a tomorrow and whole bunch more after that. You know … kind of like I’ll be living in a little bubble where reality can’t come in and ruin my five minutes. Or … maybe I won’t completely forget the gimpy legged fifty year old who pushes cartons down the line all day … but maybe she’ll just slip quietly away for awhile and give the little girl a chance to play. She has before you know … there’s been a few times when the body didn’t get in the way and I sort of left the adult behind.”

“Terry”, she turned hoping for confirmation. “You’ve seen her before … you know … when I was really happy?”

She grinned and rolled her eyes as the image of her oldest daughter came to mind. “Like when Rose comes to work?”

On cue she gave David a sample. “Rose …eee!” She cried as a smile stole her face and she bounced in her shoes.

Terry giggled, “Defense exhibit B … the bouncing Cici.”

David didn’t voice it, but he did have to admit he’d seen glimpses of something half his coworkers size and forty years or more her junior. Most of the time, that was who hugged him and who he allowed to do so.

David looked to Terry while Cierra looked back forth between them like she was watching center court at Wimbledon.

David nodded and Terry gave the court’s decision. “Okay Cici … you’ve got your five minutes, but … BUT”, she quickly added ground rules, “if … this gets out of hand … then it has to stop, and … I don’t know what you expect either of us to do … but we won’t do anything we’re not comfortable with … and … when we say the five minutes are up … this ends … and it ends without begging or crying.”

Terry weighed her last words and quickly amended them; knowing Cierra’s water works were always on standby. “Okay … no begging.”

Cierra was so excited that expression of thought into words was almost beyond her but she tried. “Okay … okay … I’ll be good and … and no begging and … and you don’t got … have to do nothing I think. You don’t have to say yes to anything I say or ask … just … just don’t say no, okay?”

Cierra didn’t wait for an answer; she just took a few steps back and closed her eyes. Her audience watched as breathed deeply for a few seconds and then in barely above a whisper she began to sing slowly.
 
 

“There is a castle on a cloud,   I like to go there in my sleep …

 
 
David raised an eyebrow. “What is she singing?”

“Les Miserable … you know … the musical I made you sit through … the one about the mistreated little English girl? This is her song … Castle on a Cloud … where she’s wishing for a better place to live and someone to love her.”

They both watched with curiosity and concern as Cierra finished the first verse.
 
 

Aren't any floors for me to sweep,
 
Not in my castle on a cloud.”

 
 
Castle on a Cloud from the musical Les Miserable

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To Be Continued...