A Different Blue(91)

increasingly difficult. So I just sat with my hands in my lap and stared out into the darkened

street, reminded of the time, several months ago, when I had been so lost and had shown up at

Wilson's announced, looking for direction. We had sat just this way, our eyes facing outward,

our legs almost touching, quiet and contemplative.

“Tiffa and Jack might be the happiest people on the planet right now,” Wilson murmured,

looking down at me briefly. “My mother is not far behind, though. She was singing a stirring

rendition of “God Save the King” when I left.”

“God Save the King?” I sputtered, surprised.

“It's the only song she knows all the words to . . . and she apparently felt like singing.”

I giggled and we lapsed back into silence.

“Are you sure about all of this, Blue?”

“No,” I laughed ruefully. “I've decided being sure is a luxury I won't ever be able to

afford. But I'm as sure as a twenty-year-old waitress could ever be. And the fact that Tiffa and

Jack are so happy makes me almost positive.”

“Lots of women, younger than you, and with a lot less talent, raise children alone every day.”

“And some of them probably do a damn good job, too,” I admitted, trying not to let his

comments bother me.” Some of them don't. “My eyes met Wilson's defiantly, and I waited,

wondering if he would press me further. He searched my expression and then looked away. I wanted

him to understand, and I desperately needed his validation, so I turned to the one thing I knew

he would grasp.

“There was a poem you quoted to me once, by Edgar Allan Poe. Do you remember?” I'd memorized

it after that night. Maybe it was to feel closer to him, to know something he knew, to share

something he loved, but the words had spoken to me on a very primal level, haunted me even. It

was my life, boiled down to a few rhyming lines.

Wilson began to quote the beginning lines, a question in his expression. As he did, I spoke the

words with him, reciting them. His eyebrows rose at each word, and I could tell I had surprised

him by my mastery.



“From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone.”



Wilson stopped, staring down at me in the dusky light that spilled around our concrete perch.

“It's the next part I can't ever get out of my head,” I ventured, holding his gaze. “Do you

know what comes next?”

Wilson nodded, but he didn't quote the lines. He just waited for me to continue. So I spoke

them, delivering each line the way I interpreted it.



“And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then – in my childhood, in the dawn

of a most stormy life – was drawn

from every depth of good and ill,

the mystery which binds me still.”



There was more, but it was this line that resonated, and I gathered my thoughts, wanting to be

understood.

[page]“The mystery of my life binds me still, Wilson. You told me once we can't help where we

are scattered. We are born in whatever circumstances we are born into, and none of us has any