Not my best, sorry! But getting into the swing of a new story and matured characters after they were children last time I wrote them is gonna take me a second, haha. so bear with me! xoxo, Carolyn.

Part of where you're going
is knowing where you're coming from

He put on a crisp white button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and let his sister help him with a pale blue necktie. His jeans were faded, old and beat up but freshly laundered, and he'd shined his shoes last night. Even his hair was greased back nicely, though greased hair had gone out of style a few years ago. It was the only part of his past that he could hold onto with such a solid, certain grasp that he just couldn't give it up.

"You look good," Sophie said, patting him on the shoulder. She was still so small and skinny; it was hard to believe that she'd aged at all in the past seven years. Her face had hardly changed. His, however, was a stranger's in the mirror – lined and paler, with a constant five o'clock shadow, messier hair, bags under his eyes any hour of the day. Life hadn't been good to Joel Baker and it showed.

"Wish me luck." He hugged his sister and patted the head of the little tanned girl scribbling with crayons on the floor. She was real Italian looking, that kid – light, golden skin and shiny brown hair, pin-straight. Then again, with the dark, curly hair and easy summer tans those boys had, Joel wouldn't doubt that they had some Italian or Spanish in them.

"Bye Uncle Joel," Alexa said absently, not looking up from her picture.

He needed a better job. He felt like a sponge, making minimum wage – two dollars ten – when Sophie was bringing home almost two dollars more than that. A gasoline station just wasn't cutting it anymore, so although he appreciated them rehiring him after the mess that had been his life and job skills seven years back, he needed something else.

Before his interview he stopped off at the east side cemetery to drop off a stunningly colourful bouquet of wildflowers that Alexa had brought home from school yesterday. The entire Brumly gang had pooled their resources together to get a real headstone, directly in the heart of the overgrown, wilted graveyard. He put the bunch of flowers – tied together with a little piece of pink ribbon – onto the grass, said a short prayer, and kneeled down to kiss her name on the granite slab pressed into the earth.

ROBIN JULIA BAKER
11 September, 1958 – 3 July, 1967

Not enough years in your life
too much life in your years.

x x x

Sophie sat on the little bed – white wood frame, pink and white sheets – and watched Alexa dress herself carefully in front of the full mirror mounted on the wall. The room used to be Robin's, but when Sophie hit six months pregnant Joel finally decided that they would really need the space, and cleared out all Robin's things, bought all new furniture, and painted the walls sunny yellow. At first it was cribs and high chairs and sleepers and floor toys; then slowly it transformed to a real bed, and big girl clothes in the closet, a desk in the corner piled with papers and pencils and crayons; then there were books on the bookshelf that she'd picked out herself and clothes specially for school; and finally last month, Dana painted a big mural on the wall of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland, chatting to the Cheshire Cat grinning in the tree, and all around it the quote,

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you ca'n't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

It was Alexa's favourite story, and the painting – which was beautiful and elegant and which Dana had done for free – had made her giddy and giggling for a week at least. She was more excited about that then she was about buying clothes and supplies for her first day of second grade, which began today.

The reflection of Alexa's face that Sophie could see was smiling and excited. She had her mother's smile in her father's face – a father who didn't even know she existed. The only ones who knew Alexa's father were Joel, Mark, and Ruby, and they weren't about to tell anyone. Not to mention that she hadn't seen either of the Shepard boys since the day she'd slapped Curly's face in the rain and told him she never wanted to see him again. His pupils had been hugely dilated – he'd proposed because he was just a high teenage kid faced with a situation he didn't know how to handle.

But he was in prison now for a string of armed drugstore robberies, and Tim had disappeared off the face of the earth around the same time, and she'd only found out she was pregnant at all three weeks after the last time she'd seen them. It was better this way. Even with the gangs dead and jumpings reserved mainly for gays, coloured folks (by hard core racists) and muggings, Sophie knew that nobody would have stepped up to the plate for the beautiful girl tugging on white tights with her butt on the wood floor.

Sometimes, especially lately, Alexa asked questions about her father: who was he? Why wasn't he there? Did he not love her? What was his and mommy's story? But Sophie brushed them off for later. How could she explain any of that to a seven year old?

Alexa had gotten the tights up under her dress – red, white, and purple plaid sleeveless V-neck knit with a white long-sleeve blouse underneath, an outfit which she had spent an hour picking out – and clipped the straps on her black maryjanes closed. She ran over to Sophie with a brush in her hand and said loudly and excitedly, "mommy can you brush my hair?"

They'd already brushed her tummy-length locks three times, but Sophie took the brush anyway. That was part of being a mother, and she'd been one for seven years. She still wasn't used to it, either – used to this little girl who relied on her for life, love, and company, and who would love her unconditionally no matter if she said otherwise when she was mad or upset. Fifteen was too young to have to grow up, but she'd done it – with a lot of help from Joel and Ruby – and now her daughter was beginning second grade, and was beautiful and healthy and happy and had everything she needed. Everything except a daddy.

"Come on," Sophie finally said, setting the hairbrush down on the bed and standing up with her hands rested lightly on Alexa's thin little shoulders. "Did you brush your teeth after breakfast?"

Alexa twirled around and smiled big, showing off a mouth full of clean, white baby teeth. One on the bottom was a little loose and she couldn't resist pushing at it with her tongue to make it wiggle at people.

Sophie laughed, "Okay, okay, get your book bag and let's go."

For most of the walk in the weak morning sunlight, Alexa ran ahead to pick at flowers and wave at the neighbours. When they crossed the street she stopped and waited and held Sophie's hand, but then she'd dash ahead again and skip through a hopscotch drawn in sidewalk chalk at the end of someone's driveway.

This was a walk Sophie had done a million times. She'd had her first kiss with Curly in the public park just up ahead, and beyond that, in the elementary school playground was where they'd had their first real conversation, and where she'd broken up with Mark. It was also the first – and only – place she'd fallen and broken her arm.

Where Hogan's on the Ribbon used to be the middle school hangout, now it was a place called Benny's where they played pool and got sodas. Her elementary school friend Ponyboy Curtis worked there now – last she'd heard, his brother had died in the war and he'd moved out on his own. They still talked sometimes. He came to all of Alexa's birthday parties.

The drive-in was still a hot spot but she never went there anymore, choosing instead to take Alexa to the movie house. A nightly double wasn't suitable for a kid, and she never got a night off because she couldn't pay for a babysitter, so she just avoided it – happily. When she thought of the drive-in, all she could feel was her neck against Tim Shepard's arm.

x x x

"Shit," Joel breathed through clenched teeth, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. "Shit, shit shit!" He lit a cigarette and peeled out of the parking lot, spitting up gravel. The job interview had crashed hard, because Hadley's Cycles was a business started and owned by Shepard's former man Russell Hadley. Even years after there was still a grudge.

On his way back into town, he cruised by the prison. Freddy wasn't there anymore, he was in a state penitentiary now, but that's where he'd gone the night that he shot Robin to death. She'd bled out before he could even think, and Freddy had fled, and Joel's shoulder hurt so bad … It still hurt sometimes. And he had a little bullet-shaped scar on the front and back where it had sailed through him, where he had failed to protect his little girl.

Sometimes Freddy wrote to him, but he never opened the letters. He'd read the first one, years back when Sophie was still pregnant and Joel just lied out on his bed and smoked and filled up the entire room with the smell and taste and yellowed the walls. It was just a bunch of anger, calling him a faggot and a queer and that he would go to Hell and it was his fault, all his fault that Robin was dead.

But he wasn't gay. Maybe it had just been Freddy, his strength and power, maybe it had never been a crush at all, just admiration that he hadn't known how to interpret. Because he'd had girlfriends since, and he'd been happy with all of them, and been intimate with them too without problem. It was Freddy who had the problem … Freddy was the one who had cracked and gone mad when Joel had rejected him.

"Life doesn't always make sense, man."

He'd picked up Mark from home and recited his musings to him. Mark knew everything – things not even his sister knew – and had been a real rock during trying times. They'd fallen apart when the gangs were at their height, but now they were dead and there was no one to fight, and they needed each other. The Brumly vs. Shepard war had never really come to a peak; it just fizzled out and died without even a rumble.

He'd grown a beard, Mark had, but unlike Joel's dirty jaw shadow, Mark's looked trimmed and full and scholarly. It curved with his jawline and had a nice mustache too, and would look perfectly at home in the classroom when Mark finally got his teaching degree. He was going places, and so was his sister, who was doing nursing. Joel was at a dead end.

Mark tactfully changed the subject as Joel's face began to cloud over with his thoughts. "Is Sophie still playing her guitar?" She'd gotten it for a joint Christmas-and-birthday present last year and had been learning faithfully ever since. She'd taken a couple voice lessons too and was on her way to becoming quite talented.

"Yeah," Joel said, flicking his cigarette butt out the window. "Alexa sings with her sometimes, but it's more like yellin'. Playin' out on the front porch like –"

"Don't say niggers," Mark cut in. He'd gotten real politically correct since being in school. He even spoke better now; spoke like Sophie and the rich kids. Joel didn't like it much. He had his hair cut short, no more flopping into his face, looking all of his very dignified twenty-seven years.

The rest of the ride to the Dairy Queen on the Ribbon was quiet, but when they got out Mark put his hand on Joel's shoulder and handed him another cigarette, and Joel bought Mark's burger, and when he dropped Mark off at the college they hugged a bit in the car and Joel almost started to tear up again. He was being a real big baby lately, but Mark just messed up his oily hair and didn't say a word.

x x x

The bell wasn't due to ring for twenty more minutes, but Alexa insisted that Sophie stay and wait until she went inside, just in case. Sophie had a sneaking suspicion that she just needed someone to watch her book bag though, as Alexa tossed it at Sophie's feet and dashed off to meet her friends on the playground as soon as they got through the fence. Her long hair fluttered behind her like a banner and Sophie mused how Alexa might like a haircut.

Sophie still wore her own hair long – to her butt – but she'd cut her bangs short and straight across her forehead, which made her look just a little bit older and mature. It was thick and messy, just as bad as before, with curls and waves and pin-straight parts wherever it felt like. She wore mascara on her eyes every day though, that was new, and for work she wore dresses or nice skirts that went halfway down her thighs.

She worked at the local walk-in clinic, a nine-to-five weekday job that never left her wanting for money or daycare services. It was just as well to Alexa to be left playing with friends until five, or she'd skip over after school to the clinic and do homework on the floor quietly for a while. Occasionally Dana would pick her up and take her out shopping or to get ice cream, or to go swimming in her own pool at the house she shared with her wealthy doctor of a husband.

Laura had gotten James in the end, but it had been a bittersweet victory – he was in prison almost all the time and she was a stripper to make ends meet and keep her drug habit happy. She'd had a baby not long after Sophie, but the State had taken him away.

A girl with a dark pixie cut came to stand beside Sophie by the opening in the fence. She kissed the forehead of the boy hand-in-hand with her, and he dashed off to join the games, black curly mop of hair bouncing.

"His first day of school," she said, smiling a little sadly. Sophie knew that smile; Alexa had grown up too fast, too. "Kindergarten."

"Mine's grade two," Sophie supplied, pointing over to where Alexa was swinging as high as her thin little legs could pump her.

"Grade two …" the girl breathed curiously, making Sophie look over with a cocked eyebrow. The tall, tanned girl beside her looked so familiar, her long nose and football-shaped eyes. The girl looked back at her studiously, then announced, "did'ya get taller?"

"Uh …" she wasn't really sure how to answer that. She wasn't even sure if she knew this chick, and definitely not from when, if she did at all. "I'm five foot four now …"

The girl nodded. "Tim's back in town, y'know."

Oh. Sophie looked away nervously. She didn't know Angela Shepard had a kid.

"Is he?" she asked politely. "Where was he?"

"Texas."

"Oh." The answer made her freeze up a little, but she brushed it off. Texas was a big place and there were a lot of reasons people came and went. They came for rodeos, they went to rape little girls by the river and destroy their lives forever.

"So, she's seven?" The whole conversation was awkwardly formal, and Sophie could tell that Angela didn't think much at all of her. She just couldn't keep from getting her nose in other people's business, especially this business.

Very quickly, Sophie said, "She's not Tim's."

"I ain't stupid, Baker," Angela replied in the same stiff, friendly tone. "You didn't exactly get around back then."

Sophie couldn't deny that. She didn't know that Tim had told his sister what they'd done, but she knew that word got around in Tulsa with the kids, and if she'd ever slept with anyone else the whole town would know about it.

She'd tried again with Mark a few years back, and they'd slept together, but the whole thing had just been an awkward throwback to 1967 and they gave it up pretty quick. But besides that, and the summer night with Tim, she hadn't been with anybody. Boys weren't exactly jumping to date an unwed mother who'd gotten pregnant at fourteen. It wasn't something you'd put on a resume: twenty-two with a seven year old. She wasn't ashamed, but everyone else was.

So she changed her tactic. "Don't tell him. Please. He wouldn't want to know. He's no daddy."

"I ain't gonna say nothin'," Angela said, but Sophie wasn't reassured. "But he ain't stupid either. When he sees her …"

Sophie cut in, "Well maybe he isn't going to see her at all."

Angela shrugged. "Good luck." Then she waved goodbye to her curly-headed son and walked off just as the first bell rang.

Alexa came running over to grab her book bag and get a kiss on the cheek. "Have an awesome day, baby." She gave her an extra-long, tight hug before letting her go to run to the door, shouting, "bye!" over her shoulder.

She couldn't imagine introducing her to Tim. She couldn't see Tim taking her to school, or helping plan her birthday party, or having her for the weekend. Alexa would be so scared of him.

Sophie stayed standing by the fence for a few more minutes, until the second bell rang at eight thirty and she had to get going or she wouldn't make it to the clinic by nine. She didn't catch a glimpse of Tim Shepard anywhere, and hoped that it would stay like that forever.