"What? You don't know? We looked for you all over the city this afternoon but we couldn't find you. MEDDA'S THROWING A PARTY!!!!!" No doubt it wasn't Race's first beer. He was never that happy unless he had won a bet.

"I sure can see that, buddy" Spot said sarcastically. "But why?"

"Oh! You'll never guess! It's in the honor of someone she wants us to meet. It's her grandson! Can you imagine that? I didn't even know she had a daughter!!"

"You mean… Medda has family?" Spot thought for a moment. Maybe it has something to do with this promise-thing. "Tell me, d'you know where Medda is now?"

"Hum… I think she's next to the bar with some of the guys and her grandson… Blink! Mush! Wait! I have something to show you…" And Race went away. Spot wasn't sure if he'd be able to go anywhere seeing how his legs were shaking. Bah! It wouldn't be the first time Race would fall asleep on the floor of Irving Hall….

Spot made his way to the bar, slaloming between different kinds of people, all laughing, drinking and sometimes even singing. Spot began to wonder if there were still people out in the streets seeing the crowd here.

Finally he caught sight of Medda, in one of her flashy pink dress. He realized he had never seen her so happy.

"Spot!! Darling, come here. I want you to meet someone. Brian meets Spot Conlon, the great leader of Brooklyn. Spot, this young man here is Brian Sheppards my grandson."

Spot looked at the boy with blond hair and big brown eyes. He couldn't have been more than nine years old.

Spot smiled, spitted in his hand and took the one of the little boy. "That's how we say hello in the streets, boy."

The boy looked at his hand with an expression of amazement.

"Grandma! Is this the famous Spot Conlon you talked me about? The one with a slingshot?" Turning his head to Spot he added "pleeeeeeaase! I want to see it! Please!!! Oh! And could you teach me how to use it? Please!!!"

They all laughed seeing the puppy-dog face of the young Brian.

"Alright kid! I'll show you but first I have to talk with your Grandma." With a look of conspiracy, he said "you know… the business kid…"

"Oh!! Business…" he chuckled a little "Yes, I see, that must be quite serious! Grandma, may I go to see Cowboy? He promised me to show me how to use a lasso if I didn't disturb him while he was with this Sarah-girl?"

"Of course, hon. But don't stay away too long, ok?"

The boy barely heard what she said as he was running off. "So Spot what do you have to tell me that's so important?"

"Well in fact, it's about that guy, Jonathon Something, he told me about the promise and all. I want to know more about it. Why did you make him give his word? And why did you accept to dinner with that idiot?… Does it have something to do with this?" He gestured to show the whole party.

"Yes, in fact it does… It was last week…"

Medda entered in her dressing room. After checking the flowers some admirers left her, she sat and began to take off her make-up.

It has been another splendid night. She loved having all those kids coming to see her. It was a way for them to relax, without wondering if they would have enough money to survive the next day. During those few hours they only enjoyed the show, and she was glad of that. At least some people loved her and she loved them too. They were like a family. But they're not MY family.

She sighted regretfully and opened the locked drawer of her dressing table with the key she always kept on a lace necklace around her neck. She rummaged through the several papers and finally found what she was looking for. She held up the picture and looked at it in the light.

She could have stayed there, in that position for hours without moving, tears all over her face. She couldn't help crying every time she thought about her past. About her.

Even before she met her husband, Medda had been a singer. But in that time she was with a very respectable band who played only during the parties of the high society of Saint Louis. That's how she met him. He was a young lawyer with a very promising future, M. John Archibald Carter. It has been love at first sight for both of them.

Only three months after their first dinner, he proposed her and they were married four weeks later. Neither of them was able to wait.

During the first three years, they lived like in heaven. They had a big house, two dogs and a wonderful daughter they called Alys. They spent a lot of time together, as soon as John had finished his work (He was now an associate of a very famous lawyer office), and even if Medda had stopped singing professionally she was never bored. Her daughter was her pride.

However in the fourth year, everything changed. John was involved in a case of corruption and the business was very bad. He finally lost his job and they had to move in a little apartment.

The little Alys didn't understand anything at the situation. The only thing she saw was her parents quarrelling every nights and her father acting more and more violently. But she would never remember that as an adult because she locked all these memories in her subconscious. What's more Medda did everything she could for her daughter in order to make sure she didn't realize what was happening.

Her husband was totally different now. He had lost his elegance, his smile and his kindness when he lost his money. He spent all his time in pubs and when he got home he told Medda it was her fault. That she was a slut who only knew singing and seducing respectable men and it was because of her reputation that everything happened.

But this situation didn't last for long. Six months after they moved into the apartment, John was involved in a fight and didn't survive. He had left no money behind him except few debts in some pubs. The only solution for Medda was selling all they had even if sentimentally it cost her a lot. She decided to go to New York where one of the musicians of her old band, Peter Sullivan, worked in a music hall.

Thanks to the money she earnt singing she managed to pay a boarding school for her daughter who was now 12. She didn't want her to live in such a place, it wasn't a place for a girl like Alys who had only known innocence and kindness.

"It's for your own good." Medda told her every weekend, crying because she missed her.

However Alys hardly believed her. She thought it was the her mother's fault if her father died and if they had to live in such a horrible place. As she grew up rapidly, Alys learned to lie to her friends about her mother. She preferred to say both her parents were dead and that she went to live with her aunt during holidays rather than telling them her mother was a successful singer and businesswoman and would soon have her own theatre.

Medda understood her daughter's feelings but she thought it would get better when she was an adult. She realized too late that it would never happen, on Alys'sixteenth birthday. As usual, they spent it only together. Medda didn't work on that day and she always prepared a cake.

"Here, hon. You can blow your candles!! But don't forget to make a wish!"

Alys said nothing. She only breathed deeply and did as her mother said. She hadn't opened her mouth all day, but Medda knew there was something disturbing her because her daughter didn't stop fidgeting.

"Hon, is there something wrong? You know if you need anything for your school or something you can tell me. I'll always be there for you."

Alys only shrugged, not looking up. Medda began to worry but she knew that if her daughter didn't want to talk there was no use trying to force her. She was as stubborn as her mother.

"Well, I guess that if you don't want to speak, you can at least open your present!" she said cheerfully.

Alys slowly opened the little box and found a key.

"It the key of our new house. I have saved money for years to buy it. It's perfect. It's not as big as the one we had before but it's cosy and now we'll live together you won't have to go away anymore!"

"NO!!" Alys shouted throwing away the little key violently. "That. Will. Not .Happen." She was breathing loudly as she stood up. "I won't live with you anymore… Besides I'll get married in a few days. That's what I wanted to tell you."

Medda didn't say anything. It took her a moment to understand what she had said. "What… What do you mean you won't live with me? Married? But with who? I never met him and you never talked to me about him…"

"That was on purpose! How would I have? Michael is from a wealthy family. What did you want me to tell him? That I live in a music hall with only drunks as customers? And that my mother pretends to be a singer while she only wiggles in front of odious men?" Alys was still yelling at her mother.

Medda was stunned on her chair. She couldn't believe that it was what her daughter thought about her. She thinks I'm a slut, just like her father did. She realized she had never talked with her about her father, about what happened, but she thought she had time. She could wait until her daughter become an adult. When she was a little girl, Alys had always idealized her father and Medda couldn't find the heart to tell her the truth. Now she was paying for this.

Medda passed a hand on her tired eyes, as an old woman would, and said very quietly, almost like a whisper: "That's really what you think? What you think about me? All these years you were ashamed of me and of my work? That's why you never invited some friends on vacation as I told you?"

With a quieter voice but still with anger filling it Alys replied: "Yes, that's right. You know… I didn't want to tell you about it like this but you didn't leave me any choice. Michael is waiting for me to arrive in Washington next week, but now I think it'll be better if I leave tomorrow. You don't have to come to the ceremony, everyone thinks you're dead. I'm sorry for you because I know that you love me but that's how I chose to live and I hope you'll respect it." On those words, Alys turned her back to her mother and went in her room.

That was the last time Medda had seen her daughter. She had spent the night crying and when she woke up Alys was already gone.

Medda looked at herself in the mirror. Without any make-up, she looked like the old woman she felt she was. Nothing was left of the beaming Medda who danced, sang and laughed on the stage. There was only a mother who had lost her daughter. She stood up and opened the door, her eyes still red for crying.

She jumped with fright as a young woman was standing in front of her.

"Oh! Darling, you scared me so much! May I help you?"

The stranger looked at her in the eyes and whispered slowly :

"I'm sorry"

Medda couldn't believe her eyes. She was there. She had refused for 10 years to see her and now she was there! Medda did the only thing she could. She took her daughter in her arms and hugged her tightly.

Medda was deep in her thought now and Spot didn't dare disturbing her. Finally Medda looked at him with love still in her eyes.

"So have I answered your question?" she said softly.

"Yes, I think… but may I ask you why Alys eventually came back?"

"I think you should ask her. It's thank to one of you, she told me. A newsie. I always knew you were a benediction to me. All of you" She now had her hand on his cheek, like a mother.

"Oh! She's coming. Alys, darling, come and sit here please. I have a young man here who would like to ask you a question…"

So? what did you think? please tell me sincerely what you think about it. But no flames please, if you really hated it please tell why with constructive comments.

But please send me a review I need someone to cheer me up as I've begun my summer job and it's extremely boring!

A bientôt j'espère! ;p