Stay tuned for the coming chapters for a full breakdown on seasonal creative direction, resources, and more.

PART 1: Joy and Peace

CHAPTER 1

at home with myself in myself

“BAKLAVA FOR SALE!” rang the baker down the market road as Barbara lay staring at a near cloudless sky on a breezy summer day. Always someone doing their most in this town, but aren’t we all? She was hungry, for what she didn’t know then, but she would soon. It always happened that way, her head and heart connected sooner than later. Hopeful the wind brings inspiration adrift to feel through the weeds, who rolls in but the biker in his sunnies.

“Discerning.” Sternly, he sat atop the hill facing the dogs in the crowd, never the type to offer more than a word or two to her, perhaps to anyone.

“You’re one to talk,” she says, flipping a page with a finger, “as if I ever see you coming.”

Collected, as was she, and as usual coming to collect. Again. If not for a rustling wind through the leaves overhead, they could hear a pin drop. Rooftop gardens on a lazy dog Saturday were hardly the time for cutting language; assignments were due with appointments to be kept. “I didn’t order a distraction today,” a smirk percolating behind the screen.

“You’re one to talk,” E said, glasses drifting down his nose while Barbara’s gaze projected deep into the letters on the proverbial page. Letting a beat pass, his attention wavered to blades of grass, picking at a patch next to her blanket at the root. “Barking orders come from the top, not you: not a distraction.”

Out of the basket of the jet black cycle he strolled in with revealed a bag of chips.

“All that?” Barbara huffed and rolled over to meet his hand. “On whose authority exactly?”

E’s glasses slid back up his nose with his free hand with a knowing raise of his brow and nod toward the market clock below. He’d known how to find her despite all the earnest effort she’d put into wiping her slates. Something told her there was something in him that knew the meaning of needing to be washed too, but she wasn’t the one to do it.

She wrinkled her nose up at the light shed between the leaves above, searching. Belief was a funny thing, and E’s arrival, while divinely appointed in one way or another, disrupted her plans. Barbara loved plans, the way they formed her days moment to moment. Somehow, every time she decided to brighten her days with assignments from her heart, what’s bound to call resounds.

“Bag’s too heavy for a woman to carry, and I didn’t bring anything to bring it home.”

“This isn’t a game, Barbie—

The bell tolled and the townsfolk below cheered, holiday celebrations whisking away the cares of their world. Barbara couldn’t look at his face for the weight E carried in his hands, a weight she assumed as the cares of her own world.

“Then why are you toying with me knowing how I am,” snatching the bag with her only free hand. It was heavy, all that for a bag of chips to help her eat, as if she wouldn’t. She sighed a heavy, weighted breath, eyes shut, bracing for instruction. However kind his distant deliveries always were wasn’t excusing the obvious. “It’s a holiday, E.”

She’d heard the baker on the road and strained to hear any sweetness in the distance for reprieve after retrieving the bag dutifully. Barbara was worn from being a stranger in a strange land when she knew the truth, but when to speak it had cost her once. Big time.

She was still willing to pay again.

“Download that,” E choked out in a breath, breaking the silence, kicking his bike into gear as lanterns lit along the threshold of the canopy overheard, the sea sharing in the crash of the moment with a roar of a wave below. A warm breeze wafted in, softening her heart for a moment to receive direction on her role at play in the hands of her associate’s direction. “Do your best to get through it by Wednesday morning.”

“E, I’m no morning person here. Unless you’re a magician, and I know you’re not, we have a job. This,” waving her tablet, “is mine, not this bag. The bag can wait, provided slates are wiped clean. I know how, but don’t want to handle this.”

Silence, save for howling cheer, horns and sirens below. “Neither should you,” she affirmed with a cheerful aim, trailing off as she realized she’d impressed an envelope she wouldn’t push from worth held to receive. Quite the impression for someone with singular authority.

With the light leaving and sky darkening, his own discernment sharpened enough to mind his tongue. E fastened his helmet with an unusual meek utterance with a final encouragement at kickoff, shedding dust off his wheels on a bed of lilacs amidst the herbs of the soup shop rooftop. “That’s not my job, I found you. Believe,” he hollered, “there’s more to the story—a lot!” rollicking down tiled steps of the roof, she almost thought she heard a tile chip.

Barbara did her best to sequester herself every time. Letters have a way of making themselves known no matter how nose deep. Didn’t take long this time, she was found one way or another. The bag got heavier, chips undoubtedly all the more enticing. She wasn’t going to like that. Download that. She was used to that, taking the bag in full belief, with four days to deliver.

Alone again, hopeful for baklava if the baker is still selling. Holidays bring so much care to the town, and a bird’s eye view of the revels keeps the world on its spin. Rebels keep it interesting, Barbara believed that, and she believed who she could trust, in truth, with truth. But she couldn’t care.

Suspicion carried her every which way, but the way forward was clear: direction delivered and she knew it from the jump. Becoming inexplicable was everything she’d ever wanted; to hide away, but when duty calls, she knew who provided from all that was lost. Of hers, anyone’s—what everyone and anyone could lose.

Alone again, smirk widening, the sun resonating into a beam along the water ahead.

She’d already won.

CHAPTER 2

and when I lose myself, I call her back—calling out to call in

Two pots boiling on the back burner and muffins in the oven. Cakes on the frier. It was hot, her cup spilling out at nearly a quarter to four. Day would break any minute, all Connie had to do was keep from boiling over.

Rain drops outside the heat of the kitchen fell at a surprising rate, considering. Anything to cool the heat before life awakened with too many cooks. What precisely she’d consider lost she’d failed to keep sight of along the way, but hopeful as ever to collect, she set her filter atop the sill.

Oil. She needed to pour more for her pancakes, she started smelling batter burning, but it was a waft of something cracked from above that left her reeling. Connie steadied herself on the slab archway. Deep breaths.

Z would be back from the overnight within the hour and for the last year of their marriage, they’d poured all of themselves into serving in every way. Lately, something in her had been stretching Connie thinner than the slices she needed for her daily special.

Eyes on the prize. One too many fingers in too many pies had her pause at the pan, flipping her batter on cast-iron for one last good impression on the heat. Had she made a good impression on Z this last year? Was she a good wife? She wanted to be exemplary.

“Don’t sweat it,” Connie fumbled her ladle with a clatter to the stove, batter mixing with the broth bubbling away. “Holy cow, Constance,” Barbara raised both her hands open in surrender on the terrace, and with one heaving sigh, she was weeping in the soup.

“Holy cow, I said holy cow, don’t have a cow, Connie,” and with that, Connie fixed her gaze on her oven, managing to handle the door; cooking leaned her in to tenderize flesh she’d rather leave left for dead, never one to beat a dead horse. She wasn’t too sure any which way and was beginning to think agreeing to house Barbie’s own transport in their attic-turned-bungalow wasn’t mindful.

All it took was a little hot air. Eyes on the horizon.

“Great,” Barbara set her hands on her hip, eyebrows raised, still perched near the doorway, “dumplings would make a great addition to the soup of the day.” Through a sniffle, Connie perked up and wiped her tears on her apron, head held high. She’d assumed she was asleep, as any woman should at this hour. What kind of life was she leading?

“You may have left for nearly half a decade, but Constance is what my mother calls me, Barbie,” extending a warm hand for a hug, Connie meandered on through Barbara’s silence through sizzles and pops on the stove. Best not to dawdle, she thought, with a kitchen to clean and tea getting cold, where was her mop anyway?

“We haven’t seen you in days,” Connie swung past the support pillar with the slightest tension, a few creaks ringing out with every care. “Even Connor was wondering where you’d gone.”

Near motionless save for lips now pursed at the mention of her brother, Connie reeled her arms in, hidden, surrendered to Barbara’s knowing nod. Silence all this time only to show up at her door like nothing had changed, nearly in every way the same. In so many ways they’d all transformed for the better while in other respects, slashed away.

So assumed, so affirmed. Double edged.

“Wonderful,” Barbara managed, shifting her weight. “Wondered if you might appreciate anything on my way home today, but you’re appreciating a lot at the moment.” Connie winced while her oldest and most distant friend made the slightest gesture, a rub at her eye that, for a moment, sparked a flame in her she quickly dowsed. Best to keep that inner furnace ablaze for what’s righteous and ride those waves out with the distant memories they keep.

Practice makes perfect; with a twirl, Connie turned her attention back to prep for all in store for their customers and family. She poured herself into meals, the heart of her family’s legacy was beating at the center, and she would be the heartbeat even if it meant riots, new and old. It all starts at home.

Barbara slid past the pillar, cut frame revealed in the lamplight from the open veranda. She didn’t ask questions when she called and said she was already on her way back and neither did Connie, mostly from a heart of having missed the peace Barbie harmonized in their family. Bird’s eye view was 20/20, and Connie was positioned well enough above her past to swing that door wide open. Something nagged her about tying up every loose end, though; while stirring her pots, Barbara snagged on a loose thread on her way out the front door.

“Sweat the small stuff,” she said, gnashing at her sleeve’s garment with her teeth and picking out the thread, “and you’ll miss the whole point. Your filter’s been filled.” She waved at Connie’s filter, the clarity of its catch subject to her as Barbara kneeled down to inspect her doorway.

“Care to clarify? And perhaps we’ll see you for lunch later? There’s so much to be done, Barb, I’m losing my grip a little more day by day.”

“Con,” Barbara cracked as she braced herself as best she could, “we all walk our own paths, how did any of this activate on either of our ends? We used choice words when we know what’s true and paid the earthly price. My knees crack just as much as your wrists, after all these year I was so happy to know you still had a joint pair once I got here.”

“And where there’s majors, there will be minors!” A booming clash resounded through the otherwise vacant alley past the open doorway Barbara was finished keenly inspecting. A slim frame looped himself over the gate with a sheepish grin, bags in tow. “Neighbors left on vacation anyway,” Z affirmed with a shake at Barbie on his way through into the living room.

“Class?” Connie weighed out a stack of pancakes for her husband while he dusted off his overcoat, hanging it over the stereo. Of the two in hand, he waved them away and quickly noting slight remorse in her expression, hastened to pull out of the a bag on their couch a symbol of peace. “Ate at the office, love, assuming this will handle the cost of all our hard work lately?”

Z gave a shrug and Barbara strained to peak over his shoulder with a knowing pass from Connie to what was at hand, scratching her temple with a smile Connie sensed could ring something out, but she’d put a pin in that one. Barbie knew, one way or another, she knew her sister, but this was more than a knowing.

Connie was shaking, both hands hardly able to hold the weight of what was in store, in their home. “That’s resounding!” blurted Barbie from the front yard, dragging a drum set in from what Z scattered behind in his wake to get his wife what she’d hoped was possible.

Was it possible?

“Z, how can I wear this, after everything I’ve ever done? And what did it cost you?”

Time was flashing by while Z approached and slipped her new piece on over everything she’d lost. She almost couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. All that stripped, hardly able to function for years without assignments, and now she had a chance.

“They’re priceless, Con,” Barbara stacked cymbals felt like an afterthought, or was it a forethought? She wasn’t steady, and she needed to sit down, breathe. Calibrate herself and what she was assuming with this piece, this peace.

What could she ever do to earn this chance to be out of the kitchen and into everything out there, and was she ready for that? Were they ready for that?

Z held her hand, her left one, the one with the ring he’d used to propose after the game where he played trumpet at the time and Connor tripped over his words. Everything that led up to this point was rushing back to her, she felt redeemed, partially. Authentic? Was it?

“You’re appreciating a lot lately, Constance,” Barbara was lounging against the wall by the stairs leading up to all that hot air. “Keep your wits about you,” as she munched on what must’ve been a singular morsel from her frier. Whether it was the weather or the transport to blame for all to clean, Connie wasn’t thinking straight, but she heard someone say loud and clear:

“Enticed?”

She didn’t like that.