Eye of the Storm (Hudson 3)

watched me a moment and then got up and returned

the glass to the bathroom.

I started to dry heave and did it so many times,

my stomach ached.

"Good,I'll let everyone know you're sicker,'

she said gleefully.

"Once again, it will just be me at the dinner

table with Daddy. Well have tea and toast brought up

to you. I'll bring it myself. okay?"

She paused and tilted her head as she scowled, "I don't know why I'm so nice to you. You're

never this nice to me. You always avoid me in school

and act as if we're not related."

Then she smiled again.

"But, I'm not angry. I'm not and at all. Daddy

loves me, too."

She walked slowly toward the door, gazed back

to wave and then closed the door behind her. My eyelids slammed shut almost

simultaneously and I fell into a deep sleep, perhaps as

a way of escaping a living nightmare.

There are times when we all want to rush back

to our Good dreams. My poor troubled brain was

willing to turn itself inside out if it had to in order to

take me away from my own painful, aching body.

Happier memories blossomed like bright flowers in a

dark garden, forcing back the cloak of dread and

sadness and retrieving smiles and laughter. I was a little girl again in that innocent time

before I would be introduced to prejudice and hate,

violence and poverty. I did not vet understand who I

was, where I was and what storms and turmoil raged

and awaited me just outside my precious world of