Cinnamon (Shooting Stars 1)

"Come back to bed. Mommy," I said, moving to her. I gently took her by the elbow. She smiled at me and put the blanket in the bassinet.

"My grown-up little lady, taking care of me. You're going to be such a big help with Sacha. I know. I'm as happy for you as I am for Daddy and me." she said. "Did you know I always wished I had a sister, especially a little sister who would look up to me for everything?

"Sacha's going to idolize you. Cinnamon. Shell want to do everything you do just the way you do it, I'm sure. You mustn't be short with her or impatient,'" she warned, her face full of concern. "Always remember she's just a little girl who doesn't

understand. Explain things; make sure you and she always talk and never hide anything from each other. A sister can be your best friend in the whole world, even more than your mother. I'm sure mine would have been."

She started out with me, but she didn't stop talking.

"It's all right for her to be a better friend to you than I am.I'll never be jealous of the two of you. honey. I realize you will have more in common with her than you will with me. You don't ever have to worry about that."

"'Please get into bed. Mommy," I said when we entered the master bedroom.

Mommy and Daddy had a king-size, oak fourpost bed with an oversized headboard on which two roses with their stems crossed were embossed. Mommy loved roses. The comforter and the pillow cases had a pattern of red roses, which made the room cheerful. When they were younger and more affectionate toward each other. I used to think of their bed as a bed that promised its inhabitants magical love, a bed that filled their heads with wonderful dreams when they slept afterward, both of them, smiling, contented, warm and secure, those four posts like powerful arms protecting them against any of the evil spirits that sought to invade their contentment.

I pulled back the comforter and she got into the bed, slowly lowering her head to the pillow. She was still smiling.

"I want you to help take care of her right from the start. honey. You'll be her second mother, just as Agatha Demerest was a second mother to her younger brothers and sisters," she said. "'Remember?"

Mammy was referring to a story she and I had actually created during one of our earliest visits to the attic.

When I was a little more than fourteen, she decided one day that we should explore the house. She had been up in the attic before, of course, and told me that shortly after she and Daddy had moved into the house, she had discovered an old hickory chest with hinges so rusted, they fell off when she lifted the lid. The chest was filled with things that went back to the 1800s. She had been especially intrigued by the Demerest family pictures. Most were faded so badly you could barely make out the faces, but some of them were still in quite good condition.

Daddy, who works on Wall Street and puts a monetary value on everything in sight, decided that much of the stuff could be sold. He took things like the Union army uniform, old newspapers, a pair of spurs and a pistol holster to New York to be valued and later placed in a consignment store. but Mommy wouldn't let him take the pictures.

"I told him family pictures don't belong in stores and certainly don't belong on the walls of strangers. These pictures should never leave this house and they never will," she vowed to me.

She and I would look at the women and the men and try to imagine what they must have been like, whether they were sad or happy people, whether th

ey suffered or not. We did our role-playing and I would assume the persona of one of the women in a picture. Mommy would often be Jonathan Demerest, speaking in a deep voice. That was when we came up with the story of Agatha Demerest having to take on the role of mother when her mother died of smallpox.

But Mommy was talking about it now as if it were historical fact and we had no concrete information upon which to base our assumptions, except for the dates carved in a couple of tombstones.

"Okay, Mammy," I said. I was thinking about washing the lipstick drawing off her stomach. but I was afraid even to mention it. I have to try to get in touch with Daddy, I thought.

"Oh," Mommy suddenly cried. "Oh, oh. oh. Cinnamon, it's happening again!" She clutched her stomach. "It's getting worse. I'm going into labor. You'd better call the doctor, call an ambulance, call your father." she cried.

She released a chilling scream that shook my very bones. "Hurry!"

I didn't know what to do. I ran from the room. Grandmother Beverly was already at the top of the stairway.

"What is it?" she asked, her hand on her breast, her face whiter than ever.

"She thinks she's in labor. I think she really is in pain!"

"Oh dear. dear. We'll have to call the doctor. I was hoping you could calm her down. Get her to sleep and be sane." she said. Another scream from Mammy spun her around and sent her fleeing down the stairway.

Mommy continued to moan.

I glanced at my watch. Daddy had to be at his desk. Why did Grandmother Beverly say before that she certainly couldn't reach him? He should be easy to reach.

I rushed to my room and tapped out the number for his office quickly. It rang and rang until his secretary finally picked up and announced his company.

"I need to speak to my father immediately." I practically screamed.

Mommy was crying out even louder now, her shouts of pain echoing down the hallway and through the house.

"He's not here at the moment," the secretary said. "But he has to be. The market is still open."