Inbetween the Cracks of Time

I’m fifteen for a moment.

Let’s just look upon the stupid things I, as an individual, and the many others have done.

I’ve dated a senior in High school. But hey, fifteen is that moment in your life that when someone says “I love you,” you believe them like it was the word of God. You think you’re more mature than you were the year before. You get a driving permit. You get sent to jail for illegal underage drinking and smoking. You shoplift, letting your ‘friends’ call it cool. You fall in love with your best friend, and find out either it was meant to be or never supposed to happen. And then, you cheat.

You can cheat many ways. It can be from on your boyfriend to in a board game on a family holiday. You do it, just to do it. I did it, and I don’t regret any of the outcomes I brought upon myself.

So here I am, fifteen squished right inbetween ten and twenty. But here’s the thing. That’s pretty god for someone who only has a hundred years to actually live.

So, I just dream. Dream about the things I’ll soon encounter. I’ll dream about my parents finally getting what they asked for after what they did to me… Kicked me out, abused me, and told me I was worthless (when it was really them who were worthless) and that I should never follow my dreams to becoming a singer. “It’ll cause more harm than good, you ungrateful brat!” They said to me.

I ran to Jamie’s house – really my actual home since I slept there just about every night so I could get away from my parents. There was no surprise on my face when I found his window opened, and I climbed up the vine wall and into his room. His hideous – yes I said hideous, Jamie could not sing I’m sorry that I have to admit it like that to my own boyfriend – and went to the closed closet. There I pulled out one of his old button-up shirts that I had claimed mine, and pulled it on over my body after the shedding of my own clothing.

Red and blue flannel was hot, and I’m going to say it now, looked pretty nice on me for just some night shirt. My clothes were pushed under his desk, so if his mom came in and checked she wouldn’t know I was there. I usually slept on the side of his bed that faced the window, away from the door. And since we had to sleep on our sides since the bed was so small, he always hid my small body.

So here I sat, on my boyfriend of two years bed, only wearing a button-up shirt, with the necessary undergarments, had my hair pulled up into a ponytail, and waiting for him to hurry up with his shower. Most of the time I came in, he was just getting in, or about to get out. One time I had snuck up on him while he was already in there and let’s just say that didn’t end very well.

Translated to; I almost got caught by his mom.

And so here I was, sitting on his bed with my legs cross, staring at the ceiling fan as it tried cooling us from the hot late spring nights; Georgia was not all cut out to be as I had thought.

But, as Jamie had said once a few weeks ago, “You’re the flower coming out of the concrete. You can do anything!”

---

I’m twenty-two for a moment.

I’m out of school, out into the world, gone from my horrible parents, and now in Las Vegas, singing every night for a bar on the strip. I’ve had a few good replies, some not so good, but hey. Sooner or later, I’ll get my big break! All I’m worried about is my time with Jamie.

Like I said, we’re twenty-two. We got married only a week after coming here because we were drunk, and for some reason I have this feeling that something good is actually going to happen. Call it woman’s instinct, but whatever.

So I’m sitting back stage one day, finishing up my makeup before I go on, and two hands suddenly cover my eyes. The first thing I think is a stalker. But then, there’s that husky deep southern voice of my husband and I can’t help but smile. He kisses my cheek, my forehead, my nose, and before anything else, I turn around and kiss him fully. Jamie deserves it, after all.

“What are you doing here, cowboy?” I ask, an arm wrapped around his neck as he pulls me into his lap and takes my small bench I sit on while the other gently brushes through his dark brown farmer’s hair.

“Well… I just want to come and tell you that I got a job,” and oh was I excited. I squealed, jumped out of Jamie’s lap – pulling him with me – and danced around the small dressing room. He only laughed at my antics, smiling at me when I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing myself. “And that I’m going to take you out celebrating tonight!” Oh the night only got better.

We went from not even wanting to get on the rocket ship to going all the way to Mars. Yes, that means we had sex. Go ahead and laugh – it was my first time.

---

I’m thirty-five for a moment.

Only thirteen years ago I was a singer at a run-down bar just barely getting by with my husband of a few months still looking for a job. We were just out of high school and not even going to college. Bad us for doing that and not getting the education we needed for the money that we needed for what is now happening.

Yes, I’m actually – and finally – pregnant. Don’t I feel so freaking old? Thirty-five and just having a baby, who knows; I’ll be fifty when they turn fifteen. Hopefully I won’t have to be put into a nursing home or something so my children aren’t running around wild like naked Indians. Oh lord would I hate that and - in the end – actually blame my own parents. Yes, I’m that type of person.

“Blame the parents!”

But wait… I was going to be a parent. So basically, I just said blame me. Nice Gina, nice.

---

I’m forty-five for a moment.

It’s one of those fall mornings in Georgia where you feel like it should still be summer. The leaves on the trees are dying from lack of water, not lack of cold weather. What has this world turned into? But hey, I’m more worried about my ten year old twins than Global Warming.

“Hi mom, bye mom!” yelled the two that I swear were giving me early gray-hairs. Tristan and Tori were my little babies, and my little demons. But, before they could run out to catch a bus that wouldn’t be here for another fifteen minutes, their father caught them by their backpacks and pulled them to the table.

This happened every morning. I’d be cooking, they’d be worried about getting out of the house trying to hide something, and he – Jamie of course – would be the catching and the pulling in. Did I mention he went to college to become a middle school history teacher? Things have really changed over the past ten years.

And me, oh little-old-me, is just a regular song writer and composer for the country band “Sweet Country”. Of course, I don’t get paid much so I help assist with the high school’s choir and jazz band.

But hey, I’m the little flower that comes out of the concrete. I can do anything.

---

I’m sixty-seven for a moment.

My children are gone and had their own children, becoming what they want. They still visit, even though I noticed that the visits are becoming farther and farther apart. Can they not stand seeing their parents getting so old so fast?

“Jamie…” I gently put my hand on my husband of forty-something years shoulder and shook him a bit. He didn’t move, just kept laying there, his head tilted and eyes closed.

“Jamie,” I could remember all the fun times we had. From the moment we became friends in 1st grade to our graduation. Then, the time we moved to Las Vegas to show that he was going to do whatever he could to let my dreams come true. Then to our first time, and I still think I’m floating on air. His graduation, my first actual job for a famous band; that horrible and wonderful day where I shoved out two eight pound babies from inbetween my legs, and then from the time that I saw them first go off to school. I didn’t want to let go, I couldn’t let go, I wouldn’t let go.

But Jamie was there, watching too, and I saw that he didn’t want them to go either.

“James Leonard Holton,” he still didn’t move.

And from then on, I felt very alone.

I may be the flower that came through the concrete, but that doesn’t mean a flower cannot wilt and wither away.

---

I’m ninety-nine for a moment.

After being placed into a nursing home because of the loneliness I felt after Jamie’s death, I still felt lonely.

“Ms. Holton, are you ready?”

I looked over at the young nurse. She was maybe just in her mid-twenties. She has so much waiting for her in her future. I can see it in her forest green eyes.

“Please deary, call me Virginia,” I couldn’t help but smile when she nodded and helped me into my wheelchair. I was rolled out of the room and down the hall. I saw many of the friends I had made having their fun. I waved, they waved back. We exchanged smiles, but they knew this was one of my days where I just wanted to be alone and look out into the world.

The young nurse rolled me out the doors and to the gardens of the nursing home. I thanked her and gave a smile; which she returned. Then, when she was no longer in my sight, I looked upon everything I saw and smiled. It felt good to have the fun on my old wrinkling skin. It felt good to hear the birds and the calm flow of the artificial waterfall. I closed my eyes, blocking out all that I had seen and leaned back a bit in my chair. The old pillow gave a bit of cushioning, but it wasn’t the same as the chair that I had brought with me that stayed in the corner of my room. It was Jamie’s and would forever be Jamie’s. Last time I touched it was when I first came here, and that was around fifteen years ago.

Fifteen…

“Mrs. Virginia Patterson-Holton.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the young man only a few feet away from my chair. How had he gotten there?

“Yes?” I answered, giving that old granny smile.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

See me again? I’ve never seen this young man before.

“What-“

“Oh look, a flower,” and he bent down to pick the small pure white flower from inbetween the concrete of the small walkway. He stood back up straight, and twirled it between his own fingers. Those mysterious brown eyes stared at me; showing a familiar glint that I couldn’t put my finger on. “’You’re the flower sprouting out inbetween the concrete. You can do anything, Gina.’ Does that sound familiar?”

I sat that, my mouth agape from the very quote he spoke from his lips. Only Jamie had ever said that. Now I know where I’d seen those eyes before…

“Jamie?”

Those brown eyes smiled at me, before disappearing. The flower was sent flying by an unknown force and made its way to my lap. There it sat, snug on the cotton sundress I wore.

Here I was the very human form of the flower in the concrete. But before I knew it or would admit it, I would have to wither and die just like it. But this is only from someone who got to live a hundred years.

I am Virginia Kelsey Patterson-Holton. This was my story.

---

The door to Jamie’s room opened and he walked in, only clad in a towel around his waist and one hanging around his neck. Those soft locks of dark brown hair hung in strands on his face, and as he smiled at me. “Hey Gina,” he would greet, twirl his finger (telling me to turn around) and dress for bed. That usually meant just boxers and an old white or blue shirt. Tonight, it was blue.

So, there we laid, on the small mattress with his arm around my small waist and his lips kissed my hair softly every few seconds. It was one of the only ways for him to get me to sleep, or I would just be staring out the window all night long.

But here I was, fifteen. I was caught inbetween ten and twenty only looking for an adventure. I don’t know it now, but within the next few decades, I’ll be paying anything for more time with my friends, family, and just Jamie in general. Every day’s a new day, and there’s time to choose, but when you only got a hundred years to live… You have to make the best out of everything.

But I’m only that little white flower coming out of the concrete. I can’t do much without a bit of help.