When You Were Young

***

Jackie had inherited Samantha's fear of the water. "Are you sure this is safe, Mommy?" she asked on the dock.

"It's perfectly safe. I used to do this all the time," she said. She looked over at Rebecca. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

"I'd better not. I promised Callie we'd go into Bangor tonight. There's a great new club opening up we're going to try getting into," Rebecca said.

Samantha thought of the nightclub in Chicago where she'd met Andre again. Maybe Rebecca would find the love of her life walking through the door. "Just stay out of trouble. There won't be anyone to bail you out of prison," Samantha said.

"I will. See you on the way back."

"Cousin Rebecca seems nice," Jackie said.

"She's very nice. Here, put on your lifejacket." Unlike Veronica and Molly, Jackie didn't make any fuss about putting on her lifejacket. From her father she'd inherited allergy problems that flared up worst in the morning; Samantha wiped at her daughter's nose with a handkerchief, helping her blow her nose. Once Jackie could breathe again, Samantha helped her into the little boat she and Rebecca had used to leave Eternity eight years earlier. Mr. Pryde maintained the boat in her absence for whenever Samantha or Rebecca decided to go back.

Jackie's cappuccino-colored skin turned green at the edges once they got underway. Samantha took her hand, giving it a squeeze. "Everything will be all right, sweetie," she said.

"Where are we going, Mommy?"

"We're going to Eternity. That's where your Aunt Prudence and Uncle Wendell live with all your other cousins. It's a very nice place with lots of trees and grass for you to play in."

Jackie sniffled at this, not convinced how wonderful Eternity would be. "Is that where you lived when you were a little girl?" she asked.

"That's right, sweetie. I started living there when I wasn't much older than you," Samantha said. This was a slight exaggeration, but she and Joseph had promised each other before Jackie was born not to burden their offspring with any knowledge of the Fountain of Youth. As far as Jackie knew, Samantha had gone to Eternity when she was five and stayed there until she was seventeen, when she left with Daddy for California. Her life before that would never exist to her daughter. Nor to any legal authorities, who believed her to be Samantha Young, born in 1994, parents unknown.

"And Aunt Prudence lived there too?"

"That's right. And cousin Rebecca and all your other cousins. We were all children together."

"Then who were your mommies and daddies?"