HOPE

4. Back to us.

I'm dead.
I really am.
This is my last chance. If I don't find Angie here, I'm sure I'll never find her. Ever.
I feel I won't have the strength to keep searching, to keep hoping, to keep fighting. If I fail, I'd better end my life here. The circle is closed.

I'm actually terrified, I've played all my cards, this is my last one. All in.

I'm standing here, at the beginning of the path that leads to my family's farm.
Mixed feelings are creeping down my throat to my heart, tightening it to death.
My childhood. My brother, is he still alive? My lame father, I bet my last shirt he's dead. The cries, the punches, the tears.
Mom.
Her sweet gaze on me. Her smile when I braided daisies for her. Her sorrow. Her bruises. The day she died in my arms.
That day I left, glancing a last time over my shoulder never to return, or so I thought.
The view is quite the same.

Does only someone still live here? Or is there only ruins of my life? What I'm going to find out at the end of this path scares the shit out of me.
Come on Cup, you haven't survive all that shit to give up now.

Imagine Angie is down there, imagine you're about to see her again.
That scares me even more.
I can picture the love of my life, what's left of my life, living here, raising our child, my child, along with a bunch of other toddlers, fathered by another man, her loving husband.
A man who wouldn't have left her, abandoned before the altar, who wouldn't have gone on a mission and never returned.

It's been almost 2 years, fuck!

I would understand if she has started a new life, I couldn't blame her to have stopped waiting for me, even if I haven't stopped waiting for her.
It just would kill me to witness my angel happy with another man.

Signs of life, children's laugh or bird chirps I don't know, startle me and my feet automatically start moving, I'm surely dreaming.

My heart burns, all my senses are yelling at me to turn around and run away, but i keep going, like I'm walking down the death row.

Three little girls are playing in the yard, sat in a circle, too busy to notice me as I approach them.

Two blonde toddlers and a brunette finally look up at me, all of them wearing clear blue eyes. They don't seem frightened of that big stranger walking up to them. The youngests, obviously twins have wild blonde curls dancing in the wind, the eldest has her long brown hair tied up in a ponytail.

"Hi gals! My name's Hugh."

I don't know why my real name came up first, Alabama custom I guess...
I crouch down to keep talking to the kids, previously busy to climbing their doll's hair  and feeding them.

"Mind if I join you?"

Three sets of blue eyes keep studying me, before one of the blonde twin hands me out her doll.
I chuckle and start fiddle with the toy.

"Thank you darlin'"

Before I speak again, she runs in the yard, just few feet away, then comes back to me, putting a handful of daisies under my nose. She stays silent but her big blue eyes speak for her.

I put the doll on my lap and hold the small bouquet, a little puzzled. Feeling stupid, I just offer the cutie pie my best smile.

"She likes when we braid daisies for her doll. But it always ends up in her hair. Or her sister's." The eldest chick explains.
My puzzlement only grows, I haven't figured out other people than me do that with daisies on the regular.

"OK, I'm a champ in braiding daisies. I used to do that for my mom when I was young."

I sit down on the ground and cross my legs, my hands start working on the flowers. The little blonde girl quietly crouch down before me, studying each of my moves.