The Free Spirit

The Songwriter, 1966 (Part Two)

"And her eyes can light the skies..."

On the first of April, the boys released another great album called In Our Image of which I had a hand in. I wrote the song 'June Is As Cold As December' for them under the name 'C. Everly' and Don pushed to have it recorded and put on the album. They did it in a very beautiful early psychedelic sound and made my silly little song sound like a hymn. "I bet it'll be the most liked song on the album, baby," Don told me as we listened to the final cut of the album.

"Ta, don't make me laugh," I told him. "It isn't a single so most people probably won't even listen to it."

"I'll listen to it, and I'll love listenin' to it knowin' you gave us a beautiful song," Don told me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and kissing my cheek. "We'll be married nine years this year..."

"I wish I remembered the exact day I told you I loved you for the first time. I know it was sometime in early October, between the first and the tenth, but that's it. That day was an absolute joy for us both. It was the day I told myself, 'I want to be happy with this man and I'm going to tell him how much I love him'. You did beat me to the punch by forcing it out of me, though." Don chuckled and hugged me tightly.

"I knew I loved ya pretty quick... Once I got to know the woman I accidentally married and got a taste of her personality, I fell in love with ya so damn hard..."

"Was that when you got the rings?" He nodded.

"I didn't walk by no jewellery store, see somethin' and think, 'Oh, she might like this'. I went in there with the intention of gettin' you a weddin' band. That was a couple of weeks before I gave it to ya, actually. It took longer than I thought to have it engraved." He was holding my left hand and running a thumb over my wedding band.

"It's engraved?" He nodded again, and I removed the wedding band from my finger and looked inside of it. Engraved in a beautiful script all along the inside were 'I love you — Don, 07/19/1957'. "Don... Oh, Don, it's beautiful... I wish I'd have known sooner." He smiled and took the ring from me to slip back onto my finger and I turned in my seat and crawled onto his lap, hugging him and giving him a passionate kiss.

"I'm sorry it ain't nothin' better. There's only so much ya can fit on a ring," he said, holding me on his lap.

"Don, my love, it's perfect," I told him, kissing him again. "Everything you do to show me your love is perfect."

"I'm glad you're happy, honey," Don said to me with a smile. Fifteen days later came Stacey's sixth birthday and we had another birthday party at our Poplar home, inviting her friends from Poplar Primary. Neither Don nor me could believe our little girl was already six years old. "Six goin' on sixteen," Don had said. "I'll be chasin' away boys before I know it." In early May, Ginger went into labour and I was of course her chosen midwife. I donned my uniform and collected my things from Nonnatus House while everyone stood around watching me.

"This used to be an everyday thing, but now seeing you here is so rare," Trixie said to me somewhat sadly.

"Times have definitely changed quite a bit," I told her. "But no matter what, I will always be a midwife. And I'll always carry the memories of Nonnatus House." I had worked at Nonnatus House at least once a year for the last eleven years, and it was sad to see that I was slowly distancing myself from it. Midwifery had once been my passion, but now, my passion was fighting for the rights of the women I served. I arrived at Ginger and Peter's flat in Piccadilly - why they chose Piccadilly, I'll never know, but they seemed happy there - and delivered a baby boy to Ginger, who was breeched, but otherwise healthy. They called him Wilson Richard Asher, and it was easy to see how loved little Wilson was by both his mother and his father.