EMILY JANE AND I IN THE LAND OF LIGHT The Bright Light shined. It cascaded over us, through us. Em rested in my arms. She opened her golden eyes and smiled at me.
“I love thee, my Chatsworth.” My middle name. It reminds her of her original home.
“I love you, Em.” I don’t know how I could have loved her more.
Her right brow arched. “The Little One, he awaketh soon.”
I pushed my mouth to hers and she grasped me. I did to her the things that she loves me to do. She pulled me to herself and we melded, I melted inside of her. She kissed me ferociously. She made me moan. She cried out loud as the life that coursed through my frame was put into her. She sank her fangs into my shoulder as her body pulsated, as all that is good in us merged inside of her, as we were together. I kissed her smooth neck and smelled her delicious hair.
She was concerned about The Little One, I was exhausted. We tried to disentangle ourselves. She pulled me to herself and kissed me again.
I stared at the heavy oak beams that Vale and I had created to create this home. Emily Jane and I tried to breathe. I thought of pancakes and syrup and bacon and butter and eggs and milk as Em began to doze.
The Little One, her beautiful gift to me, my beautiful gift to her, laboriously pushed open the heavy oak doors with his little strength. He then went about amusing himself by walking up the wall and crawling across the ceiling-despite his mother’s known feelings on the subject.
I motioned to him, for him to come down before his mother saw him and took an attitude, but this was all to no avail. Em crossed her arms across her ample bosom as he dropped down to us and kissed her. He rubbed his tiny fangs against his mother’s heavy fangs. Their eyes glowed yellow. He then turned towards me and tried to wrap his little brown arms around my broad brown chest.
She coolly regarded him. “Get thee gone, Child, before I take a switch to thee. Fetch me milk that I may churn it, or willst thou have no butter for pancakes and syrup?” He almost evaporated with the speed with which he left us.
She draped herself over me. “He needeth a companion.” She disencumbered her lovely eyes of the long brown hair with a flick of her delicate fingers and thanked me. She smiled and kissed me. “Always have I wanted a daughter.”
The tiny bonnets, the tiny white bonnets and the little golden dresses that she and Priscilla had been knitting. She had been planning and plotting.
“Willst thou love me when my belly is round and full?”
I laughed and held her.
She stood and I found her beautiful.
“Nay,” she smiled sweetly, “I know thy mind.” She artfully pulled away. “The Little One must eat.”
Thus vanquished, I pulled on my trousers as she arranged herself.
We left the room, our hands intertwined.
West wanted to help his mother, to be with her. I stepped out onto the field before our home. In The Shining Light I regarded that which we had created. Vale, my brother-in-law and I would have to soon add another room for the little girl whom I knew Em was wanting to name Sarah Jane.
I laid myself down in the fragrant green grass and contemplated. I considered time and space and dimensions.
West ran out and hopped up and down upon me. ”Daddy! Daddy! Mommy hath prepared the breakfast!” I clutched him to me to make sure that he didn’t spiral away to God knows where.
I carried him in. The table was set. We put our hands together and thanked Him for the bounty before us on the table. As befits a little boy, our son ate voraciously; Emily Jane ate daintily; and I ate thoughtfully.
“Was it good, West?” I asked him.
He wiped his little mouth and grinned happily.
“Yes!”
“Maybe you might thank Mommy.”
“Thank you, Mommy!”
Em beamed.
We helped her clear the table.
I walked to the shed to fetch buckets for the fish. My little shadow exclaimed ”The river! We go to the river!” Em was in the garden that she had made, collecting corn, greens, peas, beans and squash.
I kissed her goodbye. I strode towards the river, The Little One skipping and laughing behind me.
“What!? There is no kiss for thy mother?”
West ran towards her and embraced her. He then turned and rushed back to me. Emily Jane watched us, smiled, and then continued her work in her garden.
The Little One and I walked down the gentle green slope, our feet bare in the fragrant green grass. Every blade shined, every blade had a song to sing. I lifted him to my shoulders as we approached the silver and golden forest in which there are no shadows.
I stepped into the topal, placid river, one bucket in hand, The Little One on my shoulders.
“May I, Daddy? May I?”
I kissed my little man. His mother knew everything anyway.
“Just don’t go out of my sight.”
He spiraled down the river. He let his tiny feet barely touch the water. He flew straight into the air. He descended to me and rested upon a bed of molecules and waves of light that I do not see. He smiled at me. He was earnest in his question as he floated next to me: “Daddy, are we getting lots of fish?”
We. “Yes.” I smiled. West soared away, and I gathered fish.

We returned home. There were kettles and pots near and on the well-tended hearth. Emily Jane clapped her hands and smiled, “Oh, such lovely fish!”
I put the buckets on the board. She winked at me and asked The Little One if he was going to accompany me to his Aunt Priscilla’s and Uncle Vale’s, or stay with her.

My little shadow and I walked along the beautiful, broad green ridge. He saw flowers that he found especially wonderful. He rushed ahead of me to gather some of them. I told him to take his time. He gathered wondrous blue and yellow and white and purple and orange and red flowers.
“For Pris, Daddy.”
I showed him how to tie them.
“This, my little charmer, is called a bouquet.” This made me consider. I asked him if he might help me gather more. West joyfully aided me in my inspired enterprise.
We approached them. Priscilla’s arms were outstretched, her face adorned with a blinding smile as The Little One raced towards her so swiftly that his little feet finally left the ground. She grasped him and they spun as she peppered him with kisses, as he peppered her lovely, freckled, button-nosed face with kisses.
“For me?” She laughed and they spun.
“I have a gift for thee as well, my little angel.”
His eyes widened. She took his hand and they left for the side of the house.
“I trust, my good sir, that those flowers are not meant to win my affections.” Vale said. He always makes me laugh. I sat down in the rocking chair next to his. He handed me a tankard of ale. My friend had made it ready for me, putting it out on the bright yellow porch that he and I had constructed some time ago.
“Yes, and no,” I laughed.
“Of course, of course.”
I laid down the flowers next to my chair. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tobacco, would you, Vale?”
“My friend, it just so happens that you are in the right place at the right time.” He proceeded to roll a smoke for me, and then one for himself.
We enjoyed our smoke and drank our ale. He was glad to see me: he had been cross-referencing his Locke and Voltaire with the W.E.B. Du Bois that I had given to him such that we might have a thoughtful conversation.
Deep in a most productive discourse, we were interrupted by a squeal of delight from small lungs. The Little One had received his gift. Our discussion was further interrupted when The Little One came around to us, cradling the puppy, the little black Labrador in his arms.
I was touched, proud of the reverence for the little life in his arms that my little man evinced.
West gently laid him down upon the grass, and then knelt and considered him.
Priscilla knelt beside him and gently stroked the errant locks from her nephew’s eyes.
She could no longer contain herself: “What willst thou his name?”
West continued to carefully gaze into the large brown eyes of his new friend, and then, he decided.
The young Name-Giver, through me, through my father, and through his, and his, and his, unto Adam, naturally took very seriously this honor bestowed upon him, this honor granted by The Perfect One.
“Buttons. I shall name thee Buttons.”
Priscilla glowed and clapped her hands. ”How clever thou art, my little angel, my little man!!”
“Daddy, I have named him. He is Buttons.”
West smiled as he kissed the tiny forehead of Buttons.
Priscilla, West, and Buttons left me and Vale to our conversation so they could engage in the far more important of gamboling and cavorting over and through the fields before us.
The ale was good, as was the tobacco. My friend and I took in The Brilliance. Vale had something to say, but he hadn’t said it. I knew that my friend would tell me in his own good time.

Vale had helped annex a great deal of Mexico to the United States some one hundred and twenty odd years before I was born. The Mexican-American War. He had been a captain at first, and then, rapidly, a colonel. He was a gifted man of strategy.
He never forgot the stench and the screams and the horrors and the pain and the blood and the death for victory that his brilliance had made possible near that grand, huge river.
That which he had made possible never left Vale for the many mortal years allotted to him.
Vale did ask for forgiveness, for mercy.

I handed Vale a bunch of flowers. I went about taking mine and creating a coronet.
“Good thinking, my good sir, very good indeed. Vale put down his smoke.
We watched Life become almost incomprehensibly beautiful as we created with our hands crowns of forever, flowers and love for our darling ones.
Vale, the former cavalryman, fetched horses and began to hitch them to his fine wagon. Before I could ask him if all of this was necessary, he pointed to the sleeping West, the sleeping Buttons, and his Priscilla, adoring them, goldening them with her shining eyes. She would not suffer this rest to be broken.
“Bye the bye, from where did this splendid idea of coronets come?” Vale asked me as he finished the harnessing.
“West made me think of it.” I watched as his mother’s sister gathered him and his new friend to her bosom and cradled them.
“You know, of course, my friend, that that little man of yours has been putting all kinds of thoughts into the minds of all kinds of folk ‘round here.
I was puzzled, but he didn’t make me wait.
“All those frilly bonnets and little yellow dresses, for one little girl?” Vale looked at his home, then me, then smiled. “My erudite friend, I do believe that those ladies have cut out some work for us.”
I laughed again.
We helped Priscilla into the wagon. She was very careful not to disturb the little ones in her arms.
We rode along the rich green ridge leisurely, accepting the pleasure of the pleasure of the fragrances surrounding us, The Light, the vision that was afforded to us. As we came nearer and nearer to his mother, The Little One stirred, he opened his eyes.
He gingerly removed himself from his aunt’s arms. He gingerly removed Buttons and gingerly held him and sweetly presented him to Emily Jane.
She regarded her son with joy and pride.
“Mommy, this is Buttons.” he said solemnly.
“Thou hast named him? Thou hast given him a name?” She gently kissed the face of her child.

Emily Jane put out a saucer of milk for Buttons. She and Priscilla embraced and laughed and began discussing babies as they walked hand in hand towards the hearth. West and Buttons ranged over the field before us and enjoyed The Light. Vale and I unhitched the horses. They roamed and grazed. Vale and I partook of our ale and our tobacco. We considered and designed the changes necessary to accommodate our new arrivals.
We were called to the table.
I placed the crown of flowers that I had made upon the brow of Emily Jane. Vale placed the crown that he had made upon the brow of his Priscilla. The women glowed.
We put our hands together and gave thanks to Him for the bounty before us, around us, for each other.
We gave thanks to Him for giving us Love that we could share with each other.
We laughed and ate and drank and lived together. We loved together. We basked in The Light that casts no shadows.

He had redeemed us, His children. He was kind to us. He loved us.

He had restored our souls, and we would be glad, forever