The Girl in a Pink Dress

The little girl watched her Auntie May comb her long curly black hair out of her face and into a bright pink bow on the top of her head, giving her a bouncing pony tail that swished from side to side. She twirled around in her light pink dress, making it fly around her in a precious circle. The satin pink dress fell to her knees, and a bright white ribbon wrapped around her torso under her chest into a big pristine white bow in the back. The little girl fingered the white lace that ran around the hem of her dress. The colors contrasted so well with her dark brown skin, she was delighted! Why, she thought that it must be the finest dress in all of Harlem. She even supposed that she could be mistaken for a princess. She figured that this special holiday was the best ever because she got to dress up prettier than any other day of the year. As she admired her reflection in the mirror, the curiosity of youth crawled up behind her and took her by surprise, and so she asked, “Auntie May, why do we always dress up on this day and meet everyone at the park for a cookout?”

Old Auntie May stopped what she was doing, a small smile appeared on her lips and her eyes swam with unshed tears as she recollected times from not that long ago. She looked into the sweet little girl’s dark brown eyes and couldn’t help think about another little girl’s dark brown eyes. She sat down, letting her old legs take a rest. She wasn’t as skinny as she used to be. Wrinkles and laugh lines lined her dark face. The little girl wasn’t the only one dressed up today. Auntie May wore a light pink jacket and skirt as well. Underneath she wore a pristine white collared shirt with feminine ruffles. Hidden under her shirt and close to her heart she wore a light pink locket with a picture inside. A picture that was of a very special little girl for whom that holiday was all about. She looked at the little girl in front of her for a minute, and then decided that it was time to tell the story.

“We all dress up today and get together so we can remember a very special little girl. A little girl that looked as pretty in pink as you do,” Auntie May told the wide eyed little girl. Why the little girl couldn’t believe they had a holiday about a girl like her. She realized that the girl must have been pretty special to get a holiday all to herself.

Wanting to know more about the girl and how she got her own day, the little girl in pink asked, “What was her name, Auntie May?” This question made the smile on Auntie May’s face grow brighter. She was more than delighted and more than a little bit sad to tell the story of that other brave and pretty little girl in pink.

“Why, her name was Molly Sanders. Her mother was the only white teacher at the Harlem Elementary School. Her name was Lillian Samuels and she was the prettiest and sweetest thing. She had fair skin and a bright bunch of red hair that fell down her back in smooth curls. She had green eyes and red lips. Those red lips always had a smile on them, because Lilly, that was her nickname, was always in a good mood. Not one thing could keep a smile off her beautiful face for long. All of her students loved her because she made learning fun. You couldn’t not like Miss Lilly. It was just impossible.

“There was one handsome young black man in town that made Miss Lilly smile bigger than normal, and his name was Joshua Sanders. Joshua loved Miss Lilly so. He would bring her flowers and take her out to lunch. He would tell her jokes and stories. In fact, Joshua told the best stories in town at that time. He could find a wild tale to spin for every occasion. Pirates, robbers, ghosts, he told stories about them all. That’s what made him decide to be a writer. In fact, he wrote for the New York Herald, the paper I read every week. You couldn’t help but like Mr. Joshua. Those two became the best of friends, and it wasn’t long until they fell in love. Now, Miss Lilly was quite a woman, so Mr. Joshua wasn’t the only young man looking for her affections.

“One of her other suitors was another handsome young black man named James Jackson. He didn’t have a good family like Mr. Joshua, now. His father was not a nice man, and his mother, the poor thing, was stuck in a cruel job that paid little. He didn’t have much love and support, so he grew up to be tough and he fell in with a group of people that were known to cause trouble. He wasn’t very friendly with most people, but he was with Miss Lilly. Miss Lily took pity on him because he had a hard life. She helped him from time to time because Mr. Jackson had not finished school. So, Miss Lilly went out of her way to teach Mr. Jackson the things he had not learned, hoping that would straighten him out. They kept this secret for a long time, though; that way Mr. Jackson’s friends wouldn’t find out,” Auntie May said as she finished describing Mr. Jackson, but there were a few things she left out so she wouldn’t scare the child. Mr. Jackson’s father wasn’t just mean, he was cruel. It was said that he would beat his kids and wife. He was often in and out of jail for various small crimes, as well. Mr. Jackson’s mother was a stripper, forced into that life from desperation. She would have been a good mother, but the crimes done against her and her exhaustion from work kept her from being emotionally able to get close to her kids. Thus, Mr. Jackson got little to nothing of love from both parents.

Now, the little girl in the pink dress was a very inquisitive young thing, and she caught the difference in the ways Auntie May talked about Mr. Joshua and Mr. Jackson. When she spoke of Mr. Joshua there was a delighted sound in her voice, like it was the best thing in the world to remember such a remarkable young man. When she spoke of Mr. Jackson, a darkness loomed in her tone and in her eyes. “Auntie May, how come you call Mr. Joshua by his first name and Mr. Jackson by his last name?” the little girl questioned.

“Because Mr. Joshua was a wonderful young man and I loved him dearly, but Mr. Jackson was a very bad man that does not deserve any kindness or sympathy from anybody,” she replied. This shocked the child, for she had learned to always feel for those around her. Auntie May normally loved everybody in a strict sort of way. She had never heard her speak so harshly and hatefully towards anybody before.

“Anyway, back to the story. Miss Lily loved Mr. Joshua very much, and it wasn’t long before they decided to get married. Since Miss Lily was such an unusual girl, she decided to have an unusual wedding dress. Her favorite color in the whole wide world was pink. She had pink towels, pink plates, pink clothes, you name it. So, she decided to have a pink wedding dress.” The little girl grabbed her pink dress and twirled around once again with an excited giggle. The thought of a pink wedding dress was crazy and wonderful to her. She immediately decided to get married in a pink dress of her own. “And let me tell you, that light pink wedding dress was something. Her red hair done up like a queen and that pink dress flowing behind her, why she looked like a goddess. I have never seen anybody else be as pretty as she was on her wedding day. Oh, and when Mr. Joshua saw her, well it was like he was witnessing an angel coming down from the heavens. It was the happiest I had ever seen him at the time. Oh, and of course he was looking fine too, in his black tuxedo. All the other women were so jealous of Miss Lily marrying such a dashing man. It was truly a match made in heaven. Not to mention the wedding was a blast and the cake was delicious,” Auntie May confessed to the little girl causing her to grin and picture the biggest pink wedding cake ever.

“I did not think that there would be a happier day in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Sanders, but there was. That was the day their beautiful baby girl Molly was born. What an unusual little thing she was. She was the tiniest thing you ever did see. She was smaller than you when you were born. Also, when she came out, we couldn’t figure out if she was a bleached black or a tanned white. She was smack dab in-between her two parents. She even had a small mess of red curls on her head from her mama, and big brown eyes from her daddy. Oh, and when she came out did she ever cry as loud as possible. I didn’t think they would ever get that child to hush, but they finally found a trick that did. To put her to sleep, all Mrs. Lily had to do was sing “Silent Night” to her, and she was out cold. They named the little girl Molly after Mr. Joshua’s grandmother.

“In these happy times nobody suspected a cloud of darkness to come down over that family, but it did. Now, you remember Mr. Jackson?” she asked the little girl, and she nodded with eager eyes. “Well, none of us knew it, but he had been in love with Mrs. Lilly, and when she got married he was heart broken. Without Mrs. Lilly’s care he went down an even darker path. He got into more trouble and became more and more dangerous. He became the leader of a little group of terrible men. Nobody suspected a thing. Nobody could even prove he had done anything the day they buried Mrs. Lilly and Mr. Joshua,” A tear slid down from her eyes. The little girl gasped in fright at the thought of what became of Mr. and Mrs. Sanders, but if she had known the real truth she would have screamed. If she had known that James Jackson had snuck in one night and killed Joshua, then raped and killed Lilly she would have cried for hours. Their deaths were a horrific tragedy that no human soul should have to endure.

Auntie May did all she could to hold back the flow of tears as she remembered that sad day when the Sanders were found dead. “I loved them so much. I was so close to Mrs. Lilly and Mr. Joshua. I loved them like they were my own babies. They were such good people with good hearts. They didn’t deserve what happened to them,” She took a minute of silence to calm herself before she could continue. There was no need to upset or frighten the little girl.

“Did Mr. Jackson go to jail for hurting those people?” the little girl asked in a hushed voice. Anyone could see she was a little shaken from the realization that someone could do something so horrific. She was so young it was rare that she was ever told such things.

“No baby. Nobody could prove he did it, but I knew. I could see it in his eyes at the funeral,” she explained while taking a deep breath, trying her best to chase away the pain that tightened her chest.

“What about Molly? Did Mr. Jackson hurt her?” the little girl asked, hope lighting up her eyes. After all, Molly was supposed to be the hero, so she couldn’t die. That just wouldn’t be right.

“No. Thankfully, I had been babysitting Little Miss Molly that night. Her parents were so tired that they had needed some alone time. So, I took Molly out for a walk in her stroller. She was as cute as a button, giggling all the way. I am so glad I took Molly out or she might have been hurt too.

“Poor little Miss Molly was made an orphan before she was even one year old. She never got to know her mother or father. Since all of her grandparents had passed on, there was no one to take care of her. So, I stepped up and adopted little Miss Molly. My last baby had just gone off to college, so I was all alone, but little Miss Molly changed that. My, my, that little girl was a mess of trouble. When she was still a baby she was always getting into stuff. One time I found her painting her face with grape jelly. Another time I found her trying to brush a random dog's teeth because she thought his breath smelled funny. Oh, and she was the most beautiful baby. She was almost as pretty as you with her unusual skin and bright red curls. Everybody used to stop and stare at her when we went out, and she would just grin at them and laugh.

When she got older I found out she had inherited her parent’s habits. She loved pink. Everything she owned and wore had to have at least a stitch of pink; otherwise she would refuse to go near it. Every day she would put on a bright pink hat, shoe, sock, shirt, skirt, or dress, and every day, by the end of the day, her pink clothes would be covered in food, dirt, and who knows what else. She loved getting messy and playing outside. She didn’t like playing with the other girls, because they were much too tame for her. So she would go out and wrestle with the little boys in the neighborhood. She got her crazy love of pink from her mother of course, but she wouldn’t just get herself into mischief by getting her clothes dirty and roughhousing with the boys, though. She got into trouble just by opening up her mouth. You see, she had gotten her father’s gift for telling stories. Not too long after she could talk she started twisting wild tales about everything. Most people could never tell if she was telling them the truth or some made up fantasy. Luckily, I had the wonderful gift of telling whether she was lying or not. So, after a while, for she was hard headed, she learned that she couldn’t lie to me without my hand smacking her bottom. When I did smack her bottom for lying, her face would get almost as pink as her dress.

“As she grew up she got more beautiful and smarter with every passing day. She made straight A’s in school, she tricked almost all the boys and girls into getting what she wanted, so the boys were all in love with her and the girls were all jealous of her, and that was just the way she liked it. It seemed that she could weasel her way out of every situation with any story or idea that popped in her head. Boy did that child keep me up at night. One time she tricked all the boys into giving her their prized baseball cards by competing with them in a race. She let those boys run as fast and far as they could while she walked through a short cut and beat them there. When they accused her of cheating, she walked the path the boys had just run and showed them her pink hat that she dropped. She had been wearing that hat at the beginning of the race, so they had to believe her. The place where they found that hat was nowhere near her little short cut, and I could never figure out how she got it there. Another time, she told all the boys and girls in her class about a monster that lived in the old downtown junkyard. When the kids went to prove her wrong they ran home screaming and crying, saying they had seen the beast and that Molly had saved them. When their parents went there, there was nothing. All of the kids called her a hero for a month.

“What happened to Mr. Jackson?” the little girl asked suddenly. It was a reasonable question. In all of this mischievous delight of Molly’s youth, where was the horrible man that made her an orphan?

“I’m glad you asked. Young girls started disappearing in the neighborhood, and then they were found dead. The problem became so bad that everyone locked themselves up in their homes the minute that it became dark outside. Sometimes that helped, and sometimes it didn’t. Nobody could prove that it was Mr. Jackson and his gang, but we all knew. You would rarely see him during the day, but if you did you would run and hide. He mostly came out at night to hunt his prey. He was a ruthless, horrible man. He hurt the innocent and terrorized the neighborhood. More cops came to patrol but they never caught him. Robbery and break-ins also became a common thing because of Mr. Jackson and his friends. It was always young pretty girls that would disappear and be found dead. So, the entire neighborhood did what they could to protect their girls. They made them as ugly as possible. All the girls’ heads were shaved. Their clothes were plain and unflattering. Jewelry was forbidden for girls to wear. Everyone feared that their daughters would be taken away by Mr. Jackson. The people’s plan helped, but it did not stop the disappearances.

“I was especially afraid for my beautiful young Molly. I took extra care to make sure her beautiful red hair was shaved off and her clothes had no color. I even washed her less. It hurt her that she was not able to wear pink, but it was too dangerous. I did let her wear pink socks and underwear to calm her down, though. I also had to start keeping her in the house more and watching her when she was out. She wasn’t able to see the other children much. She had to go to school and then come straight home. I did not want Mr. Jackson finding out about her. I made sure that no one called her by her father’s last name but by my last name, Adams.

“To make up for her lost freedom she began telling more and more stories. Her stories were so good that after some time a few of the children and parents from the neighborhood would come around once a week to listen to her. I must say her stories were even better than her father’s. She told stories of secret fairy realms, pirates raiding ships, gods and goddesses visiting the earth. More and more people came to listen to her whenever they good, and soon it became a weekly event. It helped to keep her and everyone else from being lonely. Her stories seemed to let people escape into a different and beautiful world.

“When she wasn’t telling stories she was reading. She would read everything from science books to kids’ storybooks. One time I even found her reading a newspaper and math book at the same time. She would read anything she could. Because of that, she became quite intelligent. I feared that our little town would not be able to satisfy her need to read and learn for much longer,” she sighed, remembering the millions of topics that Molly would discuss.

“Did she get her own day because she told such great stories?” the little girl in the pink dress asked, her attention starting to wonder. She liked the story about a little girl in pink getting into trouble, but an ugly little girl reading was beginning to bore her.

“Oh no, what Miss Molly did was much bigger. By the time she was twelve, Molly had skipped two grades. She was already in eighth grade. During that time a little girl from right next door, named Samantha, disappeared and was found to have died months later. Molly listened to the news and the gossip of the girl’s death. She had known Samantha very well. They had been good friends, and Samantha had always liked Molly’s stories. Molly cried at night for Samantha for a long time. She had known of the other deaths, but she hadn’t known those girls very well. Molly stopped telling stories for months and became very quiet. I was so worried about her, because she didn’t act like herself. I even called the doctor one day to check on her, but he said she was fine. She wouldn’t talk to me or anybody else until one evening.

“I remember her exact words, ‘Did the people who killed Samantha kill my parents, too?’ I had never told her of her parents’ deaths. She shouldn’t have known that her parents had been killed or that the three deaths were related, but she did. The only word I could say was ‘yes’. I was about to tell her more, but she held up her hand to stop me, and she then asked me, ‘If I tricked Jacob out of five dollars would you spank me?’ All of a sudden, her usual playful self was back.

“It was like nothing had changed. She went on to tell more stories, and trick more young boys. I was wrong, though. She was not the same old Molly. She became more watchful and more serious. When she became a teenager she was very popular in school because of her wit and charm. Sadly, I had to watch her even more closely in fear of her getting hurt. She never complained, though. In fact, she didn’t even seem to mind coming home early or not being able to be with her friends. She was still very bright. In every conversation she was one step ahead of the other person. Her grades were still good. She still cracked the best jokes, and her stories were better. There was just something, though, something I couldn’t exactly put my finger on, that was different about her.

“It was during this time that she started wearing hats. Every single day she wore a hat. She told me that she didn’t like seeing her shaved head, so she covered it up. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but I should have known better. It was all part of her plan,” Auntie May explained to the little girl. Auntie May didn’t know everything, though. That wasn’t the only thing Molly did to prepare herself. She began keeping clippings of newspapers about the killings in town, she read books about criminal minds, she practiced picking locks, and she made friends in low places. When Auntie May thought she was at school or studying she would actually be talking with the people at local bars and clubs, so she could make friends and gain information. She made friends with victims’ families, with people at the hospital and bank, cops and restaurant owners. She made friends with half of the town. Everyone she talked to thought of her just as a silly young girl with a lot of sweet talk. She talked her way into everyone’s favor, changing her opinions and moods according to the person she talked to. She was harmless and charming, or so it seemed.

When she wasn’t doing any of that, she was at home looking over her mother and father’s things that Auntie May didn’t know she had. She had found them hidden in the attic one day, and she had kept carful track of them ever since. She had even visited her parents’ house and graves. She had learned everything she could about the family she never knew.

The one other thing she was doing that was a secret, was she was making herself beautiful again. Beneath her hat, her hair grew. Bright red curls fell over her eyes when she took her hat off. She washed her face and hair whenever she could. She even exercised to make sure that beneath all of her clothes her figure became that of a lovely young woman’s. She even had managed to get one of the women at the club to give her a thing of lipstick and mascara. Another time she managed to get eyeliner from a lady who owned a restaurant. She told the people that gave her these things many tall tales about her being in a play or taking a school picture. She even found her mother’s favorite pink hair brush. She made sure to keep the makeup and brush hidden beneath her bed in the frame whenever she was not looking at them or practicing using them.

Molly smiled and laughed, joked and teased, she cared for and was cared for by many people, but she wasn’t happy. She could not be happy being afraid. The person that ruined her parents’ lives was out there. The person responsible for so many terrible deaths and violations was out there, and she couldn’t handle living while knowing that monster was off scotch free.

“One evening, when she was sixteen, she asked the question that I had been waiting for so many years for her to ask. She said, ‘Did my parents love me?’ Oh, did they ever. I told her about how her mother would barely put her down for a second, and how her father would do just about any face or pose to get her to laugh. She was the light of their life; just like you are the center of your mother and father’s world. Well, that seemed to put a smile on her pretty face. I had done all I could to keep her from being beautiful, but she still managed to be as lovely as a butterfly.

“Now, I can see that you are getting bored, so I will tell you how she saved the day. Would you like that?” she asked the little girl, who was by then playing with her dress and barely listening. When Auntie May said that, though, she perked up with wide eyes and readily awaited the grand event that Molly did to get her own day. She even wondered if she could do the same thing so she could get her own holiday. “One evening she crept out of the house in her mother’s favorite bright pink dress. That dress was almost as gorgeous as yours. It had short pink lace sleeves and it wrapped around her waist with a pink bow on the side. It flared out at her knees and showed layers of pink ruffles underneath. Underneath the dress the lighter pink ruffles danced around, and a soft lovely light pink fabric came down behind the v-neck to give it a younger and more lady-like look. Mrs. Lilly always looked prettiest in that dress, but Molly looked even more gorgeous than her mother in it. Not only was she wearing that beautiful dress, but she took off her hat to expose long soft red curls that fell down her back. She had even put makeup on her face to make her look extra lovely. The night that she crept out she disappeared, and Mr. Jackson, the man that committed so many crimes, was found dead. She was just a little girl, and she supposedly stopped Mr. Jackson from ever hurting anyone again. She saved the neighborhood,” Auntie May finally declared.

“Mr. Jackson was a big scary man! How did she do that? What happened to her?” the girl pondered aloud. She couldn’t comprehend how a little girl could stop such a man. She wanted to know if the little girl was alright.

“I don’t know how she stopped him, but I’m afraid that on the night he died, Molly did too. She joined her parents back up in heaven,” Auntie May finally concluded her story, but it wasn’t the whole story. Auntie May had learned all of the details but she didn’t want to frighten the little girl.

In truth, Molly did look very beautiful that night, and she looked very much like her mother. She pulled the incredible pink dress over her small lovely figure, twirling in her mirror just like the little girl. Then she had brushed her bright hair and used the lipstick to make her lips pinker and the mascara and liner to make her eyes brighter and more mature. After that, she slipped on her mother’s bright pink flats that matched the dress. The shoes were a little big but she didn’t mind. She once again went through her parents’ things, and this time discovered a beautiful pair of pink pearl earrings that were her mother’s. She pierced her ears without making a sound, and then she looked at herself in the mirror. Her dark, yet light, skin made her round sweet face even more elegant, and her big brown eyes gave her a look of innocent beauty. She almost wept as she realized how much she looked like her mother from her photographs, and she was happy about it. With a big breath she grabbed a pink shawl that was also her mother’s and went downstairs, avoiding the creaking floorboards, and she unlocked the door. Then, she slipped out into the dangerous night looking like a dream.

She walked down the streets slowly, remembering all the happy days of her childhood and even the bad days. She laughed and cried, wiping away the smudged makeup in her eyes. She even sang “Silent Night” out into the dark treacherous night, her crystal voice was heartbreaking. She walked and walked until she found herself at the end of a deserted alley on the east side of town. Her singing died down and then stopped as she stood still facing the wall. She hadn’t seen or heard anything before, but she knew that he was there. Now was the first time she heard his footsteps as he got closer to her than ever before. There was only one pair of footsteps, and Molly was relieved to know that the information she had come by was correct. His gang was off robbing a bank in another town.

A small smile played on her lips as she waited until he stopped about ten feet from where she was standing. She was afraid, and yet she still held her head high, knowing that soon she wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. She quietly reached into the shawl wrapped up in a bundle in her hands, and she wrapped her fingers around the cold hard black handle of a gun she had stolen from a bouncer at the local club. That’s when the silence was broken by a smooth deep voice, “Why is a beautiful young thing like yourself out at night all alone?” he asked in what he believed to be a seductive voice, but all it did to Molly was send shivers down her spine and make her want to vomit.

There were so many things Molly could have said then. She could have told him her name and screamed at him for what he did to her parents. She could have called him every name in the book. She could have pleaded for mercy and for her life, but she did none of those things. Instead she raised her head and squared her shoulders as she stared at the wall in front of her, and in a clear, calm sweet voice she said, “I’m not your average beautiful young lady, and I have always longed to look you in the eye and watch,” she snapped around in a split second with the gun raised, and while she stared Mr. Jackson right in his cold murderous brown eyes and fired, two gunshots rang out in the night almost simultaneously. “You die,” she finished in a pained whisper as he died wide eyed, and staring at her with her mother’s name half whispered through his lips, and she fell to the ground in pain.

“That is a terrible story, Auntie May! Molly shouldn’t have died!” Droplets of water began to flow down her dark cheeks, and her lip began to quiver. So, Auntie May picked the little girl up and pulled her into her lap to smother her with hugs and kisses. She cooed to her not to cry, and she was able to get the girl to stop crying by singing her favorite song. “That’s the same song that Molly’s mama sang to her, isn’t it?” the little girl said, while wiping her nose with her pretty pink dress.

“It is. Now, just because Molly died, it doesn’t make it a bad story. She made the neighborhood safe for all the little girls to wear bright colors and pretty dresses and to grow their hair as long as they want. Why, you wouldn’t be able to dress up today if it wasn’t for her. We dress up and have a big picnic to remember what Molly did for all of us. We do all of this to remember little brave pink loving Molly,” she explained to the little girl, and she knew that the little girl understood by the accepting look in her eyes. Sometimes, children understood better and were wiser than adults.

All of a sudden the doorbell rang, and a young black woman dressed in a black pantsuit with a pink camie underneath walked in. Her hair was pulled back with a pink headband and it curled just like her daughter’s hair, and from her ears pink pearls dangled. Her big brown eyes met her daughter’s big brown eyes, and motherly concern began to swell inside of her at the sight of the red in the little girl’s eyes. She rushed over and covered the little girl’s round face that was so much like her own, with kisses. “What happened, baby? Are you okay?” She asked, as she wrapped her arms around her precious daughter.

“Auntie May told me about Molly, and I didn’t want her to die,” the little girl sniffled, but she had no more tears to shed. With her mother holding her close the last bit of the frown on her face disappeared into a contented loving smile. She was silently thanking Molly for making the neighborhood safe so she could always have her mama by her side and look pretty for her mama.

“Auntie May, she is only nine years old. Don’t you think she is a little young for the Molly story?” she questioned and chided at the same time. She didn’t want her daughter to be afraid, but at the same time she did want her little girl to be wary of the bad people in the world, and that story would definitely have helped with that.

“She asked what today was all about, and I answered. I figured she was ready. She is as smart and brave as Molly, after all. Now she can be even more thankful for what she has,” Auntie May explained to her grandniece in a commanding and knowing tone. She had known the child was ready to know even if she was young. She believed that every girl and boy should know about her brave and amazing Molly.

With a sigh, the mother asked her daughter if she was ready to go and eat all of the good food her tummy could handle. “And after you eat your dinner you can have all the cupcakes and ice cream you want, okay?” she asked with a smile. The little girl gleefully giggled and agreed. Then, she raced to the door, ready to make her way towards the feast and festivities. “You coming Auntie May?” the mother inquired to the tired old black woman in the chair.

“You go on ahead, and I will join you soon. I have one last thing that I need to take care of,” she told her, settling herself back into her chair to show that she wasn’t moving anytime soon. So, the mother and little girl in pink left her be, to go and join the rest of their family for a day of celebration.

When the front door shut, a smirk appeared on Auntie May’s lips and she said, “How long am I going to have keep telling people you’re dead?” she asked Molly who snuck out from her hiding place behind the kitchen wall. She had grown up to be a beautiful woman. She was taller and curvier, her long red hair was longer, her face less childish and more like an adult, and she wore dark washed jeans with a light and dark pink stripped blazer. Yet, even though she was all grown up, the impish smile that she showed to her adopted mother was just the same.

“Until the rest of Jackson’s goons are either dead or in jail, and when the cops stop looking for the person who killed him,” she gave her a tart reply with hand on her hip and a look of, “This is not to be discussed,” She walked over to sit on the sofa next to Auntie May’s chair. As she passed the mirror she took a minute to adjust her blazer and her hair and admire herself. After, she was satisfied with her appearance, she plopped herself down and kicked her feet up on the table. She knew very well her Auntie’s rule of feet on the table, but she couldn’t help but want to get Auntie May up and going about something. Just to make sure that she could get Auntie’s blood boiling, she said, “Really Auntie May, you need more mirrors in this house so you and I can see my gorgeous self everywhere!”

“Get your feet off my table right now, and you stop being so vain. You don’t need to look at yourself every minute of the day! And stop trying to get a rise out of me!” Auntie May snapped at her and tapped her foot. Molly snickered and pulled her feet off the table, happy to be treated like a child again.

“Well, if you want to calm down and stop hollering at me for a moment, I came to give you some good news. My publisher loved the book, and it will be out by this time next year,” she told her with a large proud grin and expecting eyes. Even at her age, she still liked to be praised as much as possible. She wanted her Auntie to be proud of her, and she wanted to make sure that she knew she could afford to give them both a better life.

“What are you doing all the way over there? Come over here and give me a hug, you wonderfully talented child!” she responded, giving her baby girl just the reaction she had been hoping for. Molly hopped up and fell down onto her big old Auntie’s lap with a joyous laugh. She wrapped her arms around her adoptive mother, and stayed curled up against her as she told her all of the details of her stories’ publication.

“You are finally going to be a writer like you always wanted! I just wish you could use your own name,” Auntie May sighed as she stroked her Molly’s hair, which she loved so much. She was so happy to have her sweet girl back, even if it was just for a little while.

“You know very well that I can’t use my real name because I’m supposed to be six feet under. Besides, I like the name Jillian Adamson. It’s a pretty and professional name!” Molly said. They both knew that the real reason she liked it was because it was only one letter away from her mother’s name.

When Molly spoke about her name she had thrown her hands in the air to show her Auntie just how exasperated she was at having to defend her name, and when she had done so she had winced. This reminded Auntie May to ask the same question she always asked upon seeing Molly. “How is your shoulder, baby?”

“Nobody’s shot at it again, and it’s well enough for me to pop a guy in the jaw that was getting a little too friendly. Is that good enough?” Molly raised her eyebrows up and then brought them back down several times in a suggestive manner. Then, she puffed out her chest and raised her arms to flex the small muscles there, like she was the hulk getting ready for a caged smack down. She was such a proud and tough little thing.

Just then, the clock struck four o’clock in the afternoon. Molly hopped off her Auntie’s lap and helped to pull her big frame out of the chair. They both walked to the door in silence. When they got to the door, Auntie May looked down at her small, sweet, tricky little Molly and asked, “Will you be here when I get back?”

Molly smiled and nodded, “I feel like spending the night. I’ve eaten everything at home so could you bring me some leftovers from the picnic? Plus, I need to tell you all about my new book,” she told her with a sly devilish grin that made Auntie May certain she was up to something.

“What is your book about, Molly?” Auntie May asked in a wary tone, worried that Molly was fixing to get herself into some more trouble.

As Molly walked down the hall to the living room to entertain herself until her Aunt returned she stopped and turned her head to the side slightly, so her Auntie could see her silhouette, and she said, “Why, it is about a girl in a pink dress.” With that, she disappeared around the corner, to leave her Auntie in suspense, wondering about what things she put into her book.