Ha'ven's Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

others know it, she thought
the young woman’s love for life was fascinating to watch.
    “Hi Emma, how are you doing today?” Abby
asked gently as she came over to sit on the floor near the
window.
    The infant she had in her lap immediately
leaned forward and tried to squirm away from her. Emma watched as
he finally succeeded and immediately made a beeline for her. Abby
started to stop him but appeared to decide to let him explore.
Emma’s eyes reluctantly lowered until she was staring into a pair
of very curious golden eyes.
    Gold eyes, Emma thought as she pulled
further away into herself. Aliens, another world. So far from
home. So very far from home, she thought sadly as she closed
her eyes to block out everything.
    *.*.*
    Several months earlier:
    “Momma, I’m going to South America,” Emma
said excitedly as she walked into the cheerfully decorated room
where her mother spent her days. “I’ve been accepted by the
Reaching Kids through Music troupe. All those years of you and
Poppa working with me has paid off.”
    The woman sitting at the window turned and
smiled as Emma entered. She was dressed in the pretty new pastel
dress that Emma had purchased for her the week before. She stood up
and held out her hands to take the flowers Emma was holding.
    “Are those for me?” Alice Watson asked with
a smile. “Thank you so much, dear. Do I know you?”
    Emma sighed as she handed the flowers to her
mother who immediately took them over to the vase on the small side
table and began changing out the wilted ones with the fresh ones.
Today was going to be another heartbreaker. The advanced stage of
Alzheimer’s made her daily visits more and more difficult to deal
with. Her mother very seldom remembered who she was from one minute
to the next, much less one day to the next.
    Her parents had been older when she was
born. Her father had been a singer while her mother had been a
dance instructor who began her career as a ballerina before
becoming a choreographer. Emma’s world had revolved around her
parents as much as theirs had revolved around her.
    They had been her best friends as well as
her mentors. There had always been music and laughter in their
home. She had helped her mother in the dance studio and played the
piano and other instruments while singing along with her father.
Her world had crashed around her when her happy imaginative father
died of a sudden heart attack when she was eighteen. Two years
later, her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The disease
had progressed until Emma was no longer able to take care of her
mother by herself anymore. Fortunately, her parents had been
financially well off and Emma was able to find a private nursing
home specializing in patients like her mom.
    “It’s me, Momma, Emma… your daughter. I’m
going to Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Costa Rica. I’m going to
teach kids how to dance and sing, just like you and Poppa taught
me,” Emma replied picking up her mom’s hairbrush and walking over
to her. She gently led her over to the chair near the window. “I… I
won’t be gone long,” she said as she began brushing her mother’s
long, silver hair. “I haven’t done anything since you came here a
few months ago and I thought it would be good for me to, you know…
get out and maybe see the world a little bit.”
    “That’s nice, dear,” Alice said as she ran
her withered fingers over the petals of a pink rose. “I like pink.
It is my favorite color. What was your name again, dear?”
    Emma bit her lower lip to keep the pain in
her heart at bay. “Emma, Momma,” she replied as she laid the brush
down and divided her mother’s hair into three parts so she could
braid it.
    “That’s a pretty name,” Alice said as she
leaned back in the chair. “I knew a girl named Emma once. She was a
dancer with the Rockettes.”
    Tears burned Emma’s eyes. “I know. You named
me after her,” Emma said quietly. “You said she could dance on a
cloud she was