a better beginning

Once, I was all but convinced that there would come a morning when I would wake, not in the same bed in which I had gone to sleep the night before, but in my own past.  With a second chance.  I even knew the most likely time and place because so few points in my life hold strong sense memory, one stands out.  It would have been a little too late for changing the person I am at root, but from that morning waking in a strange bed, with brilliant May sunlight on an amber wood floor and the smell of toast and coffee, the sound of women’s voices in the next room, and a television with distressed excitement telling of death I could make a better beginning.

Baby

“Hey. You seen Baby?”
“Whose baby are you looking for, Christmas? My girls are both at home with their mama, and if Shan has gotten around to finishing off her production, nobody has told me about it.”
“Lee, I know you are not stupid. That means you’re just being an ass. I’m looking for that little foreign girl comes in here all the time. You know who I’m talking about. I just can’t get her name. Baby.”
“Bousseh.”
“Bossy. Baby. Whatever. I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“Dammed if I know, Christmas, I haven’t seen her.”