My Melanin Shop is Set Up

Always a Jill of All Trades... I have set up my new Etsy storefront to celebrate the melanin we all have.  Okay so you may have a lot and you may have very little, but every human being has some and we need to celebrate this similarity we share rather than concentrating on the ugliness of how it divides us!
I'm working on some new items and hope you enjoy what we have listed!
xoxo
Desiree

My Melanin

Nightingale- Chapter One

Nightingale is a story I fell in love with during a dream I had following many hours of re-reading my favorite book.  This is however only chapter one... xoxo Desiree

Nightingale

Chapter One

by Desiree Einez Holmon

District Two

                It’s been a very long and rather draining day as I return home in the cold of District Two. I have never been a man to complain about my life. My head aches from meetings and talks and my shoulder feels the aches from years gone by. In truth I long for the warmth of the fire and the savory smells of dinner that waits for me.

 “Daddy!” squeels Katniss as she darts out the door and down the snow pathed walk to our home.

“Well hello little nip!” say I, “how is my best girl?” I wince with discomfort as I take my child in my arms.

“I’m good daddy, I drew you a picture today.”

“You did?  One more piece of art for my gallery!”

I love these moments when it is just me and this young girl who reminds me so much of the person I feel I will never recover in life.  It has been eight years since the war and since I have even heard from Katniss Ever… well Mellark now isn’t it?  I hate the way things ended.  Two people who were as close as two people could ever be grew so far apart.  She married the man she loved.  Did she ever love me?  Even as I look into the beautiful blue eyes of my child I have to ask myself the same question.  Do I love Dreama?  And as on cue Dreama crosses the threshold of our home looking for our precarious six year old who has left her lessons to run outside.

“Dear Lord Katniss Marie, you don’t even have your sweater?”

I met Dreama here in District Two.  She had lost her family in District Eight during the rebellion and is the youngest sister of President Paylor. “Dreama always seems to have her head in the clouds.” President Paylor told me once.  One wouldn’t guess this refined and beautiful woman was an agitator.  The fairest of the rebels. Maybe that is what drew me to her.  She fought through fear, such a pretty thing to join the revolution, but she also so much craved for the approval of her sister.  Dreama has always been very “Lady Like”, very beautiful with a fire in her, much like someone else I once knew and loved.

“I’m okay mommy!” Says Katniss

“We’re okay mommy!” say I as I greet my wife with a kiss.

“Hello my love, hungry?” she says looping my arm as we all walk towards the house.

“Starved!” I say with a slight grin.  Truth is, I haven’t been hungry in a very long time.  We live well and things are very nice in District Two. I work in the new Pan Am and enjoy the fruits of my labor without hard labor I would have experienced in District Twelve.  We enter our warm house full with the wonderful familiar smell of venison stew.  We eat much better than what I knew in District 12, however knowing my craving for game, Dreama is sure to stock up on the meats when they come in.

I don’t hunt any more, I haven’t in some time and do not have the heart for it as I once did.  Perhaps that is because when I did, I was with someone I dearly cared for.  But that’s all over now.  It has been for a very long time.  As Katniss pulls on my arm over to her desk where she does her studies, Dreama is sure to remove my coat and put my case on the chair in the foyer.

“Daddy Elliot McKibben is my new boyfriend!” gushes Katniss.

“Oh is that so?” say I.

“Yes.  He doesn’t know it yet, he’s really cute!” says Katniss as she goes back to her drawings.

“Nip you’re much too young for a boyfriend don’t you think?”

“Nooooo Daddy!  I love him, I just know I do” Katniss says in a singsong tone.  I look at my wife as she sets dinner at the table and giggles.

“And you encourage this?” I say as I cross to Dreama bringing her into an embrace and kiss.

“I most certainly do…” I kiss her and our young lady gets in between this embrace pulling us apart. “Not,” finishes Dreama.  She sits Katniss in her chair at the dinner table.  “You have the rest of your life for boyfriends Katniss.”

“Oh I don’t want him to be my boyfriend forever mommy?” exclaims Katniss

“You don’t?” I say completely puzzled.

“No I want him to be my husband eventually.” Says our little one shoveling the first spoonful in her mouth.

“Prayers!” commands Dreama

We all take hands as is our custom.

“We thank you Father for seeing us to this day.  Together.  Healthy and Blessed.  Thank you for this family and bless our families not with us.  Amen” I end the prayer as I normally do, keeping them very short.

“Amen” repeats my wife and child.

We eat silently for several minutes before I break the air of silence.

“I must approve any man you marry.”

We all begin to laugh.

“Mommy did your daddy say it was okay for you to marry Daddy?”

A small slight smile with sad eyes crosses my love’s face and she let’s out a silent no in response?

“Why not?” questions Katniss. 

I can see an uncomfortable expression of this question fall upon Dreama’s countenance.

“Mommy why not?!” demands Katniss.

“Katniss dear eat your food.” Say I.

Dreama doesn’t talk much about her she and Paylor lost their parents and how Paylor became the legal guardian of Dreama and her two older siblings.  Some things we just don’t discuss, they just are.  I see tears come to her eyes.  I don’t think even she notices as she continues to eat.  I nudge Katniss and as I pass her a roll whisper in her ear, “I think mommy needs a hug.”  Always one to deliver Katniss crosses to her mother and touches her arm.  Dreama gazes at her child and strokes her face.

“I love you mommy, please don’t cry.”  Katniss crawls onto Dreama’s lap and embraces her not wanting to let go until she can take on every tear and bring a smile back to her mother’s face.  “I love you too little Kat, so very very much.” I embrace my child and feel the same love I breathed in the day she was born.  So new, so genuine.  She is the tie I have with Gale and the only tie he will allow me to have to his previous life.

Later that night as I sing the last of our favorite song to Katniss, I feel Gale’s beating heart against my back shoulder.  We truly dote on Katniss, she was after-all the greatest surprise to our lives.  Barely a couple ourselves I was timid to announce to my new boyfriend that I was with child.  We hadn’t even spoken of marriage. He’s been loyal and faithful to our love and I am truly blessed to say Gale Hawthorne is my husband.  Only thing is there is just something that never quite clicked.  I know he loves me, but something is missing in the equasion that is he and I.

As Katniss’ eyes draw closed, she holds Sampson, her teddy bear tighter.  Gale takes my hand and we head towards the door slightly closing it.  She still has the adjoining room to ours, her former nursery.  There has just been something of having this child near.  This was as important to her father as it was to me.  At nights I would wake to nurse her and not so surprisingly see her being cradled in the arms of Gale as he just gazed at her.  We enter our room and ready for bed.  I can see the tiredness in Gale’s movements.

“Long day, perhaps a vacation is in order.” I say.

Gale smiles, somewhat agreeing and begins to undress in silence.  This is the disconnect.  As he removes his shirt and sits on our bed to take off his shoes, I stare at the stripes, still visible, on my husband’s back. The first time I saw these reminders of his last years in District 12, Gale told me he does not enjoy re-visiting the past.  These scars are a reminder that will never go away, but they very much have made him the man he is today.  I often wonder if my husband was always this solemn.  My hands can’t help but trace his back as I gently massage his shoulders.  There is still sensitivity to these wounds, even after all these years.  I lightly kiss my husband’s neck embracing him and he kisses my hands.

“I’m going to shower.”  With that, Gale silently enters the bathroom for his evening ritual of a long shower before retiring to bed.  I sit for a moment and release my hair from its bun.  It is still damp from my shower earlier this afternoon.  I begin to pick up the clothes he has dropped on the bed and floor and put them away as I ready for bed myself.  As I am hanging up Gale’s jacket in the closet, my charms from my bracelet are caught on a loose thread of the tweed and breaks off.  This charm was my mother’s.  How I miss her and father.  I hope to one day be able to share who they were to Katniss, but every time I think of them and miss them, I lose myself.  I will have the charm added back to the bracelet when I visit Hazeal in the village tomorrow.  I place the charm in the small jewelry box my mother in law fashioned for me as a wedding gift.  If she only knew how much she gives me what I am missing as a daughter.

It is always so quiet as Gale is showering, I miss my husband as he is gone all day and find it almost painful that ritually he needs 45 minutes of solitude every evening… is this solitude from me I wonder?  Of course when I ask him these questions, he says I have nothing to worry about.  I’m never fully asleep when he climbs into bed, but like to have him believe I am.  I don’t think he does, or maybe I’m just wishing too much.  Such is the case as he slips into bed tonight. It’s funny really, but the sheets seem so cold until I feel his warmth beside me and his arms enveloped around me.  He kisses me gently.  No I guess he knows I wasn’t asleep.

“We really should take a vacation.” I say

“And where would my wife like to go?” He smiles knowing my answer.  I have always loved the newness of District 8.  Maybe it’s because it is the district that has the most history of Panem’s rebirth and is my birthplace.  That and I’ll be able to see my sister Abigail.  There are not too many other districts I care to visit even as all are new after the uprising and revolution.

“Perhaps a few days may be a nice distraction.  You make the arrangements.  Let’s go.” Gale kisses me again and his eyes begin to close as I settle in the arms of this man once again.

“I love you.” I say, but all I hear are the deep sounds of breathing from Gale Hawthorne.