Some never leave

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.-Willa Cather

"Our friendship is as old as our children." The wind blew over the wetlands bringing with it the cold; the thin shawl was doing nothing to keep her friend warm. Sophie shoo-ed,"Get inside." She blew a final kiss and headed for her car glad for the red storm coat that bundled her like bearskin. Two long- time friends spent time covering the terrain of history without rush, a deck-side tea party faced the grand Pacific in the company of birds dangling from a nearby feeder all the while.

"I've never been this close to them ... they are Red-wing Blackbirds aren't they?" Between sips of hot Catnip Tea sweetened with blueberry honey, Sophie could not believe her luck. There were her sweetheart's favorites. The birds with songs that drew memories of hitch-hiking near wetlands of the Wisconsin midlands were chatting briskly as the women sipped the sweet tea. There was room for the Blackbird, and a young man's recall inspired by that thrilling sound and the flash of red on black.

"Yes. They are Red-wing Blackbirds. And they aren't back early, they never left."

"They never left?" Sophie could not miss the connection between the near dozen Blackbirds and the Anna who was making herself at home in her woods, and in her mind. The delight of company, and the conversation with this friend was part of a slow and long recovery process for Sophie Lei Makue. Willa Voyageur was part of Sophie's young years in America when there were two sons, one a piece, raised in the ruckus decades of Bette Midler on vinyl and home-grown cannabis drying in the basement. Hippy mamas now retired from careers, remarried, and reconnecting after decades of separate lives bundled up for tea as if they too had never left. But, of course, they had.

Find out what happens next.