Chapter 4: Rule #4: More Power, More Authority.

Beatrice.

Abby surprised me when she told me that her and Beauregard were going to be joining me at the homeless shelter. Abby usually turned her nose up when I asked her to help, mostly because it was on a Saturday, and partially because she would have to get out of bed before ten in the morning.

But a lot of it had to do with Abby not liking to get her hands dirty. The homeless shelter was my baby, I had used all my extra investment money on it. Father had given me a nest egg, and until a year ago I had big plans for my nest egg; plans for a master's degree, a business investment, a nice little starter home, and maybe a little van to travel in.

But the events of last December changed everything and soon I wouldn't need all that extra money laying around. So I started investing into this town. This small little church shelter needed a lot of love and attention, and I poured everything I had into it, anonymously donating thousands of dollars into its various needs. It had flourished over the last few months, and I subsequently flourished as well.

"Where do you need this?" Beau asked holding a bag of soil in his hands

"I'm sorry Abby couldn't be here today, horrible that she got food poisoning," I said to Beau waving for him to follow me.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she got sick since today's project involved planting flowers around the outside of the shelter and Abby's least favorite thing, well one of her least favorite things, was digging in the dirt. When I learned that she was sick I had anticipated being solo on duty today and was shocked when Beau still showed up ready to work, coffee for two in hand.

"I hope you don't mind that you'll be helping me today?" I asked him, still holding onto guilt from the luncheon the other day. Perhaps getting to know him would make up for my rude behavior. "Sure. I mean, I don't mind." He responded as he followed me to the bare patch of ground, as I set to work tilling the ground for the soil, he picked up a spare hand rake and set to work too.

"Thanks for coming, Beau, I do really appreciate the help."

"It's no problem." He said quietly.

Beau seemed distracted since arriving, he responded and he was kind, but he seemed as if there was something on his mind.

"I'm sorry Abby couldn't make it." I apologized once more.

"I'm not." He said honestly.

"She means well." I smiled at him.

"Why do you do that?" He set down the hand rack, his face completely frustrated.

"Do what?" I willed myself to not shut down, a trait I learned from my father.

"Defend her."

"I'm her friend."

"Yea, I get that. But a friend doesn't always need to defend their friend, sometimes people make bad choices, sometimes they suck, sometimes they're rude, and throw another friend under the bus at lunch and it's okay to be hurt by it. You know it's okay to think it's rude, right? It doesn't make you any less of a friend Beatrice."

"No one ever calls me Beatrice."

I immediately felt a hot flush of embarrassment creep along my spine as I realized that I had blurted out something that didn't have anything to do with what we were talking about. A habit that happened when I was particularly uncomfortable.

"Do you like being called Bea?" Beau asked me as he sputtered about, recalculating the change in conversation.

"I mean, no one's really asked me. They just all call me Bea, and I answer to it." I lamely explained putting my head down and working.

"If you had a choice, what would you be called?" Beau pressed in deeper, not letting up even though I secretly begged for him to.

"I guess I've always liked my name. It's different, has a nice meaning, it means 'someone who makes happy.' I always thought that was a weird phrase, didn't seem complete but then I thought of it some more, it means someone who creates happiness. I thought if I could create happiness for people and live up to my name then I'd earn being called Beatrice. Maybe I just haven't earned it yet, maybe that's why they call me Bea."

"You don't have to earn your name Beatrice; it's given to you. It's yours." He said quietly, we were close now, kneeling on the dirt, his voice was very low, his eyes were stern but not unkind but more like a friend giving you that talk you needed to hear.

"Have you ever felt like your entire life was spent making up for other people's mistakes?" I said openly, completely raw and vulnerable, unsure why this side of me decided to step forward. I had never had anyone look at me the way he was like I was being completely seen, and me, willingly sharing.

"What do you mean?" He wasn't confused, he just wanted me to explain more.

"Everything and I do mean everything, for the whole of my life is my fault or at least that's how it's felt. And if it hasn't felt like my fault others are still led to believe that it is indeed my fault."

I paused, hesitating, I watched Beau from the corner of my eye as he sat on the dirt, drawing his legs in front of him, folding them before him, like a big toddler at storytime, he patiently waited for me to continue. Though I didn't know this man, I felt kindred towards him, there was a connection of some sort, a type of pull towards him and it was odd if I thought about it long enough. Odd but comforting.

"My mother has spent the last two decades in a mental institution in Connecticut because of me." I blurted out in one solid breath, beginning my confession of the deepest and darkest parts of me. The parts of me that made me who I was. The parts of me that made me doubt I was worthy of being alive, being me.

"I was a twin, I had a brother, the only real thing I knew about him was his name. Gerard. And only from the screams of my mother the last time I had seen her when I was five when she was being dragged away by two orderlies. I haven't seen my mother since I was five."

I could feel the tears well in my eyes, fall quickly on my cheeks and run down my face, but Beau's face didn't shift into anything other than passive listening, his hands were held firmly around the rake in his lap.

"My mother was always sensitive, I guess you could call her overly emotional. My father said she was 'romantic', a dreamer, she would often be lost in her dreams, in her world of fairies and mythical creatures. She believed in unseen things, and heard strange noises, and called them her friends. But the truth was that she was haunted and the things that haunted her twisted her into someone she couldn't even recognize.

"Having us, my brother and me, was hard on her body, not to mention her mind. Adding on top of it a baby who was constantly sick, a husband who was mostly away for business, and no real-time for herself was physically and emotionally taxing. One time my father went away for a particularly long trip and when he came back, he found my mother asleep in the rocking chair, me screaming in her lap, and my twin brother dead in the crib. I lost my brother that night. I was two. And my mother vanished from my life shortly after. But really both slipped away silently from me that night."

"Your brother was murdered?" He asked me, something passed over his face, something familiar, like a shared emotion, a shared feeling, a shared pain.

"I was too little to remember what really happened, but I assumed my mother neglected his care because she was overwhelmed caring for me. If that's murder then I'm unsure of who is at fault. Her. Or me. Either way, my life changed that day. My father wiped away any physical memory of my brother and mother. And for my dad, well, his entire world shifted in the matter of just one business trip. My life then became a culmination of his fears, piled on my shoulders over the years..."

"...But you're out here now, so some things must have changed, his fears reduced somehow?" He interrupted me trying to positively spin the situation.

"Nothing's perfect, only the projection of perfect things," I answered. "I've been living off of the sands of borrowed time since the day I was born, the last year has just been a gift...one that's quickly running out."