To that, I truthfully stated that I could wake up like that everyday for the rest of my life. 

~

            After all this time I can still remember the dream of her I had in the hospital that day.  Closing my eyes, even now I can still picture her sitting next to me and knowing, in that moment, that I would love her for the rest of my life. 

            I glance at the clock on the wall and see that it is after six o’clock, well past my usual time to leave.  I don’t mind however. Work is a lot more tolerable when you are not actually working.  I begin to gather my things as I momentarily ponder the problem at hand.  I need to break this Carmichael story open and up until this point, every lead and source I have tracked down has led me to another frustrating dead end.  Now, according to Gus, my professional career is at stake here and I have nothing to go on. 

            I walk briskly down Fifth Avenue, the warm evening air kissing my exposed skin. I look around at the tall buildings and beautiful lights and I do what I seem to be doing a lot of today, I smile.  I remember how I fell in love with New York the very first time I came here.  It was the night I helped make Ashley’s fantasy come true.

~

            It was my graduation night and all I could do was cry.  But I was not crying out of excitement or joy or relief, but out of sadness.  It was that day that I had to face the devastating reality that my mother would never accept me.  I sat there in my cap and gown, leg bouncing nervously like many of my classmates, anticipating my name being called and walking up to accept my diploma.  I anxiously scanned the crowd, searching for my family.  The ceremony was outside to accommodate the enormous graduating class and I was not sure where they would be sitting.  My eyes darted back and forth, desperately seeking a familiar face.  There.  I found them.  Dad, Glen, Clay, who had made the cross-country trip from Boston a week before his finals just to be here for me, and Ashley, who waved intimately when she knew she had been spotted. They were all there for me.  Everyone was there, but one person: my mother.  I felt like a fool, having thought that she would actually show up.