I Thought to Myself

I think Forever Yours was one of those unfinished conversations—one that now seems almost prophetic. Too many of the things I am discovering now were already said in the previous post.

There were questions that kept me up at night, wondering … Why?

I thought the story ended when I left the Land of Dreams.

I was wrong.

Then I began writing Echoes from the Dark Clouds. The subtitle was The Storm Didn’t Break Me. But I remember its voice. That was the first book in the Echoes series that kept resounding. Each time I wrote a new book, I knew a little more of what was happening in a world I knew nothing about. It’s a world of darkness that sits behind a locked door.

I do not care to open that door. There is nothing I want to know inside that darkness. The knowledge I have from the investigations is enough.

With each new book, I added information uncovered in the one before, even though I was still writing from within the fog of confusion.

Starting in Chapter Two of The Storm Didn’t Break Me. But I Remember Its Voice, I wrote as the child watching me grow up.

I didn’t do it often, but when I did stop to check for errors, something strange happened.

The words appeared with misspellings and grammatical errors that I would normally have corrected without thinking. Yet when I looked back at what had been written, I found memories, feelings, and observations that seemed to know far more about my childhood than I consciously remembered.

I was surprised by what appeared on the screen.

I thought I was making it up.

At the time, I was still living inside the fog. I had more questions than answers.

But the questions kept coming.

Each book in the Echoes series seemed to uncover something the previous book had left behind.

Looking back now, I realize that some of those questions had already appeared in Forever Yours, In the Land of Dreams, before I understood where they came from.

Questions like:

How did he know exactly how to make me feel guilty?

How did he know I would try to make peace?

How did he know which strings to pull?

Those questions stayed with me.

What I had forgotten was that I had met my child before.

In 1993, my therapist Pat told me something I did not fully understand at the time.

She told me I needed to listen to my child.

What did she mean?

I did listen to her voice then. I took her to a place her father couldn’t reach in her memory anymore. Instead of hand-me-downs and army surplus blankets, I gave her something she would love.

I gave her a new bedroom. I hung pretty pink curtains on the three windows that let in lots of sunshine. She had a new bedspread that matched the curtains, and a closet full of new clothes, not hand-me-downs, and her own toys to play with, not to share.

Each of those windows had a built-in seat so she could watch the birds in the trees and listen to them singing. She could hear the squirrels chattering as they chased each other up, down, and around the old oak tree by our little pond out back.

Once in a while, she might catch sight of one of the turtles that lived in the pond lumbering across the back yard. She was happy after she finished being mad at me for not hearing her.

So why now? After 30 years, why am I still hearing Pat’s voice, only louder?

“You need to listen to your child.

She taps.
Then knocks.
Then screams.

I cover my ears with busyness.
I drown her out with reason.

I tell her, not now, not ever,
we are done with the past.

But she isn’t.
She never was.

She pulls at the threads of my calm.
Trips me on the stairs of memory.
Whispers at night when silence should be sleeping.
I pretend I don’t hear.
I scroll. I clean. I smile. I host.
I survive.

But she sees through the disguise.
Knows the cracks in my mask.
She tries again—

“Listen to me. I remember what he did. You weren’t supposed to forget.”

I shake my head. Not now. Not again. Not this time.

Tears come anyway.
Not hers. Mine.
But they carry her ache. Her terror. Her loneliness.
And I hate her for making me feel it.

She doesn’t stop.

She draws pictures in the fog of my reflection.
Holds up old shoes I haven’t worn since I was five.
Shows me bruises that have no color, but still burn.

I say, I can’t look.

She says, But I did.

Then Pat’s words come to me once more,   “You need to Listen to your child” Oh! Now it makes sense.

So, my child, whom our father named Collie, and I had a conversation, just the two of us.

This time I really listened.

By the time I began writing about him, he had already found my child through observation and by recognizing the way into hearts.

How did Jeremy know those things about me? It’s beginning to make a lot of sense now. Somewhere, while I was writing the series, the voice that called itself Jeremy found my child.

He observed her right alongside me. He skillfully braided those basic and tender needs she had into my needs and presented himself to both of us as the Knight in Shining Armor. I welcomed him, but she didn’t trust him. Although she did find some rest in the comfort he offered us, she never liked or trusted him.

And then, Collie and I wrote. The information revealed across the books came together, and A Walk in the Fog was written.

While we finished that long-overdue conversation, we wrote.

The information for the book came from our memories, diary entries, questions with answers in the previous books, laughter, tears, and the echoes that have dissipated into a gentle breeze.

I was six long years inside that trap, and sent thousands of dollars to that voice. And then, in 2024, I was able to escape that trap. I walked right out of his reach, and I was free. Now, Collie and I are writing the last book of the series. It tells everything my investigation found over the years.

I had told him years ago that I was going to find answers to my questions, and was not going to stop until I found those answers. With each new direction the investigation led me, his name kept fading from the picture until the investigation slowly focused on what he was doing to me.

The name of each thing turning up now, I knew nothing about, but once each name was defined, it clearly described what he was doing to me.

Everything about the way he did things surprised me. I wasn’t expecting any of it.

I still believed he loved me.

Then, a few months ago, I learned something that nearly destroyed me.

I found out that he owned me.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

I couldn’t cope with it. I dissociated; nothing seemed real. It took a dear friend to help me stay grounded and come back to myself so I could continue. 

Every question that had come up and confused me was now being answered by this investigation.

It was not an easy thing to continue investigating, but I had to keep pushing myself to find answers. There were times I was ready to give up the investigation, because what I was learning was so painful.

I would dissociate when remembering certain things and be in tears. But through those tears, I would ask my friend, “Is this going to help someone?”  

When he said, “Yes, it will.” I pushed myself to continue because I didn’t want anyone else to suffer these things.                                                                                                                            

My years of investigation, which began with him, revealed some pretty disturbing things. At the beginning of this investigation, Jeremy Clark was the name of the person I was investigating. That was the name he gave me. No matter which company I looked to for answers, I found none. So, his name kept slipping down the ladder of importance until I found him. Not by name, by his position that he shared with hundreds of others. I found that he was just one of the cogs on one of the many wheels that keep a powerful machine working properly.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

That is the book we are now working on. As in all my books, I am holding nothing back. Everything I have discovered will be revealed. I only stop at that locked door of darkness that I described above. We already have all the answers we need.