Portion of the Sea by Christine Lemmon Page A

a writer one day, a famous writer.”
    “You got that desire from your granddaddy Milton. Did I ever tell you he wanted to be a poet?”
    “Yep, you did. Was he any good?”
    “Worst I’ve ever read,” she said softly, then rolled over and turned her back to me and I knew she was about to talk about Milton leaving her. “Why did he, the love of my life, have to turn into a deranged, wandering writer?” she asked. “I’ll tell you why,” she answered. “I loved Milton more than he loved me. That’s where I went wrong in life. Always marry a man that loves you more, you hear? Otherwise, they’ll go off and leave you for something they love more.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I’m never getting married,” I said.
    “You sound like your mother. She said that once. She also said she wanted to be a ballerina. Look at her now. She married your father, and that was the end of that. Eventually, your views will change. You’ll realize a woman’s place in the world.”
    I didn’t like what she was saying to me. I tried telling myself that my desires and ambitions are gusty strong and that they’re not going to beblown over by negative words.
    “You just wait and see, Grandmalia. I’m going to write novels. I’ll write novels that will make you proud.”
    “Then do it now, young lady, at your age, before the trivialities of domestic chores and insanity set in. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but your granddaddy Milton may have been crazy. He’d have his lows and then his highs, and I’d give him hot salt baths to calm him down. Your mother is certainly reminding me of him. I just hope you don’t have it in you. It’s too early to tell.”
    As Dahlia began to hum, I began counting on all ten fingers how many years I had left before my own sanity, now blooming profusely, might whither away, and then I began counting how many years I had left before I’d have to get married, and I don’t know which I feared more, the insanity or the domestic triviality. I did calculate that the triviality would set in first, then the insanity. And I wondered if the triviality is what causes the insanity. No, chores didn’t make my mama sad. The dark winter months back north did. And I don’t think sadness is the same as insanity, despite Grandmalia lumping it all together.
    When her humming stopped and I could no longer see her beady eyes glowing red in the dark room, I knew she had fallen asleep. I wanted more than anything to fight back, to slay the dragon that tried mutilating my dreams. And she wasn’t the only dragon. She was just one. The world was filled with cowardly dragons, people who chase after and tear down the dreams of others rather than chasing after and accomplishing their own.
    “I beg to differ,” I proclaimed softly to her snores. “I can do with my life whatever I want. And what is it that I want? For starters, a late-night walk on the beach and no one is going to stop me.”
    I stood up and tiptoed over to the door of our room.
    Lydia
    “You can do it,” I muttered, wishing Ava could hear me. Instead, the boy next to me raised an eyebrow at me. “I wasn’t referring to you,” I snarled athim. “I was referring to all the girls in the world. They can do anything they want with their lives, even become presidents of companies or of America.”
    The bell rang, saving me from further conversation with the boy, and as the students burst forth from the study hall desks and out into the halls, I stood there a moment. “I believe in you, Ava, just as Marlena believes in me.”
    I felt bad that her grandmother didn’t think she could ever achieve her dreams, and if only she could hear me cheering her on, she’d know there was one person out there, a dream buddy, who knows her intimate ambitions and supports them. Ava and I would be friends. We’d be walking toward our dreams together were we living at the same time. But still, I’d consider her my dream buddy. Dreams never die. Nor does the