Standard disclaimer applies: Anything you recognize belongs to JE

Many thanks to midnightandahalf for her amazing beta skills. Your thoughtful comments and constructive feedback helped make this story what it is.

Chapter 1

"You should get your head examined!" I heard my oldest niece Angie exclaim to her younger sister. Mary Alice was galloping in circles around Angie, doing what little sisters do best - driving her big sister crazy. They had been shooed to the backyard to play and enjoy the remnants of our Indian summer on a beautiful October afternoon so my mother and sister could finish planning Mary Alice's birthday party. I had stopped by to do some laundry and mooch dinner.

My mother and Valerie were sitting at the small kitchen table trying to decide between a pasture scene or a giant horse head cake. I thought the horse head cake looked like something out of the Godfather, but no one was asking for my opinion, so I wandered over to the open door to enjoy the warm autumn air that was blowing in through the screen door. From my vantage point I could hear the exchange between my nieces.

Mary Alice came to a stop in front of Angie and asked, "What's wrong with my head?"

"It thinks you're a horse. Maybe if you had your head examined, the doctor could figure out why you can't be a normal kid like Annie Klein," Angie said, sounding a lot like a certain 'Burg mother of mine.

"Maybe I don't want to be a normal kid," Mary Alice replied. "Maybe I like me just the way I am. Maybe you should have your head examined to see why you think everybody should be like boring Annie Klein." With that, Mary Alice resumed her galloping.

A small smile was pulling at my mouth even as my head was spinning. How was it my almost ten-year-old niece was more emotionally mature than her thirty-something year old aunt. Mary Alice was fine being a horse and didn't give a damn what anyone else thought about the fact that she was a horse. She wasn't going to let anyone berate her or bully her into being someone she didn't want to be.

"Hey Val, when did MA get to be so mature?" I asked my sister, still watching my nieces from the door.

Valerie gave a very unladylike snort. "You think a kid who thinks she's a horse is mature?"

"No, I think a kid who doesn't care what anyone else thinks about her being a horse is mature." For some reason, the way Val had said that ticked me off. I suppose unconditional parental support isn't something learned in the 'Burg.

"I have no idea. I certainly never encouraged her crazy ideas," she replied. Looking back to my mother she said, "I think I'll go with the pasture scene. That will be easier to cut, and she can keep the little fence and horse figures that decorate the cake to play with."

With the last of the decisions made, Val and my mother gathered up the party planning debris scattered over the small kitchen table. Albert had taken baby Lisa to visit his mother, but Val and the girls would be staying for supper. The lasagna my mother had put together earlier was popped into the oven and Val offered to make the salad while my mother made the antipasto. Since I was far more capable of consuming food than making it, I offered to set the table.

I laid the white lace tablecloth over the rose colored one that was already on the dining room table. As I set the pile of dinner plates, cloth napkins and cutlery on the table, Mary Alice wandered in and asked if I needed help. Never one to turn away a second set of hands, I said sure and handed her the napkins and silverware.

"Thanks for your help, Mary Alice," I said.

"Aunt Steph, can I ask you something?" Mary Alice asked, fussing with the already folded napkin in her hand.

"Of course," I replied.

"Angie told me I should have my head examined because I like being a horse. She said I'm not normal. Is it wrong that I don't want to be her kind of normal? Is there really something wrong with me?" she asked quietly.

I set the pile of plates down and moved around the table to where Mary Alice was standing. Squatting down to her eye level, I turned her so we were face to face. "Mary Alice, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I don't blame you for wanting to be a horse. Horses are beautiful and strong and can run really fast! What's wrong with wanting to be beautiful, and strong, and fast? Besides, who's to say what's normal? For you, being a horse is normal. You are brave to want to be who you want to be, not who someone else wants you to be. Don't let anyone tell you differently, Mary Alice. I think you are perfect just the way you are."

Mary Alice smiled. "I think you're perfect just the way you are, too, Aunt Steph. And the next time Grandma or Mr. Morelli tells you differently, you should tell them to go eat hay."

As we finished setting the table, MA chattered away but my mind was on what she had said to me. I continued to make listening noises, but I couldn't tell you a thing she said to me after suggesting I tell my mother and Joe to go eat hay. I suppose that was the polite, horsey way of telling them to go pound sand, but she was right. Talk about being a hypocrite! Here I was telling Mary Alice to be true to herself when I had trouble doing that myself. No more, I decided. I used to be like Mary Alice. I used to believe in myself and my dreams. I believed I was Wonder Woman and that I could do anything I wanted to do. That's why I walked into the boy's bathroom believing I was invisible and why I truly believed I would be able to fly when I jumped off the garage roof.

It wasn't that I had conformed, exactly. I was still a childless, unmarried bounty hunter. But the seeds of doubt had been planted and those seeds had grown into flowers of doubt in the garden of my mind. Several times during my tenure as a bounty hunter I had given in to the idea that I couldn't do the job and so I had quit, only to find myself returning after a series of miserable failures. And although I had some kind of hazy future plan of being married and having children, that was more the future my mother wanted for me rather than a future I was willing to work towards.

Promptly at six o'clock, everyone sat down and the race to dessert began. Wine was poured, food was passed, and waistlines were expanded with loads of pasta, sausage and cheese. A small pile of token greenery was added to the salad plates, but the real winner in the side dish competition was the crusty, warm Italian bread we used to wipe the last bits of red gravy from our plates. When my mother brought out an apple crisp still warm from the oven and a container of vanilla ice cream, I popped the button on my jeans and reached for a dessert plate before my sister could beat me to it.

Val wanted to get the girls home before it got to be too late, so I offered to stay and help my mother clean the kitchen. My grandmother was in Atlantic City on a senior's trip and I didn't feel right about leaving my mother with the mess to clean up by herself. An hour later, I was walking out the door with my basket of clean laundry and a bag of leftover lasagna, bread and apple crisp.