The Dreamer and His Daughter

The Dreamer and His Child

My name wasn't always Sarah Baker. It changed 6 years into my life. My hair was cut short. Almost the length of my brother's. And went from brown to a light red. Strawberry blonde they called it. I called it ugly. I hated my new name. It was so plain. Of course "plain" was my new description. At six I became simply boring.

My brother, and parents, and I didn't always live in Nebraska either. We used to live in Salt Lake City, Utah. We had a beautiful house and a dog. And my dad was building me my very own playhouse in the backyard; on account that my older brother would no longer allow me into the tree-fort since I was a girl and apparently had cooties.

None of us wanted to move. But my dad said he couldn't live with himself if he didn't testify. And the government said if he testified and didn't move, he wouldn't live. So he testified, and they put us in the Witness Protection Program and off we went to Nebraska.

It was hard leaving my friends. And we weren't allowed to take anything with us. No pictures or stuffed animals; not even our dog Jelly Bean (I got to name him). We could take nothing. Every possession was now a danger that could reveal our true selves. It was hardest on my mom. Her parents were still alive and she had grown up in Salt Lake. My brother thought it was exciting, an adventure; like the explorers he was always pretending to be while in the tree house. For my dad it was a matter of both patriotic and moral duty. And for me, well I was only six so I was just along for the ride.

Aurora, Nebraska. Hamilton County, located in the state's Pioneer Region. My dad tried to cheer us up by saying it was symbolic. "We'll be happy here", he'd say.

"How do you know", I'd ask.

"Well, Bebe. Aurora was the Roman goddess of the Dawn. You see. And the city of Aurora is where the Nebraskan Pioneers first settled. And now we too are pioneers. Pioneers settling in the dawn. Dawn is the most magical time of the day, Bebe, because everything is new and fresh. A clean slate, a new beginning. It's the dawn of a new life for us, Bebe".