England
I will tell you a story now. One from when I was just a little girl. I must not have been any older than 3. It was before we moved to Canada; oh, we lived through so much of it before we left.
My parents used to call me Chuck. Guess I had quite the arm and it made my father more proud than angry. I used to break a lot of stuff, they told me.
One time my mother's crystal vase.
It started back before I was a year old. I would get mad if no one came to get me right away when I woke-up in the morning. Mother always said she would wake-up in the morning with her toes already curled in terror at the sound from me. I would throw anything that was in my crib out. Not so nicely, either. I broke a window with my bottle once, they told me.
But I am getting side-tracked here and these are memories I do not own. Second-hand.
Let me get back to the story I do know, the one of when I was 3.
There was a wooden chair that stood beside my father's side of the bed. The cushion on it was a most wonderful pink. I always thought I was a princess when I was allowed to sit on that chair. It did not matter the room was an ugly brown and my parents bed blanket the worst colour of orange imaginable. It matter not to me one bit those ugly, heavy brown curtains were always drawn closed.
But playing princess mattered little on that day. No amount of sitting in that chair was going to make anything better.
I remember just sitting there looking at my shoes, watching them as I swung them back and forth, blurred, I swung so fast sometimes. Tom, my older brother was in the room too, sitting on the bottom edge of the bed sobbing his poor heart out.
Nobody was happy.
My oldest brother was dead. He had been for a few days. My mother used to say he stayed sick because he had to stay indoors.
Robert had just been buried that day. Everyone had just come home.
Mrs. Johnson from next door had come to watch me while everybody else had went to the funeral. They told me I was too young, but I had never asked to go to begin with.
Father was in the room too, sitting up near the top of the bed. On my Mother's side. Which seemed so strange in my little mind. I think about it now, he must have been sitting there because she was beside herself somewhere else in the house.
His back was against the wall and he was smoking a cigarette. I will never forget that. It was the only time I had ever or would ever see my father smoke.
I remember looking at his legs. One could not really keep their eyes away if they tried. His pants were grey, his legs stretched out down the length of the bed. One leg was bandage heavily.
My father had been hurt in battle. The fact the hospital he was taken to was close to home was the only reason he was home now. They had dropped him early in the morning.
I ran to him when they did. I remember him swooping me up in his arms. Or maybe that is a dream because when I think about his leg now, I am not sure how he walked at all.
I remember looking up as my father put out the cigarette on the small table beside the other side of the bed. He turned then to look at me. He just kept looking at me.
Then he said "I did not want to see. I wish I had not seen. Damn this leg, damn this leg."
I watched my father cry, tears from the corners of his eyes swarming fast, an angry trail down his face. His face I did not know.
Tom was crying still. Competing.
I was 3, so I cried, too.
Then suddenly through my tears, I could hear my father.
"Chuck, come here."
I slid down from the chair and was up beside him on the bed, staring up at his face, in a heartbeat. I loved him so. His hand found my head and he rubbed, his fingers tangled through my hair. His hand was so warm.
"We will get through this, Chuck," he said to me. "To be sure, we will get through this, too."
My tears had stopped.
That was when we heard the knocking and then the footsteps.
I knew who was there. I could feel it in the sounds, feel it in the way my father's back stiffened.
I remember when they opened the door, telling my father it was time to go.
"Daddy," I cried, reaching for his arms, his face, whatever I could touch. But strong hands pulled me from the bed. A strong voice ordered me away.
And Tom. Tom was still crying.
I watched as they led my father out of the room and down the long hallway that led to the front door.
And when they opened the door, I ran. I ran after them.
The door closed behind them, but I opened it and ran through it.
"Daddy," I yelled, looking.
But before I could see, I fell.
No, I could not watch them take my father away if I tried.
The sun had touched my body and the only choice was to look towards it, letting myself go blind, feeling the warmth spread through my skinned knee.
Another Day, Another....