I had never wanted this to start with a death but in the end, it is the truth of how the story begins and since I wish these events to be written precisely as it happened, that is how the story shall start.
It was December 24th, perhaps the night where excitement is most expected to build in every household in the world. Some people I knew were exchanging the first gifts of the Christmas season, others were topping their trees with angels and others still were taking to the streets in droves to sing of glad tidings. Yet that is not how it was for me – not this year. I had spent the evening in utter turmoil as my Mother fought bravely to survive the round of influenza that she had been diagnosed with three weeks before. She was bedridden, as was expected, and the evening was taken up with mopping her brow, making soups and giving her what water she could drink. My back was killing me with pain from stooping over her, damp cloth in hand and the tension in my muscles from worry did little to aid the situation yet I knew I couldn't just sit back and let the inevitable happen.
The doctor had been fetched earlier in the day and his grave expression had done little to ease my fears. He had stood over Mother's ever decreasing frame and rubbed a hand down his face in exhaustion. When he had clamped his hand onto my shoulder, blue iris' rippling with the tears in his eyes, I had known the words he failed to speak in an instant. Around a lump in my own throat I had choked out the question of how long. He had sighed and glanced back at my mother, his voice lowered. "Keep her comfortable dear boy" had been his words, he couldn't guarantee she would see the sunrise.
For my little sister, Winter, the evening was again spent not by excitedly waiting for a jolly man in red nor by laying out milk and cookies for him and his antlered friends. Instead it was spent by Mother's bedside, watching her every move. I knew the risks, of course, of allowing her to be pressed tight to her Mother's side considering how contagious the influenza was... but how could I tear away a devoted daughter from her dying mother's embrace? I hated the thought but I knew from Mother's ever worsening condition, death couldn't be far away now. Her breathing was laboured, her skin pale and clammy and the only water she had drunk in the last hour had been dripped through her parted lips off of a cloth by my own careful hand. I did not mention the closeness of her end to Winter though, for the blow of something so alien to the heart of a four year old was not something I wanted to provoke.
Eventually, though, Mother's fever seemed to subside and we found ourselves with nothing else to do but wait. Winter, sitting on the edge of the bed, began to hum softly – whether to Mother or herself, I wasn't sure. My mind, however, drifted listlessly at the sound of the quiet and sorrowful tune that I had heard only once before.
It had been the night Father had left...
Father came home, as usual, around 6'oclock. He was donned head to toe in coal soot and work gear, yet as he stumbled and swaggered through the door it was clear he had been anywhere but work for the last several hours. Mother, slaving over a hot dinner, turned her attention to him and wiped her brow with a sigh.
"Please tell me you haven't been down The Black Fox again," she pleaded wearily.
"N' wha does it mat'er if I 'ave?" Father slurred, an intoxicated grin spreading over his soured face.
"Cor, please," tears filled Mother's eyes, "we can't afford for you to keep spending money we don't have."
Father appeared to sober for a moment at her words, then his eyes darkened as anger filled them, "I worrrk damn 'ard to provide for thisss family! I go t' the mines and I slog my damn 'eart out. I'm gob-smack'd I'm still ssstanding with 'em using me like the pack 'orse they dooo."
Mother's eyes grew stormy in return, "You don't think I know how hard you work for this family? You don't think I know that you deserve a break? Of course I do! We both do! But we are a one income family with two children and when you visit that pub nightly, ends don't meet!"
"'ell endsss were meetin' just fine 'til you decccided we needed that thing in our livesss!" Father glared at Mother, his pointing finger aiming in the direction of where Winter played merrily on the floor with her only toy, her hessian sack dolly.
"That thing is our daughter!" Mother cried out.
"I ain't ever ask'd for 'er! I ain't ever ask'd for 'im neither!" Father growled.
A solitary tear rolled down Mother's cheek.
"Ma'be if you would sssend 't boy out t' work like 'e should, we wouldn't be 'n this messsss," Father roared, his anger and his drunken state almost toppling him before he came striding haphazardly towards where I sat trying to play with Winter and keep her distracted.
"Don't you come at my babies! Don't you dare come at my babies!" Mother yelled back, taking a stand by running to block his path.
"If tha' boy can no' do wha he should, he'sss of no use t' me," Father spat on the dust covered floor in disgust, "'E is a disgrace t' this family!"
"How dare you! He is not the disgrace, I assure you! How dare you talk about your own son that way!" Mother squared her shoulders, hands clenching her apron.
"'Ow dare I? 'Ow dare I? 'Ow dare you stand 'tween me and justice woman!" Father's hand was in the air in a flash, yet somehow I managed to be quicker.
I leapt up and threw myself between my Father and Mother, knocking my Mother into a chair inadvertently, Winter's doll tearing beneath Mother's feet in the process. Father's hand, which was originally aiming for my Mother's cheek, came down hard on the side of my head, his wedding ring copping my temple. I fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
As I lay there struggling to control my rapid breathing and pounding heart, I couldn't help but realise how weak and powerless I was. The last thing I remember seeing then was my Father lunging for my Mother as I lay on the ground, vision dancing as I was losing consciousness, unable to protect her.
When I finally came to, the house was filled with smoke. I pulled myself to my feet, head pounding, vision still blurry as I stumbled to the kitchen. I pulled open the oven door and, without thinking, reached straight in to grab what was inside. My hand seared with pain, bringing me back to reality as I cried out and dropped the tin beside the sink. Running my hand quickly under cold water, I glanced around the room. Father was nowhere to be seen. Mother was curled up in a ball on the floor, tears running down her face along with blood from a gash in her eyebrow as she attempted to hide her face with crimson streaked hands. Winter was where she had been before our little world exploded, only now she was holding her torn dolly tight to her chest.
Tears filled my own eyes, from overwhelming pain that was both physical and emotional, as I turned my gaze to the tin beside the sink. Laying within its walls were the charred remains of what would have been my birthday cake.
That night, the scene of our house had calmed somewhat. The smoke had aired out through the windows, the chair that had broken beneath my Mother as she fell now waited by the fire place to become kindling and Winter's hessian doll that I had sewn together with horribly rough stitches laid in her arms. As I had added wood to the fireplace with my free hand that wasn't wrapped in burn dressing, Mother had rocked Winter to sleep in the rocking chair – the sound of her singing softly between tears filling the room.
I'd been so mad that night – even at barely 15 years of age I knew how wrong it was of a man to desert his family and yet this so called Father of mine had left without a second of hesitation and for what? Other than selfishness, no one really knew. It had made my blood boil, much like the soup over the fire that night, yet as my Mother had sang to Winter my heart had been soothed enough that the anger flaring in my chest turned into an ache of sadness.
Now, as I pulled myself from thoughts of the past, I wondered for a brief moment if Winter was humming the same tune because she knew that she would soon be experiencing a pain similar to what we felt that night. My heart dropped to the point it felt as though it were no longer in my chest. How would we get through this? We were about to be orphans, or as good as, and I would have to pick up the baton of caring for Winter and attempt to finish the race with little help. Sure, I had always been a part of my sister's life, helped take care of her from day one and of course the last three weeks she had been almost solely my charge... but Mother had still been there. Even in her depression after Father left, she had still been there. In an emergency, I could have turned to her. Now what would I do?
However, just as I was questioning that, Mother reached out a pale and withered hand to touch Winter's face. She smiled ever so briefly and then turned her exhausted face towards me.
"Joshua, my dear boy, it's time. Fetch me the tin," her voice was a sweet yet tortured whisper on the wind.
I nodded and turned to fetch the tin my Mother had told me about only the night before. It was in a cove, just above the fireplace and it was warm to the touch, just as she had said it would be.
I brought it back and laid it on the bedcovers that draped over her lap. She reached out and slowly took the tarnished silver box in her bony hands. Her fingers drifted gently across its buckled surface and what seemed like a strained smile tugged at her lips. She pulled back the lid. There, in the tin, lay a small silver chain with a blue gem attached to it. The gem, tiny but immaculate, was in the shape of a bird. Mother picked it up, glanced at it lovingly and slipped it gently over Winter's head. Winter smiled with glee, ran her thumb over the tiny bird and leaned down to kiss Mother's forehead gently.
"The birds will bring him home," Mother's words to Winter drifted to my ears and I wondered what she meant.
Then she turned to me and for the first time I noticed a second chain, less elegant, more roughly made than the first, lying at the bottom of the tin.
I leant close to Mother, my voice barely forming my words, "Is that...?"
"Yours," Mother's voice interrupted.
Tears filled my eyes as I bowed my head to accept the gift. As I did, I noticed a small key hanging from the chain. I moved closer still and she placed the chain around my neck.
"The key to your heart starts with the past," she whispered gently.
Then she pulled us both close, kissed each of our foreheads in turn and that – it seemed – was that.
--- 255Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLbcKl0ixYY
