Just a small one. I was sitting at the table listening to Mother in the kitchen, coughing while she made bread. I thought it was the flour; she always seemed to get it in her throat and cough for ten minutes until I ran and poured her a cup of water.
But she wasn't coughing for many minutes on end. She coughed once every two minutes. I counted. And it was a violent cough that seemed to break her bones and rattle the house. This was different.
As I sit here, I think back to her cough and wonder if I had spoken up earlier, would things have turned out differently? Would she had seen a doctor sooner? Would I have been able to care for her at home? Would Father have been there to help her? Or to help me?
But rather, I am sitting here on this stone wall, waiting for my father to return from sea, only to tell him that his wife, my mother, is dead.
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The stone wall overlooks the docks and I realize I'm getting cold sitting here. The sun is going down and my aunt's house is outside of town. It will take me half an hour to get there.
I suppose I'm lucky: lucky to have an aunt that resides in Port Royal, lucky to have a home with family during this time, lucky to not have been thrown out on the streets and forced to beg. But I'm not lucky at all: I've lost my mother and I still don't understand what that means. I'm only ten.
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The streets at quiet tonight. It's June and the summer evenings are lovely. As the sun sets on the horizon, my eyes are tricked my the shadows looming in the distance, threatening me with lies of my father's return. I know it will not be tonight. He has been gone for a month and will not return for another. But it's all I have.
As I walk slowly back to my Aunt Clara's, I think about the stone wall. I've sat there, watching, waiting for over a week. I fear I might wear away the stone or else I will simply grow into it, ever to be preserved as the young girl, left alone in this world.
I am so absorbed in my own thoughts, I arrive at my destination without realizing it. I open the front door to my aunt's somber face, standing by the table, waiting to embrace me. She hugs me tight and tells me I'm being strong. I know she means well, but I just don't want her sympathy. I would probably be more responsive if my father was here to hold my hand. But instead I hold my aunt's, while my uncle just sits in his chair, smoking his pipe.
We sit down to dinner like a normal family and I smile and say a prayer. I feel outside of myself as I eat my potatoes. It's almost as if I'm just visiting my relatives and Mother will pick me up soon. I feel sad, contemplative, miserable, and nothing all at the same time, while trying to swallow the dry mass of starch past the lump that has lodged itself in my throat a week ago.
As I change into my nightgown and wash my face, I realize that I have not yet cried. My face should be permanently tear-streaked and I should have the hiccups. But I simply stare at myself In the small bedroom mirror, into my dead eyes that read almost no emotion at all. I fear there is something wrong with me. My mother was my whole life. Ten years. And suddenly she's gone.
As I lay in bed and stare at the wooden planked ceiling, I cannot help but wonder what will happen to me. I want to run away; I want to dive into the ocean and drown. I want to collapse in a sea of my own misery; I want to do nothing by lie here until I die. I believe my aunt and uncle do not know what to do with me. I believe I do not know what to do with myself. Except get up tomorrow and spend the day sitting on the stone wall.
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