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Chapter or Story
Disclaimer is that I don't own them other t han Caitrin Parker, she is mine and mine alone, this started as an excerise to clear cobwebs out of my head to work on my other stories and here's what evolved. . . . there are character deaths and some spoilers in this part twisted to fit my personal taste . . . . . I have to thank Niceole. PG-13 I never rated it in the first three parts.
Memories Of Long Ago
part 4
by Trish
I made it home that night. How is unknown to me. It was only after dinner, as I sat up staring into the inky night, that my eyes caught sight in the window of the box's reflection, the very one that Angelo had placed in my hands that morning. Taking it up in my hands, my fumbling fingers worked the lock. Soon the lid was opened and my eyes found the contents revealed.
Photographs, their corners creased and bent from being fingered continually, stare up at me. I remove them, one by one, a montage of my first six months of life. Under the photographs, neatly bundled were several envelopes, yellowed from age, the handwriting that of my mother's, a single name on the front, my father's. Since there was no postmark on any of the letters, they must have reached my father via Sydney or Broots. The risk those men took.
Extracting the first letter from its protective sleeve, I slowly unfold it and scan the contents. Mother reports that all's well with her, and she has slipped into the persona of Payne Hunter. Yet she wanted to know what possessed him to select those names for her and how she could hear his laughing at her question. The next couple of letters dealt with how she is coping at a normal life, if that's what she is experiencing can be called. The letters then take on a more serious tone, how she felt the baby moved, heard the baby's heartbeat, and how he wasn't there to share in it. Then she wrote somet hing that I never would have believed, if I had not read it, how she never s hould have allowed him to talk her into this arrangement and that she regret ted doing so.
I continued to read the letters from her and wondered about his responses to her. I never found any letters in her belongings at home but then again mother tended to be rather secretive about her past. When I took the letter, that was dated two days after my birth as well as mother's birthday, I felt the tears starting to well up in my eyes. She wrote describing me, telling him that I was small but healthy, and perfectly formed, all ten fingers and toes. A tiny porcelain doll. A crown of dark hair, big blue eyes, tiny lips that form a bow and cheeks soft as peach blossoms. My mother's words chille d me. How her heart must have ached as she committed those words to paper, k nowing that he would never hold me and only see me through her eyes and thos e close to her.
Her next letter detailed my christening, six weeks after my birth on a cold day in February. It wasn't a big celebration, the guest list was small. Mother, Sydney, Broots and Debbie, as well as the priest. Mother related that Debbie held me and at the moment when the priest poured the water over my forehead a shaft of sunlight shone through the stained glass window straight into me. My mother took it as an omen that perhaps Grandmother had sent that ray of sunlight as a blessing on her namesake. Mother then continued, that I was growing strong and chubby, that my cheeks had a pink glow to them; that I was starting to smile and coo.
The letters were long and detailed, filled with the excitement of watching that which they had created, grow and change before her very eyes. How she loved being a mother, that this, freedom was a whole different world. Yet each time she wrote to him it was getting more and more painful and she didn't want the situation to continue. She wanted him with her, us and yet she knew the danger that would follow if he left that miserable place, again.
Drawing the blanket from the back of the couch around my shoulders, I buried my head in my hands and wept for I had had no sleep and the first rays of dawn could be seen coming in through the window. The shock of what I read was still with me, that I hastely reached for the glass of water that sat on the table in front of me and I knocked the box to the floor. The box clattered to the hard wooden floor, the sound of it causing me to jump. Through blurred vision, I feared that I had damaged it, for the bottom of it pulled away. Reaching with trembling fingers, I brought it up into my lap cradling it as if infant, I discovered a false bottom. Nestled inside--another red notebook.
Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com
part 4
by Trish
I made it home that night. How is unknown to me. It was only after dinner, as I sat up staring into the inky night, that my eyes caught sight in the window of the box's reflection, the very one that Angelo had placed in my hands that morning. Taking it up in my hands, my fumbling fingers worked the lock. Soon the lid was opened and my eyes found the contents revealed.
Photographs, their corners creased and bent from being fingered continually, stare up at me. I remove them, one by one, a montage of my first six months of life. Under the photographs, neatly bundled were several envelopes, yellowed from age, the handwriting that of my mother's, a single name on the front, my father's. Since there was no postmark on any of the letters, they must have reached my father via Sydney or Broots. The risk those men took.
Extracting the first letter from its protective sleeve, I slowly unfold it and scan the contents. Mother reports that all's well with her, and she has slipped into the persona of Payne Hunter. Yet she wanted to know what possessed him to select those names for her and how she could hear his laughing at her question. The next couple of letters dealt with how she is coping at a normal life, if that's what she is experiencing can be called. The letters then take on a more serious tone, how she felt the baby moved, heard the baby's heartbeat, and how he wasn't there to share in it. Then she wrote somet hing that I never would have believed, if I had not read it, how she never s hould have allowed him to talk her into this arrangement and that she regret ted doing so.
I continued to read the letters from her and wondered about his responses to her. I never found any letters in her belongings at home but then again mother tended to be rather secretive about her past. When I took the letter, that was dated two days after my birth as well as mother's birthday, I felt the tears starting to well up in my eyes. She wrote describing me, telling him that I was small but healthy, and perfectly formed, all ten fingers and toes. A tiny porcelain doll. A crown of dark hair, big blue eyes, tiny lips that form a bow and cheeks soft as peach blossoms. My mother's words chille d me. How her heart must have ached as she committed those words to paper, k nowing that he would never hold me and only see me through her eyes and thos e close to her.
Her next letter detailed my christening, six weeks after my birth on a cold day in February. It wasn't a big celebration, the guest list was small. Mother, Sydney, Broots and Debbie, as well as the priest. Mother related that Debbie held me and at the moment when the priest poured the water over my forehead a shaft of sunlight shone through the stained glass window straight into me. My mother took it as an omen that perhaps Grandmother had sent that ray of sunlight as a blessing on her namesake. Mother then continued, that I was growing strong and chubby, that my cheeks had a pink glow to them; that I was starting to smile and coo.
The letters were long and detailed, filled with the excitement of watching that which they had created, grow and change before her very eyes. How she loved being a mother, that this, freedom was a whole different world. Yet each time she wrote to him it was getting more and more painful and she didn't want the situation to continue. She wanted him with her, us and yet she knew the danger that would follow if he left that miserable place, again.
Drawing the blanket from the back of the couch around my shoulders, I buried my head in my hands and wept for I had had no sleep and the first rays of dawn could be seen coming in through the window. The shock of what I read was still with me, that I hastely reached for the glass of water that sat on the table in front of me and I knocked the box to the floor. The box clattered to the hard wooden floor, the sound of it causing me to jump. Through blurred vision, I feared that I had damaged it, for the bottom of it pulled away. Reaching with trembling fingers, I brought it up into my lap cradling it as if infant, I discovered a false bottom. Nestled inside--another red notebook.
Feedback please : Ractrish@aol.com
