The Second First Time

She could still remember the first time she walked through the door. Well, technically he was carried, scooped up in her newly wedded husband’s arms as he carried her across the threshold of their new home, kissing her cheeks as she laughed.

Life had seemed so simple then, so... endlessly magical. Like anything was possible.

There was a time where she might’ve believed such a thing.

Eleonora walked through the crumbling threshold, this time on her own two feet. There was rubble and debris on the floor, shards of broken glass crunched beneath her boots as she walked, her bare fingers peeking out from her knitted gloves to trace the door-frame. She traced the little marks her husband carved into it, marking the growth of each of their children.

She could still remember bringing each one home, swaddled in crocheted blankets, always sleeping in her arms as her husband helped her inside. Two darling little girls, and a handsome little boy. Each one loved and adored with all their hearts.

She couldn’t reach the final marks left by her husband, marking off their son’s height. He towered over his mother, who was barely four and a half feet at the best of times. Józef had to climb onto a step-stool just to be able to to make the notch at the top of his son’s head. He joked that Olek couldn’t be his, because no one in his family was this tall. No one was in Eleonora’s family either, but somehow, their little Olek towered over his parents. Their gentle giant.

But now their children were gone. Mina and Marcia had married, moving into their husbands’ houses, far from their little village. They wrote often, but that didn’t change how Eleonora’s heart ached for her children.

And little Olek, her gentle giant... well, war doesn’t care for gentle people.

Eleonora wasn’t sure which letter hurt her more. The one telling her that her little Olek had been killed in action, or the one telling her that her beloved Józef had been killed as well.

Both of them, gone in an instant. Ripped away by a war started by faceless men in fine leather chairs, fought by good, hardworking men and boys. Men and boys who’d never come home.

Eleonora could only be grateful that her Mina and Marcia weren’t widowed as well, both of their husbands returning from the war, battered and bruised and with memories that haunted their midnight pillows, but alive. They were alive. Eleonora could only wish she could say the same.

Walking further into her old marital home, Eleonora felt as though she would choke on the pervasive, suffocating sadness that’d consumed her of late. Where once there’d been family photographs upon the walls, there was now graffiti, written in a language she couldn’t read, but had become familiar with through the propaganda she’d seen in the streets. Her dining table, a gift from her parents on her wedding day, was destroyed, smashed to bits, the wooden splinters used for firewood.

Any valuables that’d been left behind when she was forced to evacuate were gone, picked through by thieving vultures and desperate people alike. And while things could be replaced, the memories could not. She could only be grateful that she still had the battered old gold band her husband had given her so long ago, each scuff and scratch a testament of their love.

Reaching beneath her shawl, Eleonora grabbed the leather cord she wore around her neck, holding her husband’s ring in her hand like a talisman to protect her from the all consuming sorrow. It was battered, dented, one of the few things the army were able to send her. His wedding band, dog tags, and a pair of battered socks, mended time and time again.

She walked into her old bedroom. The marital bed had been smashed at some point, the bed-frame cracked and splintered, and the old feather mattress partially off the bed, spilling over to the floor like a bit of candle wax. She tried to ignore the crackling of broken glass beneath her feet as she walked further into the room. The only sound that escaped her was a shuddering sigh of relief when she found the family portrait that always sat at her bedside. The frame was broken, the glass spilt upon the floor, but the picture was still there.

With shaking hands, she picked it up, smiling at the almost mischievous smile her Józef wore, at the bored expression Olek had and the beautiful, shining smiles her daughters wore. It was an old photograph, but it was a comforting reminder that they were once all together. They were once whole.

Hugging the photograph to her chest, Eleonora turned away and left the room. There wasn’t much left for her there.

She paused in the sitting room, looking around with a growing pain in her heart. This room had seen use while she was away. Such was clear by the litter and garbage. Foreign tins, empty of any food, but filled with cigarette butts. Ash and smoke discoloured the carpets and wallpaper. And right by where their old radio would’ve sat, now stolen away and likely sold for scrap, was her Józef’s chair.

It looked terrible. The fabric was ripped and cut into, the stuffing sticking out every which way. There were more than a few stains on the fabric as well, colouring the fabric in muddled shades. What the stains were, Eleonora didn’t want to think.

One of the legs the chair sat on had broken off, and was replaced by a pile of old, yellowed books, leaving the chair lopsided. All she could think was how upset Józef would’ve been to see his favourite chair in such a state. She’d no doubt he would’ve hunted down the men responsible and given them what for.

But he couldn’t.

Not any more.

Perhaps it was selfish of her, cruel, to hope that the men who’d squatted in her marital home were dead now. That any comforts they stole from her home were short-lived. It was bad enough that they’d driven her from her home, killed her husband and son, and trashed the life of her family. If there was any merciful god, surly he would see fit to ensure that such persons no longer walked the earth?

Having enough, and holding the photograph to her breast, Eleonora left the house behind, wincing internally at how the front door groaned ass she gently closed it. Józef would’ve tightened the hinges and made sure they were well oiled. He was a firm believer that any creaks in a house could invite ill-intentioned things into their home. And in a way, it sort of had.

Taking a deep breath, she cast one last look at what had once been her marital home, where her and Józef had raised their children, watched them grow into wonderful, loving adults. Her voice was thin, shaking as she said one final goodbye before turning and walking away.

Her daughters were waiting for her.