False memory, true pain

Three young children raced down the sun-dappled street. The two oldest were obviously siblings with the same dark hair, pale skin and round faces. The third was small and blonde. Whisps escaping from a long braid that wasn’t enough to control her hair through a long day at school and playing with friends. Standing beside her older brother and sister she didn’t look like she belonged.

She would never feel like she belonged either.

Her flightiness was always too different from their practical natures. But for now she was just the annoying little sister that every big brother or sister had. It was how the world worked after all. For now their yells and laughs echoed along the empty streets under the late spring sun. White, cotton-candy clouds scudded slowly across a cornflower blue sky.

It was the same walk they made twice a day everyday, to and from school. Only the weather and the leaves on the trees changing. There weren’t any other children that walked the same way as them. It was just them.

This day could be changed for innumerable others in their young lives.

The oldest, a tall girl with a gap-toothed grin, pushed through the startingly blue front doors of their home calling at her sister to hurry up. The inside of the house was a shock of cold after the warm Australian afternoon air and the long walk home. Tall and shaded it was always a welcome relief in summer.

The expected sound of their mum welcoming them home never came. Instead the stillness of the house was filled with the sound of sobbing. Instantly the laughter died in their throats and the three children crept around the dividing wall into the lounge.

Their infallible mother was sitting on the couch with her best friend’s arm around her shaking shoulders. Sobs wracking both of their bodies.

Dread settled in the little girl’s stomach like a lead weight. The world shifted in a way she couldn’t understand. Should never have had to learn to understand.

“Come here kids.” Mum said.

= + =

Except that isn’t how it happened.

Even if it is how I remember it.

Instead in the years since, my mother and sister and brother had all told me we didn’t walk home that day. That my earliest memory, a memory that I can feel in my soul is something I remember and not just a fantasy that my mind has invented from being told the story so many times that I think I remember it for myself, is wrong.

Instead it went something like this.

= + =

A voice echoed through the school, interrupting the quiet and not so quiet murmur of several hundred children who never ran out of things to say. The teachers talking a little bit louder than the kids ever managed. The announcement system crackled making it hard for anyone to understand, but enough came through that they could figure it out.

“Al-x-ra, Cil-an, Br-t-y pl-se c-me fr-t -ice.”

With only ten minutes until the final bell for the day their teachers waved for them to take their things with them. A small blonde girl, not the biggest in her class, but also not the smallest, hefted a back pack bigger than she was onto her back. It was pink and had a purple pattern over the hardy canvas.

She was alone in the halls, her older brother and sister were in the big school at the other end of the building. It would be a few years still before she had to walk those halls. She liked the smaller building her class was in better anyway. The walls were covered in drawings and colourful charts. The only windows were right at the top of the wall and made it feel more comfortable, and was always warmer in the cold winter months.

Within no one else around, the little girl gave in to the ever present desire to skip. This desire would follow her long into adulthood. The need to move more always itching at her. It wasn’t far to the round building that joined the little school and the big school and had the front office between.

“ROGER!” The little girl screamed in glee when she saw her Dad’s best friend standing with one of the front office ladies. Dropping her bag she ran at the man to hug him, too excited to notice the sadness on his normally stoic face.

“Roger?” Lex, the little girl’s older sister asked as she and their brother reached them. “What are you doing here?” The girl who thought she was big, but really wasn’t, dragged her brother close even as she wanted to grab her sister as well. To hide them all from whatever was coming. Because Roger had never picked them up from school before. They hadn’t even seen him for a little while with their Dad out of the country for work and Mum busy doing Mum things.

“Come on kids. Mum is waiting at home for you.” He didn’t answer their questions. Scooping up the little girl’s bag he led them out of the building and loaded them into a car too small for all four of them. He had come straight from work and hadn’t taken the time to return home and get the sedan.

“What are you doing here?” Lex tried again once they had pulled out of the carpark onto the road.

“Mum’s waiting for you at home.” He said again.

It wasn’t a long drive. A few minutes after piling into the car they piled out of it again. Roger took the bags before they could try and wrestle them back on and waved them towards the house.

The two older kids ran ahead, needing to know what was going on, while the little girl skipped beside Roger. She swung their held hands between them and chattered about her day. She wasn’t stupid no matter what Cillian said, she knew something was wrong. But she loved Roger and she knew he would never hurt her, so she was happy to wait to find out what was causing the pain in his eyes. She couldn’t delay it long though. Quickly, they were through the front doors of the house and around the dividing wall into the living room. Her Mum was sitting on the couch with Sheryl’s arm around her shoulders as she was obviously trying to pull herself together. Her brother and sister were sitting together on Mum’s free side.

Mum hugged all three children close to her before she broke their world apart. "Dad isn't coming home..."

= + =

Rewrites and rewrites:

My first memory is wrong.

I remember flashes. The sky was bright blue, the colour you think of when you some one describes the perfect summer sky with fairyfloss clouds. My dress was the horrible yellow and soft red of my primary school uniform that always reminded me of Ronald McDonald. I was walking home from school with my older brother and sister. It was the same route that I had been walking for a year and would walk for another four.

I can still picture every old oak tree along the way.

The three of us laughed as we ran and played. I was so much smaller than them and needed to stretch my legs to keep up with them. We tumbled through the front doors and into the cool interior of our house.

A wall separated the entry from our lounge room. After kicking off our shoes and dropping our bags we hurried around the wall looking for our mum.

She was hunched over on the couch, head in her hands and crying silently. I had never seen my mother cry before that day.

Except I didn’t walk home that day.

I have been told that my father’s best friend, someone I have known my whole life, picked the three of us up from school. I would have known something was wrong before leaving school. He shouldn’t have been there. He had never been there before and I don’t think he ever went there again.

I remember that day because it was the day when everything changed.

It was a sunny spring day. I remember the bright blue sky and the soft white clouds that drifted. I was in year two, my brother two years ahead of me in year four, and my sister, the oldest, was in year five. We walked home from school together every day. This day was no different. We played and laughed. I had to hurry to catch up with them when their longer legs spurred them forward.

We were still laughing as we walked through our front doors. I didn’t know that anything was wrong until we were inside the house.

A wall separated the entry of our home from the lounge room. Walking around it we found our unshakable mother crying on the couch. I don’t think I had seen my mother cry before that day, but it would set the tone for the long days to come.

Except none of that happened.

My brother and sister and mother have all told me what really happened that day.

I would have known something was wrong before I even left school. My father’s best friend, someone I had known my whole life and still know now twenty something years later, picked the three of us up from school. He shouldn’t have been there. He had never done it before and I don’t think he ever did it again.