Abigails Window

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Abigail’s Window

SUNDAY

I HAVE OFTEN thought, the best part of taking a journey was not reaching the conclusion of that journey, but everything you might achieve along the way. There are many reasons you might take that journey. One reason might be to reach a goal you have desired all your life and to achieve it lifts you higher than you have ever been before. Of course, that does not make what you achieve along the way any less important, because along the way you might make new friends you never thought you would make, see new places you have only ever dreamed of and find strength in yourself that you never imagined possible.

I have just reached the end of a journey of which the conclusion was very uncertain, even though I feel as if I have only just begun on a much longer journey. Today, I have made a very important decision, it was not an easy decision to make but after everything that has happened, I think it is the right one. I feel as if my eyes have only just started to open. Like stepping from one consciousness to another, very much like being born. The decision I made is going to bring many wonderful things into my life, so I know I have made the right one. I have decided to stop living my sheltered life and explore what is outside these walls that have been created for me.

At the front of our home is a wooden bench. It is not an unusual bench by any means, rather it is quite a plain wooden bench with some green mould growing on the end of the boards that the council removes yearly but grows back none-the-less. Sometimes I wish they would not clean it, because I like it, it gives it character. But that is not the reason I like the bench. The reason I like the bench is that from here I can see the world going past. I could sit here for hours watching the people pass by.

Mother says I have an odd fascination with people, but people make me happy, that is the reason why it is one of my special places and I sit here often. Mother is inside fussing, that makes me nervous, so I thought it best to wait outside. It is a warm summers night; a slight breeze is blowing from the East carrying with it the rich perfume of jasmine. On some nights when the wind is blowing just right, I swear I can smell the roses from the Newtown rose garden.

The night is clear, which is rare for a city night. It is often difficult to see the stars for the low-lying clouds drifting silently over the mountain range like nomads across a distant desert. The city is built on a winding range that overlooks an Eastern escarpment and one season can sometimes become four very quickly. I have longed for a clear night to enjoy the stars for longer than a few moments at a time, but I would need to leave the city to see that as the lights of the city cast a hazy dome over us all. I do sometimes catch a glimpse though, each time there is a break in the clouds I take in their beauty and that makes me happy, even if only for a short while.

I was surprised when Mr Spencer knocked on our door. Mother had heard a light rapping sound and found him standing in our doorway when she went to see. He was dressed neatly in a suit and tie. Under his left arm sat a parcel wrapped carefully in brown paper and tied neatly with string. I believe Mother was not sure what to say to him because he had arrived earlier than expected. It was the first time they had met, and they hit it off right away. I even saw a silent tear in her eyes. She was happy that I was making new friends and a life of my own. Of course, she was worried for me, but I think that has already passed.

I find myself feeling very nervous, but I guess that is only natural for anyone who is about to do something they have never done before. Mother told me I should not doubt my own strength after everything I have achieved on my own. She always reminds me that the strength of a woman comes from her heart not her muscles. I doubt there would be anyone that knows that better than her, because even though I know it is over, the window will be there forever, to remind me and I feel that could only be good thing. In the end that is how it must be. A constant reminder to mark the beginning of my journey and why I took the journey in the first place.

Until now, I have lived as Abigail Price. Price was the name my mother took when she married my father and kept after he left. I have never lived as most other girls do. I have spent my life so far living with my mother in a large block of flats. The flat we call home belonged to my grandmother, that is my grandmother on my mothers’ side of the family. We moved in here shortly after I was born. Grandmother said Father had lost his job and had moved away looking for work. I have often thought that strange as he never did come back. I was not sure what he did or what kind of work he was looking for. If I ever asked Grandmother what my father did, she would tell me, “He didn’t do very much,” and it was always left at that.

It was Grandmother who first told me about the windows. She started to see them when she was just a young girl and it terrified her. I do not remember how old I was, but I do remember she said I was old enough to understand. I know it was a Sunday, because that was the day the Anglican Priest from Saint Luke’s came and gave Grandmother mass at home, on account of she was too old to risk trying to get to the church anymore.

I heard the taping of her cane on the wooden floor as she left her room entering the hallway that separated our rooms. It was not a strange thing to hear because sometimes she would pace the hall of a nighttime complaining she could not sleep, so I was not surprised when she appeared in my doorway.

It was early spring, I was daydreaming on my bed, the Eastern sun always shines through my window and across my bedroom during the morning. I just love laying there in the warmth watching the dust dancing in those golden rays like tiny angels. At that time of her life, she was hunched over terribly and used her hickory cane when she walked. She sat herself gently onto my bed and looked at me with the warmest of smiles. “Abi,” she started, she looked at me momentarily with an expression warmer than that springtime sunshine that was caressing my face. She had surprisingly few wrinkles even for her age. Her glasses always hung low on her face. Her eyes which were a deep brown were focused intently on me. “You’ve been seeing the people in the windows, haven’t you?” she asked even though she already knew the answer.

She explained everything carefully and gently. Considering every word she used so l could best understand. ‘At first, it came to me like these rays of sunlight coming through your window,’ she held her hand up to the light as if trying to capture it, ‘it’s gentle and warming. It’s like you’ve fallen asleep in a summer field and the wind that gently strokes your face wakes you from a dream you can barely remember.’ She told me the windows that she saw, carried the images of people’s lives, lives that were filled with sadness.

Time went by and those rays of sunlight became more intense for her. They showed her images she could not block from her mind no matter how hard she tried. It terrified her until she dreaded them and dreaded closing her eyes in fear of seeing them. I guess that is something you would find hard to miss, a sleepless child. Her Grandmother found her when she had passed out from exhaustion and did for her what she did for me.

She taught her how to control it. She told me ‘It’s like standing outside a strangers window and looking in, as long as you don’t open the window, your safe, you can see but you can’t be seen. There is no reason to be afraid of what you see because it is all in the past, and what is in the past cannot harm you,’ she would often say when we spoke of it.

Once she told me it is like ripples on a pond, you did not cast the stone, but in your mind, you can see the ripples when no one else even knows they’re there.’

Mother said it sometimes skips a generation and I think she was glad of that. Before Grandmother died, she told me there will be times when I will hate it and myself for having it, but I should not feel that way because it is a special blessing that God gave me for a reason and one day, I will know that reason. She also told me I was never to talk about it to anyone else even though I sometimes find it easier to think of it as a curse and not something God would bestow on me or anyone else and I think secretly Mother was glad of that also.

Grandmother died when I was twelve. Mother’s way of explaining that to me was ‘Your Grandmother’s heart ran out of ticks.’ The very next day Mother cleaned her room and locked it behind her. We buried her at the Drayton Cemetery. We visit her sometimes and even though I know she is gone; I know she is still here. Sometimes when I pass by her room, I hear humming. The same humming, I heard as a little girl as I watched Grandmother brushing her hair before bedtime and when I feel afraid or maybe it is just my imagination, I hear the tapping of her cane walking up and down the hallway.

Today is my eighteenth birthday, I have never had a birthday celebration or ever received fancy gifts. Mother always gives me practical things like hairbrushes, new shoes, and last birthday she even gave me a special blue dress. She took great pride in taking me to the store to purchase it. We tried on dresses all morning until she found the one she thought was just right.

She had been putting money aside in a small glass jar each week with great anticipation. Even the meagre amount of two dollars was a lot for her to spare so it made her gift so much more special. When I got it home, I immediately hung it in my closet, it has hung there until today with all the drab clothes that I am told I wear. I have never worn it until today because such special things require special occasions, we never have or go on special occasions, that is not until today.

There is only one thing I would wish for on my birthday and that is to see my father. Mother says it is foolish to think such things. I have only ever had vague memories of him at best. He left us when I was only young. Mother says we never really needed him because we are doing just fine the three of us. But I often think of him, and I guess that is alright. I imagine sometimes he would knock at the door. I would open it to find him standing there, a big smile covering his face beneath his dark well-groomed moustache. He would be wearing a suit and tie just for that moment. I would wrap my arms around him so he could never leave us again. The smell of cologne would hang thickly around him, and I would smell of it long after we broke our embrace.

Even though I know he does not have a moustache and he probably does not even own a suit, this I know for sure because I have seen the pictures Mother keeps in a box under her bed. I think despite what Mother says she does miss him. I see her looking through the pictures sometimes. On her face an expression of such longing and I am sure broken heartedness. I guess that is alright though, after all he did break her heart. She always leaves the box there, under her bed, I am sure just for me to look at and know most things I dream about are most likely just that. Sometimes when Mother is taking her nap, I retrieve the box and take it to the kitchen table. There I go through the old pictures just to refresh my memories.

They were both very young. Grandmother said they married too soon. Mother was beautiful in her wedding gown. Father was young and handsome. Mother says I am trying to create something Father never really was. I think he would say he was sorry for walking away from us, I really do think he would. I would forgive him of course and wrap my arms around him. He would stay forever and yes; I do know I am being very foolish in being so sure of these things.

We are very happy here. It is never lonely. There are lots of other people who share the building with us. Sometimes they come and go. We have been in the building longer than most. In number 40, that is the flat beside us closest to West Street. There lives a very nice family. The man is always polite when I pass him in the hall. He always smiles gently and says hello with a nice smile. I believe he is a night shift worker of some kind. I hear the door to their flat closing late some nights when he comes home.

On the other side of us is number 44, it has been empty for some time. A much younger couple used to live there. They did not live there very long. My bedroom and theirs shared the same wall. Sometimes in the night I could hear their muffled voices, but if you put your ear to the wall just right, you could hear everything. When they first moved in, they made love very passionately and noisily almost every night. Then each time I saw her pass me in the hall, her stomach had grown a little more. Then all I heard was arguing through the walls. Most nights they argued, then I started to hear sobbing. The expression on her face always seemed so sad when I passed her. I wanted to reach out to her, to say something, anything. I never did and even now It fills my heart with sorrow. I told Mother about it; she told me to mind my own business and maybe I should have.

We do not often afford ourselves many luxuries and I have often thought going to school would have been one of the greatest. After Father left and I was old enough Mother home schooled us. She had decided protecting us from the outside world was the best thing to do. I often think how wonderful it would have been to go to school. To have friends other than Mother and Grandmother, that is not to say they are not good friends. After all Mother has been busy all morning making a cake for my birthday. It will be grand to blow out eighteen candles this year. To be around all those other children would have been even more wonderful. We did see other children, mostly at parks and the rare trips when Mother took us to the cinema at Grand Central. That is if there was something showing that Mother thought was appropriate.

We have never had much money to spend since Mother fell ill and had to give up her job at the dry cleaners. She does receive a small amount from Centrelink which has helped. A care worker comes sometimes to check in on her. Her name is Rose, she is very nice. She often sits with Mother and drinks tea. Rose has a set amount of time she must spend with Mother, but she always stays a little longer and they talk sometimes for hours. I believe they have become good friends on account of they are very similar. They are both working class women. Neither of them has a husband anymore and I guess they just seem to go together like the two odd socks that always turn up at the bottom of a sock draw and get rolled up together to make them fit in with the rest.

It has mostly been my responsibility to take care of her since she fell ill. I think it has been hard on us both adjusting to her illness even though I believe in my heart anything can be overcome, it is just adapting to an entirely new routine and growing from there. Families get through tough times by sticking together and for the most part we have. Her biggest trouble is the standing. Because of the multiple sclerosis her legs are very weak and cannot hold her up. She spends most of her days in a wheelchair, but not for a moment has she let that derail her.

When I turned seventeen, I decided I had to do more to help my family. Without Mother’s permission I decided I needed to get a job. I had seen the help wanted sign in the store window numerous times when I took Mother for her walks in her wheelchair. I left home without telling Mother and walked to the small Spar grocery store that was on West Street. I unpicked the piece of paper that was taped by all four corners to the window. It came off easily enough. I stood there in front of the store with that sign in my hands feeling nervous. I looked in the window, where the sign used to be, a face stared back at me. It had been so long since I looked hard at myself in a reflection, I barely recognized the girl staring back at me. Mr Spencer would be right, he always mostly was, I looked drab. I straightened my black hair the best I could and smiled a few times for good measure. Then I heard a voice from the store doorway.

‘Are you bringing that sign in or are you planning on standing there all day smiling at yourself in my window?’ a voice said. That was when I first met Mr Spencer. He has a very abrupt way of speaking. He had a broom in his hand, ‘here,’ he said and handed me the broom, ‘start by sweeping the shop front, when you’re done, throw that sign in the trash, I won’t be needing that anymore.’ And I did. I swept that concrete while Mr Spencer watched me from inside the store and from that day on I worked at the Spar store on West Street.

I can honestly say that I loved my first job. Mr Spencer treated me like his own daughter, that is not to say he was not hard on me, but he was fair. He gave me my very own uniform. It was black so it suited me well. It carried the little Spar logo on the front, and I loved wearing it because for the first time I felt part of something important, even if it was only stacking shelves and cleaning. I also got to greet people every day. Mostly people smiled and took it the way it was intended but not everybody is happy or wants to be.

When I told Mother about my new job, she did not take it very well at all. She was right to worry about me and I love her for that, but I stood my ground on the subject and eventually she excepted it. It was not long after I started working for Mr Spencer that Mother wheeled her chair into my room late one evening. ‘You look happy Abi’ she said holding her head high as if in a show of defiance, ‘if you are happy, I am happy,’ and the subject was never raised again.

Time went by and Mr Spencer decided it was time I worked the check out. He watched over my shoulder until he was confident I would not over charge any of his customers. I got to chat with a lot of people I had never met before as I processed their groceries. It was wonderful. Sometimes people from our building would come in. Some would talk, some would not. Mr Spencer says I talk too much, I just reply, ‘it’s the best part of life,’ and he would walk away shaking his head mumbling something about me being foolish and that would make me smile even more because I knew he did not mean any of it.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when I saw the girl that I share my bedroom wall with. She walked in through the automatic doors. Her baby was near fully developed by the size of her stomach. She was wearing a loose fitted skirt that came to her knees. The shirt she wore had a red heart inside a halo printed on the front, it was stretched to breaking point. Her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and in her eyes, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone very nearly pushed to their limit.

She took one of the red hand baskets that were stored near the front door and headed down the produce isle. I watched her contentedly from the front counter. She packed some apples and bananas into the basket then disappeared down the tinned goods section. The automatic glass doors at the front of the store slid open and a teenage boy who was wearing earphones and a white cap came inside out of the heat. He brought chewing gum and a coke. When he was done, he disappeared back through the doors, out into the day. I scanned the store from the checkout looking for the girl but could not see her. She then appeared from the cold goods section and began to unload her shopping from the red basket.

I watched her quietly then said ‘hello,’. Her chin was nearly resting on her chest. ‘How’s your baby doing?’ I asked, her eyes came up to meet mine without her chin moving from her chest.

‘It’s fine,’ she replied, ‘sometimes it kicks but it’s been quite today.’ She gently rubbed her stomach in small circles with her right hand, then raised her head, studied me for a moment then carried on with her groceries.

‘I’m Abigail,’ I said, ‘I live in 42.’

She thought for a moment, ‘oh…yes, of course, I didn’t recognize you,’ she replied then pushed her groceries along the counter towards me, ‘I’ll just take these today please.’

There have been many others, but it was this one that stuck in my memories the most. Mother says I should not reflect too long on any of them but that is easier said than done. I finished packing her groceries into her bags and told her the total. She fumbled through her handbag then counted small bills onto the counter. I scooped up the bills and she handed me a fist full of coins to round off.

The coins felt heavy in my hands, like a dead weight, then I felt her slender fingers caress my palm. The light hit my mind like a spotlight from a freight train. It was blinding. My body jolted as if an electrical shock had passed from her to me. ‘Are you alright?’ I could hear the girl asking. Grandmother taught me when I was younger how to close the shutters if you see something you do not like. I saw something I did not like immediately in her window. I closed the shutters as fast as I could, and the window disappeared. The light faded as the girl came back to my vision and I found myself standing at the checkout. She was staring at me with a concerned look on her face.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘It’s just so very hot today.’

‘It is,’ she threw back as she turned and made her way toward the automatic doors.

‘I’m Abi!’ I said again, the words spitting from my mouth before I even knew I was going to say them.

‘Yes, you told me, I’m Penny,’ she said standing in the doorway, ‘now we’re not strangers anymore we can say hello when we pass in the hall.’

‘I’d like that,’ she turned and was about to leave, ‘you don’t have to stay you know, there are people who can help you.’

She stepped through the door, turned, and looked back at me; a look of confusion etched on her face. I still see her sometimes, that is if I deliberately look into her window. I still see her body lying there. The top of her head is bleeding. Her husband, his name I never did know, he is still standing over her. The blood is still dripping from the end of that hammer in his hand. But the girl that I met, the girl that walked through those glass doors that day, I never saw again.

I told Mother about what I saw as I always do. I told her I could have done more to help her. She told me, ‘You tried, just be proud of that. Most things in life are already set and little you do will ever change it; your grandmother knew that.’ And in many ways, she was right.

The police came and took her husband away. People from the flats came out to watch as if an interesting spectacle were occurring. He was in hand cuffs being led by two policemen, he screamed and cried all the way to the police car. Penny’s body was wheeled out in a black bag. Afterwards two men came and cleaned that flat from top to bottom then locked the door behind them again. Then that flat sat empty, and it is probably only people like me that know a place that something terrible has happened in should never sit empty. It swells and festers. The hurt, the anger, the betrayal.

Life carried on. Penny eventually disappeared from my thoughts. I continued to love working for Mr Spencer. I met new people every day. I talked to them briefly. Sometimes I touched them. Sometimes I saw happiness, sometimes I saw sadness. I think what I really saw is the one moment in that person’s life that affected them the most.

I wish it could have continued along that way, but as Mother says, ‘life rarely stays the same.’ But on that day Mother would be right, life would never be the same again. It was a day that seemed no different to any other. I had packed shelves all morning until Mr Spencer told me to work the checkout. I never could have known or guessed that the little old man that came through the automatic doors would change my life forever.

Life teaches us many things, one of those things is that people are creatures of habit. You say hello when you shake a stranger’s hand for the very first time. You say hello to the person who has just rung your doorbell and you say hello to the person on the other end of the phone. Right off, in your mind, you make first impressions of those people. You form a picture of who you believe they are and that itself is perfectly fine but without even being aware of it you have made a first and a lasting impression of that person.

Of course, this is only human nature or the human condition as Mother would have said, but I guess it comes right down again to human nature and that is something none of us can escape. This is something I have made a conscious effort not to do, because in a way it is being a judge, jury and executioner before that new person has even had time to show you their true colors.

That is the problem with first impressions, they stick like glue, and I have never been one to judge someone new, but it is human nature to form an opinion on a first meeting. I met Himmler on that early summer’s day and against my better judgement something deep inside me straight away made a first impression. He entered the store and went about his business then arrived at the checkout and promptly unloaded his groceries.

To any normal set of eyes there seemed nothing special about him. So, If I were to make a first impression, I would offer one on the fact that he looked about as normal as any other old man you may meet on any other given day. If I passed this man on a sidewalk, I would barely notice him. If my eyes were to drift over him, I would quickly look away because there was nothing remarkable about him, except he was wearing a pair of Heinrich Himmler glasses. The kind I had seen in books from one of my home schooling classes. But if I were to stop and engage in conversation with him, right away I would form the impression that he was just a normal old man.

This man could have been anyone’s grandfather, father, brother, or uncle. I would look at that man and notice right off he wore a style that would suit most old men, I guess. You know the one I mean. Long grey slacks and a checked shirt. On his head sat a Panama hat and beneath that sat the Heinrich Himmler glasses perched delicately on his thin nose. His skin was wrinkled and pale like it had not seen the sun for some time, but I would also get the impression that most old men probably do not see a lot of sun because they rarely leave their homes. That is the thing with first impressions, most often they are wrong.

I do believe it was fate. It was fate that brought Himmler to my checkout on that summer’s day. It was fate I was standing behind the checkout watching him, and it was fate that would bring our lives crashing together. And there I was, watching him as he concentrated on the items he was retrieving from the red shopping basket. He paused briefly to push his glass’s back with his index finger then raised his head once to study me. I think it was more out of annoyance than anything else. He seemed to be hurrying. His pale blue eyes moved over me fast as if he were adapted to being cautious of people. I caught a faint aroma of spices and soap that seemed to linger in the air around him. I watched his hands as they placed each item down. I noticed his slender fingers with well-manicured nails. He wore no wedding ring or carried any indentation on his finger where one may have once been.

I reached out to assist and promptly he slapped my hand away. I jumped a little with surprise. Even with the brief contact, his skin felt cold. Then the coldness seemed to attach itself to my skin. I rubbed my hand on the back of my pants as if the cold would not come off. I then used my other hand and rubbed my hands together until the skin went white. I studied it. The blood seeped back through my skin returning it to its original pink color, the warmth returned, a strange wave of relief swept over me. I looked up to apologize to Himmler. He was gone. I was surrounded by darkness, darker than I had ever seen it, a thick impenetrable darkness all around me that stopped only to meet the frame of the window I found before me.

Most often when my mind connects with others there are a multitude of windows, each one would allow you to look into a multitude of people’s lives. It was the contact that was the key. Like an electric current striking an arc. Once that contact was made the key was yours to come and go as you please, should you wish.

I stepped to the window. The room was empty. The decor was of a different time. Old wooden toys sat on a shelf along the far wall. A single bed was set back into one corner, it was made neatly with a teddy bear dressed in a school uniform resting against the pillows. The walls were covered with wallpaper displaying tiny little drummer boys on parade. It was a room perfectly set for any small boy.

In the center of the wall, opposite the book shelve, hung a large picture in a heavy timber frame and protected by a sheet of glass. My eyes were drawn to it. It was a setting of some far away jungle painted in oil paint. A green mass of giant trees spread across the canvas. Vines hung from the large limbs. Ferns and small palms covered the undergrowth. Even from across the room I could see the faint brush strokes. It was a beautiful picture. The picture did not seem out of place but perfect for a boy’s bedroom wall I would suppose. It was a picture that would cultivate any boy’s imagination, filling it with wonder and the promise of adventure.

It held my attention as if on purpose. The darkness and shadows within the painting seemed to call to me. ‘Come closer Abigale and I’ll tell you my secret’, like a spider to a fly.

Maybe it was the narrow path that led into the jungle and disappeared into the darkness of the undergrowth. I think perhaps it was the dark hiding spots under the trees and the palms that could hold something a boy’s imagination could give birth to, as there would be in any jungle. The darkness also held the promise of terror and within my mind it seemed to call all my attention. I found myself staring at it until my eyes hurt, until I was sure there was something staring back and that, I believe was what the artist was trying to achieve.

Then I was sure I could see it. Two faint red eyes hiding in the darkness and a faint growl like distant thunder on a clear summers day or maybe my imagination put them there and they were never really there at all. No, I was sure of it. At the end of the path that was swallowed by darkness there was two faint red dots I could only guess could be eyes. Then I could not see them at all. My eyes watered. I rubbed them until they cleared.

I had lost them in the darkness straining my eyes to see them. Then the bedroom door opened, and a small blonde-haired boy ran into the room. He was dressed only in pajama pants. He went straight to the window. He grabbed hold of the brass latch that kept the windows shut. He pulled at them with all his might until I could see the white bones of his hands, but they would not budge. He was crying with such deep body shaking sobs. He beat at the window with his fists until I thought the glass would shatter. Inside his eyes I saw terror I had never witnessed before. Something caught his attention from the doorway. Something was coming. He turned to face it.

I could see the shadows dancing along the hallway. Slow and menacing. A dark mass threatening to form into any number of monsters that could live inside a fear-stricken mind. It came closer. The boy backed up against the window. I held my hand against the cold glass, but his bare skin failed to warm it. Closer it came until the shadows reached the doorway. The shadows grew longer and took shape. The dark mass grew arms and a head formed where once only darkness dwelled. I was sure it had changed to a form the boy knew only too well. A creature to be feared, just for him.

A man came around the edge of the open door. A very neatly dressed man of around middle age. He had a very pale complexion; he was sweeting and his skin looked like the contents of the lard tin Mother keeps inside the fridge and that is when I first met Mr Lard He was dressed as if he worked in an office. He was wearing a suit, the kind a cashier might wear, except this suit had a large patch of blood smeared across the front where his heart would be beating.

Casually the man walked into the boy’s bedroom. He removed his suit coat and laid it out on the boy’s bed as if being very careful not to wrinkle it. He studied the coat for a moment then reached out and plucked a loose thread from it, discarded it, and smoothed it with the back of his hand as if the blood were of little concern to him. The boy turned back to the window. His face was against the glass. He screamed for help with a silent voice. I wanted to help him, I wanted to tell him not to be afraid, that everything was going to be alright.

But it was not going to be alright, because I was not really even there, and neither were they. Just a reflection of something that once happened. Like Grandmother said just like throwing stones into a pond, the ripple goes on and on.

He stood over the boy silently, the boy stared up at him gently shaking his head, he repeated the words ‘no’, over and over. Even without being able to hear the words everyone knows what no looks like coming from silent lips. He then removed his belt.

Ever since that moment I have hated the number seven. That is the number of times he hit that boy with that belt. I felt every strike of the leather, from one through to seven and when it was done, I hated that man with all the hate I could muster, whoever he was.

When he was done, he replaced his belt and lowered himself to one knee. He hugged that boy as tenderly as any loving father could, then with his hand he gently stroked the boy’s hair away from his face. I could not understand what he was saying to the boy, but the words did nothing to relieve the boys fear. He then stood up, put his coat on and left the room as if he had never been there. Before the door bolt even had time to engage a voice cut through the darkness behind me, ‘Young lady are you alright?’

The warm summer day flooded back into my vision with a wave of brightness. Mr Spencer was standing with Himmler looking at me. I held a milk bottle in my hand. A large pool of white liquid covered the checkout. I must have busted the milk bottle when I was looking through the window. Then Mr Spencer’s hand was on my shoulder, ‘Abigale, what happened?’ he asked.

‘I… I don’t know,’ I managed to say. I did not realize my face was wet with tears. I wiped at them with the back of my hands. I had never seen Mr Spencer that mad before. He helped the old man with his grocery’s and walked him to the door with a wave of apologies. I fetched a cleaning bucket and wiped up the spilt milk. Mr Spencer did not stay mad long, he never does. After I had been to the bathroom and cleaned up my face, he came to me with all the concern any father would have for his own daughter. He told me he was very worried about me and that I must be coming down with something serious. He sent me home for the remainder of the day. He even called mother to make sure I got home alright.

I walked home with the sunshine on my face, and I felt better, but the boy lingered deeply in my thoughts.