"Broken Wings" by Sarah-amy haley

Can you hear me, bound in the caverns of your slumber? Has my voice crossed the gulf, the valley forged between us? Lying there, the wires delving through your body you seem weak. Vulnerable. Almost trapped. You’d flog me, if you were awake, for saying it. You thrived on strength, “What’s a man in this day without his power?” You’d say. Power over body and mind.

Power over his wife.

His children…

3 tubes run down your face, stained like the crude bars of a jail. You swore, after last time you’d never go back there. Swore you’d stay out for your children.

For Anna and Jacob.

Not for me.

I remember hoping so much that people were right when they said jail would change you, one way or another, for better or for worse. I dreamt that you’d soften, realise what I wished somewhere deep down was true. And that maybe you’d care.

Maybe you’d one day even forgive me.

Before you were rock, as hard and cold as stone.

Nothing changes.

…

It was never mother’s fault, for her you were almost gentle. But then, her you always loved. I’ve heard stories of before. Of a time when you were happy and I was nothing. They said, you always knew your mind. Knew your strength too. You could be harsh. Down right cruel sometimes, but never violent. Not ever. Not before. Somehow, in the innocence of my infancy I managed to change you.

Just by being there…

Did you really lack such power?

…

You cried when Anna died. Held Jacob in your arms and wept, your great frame trembling like falling leaves on the breeze. You looked so broken, as though the spirit had been wrenched from your quivering body. It reminded me of when the school in Harley Street burnt down. All the books and paintings destroyed. The first wobbly alphabet of the junior classes and the consuming studies of the scholars, reduced to ash in one dreadful night. The building itself was fine, the structure only slightly shaken, but the soul - burnt away.

You never let me go to school. Said it wouldn‘t be right - that learning was never meant for my kind.

Yes…

That’s just what you said…

… Mother was at Anna’s funeral, pale faced and rigid. You bowed your head at her. A tiny nod of acknowledgment. It caught me so deftly, imposed itself on my memory. She smiled weakly. It was like a diluted you.

The next day you beat me for slacking on choirs.

You weren’t’t the only one to cry when Anna died. I waited for solitude to show my grief. I’m not hard like you, yet you flaunted your love for her, surrendered your control. For once I was strong, callous even. My tears weren’t’t just for Anna - though she remains my greatest love - but for myself, and you, and the compassion you had for just one daughter.

…

The doctors never explained to me why my sisters heart broke down. They took you away to some private office to give you the news. She was already as good as dead. I sat in a green plastic chair, peering through the window to Anna’s room. She looked exactly as you do now. I remember seeing the points of her ears poking through her hair, and me wanting desperately to cover them. She never could sleep with her ears uncovered, they were too obvious, a constant reminder. She once told me in sleep that we were all the same.

It was lovely.

But it wasn’t true…

I’m touching your ears now. You were always so proud of them. Pure Elven, back 12 generations. I’ve never felt them before. Not yours. You never let me this close. I feel as though I’m betraying you now. Others hold their dying relatives hands, or stroke their foreheads softly. To do that to you would be somehow wrong.

… I’m sorry…

When you came back, after seeing the doctors, there were four red lines down either side of your face where you’d clawed your own flesh. Your eyes showed the same feral terror and anger and loss that I’d seen only once before. Still, when you took Jacob to one side, when you placed his hands in yours and tried to tell him. You were so calm. He couldn’t understand, not at 5. He knew that clunking machine was making her breath, to him she was still alive. He couldn’t grasp why you’d want to turn it off, and make her dead…

You accompanied the doctors as they went to let her go. Jacob stayed with me, asking again and again what was happening. Why daddy was stopping Anna breathing. I did my best for him. I told him Anna was going to be an angel, and that God was taking her because he needed her special help.
I heard him, that night, asking God why he couldn’t have taken his other sister.
He was only 5, but already you’d taught him not to trust me.

…

Within a week, most of the village had heard the news.

I promise, like I promised then, I didn’t tell a sole. Honestly. Perhaps, if you are listening, this time you’ll believe me. What use would it be to lie to you now?…

Most of our neighbours knew even before mother did. She was away with Mr Thomas at the time. I never asked why mother didn’t live at home like other mothers did. Why instead she lived for weeks and months with lots of different men, or why she travelled to far away places on cruise ships and aeroplanes, returning only for a hug and a rest, while other mothers stayed with their children always forever, reading bedtime stories and knitting socks.

Anna told me that mother had to make lots of friends, because she was a sociable person. She said that mother needed a way of coping with life, but that she would love her children always, and that we should to love her back. No matter what.

I used to wish Anna was my mother…

Mr Johnson was the first to pay his official respects. He came knocking with flowers while you were out with Jacob, planning Anna’s funeral as a family. You had said repeatedly I wasn’t to let people into the house, but Mr Johnson was a kind man, and I felt so horribly lonely.

…

You hated Mr Johnson. I didn’t really understand hate until I saw you with him. I was 6 years old when it happened. I’d fallen of the wall between our house and his, my knee was bleeding and I was crying. I haven’t really cried since - only for Anna. Mr Johnson found me on the floor. He bent down and spoke to me in his funny broad accent, saying “Are you ok me old fruit?” In exactly that voice.

He pulled a face.

I laughed.

I was laughing when you found me later, playing chase with him and his dog. You stared at the scene with a look in your eye that I’d see only once more. Then you moved towards us, half screaming half growling. You picked me up, throwing me back into our garden. Anna helped me up and held my hand as I watched you punch him again and again, until your hands were blooded.

My first glimpse of hatred.

You kept telling him to stay away from your family. To go back to his own kind. Anna tried to drag me away, but I couldn’t tare my eyes from the madness in your face. I was used to your anger towards me, but this… And then there was the part of me, some grotesque hidden desire, that actually wanted to watch, to see your primeval attempt to claim ownership over me. The closest you’ve ever shown to love.

That was the night Anna taught me how to pray. We began by begging your forgiveness…

…

Sat there, with his flowers on our stained flannel sofa he seemed so out of place - Mr Johnson; his freshly pressed jeans and pale pink shirt, with 2 gold and navy fairy wings fanning out behind, a world away from your fierce, traditional Elven attire. The front room was filthy. You always made it my job to keep it clean, but without Anna’s secret helping hand I was lost. He didn’t seem to mind, just smiled sympathetically and asked gently how it happened. When I told him he did that blinking sideways glance that I saw so much over the following days, and told me how very sorry he was. He said it was so sad that one with such a kind heart as Anna’s should lose it so young. I nodded, my eyes were burning.

They’re burning now.

For both of you.

I told Mr Johnson when the funeral would be, but that I didn’t think you’d want him there. I don’t know what you’d have done if he had come, but I doubt your actions would have been as Anna wanted. I said I’d have to hid the flowers, so you wouldn’t know he’d been, but that I’d make sure Anna got them. One day. And I said that if he wanted to say goodbye I’d take him to her grave. When she was settled. He refused, he knew what would happen to me if you ever found out…

Before he left, Mr Johnson turned to me, put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. If you’d done that I would have been so frightened, you only ever did when you were really furious, but Mr Johnson wasn’t angry. If anything he seemed scared… He looked me in the eyes and told me how proud he was. Of me. Of how I’d grown up to be a clever, kind girl; just like my sister, and that he really was sorry, “So very, very sorry.” Then he squeezed my shoulder, and left.

That night I burnt dinner. You shouted at me, called me a stupid, careless girl and locked me in the coal hole. Dinner ended in the bin, just like the flowers you found under my bed.

As I sat crying, cold and hungry in the dark, I longed for a father like Mr Johnson.

…Or else for a father like Anna and Jacob had.

I was only young.

I’m older now.

I don’t waste my wishes anymore.

…

I’m sure Jacob never meant what he said, that night, 10 years later as the policeman with the smooth ears and stubbled chin took him away. He was wrong. What he learnt from you, you never taught him. Maybe you should have been more careful around him, sheltered him more from your violence, but it wasn’t your fault. You were a good father. I should know, I watched you with him so jealously. It’s just, I think, you were too important to him. He’d lost Anna. I was…as I am. And mother had hurt you, more badly than you ever wanted us to know.

It was loyalty, what he was truly trying to show, it just got warped and twisted - what you didn’t mean him to learn was all he knew. And he used it.

For you.

Neither of you were to blame. Maybe mother knows that now too.

…But Jacob hurt her as much as she hurt you, and when he realised… he panicked.

He doesn’t hate you.

He doesn’t blame you.

… I know I have no right to try and comfort you.

I know pity from me is almost worse than hate from Jacob, but I can’t risk not trying.

Please.

Stop hurting.

…

He’ll be out soon… Half time for good behaviour.

Did he tell you?

…I know he hasn’t wanted to see you these last 3 years…

He let me come visit a few months ago… He’s starting to forgive me. Even though, everything that’s happened. Almost everything… It’s been my fault.

…I’m sorry for that.

Really sorry… For being born, and being proof…

I’m sorry for bringing a truth nobody wanted to know.

For changing you.

And breaking you.

And for shattering that mirror of happiness you could have had in another world, with Mother and Jacob and Anna… Without me.

You know, everything’s going to change…

When you wake up… And Jacob comes home.

…

Are you still listening?…I hope so…

Believe me. Please.

…In time, everything changes.

And until then I won’t leave you.

You broke my heart a million times, but I fixed it.

And I’ll fix you.

So… Here.

These, are what have broken our family, and for our family, I break them too… I don’t ask you to touch them, or see them. Just know they are gone. And the blood and flesh that bound them to me, like the rift between us, will heal.

…Isn’t that right father. We can heal. Can’t we…

They really are gone.

…Those gold and navy fairy wings that savaged our family’s soul…