A Heartbeat Away. Eleanor Jones

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      I didn’t know that my mom had a sister, either, and when I nudged Daniel and shrugged, he pulled a face at me and I started to giggle.

      “Outside now, children,” ordered Mrs. Brown. We sucked in our breaths and stayed very quiet until Fudge went racing past us into the living room; then Mrs. Brown came and found us and sent us out into the garden.

      I didn’t feel like playing because all I could think about was that letter. What if it made my mom ill again? What would my dad do when he got home? What if we lost our house the way we had before?

      Daniel and I sat on the wall in the warm spring sunshine as Fudge ran up and down by himself. We didn’t really need to talk, because Daniel always knew what I was thinking. After a while he jumped down and looked at me with the bright expression on his sunny face that told me he was about to have a good idea.

      “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go inside and ask them what’s happening? Just because we’re kids doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be told things.”

      Daniel always knew what to do. He was so confident and brave—and he was right, too. After all, I mean, if the letter was going to change my life, then I really ought to know about it.

      Together we marched into the house, accompanied by Fudge, who tore around us in dizzy circles, eager to play. I wished that I were a dog, with nothing on my mind but food and fun.

      My mom had stopped crying and she was gazing up at Mrs. Brown with a surprised expression on her thin face.

      “But I haven’t heard from Violet in years,” she cried.

      Mrs. Brown shrugged. “Well, it seems that you are about to see her again, whether you want to or not,” she remarked. “She sounds like a very strong lady, your sister.”

      My mom seemed more lucid in that moment than she had in weeks, as if the letter from this Violet had brought her out of herself again. She sat up quite tall and two spots of color appeared on her pale cheeks as she started to talk.

      “She had a row with my father years ago, when I was still quite small. That was when…” She hesitated for a moment, biting her bottom lip so that it went all red. “When my mother died. She left home then, and not long after that, we got a letter to say that she had joined the army. I haven’t heard from her since.”

      She glanced down then, as if remembering, but when Mrs. Brown put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, she started to talk again in a quick voice.

      “Funny, really, that she joined the army, because my father had been in the forces. She was so like him, perhaps that’s why they never got on. I only wish I could have been more like her, strong-willed and sure of herself—opinionated, I suppose some people might say. At first after she left, I used to think about her a lot, but she never ever contacted us, and eventually I just stopped thinking about her. When our father died, I did try to find her—I left a forwarding address at the barracks where she was based. But she never got in touch. I know why, of course…”

      She paused and I thought that the rush of information must have worn her out, for it struck me that she had said more in the past five minutes than in the previous five weeks. I took hold of Daniel’s hand and held my breath, willing my mother to go on. As the seconds ticked by, Mrs. Brown glanced around and saw us. She stared at us for a moment with a sad expression on her soft face, but she didn’t send us away. Perhaps she thought I should know the things that my mom was saying, about an auntie I never knew I had.

      And at last my mother began to talk again.

      “I know why she never came back,” she went on. “It was because Violet blamed my father for my mother’s death. He was so hard on her and she was a quiet nervous person.”

      She looked straight at me and there was a different kind of pain in her gray eyes now, a deep sorrow that brought an ache into my heart and made her appear alive again.

      “She killed herself, your grandma,” she told me quietly. “She took her own life with a length of rope and Violet found her.”

      Mrs. Brown bustled forward then, pushing me behind her and taking hold of my mom’s arm in one smooth movement.

      “That’s enough for now, I think, Mary,” she said firmly. “Lucy has heard quite enough for one day.”

      With those final words, though, it seemed that my mom dried up, as if facing her past had been too much to bear. She sank back in her chair, staring into the empty grate, and I saw that the cloudiness was in her eyes once more.

      “She’s turned herself inside out again,” I said solemnly. Mrs. Brown leaned down and gave me a hug. “Lucy,” she declared. “I do believe you’re right.”

      “Why does she do that?” I asked. “Why doesn’t she stay with me?”

      I watched Mrs. Brown’s smooth forehead crinkle into tiny lines and she looked me straight in the eye. “Maybe she does it to hide away from the things she can’t face,” she said quietly. “And we have to help her to get well again.”

      “I won’t ever hide like that,” I told her, and she smiled, nodding gently.

      “Let us hope you never have to, Lucy,” she said.

      

      After I waved goodbye to Mrs. Brown and Daniel and gave Fudge one final pat, I went back into the living room and picked up the letter from my aunt Violet. Violet! I wondered if she would smell of violets the way Mrs. Brown did. She should have been called Violet. It would have suited her a whole lot better than “Edna.”

      I stared at the writing, but it was difficult for me to read, short upright strokes with thick, sure lines, placed on the paper with a heavy hand. I tried to imagine the person who wrote them, but as I struggled to decipher the words, the front door banged and my dad’s voice floated through from the hallway.

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