Where the Heart Is

By Anna Rose

Born at a time when a womans role was to marry & raise children Katy Buchanan whose only wish is to work on her familys farm does not fit this mould but then told by her father a man she adores that there is no place for her there she is devastated. Then she falls in love, becomes pregnant and her life is to change irrevocably and what follows is a story of heart ache, determination and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anna Rose
• Release date: Sep 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301098644

Anna Rose

Anna Rose is the author of LUCI: RHOADES TO HELL, the Tales of the Dragonguard (about dragons, of course!) and The Sumaire Web series of vampire novels.  She is currently working on a couple of new novels, LUCI: RHOADES TO RECOVERY,  a fantasy novel that explores the ideas of Heaven and Hell which is the sequel to LUCI: RHOADES TO HELL (released March 31, 2020), and KAL'S HEART, the third story in the Tales of the Dragonguard, that began with AYA'S DRAGON, and continues with SARA'S FIRE. which is now available in both e-book and softcover at Amazon, and in ebook format at iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and other fine merchants. Her newest venture with her stories and novels is turning them into audiobooks for those folks who prefer listening to books, rather than reading them, for whatever reason. Amongst her other writing, Anna writes vampires who like what they are and aren't looking for a rescue. Her vampires bite, drink and kill. No bottled or bagged blood for these vampires! The first novel in the series, SIOFRA, was released in late January of 2012. The first novel was followed by FIACH FOLA and then DROCH FOLA. There is also a short story called FEASTA FOLA. She lives in usually sunny Southern California.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

He was my father and I adored him, he dominated our lives, my mother, my brothers and me. He was the center of my world and I wished with all my heart to be the center of his, but I feared that would never be. He loved me, in his way, but his heart was with the land and his first-born son. All else was peripheral. The land, the man and the son and from that perspective all decisions were made and justice dispensed and my Mother gentle, loving, talented, long given up on waiting for his recognition, became a shadowy figure and I loved her too.

Apparently I was a precocious child, a born rebel, or so I was told often enough. Also that I was stubborn and willful, terms meaning very little to me at the time other than they appeared to relate to the fact that I was never of a compliant nature; especially in the face of authority. Something which I never ever did hold any doubts as to my right to question such and did so, particularly if I ever perceived myself to have been unfairly dealt with. So yes if it were that which made one a rebel well then I was.

Even so should I have had an understanding at the time of those terms used I know I would have considered a grave injustice was done me and instead I would have used the words quiet, thoughtful, shy even, for in my inner world that is how I would have described myself. Yet, even forgiving this apparent limited understanding of those who described me so as it happened it is possible that ‘they’ after all may have been more accurate than I could have ever imagined.

For as it was, while left happily to my own devices with the daily rhythm of my first tender years singularly harmonious, at age six this was to change thereafter. That unbeknownst to me events had been taking place at that time which were to tip my life upside down and those qualities so ascribed me were indeed to become necessary as I saw it to my survival.

CHAPTER ONE - Where it began.

Born in 1942, a time when the world was indeed a very troubled place. A time as history reflects when very few nations escaped the consequences of the bloody combat of WW2 which was still being waged and with no foreseeable end in sight. However for all of that of major concern to the inhabitants of this small coastal town of Western Australia on that particular day, with the local radio issuing bulletins that the Japanese were about to bomb the town, was what was going to happen to them. With the knowledge that coastal towns further north had already suffered this fate no one saw any reason to dispute the veracity of this information.

Urged to leave their homes and to seek shelter in the sand hills surrounding the town, my mother in labor with me, could only watch helplessly as a panicked population streamed past her hospital window. Her fear can only be imagined, as much perhaps for the fate of her family and her yet unborn child as for that of her own safety. Happily however for her, for me, for everyone there were no bombs dropped that day on our little town or any other subsequent day thereafter and I arrived, to all intents and purposes a healthy and robust baby girl.

Arriving at this period of time, despite the war or perhaps because of it, of changing economic times for my parents after the years of grinding poverty of the big depression my arrival was regarded as something of a good omen. A turning point if you will. So no matter the drama in play on my entry into the world it seemed that my arrival, a daughter after two sons was cause for celebration.

As I recall the telling of it later the Matron of the hospital while bundling me up for my departure, was said to have declared that I was 'a bonny little girl indeed' after which she had then apparently delivered a few terse words to my father. These to the effect that ‘he be mindful of his blessings, and to take heed that his wife was a fragile little thing and to be sure to look after her better, or else’. The or else sadly was to prove prophetic for such was the nature of her husband, never one to take advice and much less from a woman he would have had no mind to heed such advice and life very nearly did overwhelm my mother.

However that was all yet to come and it was that I Katherine Mary Buchanan departed for my home, a broad-acre farming property, of some four thousand acres, situated inland in a small and isolated farming community. For my parents, pioneers of the area it was a hard life by any standards; the climate and the landscape were unforgiving and with no amenities to speak of.

However in those early years basking in the doting attention of theirs and of the various relatives who visited from time to time I doubt I suffered any noticeable deprivation. Likewise my brothers James and Edward, occupied with their correspondence lessons taught them by mother, riding their horses, rabbit trapping, bird nesting and whatever other adventures were theirs to have and so we were allowed to grow up happily occupied with each day and our lives passed with little enough interruption from the world at large.

Our home by comparison to most apparently was a comfortable one. This thanks to my grandpop Simpson, mothers father, who had himself, despite the shortage of materials of those times built it for them after declaring prior to his daughters marriage that he was not going to have her living in a humpy or tin shed. Not unusual for those times, for most homes were little more than that, with rammed earth floors, unlined walls, with gaps for windows covered with bagging flaps.

Whereas ours had rooms with doors and windows that opened and closed, pretty curtains at the windows, timber floors and it's walls were lined. It was a proper home sheltered by verandahs all around and it even boasted a bathroom, albeit without a bath. That came later when mother finally fed up with bathing in the small tin tub placed on the floor in the kitchen, saving all the money she made from selling eggs around the district and ignoring her husbands objections went ahead bought a proper bath and had it installed.

Not something father readily accepted and steadfastly refused to use only doing so after the small tin tub sprung a leak and he forced too.

There were no telephones and of course electricity and refrigeration were unheard of and food was either preserved or kept cool for a limited time by means of a ‘coolgardie safe’; a hessian covered metal frame over which water constantly dripped. Wash day, always a Monday saw a fire lit under a big copper tub filled with water and the clothes were placed into the then boiling water before being transferred to concrete tubs where they were washed and rinsed by hand before they were put through a big mangle device to be wrung out. Labour intensive it two people a full morning to do it.

With no running water, water came from rain caught from roofs and stored in large galvanized tanks, light came from kerosene wick lamps which inadvertently smoked and flush toilets hadn't yet been invented. The toilet, or as it was commonly referred to, the outhouse or less glamorously the 'dunny', was a very rudimentary galvanized iron structure, which stood door-less a short trek from the house through the bush. With its seat a wide wooden plank with a hole cut in it under which a drum was strategically placed; a receptacle needed to be periodically removed and emptied. The odor of phenyl, a disinfectant, filled ones nostrils but as bad as this was I have no doubt it was the more acceptable alternative. Toilet paper was old newspaper torn into pieces and one was always warned to be sure to look out for snakes on the way to and fro and to check for red back spiders under the seat, both very poisonous. A journey to the toilet could become quite an adventure.

Meat was killed and salted; a cow supplied milk, which was separated for the cream which was then used to make butter with. Bread was made each morning and there was a vegetable garden, watered with the waste water carried from the house, and when all was in plentiful supply it was preserved in row upon row of glass jars for later use. In other words except for the purchase of fruit which arrived in crates and was likewise preserved we were, by means of the application of much effort and energy, self sufficient. This was how it was.

The main sources of news and information came via the mailman who came by once a week his truck laden with mail, parts and supplies and was always welcomed with great excitement. A valve operated radio, listened to with rapt attention daily gave more up to date bulletins of what was happening outside of our small world.

We children knew better than to cause any distraction while the radio was on or while adults pored hungrily over newspapers, magazines and letters after the departure of the mailman. These would be read and re-read while we kids contented ourselves with ripping open all the parcels and delving through the boxes of supplies. You just never knew what surprises you might find.

CHAPTER TWO - The Parents

My Father; Walter James Buchanan, known as Jim to his friends, forty one years old at the time of my birth, had emigrated from Scotland twenty so years before and still spoke with the soft burr of his home country. A man not given too many words, he was tall and athletic, a handsome man. With dark brown hair, fair skin burned brown by the sun, and when he laughed his deep voice seemed to rumble up from deep inside him. He had bushy eyebrows and the most wonderfully deep blue eyes; eyes which while normally warm and full of laughter if he were displeased could change with alarming rapidity to a chilling brilliance. We learnt it was always wise to recognize those times.

A man most passionate about his sport and the only thing he ever really displayed any outward emotion over, and he did especially like to win. He loved his ‘wee dram’ of whiskey, at which times he became very merry, broad of speech and expansive of nature. We quickly learnt that if you ever wanted something, then was the time to ask for it, for in times of sobriety he was not given to acts of impulsive generosity.

He encouraged us all in all manner of sporting and outdoor activities and I determining not to be outdone by my brothers, became very competitive and very adept. I had to work twice as hard of course to do so but it was worth it to beat them and win his praise. In fact he seemed to enjoy encouraging my overtly competitive endeavors. Something which appeared to annoy mother exceedingly but he simply ignored her pleas for him to stop it and continued to do so. Still as it was if we adhered to the few basic rules he laid down, we were allowed an almost unfettered freedom.

To fully understand my father one would have to have an understanding of his upbringing as well as the strictures of his Presbyterian faith. I finally did, although it was a long time coming, come to understand that his was a love more demonstrated by deed than words and that in failing to comprehend this ensured one being perpetually hurt.

A favorite saying of his was that ‘Cleanliness was next to Godliness’ and I know at some point I chose to apply its literal meaning in my life. I think it appealed to a sense of order in me, or maybe it was that I believed it would keep me in favor with that forbidding God, whom I had come to believe watched censoriously over all. Or again maybe it was as simple as currying the favor of that other more present God, my father, but whichever it was, my image was not at all of a very demonstrably gentle loving God.

So what did I inherit from him, his fair skin, brown hair and I eventually did grow tall, until I did though I would hang by my arms from trees or doorways in the belief it would help to stretch me. For some reason short was not good. Maybe my reserve and my dry sense of humor came from him. He was my hero, the center of my universe and I faithfully modeled myself on him in homage of that adoration and happily basked in the warmth of his attention. It was only later I came to realize that his was a flawed love, and that which I had believed to be so had been more of my imaginings than of reality.

Of my mother, Eleanor Mary Simpson and always known as Ellie, thirty-one years old at the time of my birth, who had looked forward to the arrival of a little girl, a feminine focus, in the harsh and masculine reality of her world. A little girl she could dress up, make pretty things for, read stories and sing songs to, teach to play the piano and talk girl talk with. My sweet, gentle, loving Mother, I know she dreamed of these things. Whereas I, determined to be more like a boy than a girl, to my lasting shame, took what she gave me and sacrificed much of it on the alter of adoration for my Father and in doing so I lost so much. Well we both did.

Petite, with lovely olive skin and she truly was beautiful with her lovely long black hair worn in a thick plait which always fell over her shoulder when she leant forward and her soft brown eyes which would crinkle up at the corners when she laughed. I loved the fragrance of her, the faintest hint of perfume somehow mixed in with a lovely fresh clean soapy smell. I recall the shock I had felt the day she had all her beautiful hair cut off, short like a mans a gesture more symbolic than I could have ever imagined for she never laughed as much after that either.

So what did I inherit from my mother, fair with my golden brown hair, I did have her soft brown eyes, but sadly not her calm, self-effacing manner. Gentle soft and yielding I have no recall of ever seeing her angry yet for all that she could be surprisingly stubborn when determined on a course; that was something we shared in common. She was a superb horsewoman, I never was, she played the piano beautifully and while later I would wish I had listened to her entreaties to learn I doubt it was ever a gift of mine either.

And how safe I felt whenever having a bad dream and frightened would crawl into the circle of her arms, to have her say there was nothing there to be frightened of and believing her immediately my world would right itself again. And I always believed hers was a magical touch by the way she seemed able to restore health to sick or injured animals. Something which noticeably my parents did have in common and I came to view it as about the most tangible thing they did share.

She too had a favorite saying; ‘that love is the most important thing before all else’. I couldn’t say if even she fully comprehended the truth of those words but they did remain with me and they did influence my thinking as I too pondered exactly they meant.

CHAPTER THREE – The Tenure of Life

Special occasions for children in remote areas were few but for me going to Sunday school was one of them. Sunday was a day for sport and for socializing, when everyone for a day to the last man woman and child in the district stopped work, dressed in their best and gathered together in the small town. A disparate collection of buildings which had sprung up around the enormous grain receival bins at the hub of this farming community to talk about all manner of things and for a day to forget the hardship and isolation of their lives. Then to gather at the end of the day’s activities at the local Pub to either celebrate or commiserate on the sporting results of the day.

The days always did remain fun but it was that bit at the end of the day that I came to loathe, for sitting in a car tired, hungry and often cold outside a hotel in the dark waiting to go home was not fun for us children. Having to listen to the raucous alcohol fueled jollity emanating from the building a few yards away waiting for father was another matter altogether. We could sit for hours and usually did and even though Mother who because she didn't drink then and sat with us would often send one of us into the hotel from time to time to get him it was never to any avail. Our pleas always fell on deaf ears.

It was hurtful and humiliating to think that we seemed to matter so little, that he could apparently just forget all about us there waiting that short distance away and it was something which burned into me. Mother would sit there all quiet and even when he eventually appeared, only when the Pub finally closed, she would still say nothing. I never understood that but then he was always so drunk and silly by then I suppose she figured what was the point and how we always managed to get home safely remained a mystery to me.

He was always sorry and apologetic the next day, declared it would never happen again but it always did and the reaction to those times helped form attitudes in me that were to have a huge influence in my life. I couldn't stop from loving my big bluff father but I developed a loathing of alcohol and a determination that no man would ever treat me so. As I came to see it as a girl you could never appear to be weak and that I was going to have to fight to defend my rights. Something subsequent events seemed to prove correct.

But I have digressed and back to Sunday school.

Run from their home by a husband and wife of the Salvation Army faith and held every fortnight every child in the district no matter their denomination would be there. I guess parents figured it would be the nearest thing to a religious education their children were going to get, whereas for us kids it was more the excitement of the occasion, the getting dressed up and going out than learning about Jesus or Joseph or Mary.

I loved putting on my best dress and my Sunday shoes, the only time I ever wore anything on my feet, it made me feel extra special as I paraded and pirouetted around in all my finery. So it was that I together with all the other kids scrubbed up and like attired in our Sunday best, warned to be on our best behavior and with a penny for the collection box, would sit crossed legged on the floor earnestly listening to stories from the bible.

Vying with one another to answer the questions on the day's story we sung songs with great gusto knowing that we would soon be released to roam at will for the rest of the day. The adults being much too pre-occupied with their sporting activities, tea and cake and gossip to pay us children much heed and only when we got hungry or thirsty would we seek them out.

So with nothing to set this one particular Sunday when it dawned apart from any other I single it out for it transpired to be a day when I learnt what I considered a very salutary and altogether painful lesson. Delivered as it was by a vision of loveliness by the name of Daphne with her beautiful blue eyes fringed with long curling eyelashes, her hair a golden halo of soft curls and pretty dimpled smile she reminded me of my flawless porcelain faced doll. I equated her with the image I held of what a princess to look like.

Neither was I it appeared the only one so impressed either, for it was a thing to wonder at the effect she had on adults and other children alike as she smiled and dimpled. Making it easy to conclude that to look so was a distinct advantage in life and therefore holding this view it served to make what happened this day all the more awful and disenchanting.

It wasn't as if we kids actually really liked her but such was the sway her beauty held that no one, not even the toughest boys, would have ever considered challenging her superiority. All deferred to this superior being. With the exception of this day someone forgot and then it was purely by accident when with Sunday school done all raced off to see who could be first to reach and climb up onto the back tray of a parked truck nearby and in the excitement of the moment this boy pushed in front of her.

A big mistake and she was having none of it and she reached over and with the most vicious look on her face grabbed the skin on his arm and twisted. There was no mistaking her intention and as he howling in pain let go his hold and fell backwards, hitting the ground with an awful thud she her way cleared did not even bother to look back as she clambered on up, first, onto the back of the truck.

By the time the adults arrived, brought running by the ensuing commotion, she was ensconced in place, dress smoothed out around her, legs swinging over the edge and all dimples and smiles again. It was then with much enquiry as to what had happened to create such a fuss she ever so prettily pointed to me and announced ‘it was Katy she pushed him, she did it'. All the kids let out a collective gasp. They knew who was responsible but no one dared say a word, not even her victim and I still standing at the back too stunned by the accusation as all eyes turned my way found myself quite unable to defend myself.

I felt this injustice most keenly. As much for the false accusation and of being humiliated so in front of everyone as for the fact, that not one adult person even bothered to think to ask me if this were the truth. All had simply believed her. Needless to say I had bristled with indignation for quite some time after that and not only had I hated her with a passion thereafter but was exceedingly bothered that not only could she be so mean, telling such an awful lie but that it seemed to not bother her one wit. I who had always been given all manner of dire warnings on what happened to people who told lies it all seemed so terribly unjust that she appeared able to do so with complete impunity.

Still the lesson learned painful as it was then was that pretty doesn’t necessarily equate with nice and I thereafter remained wary of those who employed artifice as a means of getting what they wanted and thought even less of those who worshiped at that alter.

********

It is difficult as a child to divine what dramas are happening in the lives of those nearest them, especially the two people pivotal to the secure tenure of your life, your mother and father.

Twice my father became very ill necessitating him being rushed urgently to the distant hospital and while he had recovered both times it had meant a long spell in hospital, after which followed a long and slow recuperation during which for most time he remained in poor temper. With mother having to bear the brunt of this and she already burdened down with the grind of her daily life and apparently already doing battle with her own demons these times were to exact an enormous toll.

At first I had seen nothing unusual in my Gran coming to stay and I always liked it when she was there. Margaret Simpson was a diminutive but indomitable woman and I adored her, but she was not a person one was encouraged to take liberties with and even father trod very carefully around her.

It wasn’t until these visits or that of another relative became noticeably more frequent and protracted that I began to feel perturbed. Why wasn’t obvious just that I was aware something wasn’t quite right. Then there were the frequent hushed conversations which stopped whenever I came into hearing then my brother's correspondence lessons suddenly stopped and they were sent away to go to school. It felt strange not having them around and I missed them and while I still found plenty to occupy myself with it was becoming troubling.

Then when I began to sense a gradual withdrawing of my parents' attention my anxiety became very real and with this came a growing hostility within me towards them. Why I couldn't have said just that I knew there had been a shift in my life and it was affecting me but no one was telling me anything.

What I couldn't have understood of course is that my parent's lives were unraveling and like a wheel turning events were to roll on eventually and inexorably affecting everyone, just to what degree I could never have imagined.

CHAPTER FOUR - Change and Betrayal

My mother, I did learn later had wanted to keep me at home, but that in this, as in most things, Father’s authority prevailed and so it was when at age six and due to start school it was decreed that I too like my brothers would be sent away for my schooling. That I would board at a Hostel with other country girls like myself who had to live away from home to go to school and that I would go to the big Primary School there in the town. This some eighty or so miles away from my home.

Father explained it was because it would be too much of a burden for my mother to teach me at home as she had done my brothers. Later I would have been able to point out that it was likely he who was the burden on my poor mother not I, but of course I was only six years old and they were not thoughts or words I had any notion of then.

It was simple. That was how it was going to be but no one thought to ask me what I thought of all this, or bother to think of explaining anything of what this might all mean for me. How it might be for me that I at six years old having known no other life, with very limited interaction or experience with an outside world was now suddenly to be tipped into it and then worse, to be left. Left to fend for myself, rarely to see my mother or father or my brothers who boarded elsewhere and yet it was put to me in manner that suggested that this was all going to be fun. That I should think of it as being a big adventure.

Of course I wanted none of it. My world as I knew it was suddenly coming to an end and I couldn’t comprehend why or what it might have been that I had done that was so wrong as to deserve this.

I felt desperately betrayed. Unable to accept it, there was nothing anyone could say which made it sound any better and as the day of my departure drew closer my apprehension at this imminent separation from all I knew grew accordingly. My suitcases, containing school uniforms and all manner of new things were packed and ready and when the day arrived, faced with the stark reality of it I did what any six year old child would do in such circumstances.

I resisted with an absolute mindset in the only way I knew how. I kicked, I screamed, I bit and I clung desperately to the high wire netting fence which surrounded our house. Refusing to let go and as father prized off one hand I grabbed fast with the other. I was heartbroken and terrified beyond reason but not of a mind to give in and I wanted them to feel my pain, for them to hurt as I was, but mostly I wanted for them to change their minds.

As I lashed out, deaf to all inducements and entreaty and unable to accept what was happening I couldn’t have appreciated how difficult it must have been for my poor mother as she stood watching. However, when it is child versus parent, superior strength usually always prevailed and in this instance it eventually did. For father, no doubt finally exasperated beyond measure, braving sharp teeth and flying feet finally did manage to prize both my hands off the wire and pin my arms to my sides. After which he picked me up and I found myself most unceremoniously dumped into the back of the utility. My brothers watching my humiliation probably wouldn’t have understood what all the fuss was about, they didn’t mind going away, but they knew enough to stay silent.

I never forgot that dreadful journey where in my misery I sat hunched and silent oblivious to the passing landscape, still unable to comprehend my fate until finally we pulled up and I was plucked up and put down on the footpath.

A long white building separated from the footpath by a tall while picket fence confronted me and bid to follow them I dragging my feet trailed behind through the gate and up the front steps. Even the echo of the doorbell as it clanged out inside sounded dull and empty an impression in no way dispelled as the door swung open and we were greeted by the starched and stern faced woman who stood there. Ushered inside into a large sitting room I was directed to sit in a huge straight backed chair so big I had to climb into it and once there my legs dangled ignominiously in the air.

To me even though she now smiled and introduced herself as Matron and asked how I was, saying that it was nice to meet me and that she was sure I would enjoy it here, it made not a jot of difference. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her; not really, it was more that I just didn’t want to be there and I wasn’t going to like her anyway and sat mute. It all looked so big and impersonal and it made me feel so small and insignificant. I do though remember being mildly stirred to wonder why my parents were acting as they were, all stiff and proper. Odd what you notice at times of intense disquiet.

A guided tour followed where all the while this person went to great pains to explain that there were rules and that I would be expected to know them and follow them. The way she said this sounded ominous. I had little idea of what following rules meant for other than fathers few edicts such were totally foreign to me. Finally my room, bereft of color or adornment it was no more inviting than the rest of the place, consisting of four flat perfectly made up beds with a locker alongside each and a curtained off area with designated hanging space for clothes. Stark and unappealing and yet as my suitcases are brought in and deposited by my bed I become dimly aware that henceforth this is going to become my home.

All too soon it is time for mother and father to leave and while I don't want them to go perversely when they go to say goodbye I turn my back on them. By now exhausted and more or less resigned to my situation but still feeling mortally wounded I am not of a mind to forgive or make it easy for them. I don't want them leaving thinking that everything is alright. I wanted for them to feel really bad, to punish them, but never will I forget that feeling of desolation as I hear the sound of the door closing after them and I am left there. Standing in the big empty hallway all alone.

Father is back again the next morning to pick me up to take me to school to enroll and I still feeling dazed and lost have yet this further ordeal to confront. The main school is a big brick building surrounded by a sprawling assortment of other buildings and as we pull up it looks dauntingly huge. What look likes hundreds of kids are streaming in from all directions, spilling in through its gates, jostling, and shouting at one another. They all seemed to know each other.

My one impulse is to run and hide but thankfully, apart from the odd curious glance no one pays us much heed and as we cross the enormous empty assembly hall I shrink in behind father. Our footsteps to my ears sound awfully loud as we make our way towards the headmaster's office and wanting to stay invisible I pray that father won't talk to me because his deep voice would boom out in this empty space.

Duly enrolled, we are escorted to my classroom where with fathers' firm hand on my shoulder I am propelled in through the door as it is opened to his knock by a man with red curly hair who says hello that his name is Mr. Green and he is my teacher. Then shepherded further into the room father releases me, pats me on the head and tells me to be a good girl that I will be fine and then he is gone and this time it really is goodbye for I know after he picks up mother they will go home.

Left now to confront my next challenge as Mr. Green introduces me to the class I turn to become fully aware of the impact of thirty pairs of curious eyes fixed on me. I am the new kid and I feel the full weight of it in the ensuing silence as they examine me. My desk is pointed out to me and blindly I stumble toward it, with only one fervent and terrified wish in my mind; for the floor to open and swallow me up.

I don’t notice the warm salty tears coursing down my cheeks until I sit down and they drip off my chin and plop onto the desk surface. Sightlessly I set about transferring the contents of my new school case into the depths of my desk, its upright lid offering me temporary refuge as I desperately struggle to gain some measure of composure.

I feel a momentary gratitude