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Their lives were not fortunate ones. He the eldest, she just a few years younger and five children further down the line. Their mother was constantly ill. She lay in bed most days, complaining of stomach pain. More likely, she was suffering from loneliness and stress. Loneliness of having a husband who was consistently away, and the stress of having borne seven children from his visits home and having little means or energy to look after them. This last task fell on an ever-changing cadre of relatives of which they had plenty.
Most often seen was the grandmother. She of a strict mindset and little patience. She would not tolerate much from the children, most of all the eldest two. They were never what most would consider “bad”, but when they strayed past what she deemed acceptable for children, they were put in The Closet. Musty with the smell of old shoes and sweaty feet, they would sit together. The grandmother had too much else occupy her than pay much attention to two naughty children. She would often forget them there for hours. Sitting in darkness, they would whisper of their family, of dreams and of grim realities. He would say how much he wished to take them away from such things as too little food at meals and shirts with gaping seams. She would talk of family and songs and how the younger ones must be brought up with more.
“More what?” He would ask. School, for one. They must go to school so they could make better lives when they were older. Even at seven, this, she knew. He was already in school and clearly he knew much of the world. Much more than she ever would. He must go to university, she decided. She would look after the children. Raise them and love them and make sure that they too were able to school. The grandmother would never insist on such things. She had never gone to school herself and didn’t care enough to think it for them. He worried that she would sacrifice her own education, but she was more practical than he. Always had been. He would teach her at home and when he left, the younger ones would continue. This is as it had to be. He finally agreed, there in that closet among unwanted smells. It was decided. This is how it would be.
And that is how it was. He worked hard. He hated every minute of it, as he wasn’t inclined to school, but there wasn’t a choice. When the time came, he left for University. She, true to her word, made sure each of the children were fed and clothed as best she could manage. She saw them to school and greeted them when they returned. They adored her, but when her brother went away, she felt the loss. She felt the burden of the family all the more, though she would never speak of it. She herself lived to hear from her brother. The letters he would send more than the money they desperately needed.
She never knew when the sickness began. She knew inside she wasn’t well, but she wasn’t unwell enough to be abed, either. A doctor was out of the question, so she did as best she could, day by day. Succumbing to her spells only when they were too much to ignore. Between her physical pain and managing the household, she grew accustomed to life without her brother. It sometimes surprised her to think there were times when life was like this. She grew closer to the children then, and the children learned to notice the signs of her spells, and would stop whatever mischief they had been engaged in to tend to her. Soon, she forgot to fill the hollowness of not having her brother with her. To indulge in the guilty blackness brought on by thoughts of her father and the melancholy her mother evoked in her. The children became her world. It was for them she lived. It was for them she managed, despite everything, kept her heart open.
