Day 1255: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: curled up
Curled Up
Elsa was 16 when her brother was born, making her an only child no more. Now she was like a mother, tasked with the feeding and diapering of this baby, then keeping him from the usual toddler mischief. The worst things happened within six feet of her. She saw him tug the corner of the table cloth when he was four. He gave it one good yank before she could stop him. Onto the floor went their dinner, with dishes breaking.
It was her fault for not watching him closely enough. She took the brunt of the yelling that day, in English this time. Normally Ma and Pa would curse each other in German to protect the ears of their one and only son. His eyes would dart back and forth between them, and Elsa knew little Lawrence understood every word.
The day he went missing, she was in große Schwierigkeiten, big trouble, for sure. Ma and Pa mustn't find out he was missing. Their precious boy! He didn't come in for tea at three, and he never missed tea time. The whistling tea kettle let out a fierce roar, as if to accuse her, to incriminate her. She turned off the flame and lifted the kettle from the stove, poured it over the tea leaves, set the tea pot and a platter of cookies on the table, then ran outside, looking in every building. A cow in the pasture might charge him for getting too near a new calf. If he fell into the pig pen, a sow might devour him. The cattle tank was deep enough to drown kittens and little boys too. Running, breathless, she wondered how soon Ma and Pa would come for her. Tea time, but no Lawrence, no Elsa. She raced from the barn, the hog house, the chicken house, the sheds, the outhouse, then back to the barn, where she dared to call his name. Still no reply.
A gap in a stack of hay bales caught her eye. A barn cat had kittens there; she'd heard the mewing. Elsa squatted before the opening and peered into the darkness.
source: Sarah Richter art at pixabay
There, curled up in a ball, with a kitten tucked under his chin, little Lawrence lay sleeping.
Dumpkopf!
She shook his foot to wake him, resisting the urge to drag him out and hug him as he opened his eyes and focused a sleepy gaze on her.
"Tea time," she said.
#Five minutes turned to ten, so I'll stop here!
Day 1255: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: curled up
This is based on the story of my dad going missing as a child, and being found asleep with the kittens. He really did yank the table cloth and pull dinner to the floor, and he really did have only one sibling, a sister who was sixteen when he was born. After that, my grandma had a hysterectomy, but no one ever explained what medical condition necessitated that. In the late 1930s, such things were taboo in conversation. Grandma lived to age 97 and still I never knew why the surgical procedure.
Thank you Marianne and all @freewritehouse for your support of #freewriting!
Great story! I was getting quite worried...
It's interesting that, even though she had lost such an important body part, your grandmother lived so long.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
I've never heard of hysterectomies shortening one's life span. Maybe it lengthened hers. :) Sharp to the very end at 97, still remembering dates, and never had to wonder where she left the keys because she didn't use them. Never learned to drive. No phone in her house until 1990-something. Tim has a cousin, a bachelor dairy farmer, who's never had a credit card, and he lasted only two months with a cell phone before driving two hours to their main office to tell them how much he hated it and their billing methods (credit card required) and their lousy service. He still sounded irate when telling me about it from his landline.
Whenever I feel like a tech-phobe, I remember my rural kin. Several of them still have no computers, no internet, and no desire ever to be burdened with such things.