Quietly, hope crept down the back stairs

Hope sweeps down the narrow streets the way despair will tomorrow.
We are alone in this world I tell the children. Your father has
abandoned us in this place we never should have come to. It rains here
and it rains hard. We should start to prepare for the rain now and
secure a shelter before the storm starts.

My beautiful boys are still wet eyed. They like to stare at the sun and
at night, at that time of the month, they stare at the whole moon too.
Their eyes are always wide open. I'm not sure if it's wonder or fear.
There are many things to wonder at in this city. There are lights
forged in Hell and women who would show you the way there. There are
murderous alleys and shops the size of factories that will swallow you
whole if you don't watch your step. I can't believe the cars, racing
from this place to that, with no thought for what's between. They are
streaks of metal to me. And the people too, striding and weaving about
me when I visit the grocer. They never stop. Day and night, everyday,
their chatter sings above the rough hum of air conditioning and
elevators. These are wondrous sights but they can be the makings of
fear. When the fear seizes me, it pulls tightly in my chest and spins
me like a top. I try not to spin for my boys. I do not wish them to see
the weakness that riddles my bones. I may distract them and say 'look,
is that your father?' It never is.

Their father is gone, longer than they know. He left me a long way
back, when we were two rooms in a forest, before my boys could stand.
They remembered nothing of that man's leaving. They called the next man
father because that was all they could remember. For a while, it was
all we knew. Our family of understanding move for a better life in the
city but then he slipped away. The diseases of the city have fancy
sounding names, but they take people just the same.

We are alone again then. I want to go back to the country but we've
heard that wanders took up the house and last spring the villagers
burnt them out, nothing to go back for then. But good will visit us. I
have faith and strength and that is all we need. And a little money. I
can make a little money for myself. I tell my boys its not what you
think, then I go down to the docks where the warships are coming.

The sailors are kind men. Their demands are met easily and cheaply. I
take tips from drunken wallets too and soon I pay the rent and meal for
the victorious. The bird is stuffed and there are potatoes cracking in
the oven. Thick gravy with the lumps strained out through old
stockings. My boys are called to the table and we make talk.

I make talk. The boys are silent. The thoughts they have are locked
inside their heads and rolled around their eyes. The eldest, sixteen,
on the verge of trouble, Peter does not disappoint me. I know the heads
of boys becoming men through my brother then my first husband. I expect
him to be silent. But Larry, two years younger, with the smell of a
child about him still, I cannot bear to se him without tongue.
'Eat up boys. We have a spread.'
Larry looks at Peter and down at the food. The curls of gravy steam
dance around his nostrils. He looks back up a Peter and moves to sit on
his hands.
'What ever is the matter with the both of you? Larry you'll end up as
skinny as your brother. Come on, eat up you both.'
Larry squirms, but Peter's fixed ahead, burning holes into the kitchen
wall.
'Larry boy, what's got into you? Is this my starving wretch that drives
me distracted for food?'
'Peter says we should eat at your table.' He looks at me. He can't
conjure distaste across his angelic face, but he manages
disappointment. My own little Larry looks at me with the eyes of a
judge.
'We don't want to eat your food,' says Peter. He keeps staring at the
wall, jaw tense around the bone, lip twitching.

--This is work in progress. If you would like me to finish it, please
email or vote. Thank you --