**Author's note: The bulk of this was written before I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. I face an uphill battle of surgery and possible cancer treatment. Updates might be delayed. I will continue to work on the story if I feel up to it. Thank you to those who have read Anne's story. **
I’ll always remember where I was when we received the letter. I was in the kitchen, as usual, kneading bread. There was just something about making your own bread. My bread was sometimes lumpy but never unwelcome. We usually purchased loaves from the Irish bakery across the street because my mother liked the texture.
My mother stopped baking her own bread years ago. Arthritis settled in her hands and stiffened the joints until they resembled gnarled tree limbs. We hired a cook after that, though I helped when I could. I spent most of my time in school. I was going to be a teacher. Most young women my age could relate. I didn’t know where I’d end up teaching, but hoped to find employment at a finishing school in Switzerland.
I’ve always wanted to see the Alps.
Perhaps I was aiming too high. My brother said I should think about heading out west where there was a high demand for teachers. I shuddered at the thought. I had heard dreadful stories about what happened to homesteaders and women alike.
“Are you afraid?” he’d laugh. “You’re better off in the city, anyway. You wouldn’t last a day on the frontier, Anne.”
“As if you would,” I’d retort, and we’d be at each other’s throats until my father pried us apart.
Brothers were like that.
Annoyingly crass, yet somehow endearing. How he managed to be both is beyond me. Joshua was the eldest sibling in our family. I’m the middle child. And the baby is Eileen. She’s eight and a half if not a day and never lets anyone forget it. Joshua left home two years ago after he graduated from Harvard and had a job at a bank in London.
My parents were so proud, and I hope they will be just as proud of me someday.
That is not to say they aren’t proud of me now.
But how can I compete with an older brother who graduated at the top of his class from one of the finest universities in the country? My father lamented the fact I was born a girl. He had only wanted three things in life. My mother was one of them. The others were two healthy sons.
He received one and mourned the fact Eileen played with dolls.
I was a quiet child and therefore, the one my parents ignored because they knew they didn’t have to worry about me sticking my fingers into an electrical outlet. My mother said Joshua turned her hair gray before she was thirty.
“What about me?” I asked one morning as we sat with our coffee and croissants. “Didn’t I make you worry?”
“Oh, no,” she replied smoothly. “You were a joy, Anne. I never had to worry about you.”
“Never?”
“No. Unlike your brother.” My mother grimaced. “Josh was forever climbing those infernal trees and sliding down bannisters.” She called over to my father, who had his nose buried in the morning paper. “Isn’t that right, George?”
“What’s that, dear?”
“Wasn’t Josh a naughty child?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
I don’t think my father cared either way, just so long as Joshua was around.
The family legacy and all.
My mother cared little for family legacies and simply appreciated having a son who wrote once a week and sent a card on her birthday. She always weighed Joshua’s letters in her hands before gathering us around the kitchen table to read them.
Today was no different.
“What does it say, Mama?” Eileen asked eagerly, hoping her brother had stashed a present within the folded sheets of paper. “Did he send me a present?”
“Not today, dear,” my mother said, carefully slitting open the envelope. She immediately frowned; disappointment etched on her placid features. Confusion quickly followed. “Um… Anne…?”
“What is it, Mama?” I cried, watching the color drain from her face. “What’s wrong?”
She held out the letter. “See if you can make sense of it. They speak nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” I repeated in alarm, snatching the letter as it drifted to the floor. My eyes flew over words that made no sense. Joshua had been in an accident. He survived and was in the hospital. He’d lost too much blood.
And now…
“What does it say, Anne?” Eileen needled, growing impatient. “What does Joshie say?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
Not then.
I carefully folded the letter, placed it back in the envelope, and marched out of the kitchen. I could hear Eileen’s wail behind me, along with my mother’s sobs. My father was at work, so he didn’t learn the awful truth until after he walked through the door.
I waited until the next day to grieve, hoping the words I’d read were untrue. People were in accidents all the time and lived to talk about it. Not my brother. Oh, no. Months after the funeral, I’d reread the letter—sent by a friend—and wonder what Joshua had been thinking when he crossed the street that night.
He’d gone to a pub with some colleagues from work.
There had been an altercation.
The details grew muddled depending on whom you asked. Hearsay was never a reliable witness. A month passed, then two as we tried to move on. Leaves relinquished their green clasps of summer, eventually finding their way to neighborhoods where their rich colors were appreciated. Eileen wanted a dollhouse for Christmas. In time, she forgot the sound of Joshua’s voice. My mother died a year later. A woman her age. It was only a matter of time.
At least that’s what it said on her death certificate.
My father and I knew the real reason my mother stopped eating and wasted away until there was nothing but a skull and hair left. Eileen was none the wiser, content with her dolls and happy memories of Mama.
Sometimes I’d look at my father across the table at dinner, and our eyes would meet. He’d nod stiffly, letting me know I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. The thoughts that invaded every waking moment since my brother’s passing. It was a such a simple thing. People would never admit you could die from such a thing. But in the weeks following Joshua’s funeral, my mother slowly faded away. Like an old photograph kept in a dusty drawer.
Even I was loath to admit what really killed my mother.
She died of a broken heart.
