And then, We Go Home

“Here hold out your hands.” I did as instructed, a small, glass jar found its way to my palms. “Take this, in hopes you never forget where you came from.” Dirt, there was dirt in that jar; dry, gray dirt.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“You have to,” My mothers voice was breaking now, her eyes turning into liquid pools racing down her cheeks. “I love you so much.” She said as she stepped towards me, arms outstretched.  But I didn’t meet them; I backed away.

“I’m not leaving. I have to stay. I—I’ll do everything, everything you ask, please let me stay!” I forced myself to sit on the hard ground, as if that would help to prevent my leaving. My mother came to sit by me and wrapped an old arm around my shoulder.

“It’s not easy to be brave Celia, I know.” She couldn’t finish; it was as if no one knew what to say.

“Will I see you again?” A question I’d been avoiding for fear of its response.

My father spoke for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. “The war here has just begun.  There is no telling what will…

Yes, yes we will see you again, I promise.”  His words had the hollow echo of someone desperately trying to convince himself. 

“Ceil, Ceil you’ve been dreaming again, you about woke the whole place up.” A soft, worn hand held mine.  It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dim, dusty room.  A mass of sandy, tangled hair attached to a kind face kneeled by my bedside.

“Oh Ruth, I see her now every night.”

“Your mom?”  She whispered as her understanding eyes widened.  I nodded; she lifted herself up and sat next to me, gently folding my long, unkempt hair into braids. Ruth was younger than me by a year, but she was far wiser than anyone I’d ever met.

“I see her all the time, but she never sees me. She talks to my dad about nothing- the gossip in town, or even the grass outside, but she’s talking and I can hear her. I go to sit between them but they keep talking.  ‘Oh the grass is longer on the right side of the fence,’ they observe.  I try and hug her but my hands fall through.  ‘Yes, it would be the perfect place to plant cabbage in the spring’  I try to warn her not to plant it there;  ‘We already tried that remember, but they didn’t get enough sunlight’.. They agree to plant the cabbages. Then they’ll move and walk around and I’ll follow them.  “Where are you going?” I’ll desperately ask. “When can I come home?”  But she never hears me.” I can’t stop myself from crying now and I can tell Ruth does not know what to do.

“Shh, shh it’s alright, Ceil you’ve got to be quiet, you don’t want to wake them up.” She pins a second braid to my head.  I look around at all of the sleeping bodies.  “Here, let’s take a walk.” We climbed down the cold iron stairs, swaddled in every thick cloth we could find; an array of knitted scarves wrapped around our heads and necks. The foggy streets were particularly odd in the morning it seemed as though no made eye contact with anyone. We passed a peculiar assortment of fabric stacked like a mountain on the dirty walk.

“Please, you have help me?” Ruth and I exchanged startled looks. From the base of the cloth formation you could see a face- an old, grimy, wrinkled one carved with worry and fear.  “Please, help.” She spoke again, pausing only to let out a grim, painful cough. “I need food, I need water I cannot move, my back has ached for so long I—I cannot please, help.” An old hand reached for mine and I instinctively pulled away.

“Sorry we have nothing to spare.” At my words her eyes began to water and even Ruth looked at me as though I were some rare monster, tormenting the helpless.

“Ceil, she could be dying.” Ruth’s strong face was broken; she kneeled down to crouched by the frail woman.

“We’re all dying!” I retorted, grabbing Ruth by the wrist and pulling her towards me.  Like all the other cruel patrons of the city, I couldn’t bare to look the woman in the eye. “Come on, we have to get back before work.” We started back down a narrow, long road as the struggling noises of the old woman were poured back into the injured, methodic breathing of the grimy city. 

“Amelia, Amelia here now!” A stone-faced, fat ogre of a lady was staring down at me.

“Me?” I pointed my hand toward my face,  “I’m Celia.” Still I found myself walking to her; there wasn’t anyone named Amelia not at this workhouse anyway.

“It’s all the same to me, girl.” She violently grabbed a blue porcelain plate and thrust it in front of my still chilled face. “This, does this look clean to you?”

“No, ma’am it doesn’t.”

“Would you eat off this?” She shoved it closer to my nose now, I could smell the slime and the dirt radiating from her fingers, her foul breath oozing from behind a set of protruding, slick, yellow teeth.

“No ma’am I wouldn’t.”

“Well that’s settled,” She turned; behind her three girls stood around four murky water basins with old, dirty rags diligently scrubbing as fast as they could manage. “Girls you’re relieved of your job for today, Amelia here is going to clean every plate, cup, bowl and knife that’s even slightly dirty. Well go on, get going.” She stomped off after the three girls flew away like dust from a shaken mop. I could’ve sworn I heard the ground quiver under her massive size. 

            The night was silently moving across the windows, there was peace among the stacks of scrubbed dishes and basins of the now cold water.  Walking back to the sleeping room, I stared at my hands, wrinkled and gray from laboring so long, nails bitten back to bloody stumps. Then without my command they began to move, gathering all of my things folding them, stacking them. I reached under my bed and found the small jar of dirt given to me long ago.  I held it so tight in my fingers I thought it might break. I opened it and inhaled, taking in the small bit of earth and memories of home I had left. A noise stopped me; I stood to see Ruth standing over her bed, almost in tears.

“Celia, where are you going?”

“Home Ruth, that’s where I belong, not here, if I never come back to this place again it’ll be too soon.” Ruth jumped to where I was standing; the old wooden floor creaked under our weight.

“Ceil, you can’t.” she held a solemn expression on her pale face. “We’re all hurting, but we have to stay together.”

“Is that what it’s about, me leaving you? Come with me, there’s got to be some, some kind of horse we can get and then we’ll, well, we’ll find a train, we’ll get, you’ll see we’ll get home—home you want it too I can…” My words trailed off, and I lost sight of everything else but that little farmhouse. The warmth of a fire and an old bed, the sounds of my mother singing in the morning and my father out working in the yard, now just a dwindling feeling of freedom and comfort.  I needed it; I needed home.  Ruth placed a tentative hand on my shoulder and led me to my bed where we both sat down.

“We’ll get home, some day just not to today okay, not today.” She stood up and pushed my legs onto the bed and pulled the blanket to my neck “Go back to sleep, it’ll be a long day tomorrow.” I listened as her breathing slowed and I knew she was sleeping. I woke up and gathered my things in my arms, quietly now. I walked to the rusted fire escape by the window, and looked around all these girls had homes once. Then there was Ruth, I stared at her little frame breathing in and out, she may never forgive me but I needed home.

At the back door to the house sat all the food, they’d thrown out, bruised fruits, the crusts of bread and the skins of potatoes. I gathered anything I could eat.

I walked quickly along the street, fear had not yet set in and adrenaline kept me going.  I almost passed it, the mound of cloth that housed the old lady. “Hello?” she seemed startled; my guess was she didn’t often get visitors.

“You? Have you come to spit in my face?” I was taken aback by the cruel

           tone in her words.

“No, I’ve brought you something.” I reached in my sack and pulled out an almost perfect loaf of bread. It was wet and cold now, but it was food. “You need it more than me” She looked stunned, scared almost. She grabbed it and immediately dug in.

            “Why the sudden change of heart?” She looked puzzled for a moment and then continued to eat away at the bread.

            “Because I’m going home.”

            “But—but you can’t the war isn’t yet over.”

            “It is for me, and I’m going back to where I belong”

            “Good luck child.” Her voice followed me, filled my head with hope, with happiness. I looked back at the city, the one I would see for the last time, that awful, awful city. I wandered for months, going from train to train walking through rivers and sleeping in trees, I lost track of the time. I begged for food when I could and starved when I couldn’t. I was ready to give up, ready to lie down and surrender to sleep. Then things began to look familiar. A beautiful autumn was just emerging. The trees groaned with each movement the wind forced. It was that time of year when the breeze strips them of their clothes, colorful laces and fabrics drifting off to sea.  Willingly they watch their attire disappear, reassured a new wardrobe come spring.

            I knew these trees, that bridge and the small brook underneath it. Glimpses from my childhood began to dance around me, when I’d lost my hat in the tangled branches of the oak. That year my mother and I took to selling jelly; we set up shop right past the sycamore. Where was that sycamore?  Where were the buildings, the people? Everything lay caked in a dusty shadow of what once was. Worry filled me up, and I ran past the skeletons of old buildings, fences and a few surviving livestock.

The lady was wrong, the war was over, there was no one left to kill, and nothing left to burn. The journey, the pain I caused Ruth everything, helping the woman, that hope she planted in my head it was all in vein. There was that fence, but where was my house? “Mom! Dad?” I screamed but my voice only echoed and bounced around, then came back to me just as scared and cold as when it had left. I was alone and I was terrified.

Gone, everything all gone. How could it all be gone? There was just a small patch of dry, gray dirt, so I gathered my things and started to rebuild.