The telegram was crisp. A bright white in painful contrast with the black, inky letters. Every 't' was raised, towering over the vowels. The right bottom corner, where Shelagh held it, was wrinkled. The only sign of grief.

Only yesterday, she had received a letter from him. The letter was three weeks old. Yellow paper with the faint scribbling of a pencil desperately writing on the soft surface of someone's thigh in flickering candlelight. He couldn't say where he was and she had imagined him huddled in a foxhole, shivering, somewhere in France or Germany. In his letter, he joked about the lack of tea and a prank he had played on his best mate – something to do with a snowball; she couldn't remember. He told her how much he missed her. He begged her to consider St. John's again and Shelagh had thought she'd marry him in a barn if he'd just come home.

When the sob finally escaped her, when her knees buckled, soft bony hands steadied her on her way to the floor. She clung tighter to the telegram, squeezing it until the crispness gave way to uneven ridges and valleys.

/-/-

It's the summer of 1935. Tomorrow, Shelagh will turn seven, but today she will marry her sweetheart. Michael Morrisonhad run off the cricket field in the street that morning and without a moment's hesitation asked her in front of everyone if she would marry him. He had a freckled nose and big bright green eyes and dark brown hair that never laid flat. Her friends giggled and Shelagh nodded yes. Michael smiled, pecked a kiss on her blushing cheek, and ran off.

Now Shelagh stands in her father's field, wrapped in a white sheet she and her friends had taken off her brother's bed. They used a handkerchief and a beaded necklace to make her a veil. Michael's friend Geoffrey stands with Michael at the opened gate while Shelagh, with a bouquet of dandelions walks a wedding march unsteadily up the dirt path. There are goats bleating; a silent wind protects them from the harsh midday sun; innocent giggles erupt in bursts from the wedding party.

Geoffrey asks if they will take each other to be man and wife, even if one of them is dying, and if they will love each other forever. 'I do' they answer. Geoffrey tells them to kiss each other. They blush and laugh and lean in until their lips just barely touch.

Now pronounced man and wife, Michael runs off with the boys to play football and Shelagh retreats with the girls inside.

/-/-

Shelagh helped her father lean forward as his coughing grew worse – a breathless, wet, aching cough that lasted until his handkerchief was spotted with dark blood. Shelagh could only rub his back and wince as she heard her father's pain in the exhausted way he panted for breath and the soft groan that escaped him as he settled back down against his pillows. His breath wheezed past his lips. His eyes drifted to see her.

She busied herself – moving to the vanity to dampen a cloth in cool water; dabbing the sweat from his brow, the blood from his chin; taking the bloodied handkerchief from his hand and replacing it with something clean. Her father was dying. If she kept moving, perhaps he would pass faster and his pain would end.

'Shelagh.' Her name was a deep moan; his voice stilled her.

'I'm here, da.' She took his hand in hers – thick, hairy, but now weak. 'I'm here.'

Over the past few days, his eyes had gone glassy. He looked always as if he were just about to wake from a daydream. He was gazing now at the ceiling. His lips moved, but his wheezing drowned out any sound. She leaned her ear toward his lips.

'Look after your brother,' he said softly. 'His mind hasn't been right since the war.'

/-/-

Shelagh's brother got married in September of 1939. The wedding was beautiful, everything Shelagh wanted in her own. The ceremony was at St. Andrews where the stain glass windows, painted vibrant reds and purples and greens, let in just the right lighting in early afternoon. Every pew had sweet-smelling, colorful bouquets. There were ribbons and bows lacing them together. The bride, in her mother's old dress with her hair braided and decorated, looked angelic. She radiated peace and joy and beauty. Shelagh stared at the bride as if she was in a dream.

In the cooling late afternoon, Shelagh watched her brother envelop his bride in his arms and twirl her around the dance floor. They were so happy, so carefree.

Three days later, Britain declared war on Germany. A few months later, Shelagh's brother enlisted in the Royal Airforce. They got the news two years and a day after his wedding that he'd been shot down over Italy.

/-/-

She has only one clear, vivid memory of her mother:

Shelagh is perhaps five. She sits on the wood floor. In her arms, she holds a baby doll. The doll wears a white dress with pink and purple flowers embroidered along the hem. Her mother had sown those for her. The doll was a Christmas Present. The dress had been finished for Easter.

Shelagh cradled the doll, rocked her in jilted movements. She looked up at her mother. Her mother stood not far away, near the sink, drying dishes. Her hair was the same brown-blonde as Shelagh's. A few strands came loose. There was a breeze coming in through the opened kitchen windows.

A plate clinked against another and Shelagh blew a loud, hard 'Shh!' between her baby teeth.

Her mother smiled down at her. She had grey-blue eyes. Softly, she said, 'Is the baby sleeping?'

Shelagh nodded and kept rocking the doll.

Her mother's eyes may have been green, like her brother's; Shelagh can't actually remember. She likes to believe that, when she looks in the mirror, it's her mother's eyes she sees looking back at her.

She sees this memory as if she's a ghost, floating above her younger self. In her darkest, quietest moments, she realizes the memory is just a dream – her mother too much an image of herself to be real.

/-/-

She accompanied Michael to the train station. He looked so smart in his uniform – all starch and straight lines. The uniform seemed to have changed him. He was gangly before he had left for training – but now he stood straighter, his shoulders and arms were stronger, steadier. His hair was slicked and neat.

She wanted to tell him how scared she was. She wanted to beg him to stay. She wanted to pull him down and kiss him until the feel of her lips was burnt into his memory. She wanted to cry until he promised to come home.

They were quiet. Shelagh kept her eyes low – if she looked at him, she knew she would cry, and if she cried, she knew he would worry. But Michael stared at her with a little goofy grin, memorizing her every feature.

'Shelagh,' he said and she loved the lightness of his voice. 'Look at me.' She kept her chin low, but her eyes and looked up at him through her new glasses. 'I love you. You know that, right?'

'Of course I do.'

'I've loved you ever since we were little kids.' She laughed a breathy, short laugh at the implied joke. 'I know that I joke all the time that we're already married – courting's just a formality.' She dropped her eyes again, her fear overwhelming her, but he bent at the knee and searched for her eyes. 'But I want you to know that I'm coming back to you. The minute I get home, I want to take you to St. John's and marry you.'

His words stilled her breath. She was surprised and she wasn't surprised. Her first thought was to say, 'St. Andrews.'

'Sorry?'

'St. Andrews has the better lighting. I've always dreamed of being married there.'

He took her hands in his. 'It's too small to fit our families,' he said, then stopped and smiled. 'Are you saying yes?'

Shelagh looked up shyly at him. 'You haven't asked yet.'

The train whistled. Nearby, the conduct yelled 'All aboard!' From the car behind them, Geoffrey stuck his head out the windows and yelled for him to hurry up. She clung to his hands tighter.

'Shelagh,' he began but she interrupted.

'Do it right.'

The conductor yelled again. His mate began to bang on the side of the car. Michael dropped to his knee. He produced from his shirt pocket a small ring – a gold band with a simple diamond. 'Shelagh Mannion, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?'

As soon as she said yes, he was on his feet. He kissed her on the cheek and lifted her small frame in his arms, spinning her around. The train lurched just then; Geoffrey hollered from the car. For just a moment, she thought he wouldn't leave. But then he was scooping up his bag and sprinting for the car. He stood for just a moment on the stairs, waving goodbye. The sprit had disheveled his hair; he wore a goofy grin; he looked just like the boy she had fallen in love with.

Then the train steamed out of sight. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't cry. That was the last time Shelagh ever saw Michael.

/-/-

Her brother had survived being shot down over Italy and later he flew during the invasion of Normandy. A few weeks later, he'd crashed on Allied soil and broke his leg in four places. After months of recovery, he returned home – limping and bruised, but alive. His arrival was met with a celebratory party, but he sulked and drank so much he couldn't use his crutches to get his makeshift bed.

After his leg healed, he put off looking for work. He developed a tremor in his left hand. He drank just a little every day and put his fist through walls to keep his anger off his wife. After their father died, his wife moved back in with her mother. The neighbors claimed he screamed every night as if he were spiraling towards the ground in a burning plane.

He came to her one day in the early spring of 1947. He was much calmer than she'd seen him in a while. When he hugged her, he smelt of cigarettes and bourbon. He talked wistfully of their mother; he apologized for not being around more with their father's illness; he admitted to a strange sense of relief and disappointment that he and his wife had never had any children. Then he kissed her on the forehead and left.

Shelagh's brother was a brave man. He shot himself that evening.

After the funeral, she sold their parents' house and packed what little she wanted into a little brown suitcase.

She wasn't sure where she would go, but that seemed less important than the leaving.