Prompt: Middle
My take on what happened to Cliff.
When I first returned to America, I wrote my book. And then I hid it. I couldn't bear to constantly be reminded of what I lost. For the first few years of the war, I blacked everything out. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't think about Sally, about our child. How I could be a father to a toddler had she not gone through with it. How we could still be together, here, in America. Safe from the cruelties of the Nazis. For the first few years I couldn't escape it. Everywhere I went were stories of more horrors of the Nazis and their hideous leader. I didn't want to think that my friends could be victims to their hatred, moreso that Ernst could believe their politics and become one of them.
So, I blocked it all out as best as I could. Then, a few years later, things changed. I ventured out. I met someone. Margaret. We fell in love. I was hesitant at first, because of the pain from Sally. I didn't think I could trust someone again. But Margaret was the complete opposite from Sally. She was reliable, came from a good family. She didn't smoke or drink. She didn't spend nights at clubs where she had a tenuous relationship with the owner. To her, I wasn't a passing fancy, someone to occupy her mind and her bed until I went away and the next person came along. She hated being in front of crowds and couldn't carry a tune. Where Sally was adventurous, Maggie preferred to be on the conservative side. Where Sally was selfish, Maggie was selfless. In short, I couldn't have found someone more different and more perfect.
In June of 1939 we married, amidst the horrors coming in from Germany. I felt blessed that I escaped the horror that was simmering under the surface at the end of my trip there. I couldn't help but wonder how my friends were faring. Something Schultz told me in our last days stuck with me, and nearly daily broke my heart. "It is nothing. It will pass." Three years later and it had not passed yet. I hoped he had the sense to get out of there while he could. Perhaps he made it to Switzerland, or France, or England, or even here in America. I thought about him every time news came with a higher death toll. It was hard to forget my past when it was persistent and evident in my daily life.
Maggie and I didn't waste any time having children. By March 1940 we had a son, who took my name. A mere 10 months later we had a daughter, Caroline. A year later, we had twins, a boy and a girl. Matthew and Abigail. My family and life felt complete.
By this point, I had forgotten about the life I could have had with Sally, even with the news of the war consistently flowing in. She rarely crossed my mind, except when someone mentioned that name. My curiosity of the others also waned. I did think about them once in a while, but I was completely invested in my family and my four beautiful children. My life in Germany seemed so long ago.
It wasn't until Hitler fell from power, the Nazis were disbanded, and the remaining Jews and prisoners freed that I was able to revisit that part of my life. I brought out my book, dusty and yellowed from being in the attic for so many years. I told Maggie about my life in Germany and I hesitantly allowed her to read what I had written.
For three days she locked herself in our room, pouring over the pages I wrote. On the fourth day she came down the stairs with tears running down her cheeks. She had no idea what went on in Germany. The tears were not because I had relations and a potential child with someone else. They were from the experiences, the people, and the utter devastation that laid in wait. How Schultz's words "it is fine. It will pass" were so heart-wrenching now that it had now been over five years. It did pass, but not as quickly or as painlessly as he expected. She cried over the friendships lost, of the lives likely lost, and the shock that I had been there in the thick of it.
She urged me to publish it. That there was nothing to hide or fear now that the war was open. How many people would have a story such as mine? Who had been there, in the middle of it all? Who had seen the slow decline of basic human rights and the start of the ascent to the horrors that would encapsulate the country for the next several years? Few was her answer. Fewer still who were writers. And even fewer still who had a story like mine. People would want to know what it was like to be over there in the middle of the Nazi's rise to power, just before all hell broke loose. People will want to read it, she encouraged me.
So I listened to her. I found a publisher who agreed with my wife. And shortly after that I had several thousand people who agreed with my publisher and my wife. I didn't go on to write another book. It was too hard. My life was too normal. I had a wife and a family, so I couldn't run off to another country for inspiration. My story was only fascinating because of the circumstances, and how I just happened to be in Germany when I did. My life was perfect and I didn't need fame or fortune. I would always be a writer, but now I wrote stories for my children, and only for them.