Part 2- Finding Purchase
That was years ago of course and I figured things out piece by piece. At first, it was a real struggle to keep going but Red was there and so was Maggie; thank goodness for Maggie. And of course, Linden was there too. In those first moments after I was told my parents had died, I thought I was alone in the world and the weight of my siblings' well being rested solely on me. Linden didn't leave that night once the kids went to sleep. He stayed with me on the couch and I cried myself to sleep with my head in his lap as he pulled his hand gently through my hair. He never cried himself. He would just get really quite and his eyes would glaze over like he was somewhere else. I would sit with him during these times and wait for him to come back from wherever he'd gotten to.
I couldn't help but think of the other orphans in the district. The storm took a lot of parents that night; I wasn't alone in that fate. But I had Linden there when I need him most and many of those orphans had no one. There was a community home in the district; however, after that storm there weren't enough beds to take us all. The Peacekeepers came to some unwritten agreement and left us to our own devices. I guess the theory was that we would seek out the help if we needed it but I had never considered it an option. Even before the storm, there were kids in my year that lived at the community home and they would come to school looking lifeless. Sure they were alive, they were fed and clothed but they didn't have that vivaciousness that children our age were supposed to have. I could not and would not subject Holly and Ash to that fate.
In the end, it was Linden that told Holly and Ash that mom and dad weren't coming home. Ash held out hope for another day before he couldn't deny any longer that something bad had happened. When he asked if mom and dad were ever coming home again, I tried to answer him. I had resolved to answer the question calmly when it came. But when the time actually arrived there was wood block that mysteriously appeared in the back of my throat and I couldn't speak.
Linden spoke up after a minute or two of my mouth hanging open silently. He was calm and soothing, as I had intended to be, but that didn't really make the situation any easier. Holly was only three at the time and for a while she kept looking out the window every morning as if she expected mom to be hanging laundry on the line out front. Ash, only six years old, holed up in the bedroom for days. I didn't have the heart to force him to go to school and he stopped eating. I would sit outside the bedroom door at night while Holly slept on the couch.
At first I tried to talk to him through the door, making promises I didn't know whether I could keep or not, but eventually I fell into silence. I didn't know what I could say to heal what had been broken inside of him so I stopped trying and was just there for him when he was ready or decided he needed me. I figured it's what I would have wanted if I were in his position.
And just when I thought that our lives would never be normal again, Ash came down from his room and ate dinner at the table with us. After that, Holly and I started sleeping in the room all three of us children shared again and she only occasionally rushed to the window in the morning. Maggie taught me how to do laundry and sew rips in the kids' clothes. I still had to attend school and Maggie would watch Holly until I got home.
My parents had managed to save away a bit of money from their earnings every week. This, it turns out, was a lifesaver for us. I was always confused why my parents would save the money even though I was still signing up for tesserae but I realize now that they had seen enough starving orphans left behind after freak accidents in the lumber yards that they wanted a stockpile for us just in case. I started to strictly budget what money we did have and by using my parents' money on top of what little I could manage to bring in we were able to live in relative comfort.
On the weekends, Linden and I would go into the woods and foothills to gather. My father had taught us all the trees and bushes that we could use. We tapped maples in the fall for the syrup, gathered bark from birches for kindling, and berries from a variety of plants in the spring and summer.
Linden had also been learning how to set traps to catch the small game wandering about the woods and foothills. Higher up in the mountains there were fences that kept out the big game like bears, wild dogs, and deer. But rabbits, squirrels, grooslings and the occasional turkey could be found in the foothills on any given day. My father had always been quite good at catching game but Linden had only just begun learning when my parents had died. Occasionally Linden would set a trap that managed to catch something, but on most trips they would come up empty.
Even with this difficulty, we managed quite well. The foothills were abounding with edible plants for three of the four seasons. Maggie had taught me how to preserve some of the roots and berries that helped us get through the winter months.
It wasn't easy by any means. The second winter after my parents died was the toughest. For about a week, we had only a loaf of tessera bread to live on. But somehow things always managed to work out. I learned how to haggle with the people in town to get what we most desperately needed. Eventually we settled down into habits again; some new and some old, but we managed.