Dear Anton,
It is an uneventful time for me.
My parents force themselves to spend time with me but you can tell they don't want to, that they're annoyed by me.
They think that the fact our family spends so little time together is what caused me to hide you.
It isn't though.

Patty could feel the sorrow rushing through her veins, she could feel how it welled up inside of her raining down from her eyes in tiny droplets. Sometimes thinking about him made it worse, sometimes it made it better. But today wasn't one of the later days. She sniffled, wishing once again that she had gone away with him. However, what she wanted most of all, what she wished for with all her heart was to know if they had caught him.

She could still remember that day, nearly a month after she had seen Anton off. They came straight to the house, and didn't even bother to open the door. They just barged right in, sending her father into a furious rampage. They didn't pay any attention to him and after a moment he noticed that and quit his consistent chain of loud, colorful words. They stood right there in the doorway, eyes narrowed and shoulders stiff, searching for her. And there she had been, building a puzzle with Sharon. It was of an elephant in a jungle, she believes, and of a simple piece number. Fifteen or twenty. Nothing all that sophisticated.

The sat right down in front of her blocking Sharon, at first the questioned her without giving away anything, but she didn't respond to that. Then they took out what was meant to hurt, what was meant to make her give in and give them the answers they were looking for.

"The NY State Troopers have spotted and are in pursuit of Reiker. Lethal Force is applicable to use. FBI Agents have been sent in as backup," McFee read the data of a sheet of white paper.

She had told them straight away, pleading with them not to hurt him. To just leave him alone, let him go. She stressed the point of how kind he was and absolutely uncommitted he was to the German Army. She tried to get them to tell her anything else they knew, but they wouldn't. They went away that night, and then the court notice came, and she was trialed. Her sentence was a light one, considering she was under the act of treason. Half a year in reformatory school. Nothing all that difficult for her. Actually it was quite nice to be away from her father and his deadly glares, her mother's constant little comments about how embarrassed she was to be her mother, and Sharon gazing at her wide-eyed, knowing this wasn't their parents' usual behavior towards her.

However, it didn't last forever. Six months went by faster than decent of a rock thrown out a two-story window. She had to come home, where her parents forced her to go to a therapist [that hadn't helped her had it? Here she was, writing a letter that would never be sent, to someone that could be dead for all she knew], where the townspeople were apprehensive, and even afraid to talk to her. As if she were about to hurt them, or 'being a traitor' was contagious.

Remembering was the worst though.

It had been for the past year.

McFee and Pierce hadn't sent a letter, or gave a phone call. They didn't stop by either. They wouldn't give her anymore information. Perhaps they thought of it as a bad idea; would she break him out of prison, would she turn into a serial killer because he had died? Or did they never catch him and were too ashamed to admit?

She thought of all the possibilities. She'd even thought of them more than ten times each. It was as if her mind was a racing track, and all you could do was run circles until something or someone told you to stop, gave you the necessary information that made you stop.

And somehow, her thoughts always came back to him, and if he was okay.

In her fantasies, in her ever wild imagination, he was back in Germany. In Medical School, going to Gottingen University where his father still worked. His family had survived the war and so had Gottingen and all the elegant architecture it contained. Perhaps, he was leading a key role in rebuilding the country. He thought of her every day, and he told every he knew about her and what she did. He planned on seeing her again some day, no matter what. He planned on asking her to marry him, and had the ring already picked out.

She knew this was a fantasy though.

The war had yet to end.

And it seemed as if it never would.

She sniffled once more, wiping underneath her eyes with her sleeve. Her outfit was one that she hadn't chosen. One that she didn't like wearing. A pink blouse covered her torso, with ruffles and a lace border, buttons that were dyed and flashy. On her legs was a khaki colored skirt, stiff and uncomfortable, which it wouldn't be if it was made completely of cotton. Her feet were in platform sandals, which wrapped around and buckled at the ankle. Her hair had not been 'permanently waved' in seven months. It was just past her shoulders, and flowed in a natural wave, the auburn coloring in all its glory was just as she liked it. Neither flashy nor dull. Right in the middle of the scale.

She would have complained, but she didn't dare complain to her parents anymore. The only way either could be swayed was if it was a fellow adult who brought up a matter. Like her Grandmother, who had said she preferred Patty's hair when it wasn't 'curled like a poodle's'.

Patty smiled at the thought of her grandmother, and then her mind strayed to both her grandparents. The apple fell quite far from the tree. Pearl Bergen 'nee Fried was nothing like her parents, although Patty had no idea what her parents had been like when she was growing up. She was quite sure they were the same, not positive, but quite sure.

Love and Kindness brought her mind to Ruth who had been fired for sticking up for Patty. Remorse washed over her as she thought of the jubilee and care that radiated off of Ruth. The African American house keeper worked for another family now, one of her 'kind' as her parents rudely put it to Mrs. Benns.

She sighed, feeling the sadness creeping up on her once more. It was all her fault Ruth had been fired, and now Sharon wouldn't grow up with the full care she needed, she wouldn't be raised by someone with benevolence and a bucket overflowing with morals. Sharon would be gypped a chance of a lifetime.

And speaking of Sharon, where was she?

And then, as if the Lord was answering her question, she heard footsteps and her sister's high-pitched voice, "Patty! Patty! Guess what?".

DISCLAIMER;; My first name is Tabitha, not Bette and my last name begins with the letter before G.

edited june 5th 2010

AUTHOR'S NOTE;;

Hmm.

Should he be dead, or alive?

And, as it was said in the book, Patty does not like the color pink and prefers not to look flashy. She also hates sashes and lace, right? I think the book had something about the 'hate of sashes and lace' in it, while it was talking about the 'blue middy dress'.

I know, I said this was going to be done on Monday but, I ended up going to a parade, riding with my aunt in her convertible [she bought it because it was the same color as her eyes o_O] to Babies'r'Us, going to my Nana's, going swimming, and then going to a Restaurant for dinner…not to mention wondering where all the haze was coming from [turns out it was from a wildfire in Canada, I'm just wondering how something like that gets all the way to RI]. It was also Memorial Day here in the states so, yeah.

And thank-you for reminding me that it is Erikson Karl, and not Karl Erikson, Miss Yva {I looked in the book and Miss Greene spelt it with a K, pg. 90 paragraph 2 1st sentence, 'Anton described his father, University of Gottingen history professor Erikson Karl Reiker, as being "a truly civilized man" for whom the war started back in the early thirties.}

Reviews get me going, and inspire me to write faster,

&&TABBY/PLUTO