Thanks so much to those of you who take the time to let me know what you think of this story, and what you think of each chapter. It means so much to me. You're probably sick of me saying it, but it really does help.
Thank you so much Pigeonofdoom, dark-girl-faith-sidle, Silent as the Grave, icklebitodd, Cherrydrops12, MC New York, Dybdahl andAlly-617-luv-tv
and thank you so much to anyone who checks this out... Hope everyone enjoys what's left of the weekend
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It was dark when we arrived at my Uncle Ian and Auntie Annie's residence. I could see Christmas lights in some of the houses and I was excited and delighted by them. But I was also nervous. I knew that my uncle Vincent would be there and I remembered the stories that mother would tell me, that he was capable of the same things my father was. Like all children, though I lived in hope that things might have changed.
The nun and I got out of the car, opened the small gate and I ran up the path. My Auntie Annie was sat on the porch, waiting for me and she was illuminated by the electric lighting of the porch. She started crying and she wrapped her arms around me.
It had seemed like year since I last saw her. I wanted to hold on to her forever.
"You are very thin," she remarked and I hugged her even tighter.
I whispered, "I'm not going back to that place."
She took my hands and looked me straight in the eyes.
"Don't worry, you are not going back. You will be better off here. I never wanted you to there. It won't do you any good."
I was overcome with joy.
We into the house and the nun followed. My Auntie offered the nun a cup of coffee or tea. The nun refused.
The nun's parting words were, "Be good, young lady."
I said, "Goodbye, Sister," but in my mind I added "you old bitch". I felt like being cheeky to her but instead I bit my tongue. I could not wait for her to be gone.
Mt uncle was in the kitchen. He did not look happy to see me. He made no move to embrace me. He was normal gruff self.
"You are only here for Christmas because your Auntie wanted you home. If it wasn't be here, you wouldn't be here at all.
It was a horrid welcome but I was so overcome with being home that I paid less attention than I should have.
My Auntie Annie called in her boys, Jack, 11 and William, 8. She gave us spaghetti bolognaise and cake. I tackled it and it was bliss compared to the slop I had been eating for the past nine months. I ran my finger around the plate and sucked the red ooze off my finger. My uncle got out of his chair and left without saying anything. Jack and Will finished and went back outside to play. They didn't bother inviting me and I convinced myself I didn't want to be with them anyway. My Auntie Annie asked me to go up to my bedroom and fix my bed covers and pillow. It puzzled me, because I knew that she was a tidy person. But I did what she asked me and so up the stairs I went to my bedroom.
I nearly burst in to tears when I saw my doll Lou tucked up under the covers on the side of pillow waiting for me. The doll was just lying there as I remembered my thoughts of that day, which instead of being the best became the worst day of my seven-year-old life. It had all just been a cruel trick and there was nothing to tell. I picked up Lou, held her to my chest and whispered in her ear, "There is nothing to tell you Lou." I tar slipped down my cheek and I wiped it off my sleeve because in knew that I had disappointed Lou already and I did not want to upset her by letting her see me cry. I put her back on my bed and told her not worry because some day I would get to the beach and then I would have an even better story to tell.
I looked at the pillow and it was perfectly in place but I picked it up and rearranged it anyway. There in the space underneath were four perfectly wrapped sweets. I ran down stairs and in to the kitchen.
"Look what I found, Auntie Annie, four sweets."
She smiled at me and told me that I was lucky to have found them. I never wanted to leave the house again because it was the loving little kindnesses that made my Auntie Annie very special. It was late and she took me to bed. She couldn't understand why I put my pillow on the floor but I explained to her that we didn't have pillows at the school and I was now used to sleeping without one. I hugged her goodnight. She gave me a kiss.
Not much happened on Christmas Eve. I spent most of it looking at the Christmas tree. It was small and stood in a silver bucket. The house next to us had a luscious and tall tree with long green arms. Ours was pathetic and limp compared to it but I convinced myself that ours was the best, the most magical and nicest. It didn't strike me then that ours was so small because my Uncle was so mean. I watched my uncle decorate it. I envied him because able to touch the different textures. I asked my Auntie Annie if my mother and brothers were coming for dinner. That was everything was explained to me. My mother was in prison after being in hospital because it was wrong to kill someone, no matter how horrible they are. Adam was also in prison; he had been taking illegal medicine. He wasn't ill, and he felt very sad so he took things to make him happy. Nick had gone to live with some very nice people…but he had run away and no body knew where he was. I felt very alone.
Christmas morning came. The presents were under the tree. I got a doll and a storybook and some other small presents. Nothing from my mother or brothers and I felt very spoilt that I could not appreciate what I had got. The boys got cowboy outfits with guns and hats and holsters.
We went to mass.
After that we walked home, minus Uncle Ian. I didn't know where he went.
I was very miserable. My uncle came home, intoxicated. You couldn't smell it though. He would drink vodka and then refresh his aftershave. I wondered if there was something in the Sidle blood that made you act violent or have a dependence upon alcohol. Whatever joy we had was taken away by his selfish ways. He was always thinking about himself. I didn't know what made him that way, if something happened to him to make him so cruel, so self-centred, so mean. No one else mattered. Only him.
Auntie Annie took me to bed. He reminded me of my mother a lot. Christmas is supposed to be a happy time but she looked so sad. I could see that she was anxious and nervous. She was so lonely and so lost that she made me want to cry. She went downstairs, looking out the window and waiting for her drunk and violent husband. She was unable to do things for her children that a mother should be aloud to do. She wasn't aloud to give any affection to her own two sons. My Auntie Annie was so beautiful, so loving, so caring but so sad and it was my uncle's fault. I fell asleep with five tears in my eyes. A tear for Nick, a tear for Adam, a tear for my Auntie Annie, a tear for my mother and a tear for Christmas.
We went through the same routine on St Stephen's day as he continued his drinking spree. In the middle of the evening meal, my uncle suddenly announced that the next day everything would return to normal. Christmas was over and we were all supposed to forget about Santa and Christmas. He then turned his attention to me.
"The nun will be here to take you back and I don't want any nonsense."
Inside, I was screaming, but I told him politely that I wasn't going back.
"Am I, Auntie Annie?" I looked towards my saviour, my Auntie for confirmation.
"No, Ian, Leave her where she is. I don't want her to go back there"
"She will do what I tell her," he replied, "or maybe you want to with her, too?"
That was the end of the conversation.
I couldn't sleep that night. I could picture the Reverend Mother waiting for me with her big leather strap and the buckets and the endless corridors and my knees cut up from the stone floors and the large hall and the dormitory… I vomited. I wasn't going back, no matter what he said.
The next day, my uncle came in to the garden where I was sat with Lou in my arms reading the storybook to her.
"Get your coat on, we are going out."
I knew not to trust him. I told him I wasn't putting my coat on and I wasn't going anywhere. He shouted at me.
My legs were shaking and my head was spinning. I didn't know what to say or what to do. I went to my room and put my coat on. I looked out of the window at all the children playing in the street. So many people I wish I knew so I could get rid of the loneliness. I watched them and then suddenly I caught sight of a black ugly car turning in to the road. It stopped outside the gate. I saw the nun getting out of the car. I came down the stairs like thunder. I was screaming and crying, "I am not going back with that bitch of a nun."
My Auntie was crying and my Uncle yelled at me, "Don't talk about the holy nun like that. You're going back."
At the house, there was a cubbyhole in the kitchen, under the stairs. I can't remember how I found it but you had to crawl on your hands and your knees so far because the opening was so small. Then you had to lay on your stomach to crawl the rest of the way in. When my uncle opened the door and ran to the kitchen. When he realised I had disappeared, he was fuming with rage and all the bile he had kept in over Christmas started pour out. The first place he looked was the cubbyhole, but there were two long pieces of wood attached to the partition and I was able to stand on them and hide.
I could hear him shouting, "Where is she?"
My auntie knew exactly where I was hiding and as he went out in to the yard Annie whispered, "Sara, don't make a sound."
He came back in and I got down of the wood and sat down against the back of the wall on one of the pipes.
The next thing I knew he was on his hands and knees staring up into the hole at me.
I screamed at him, "I am not going back, I am not going with that bitch."
"If you don't come out, I will give you the worst beating you have ever had," he roared.
"I don't care. Go on, give me a beating. My father always did it to me anyway." So I sat there trembling. He was shouting and screaming, trying to grab my legs with his huge hands, as if he was a doctor trying to rip a baby out of a womb.
Then his face disappeared. There was a horrendous banging. He had gone to get the big steel hammer and was trying to crush down the wall.
"You'll be sorry," he shouted and I could see bits of plaster dropping to the ground. I was rocking myself. It seemed like he spent hours battering the wall until he made a big hole and the rest of it he pulled away with his hands.
He looked at me and said, "Now come out of there, don't make me come in there and get you."
His voice was very soft, not violent at all.
I came out crying and sat on the stairs sobbing. I was small and delicate, shivering and crying uncontrollably.
Annie had started shouting at Ian and I can't remember anything about it, the words or phrases but I remembered how it ended; with a large and sharp slap and a thump which was followed by my Auntie Annie whimpering and coughing.
I didn't want Auntie Annie to get hurt anymore so I moved in the lounge area.
I felt very dead.
"I am ready to go now."
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