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Re: War Without End


Hey ladies,

Sorry it's taking me so long to update but I hope to be able to get a new chapter up tonight (by latest tomorrow night). It's just this is a difficult one for me to write and I want to make sure it's done properly.


Thanks for your patience!

---

~ Thanks, Shiloh! ~

7/12/2007, 7:54 pm Link to this post Send Email to OrlilLicious   Send PM to OrlilLicious
 
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Re: War Without End


Hey Lolo,

I am "patient"! emoticon

Last edited by Pammie312, 7/12/2007, 11:38 pm


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Thank you, Shiloh~
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Re: War Without End


Crap.

Yeah, yeah, I know its not a very eloquent reply. Just...I have been worried about her getting pregnant from the very first time they had sex. They are both so innocent in that aspect, specially Kathleen and how she had to go and read books at her granddad's. So, of course I panicked initially, worrying that her father would be angry but more so that society would view her in a harsh light.

But, now she has lost it...I am worried for her. This will make her feel even more alone, I fear. Since Matthew can't leave now and the baby is gone, it will be even more unbearable for her. I just hope that she can understand why he can't leave. I'm more than a wee bit nervous about this.

Post more when you can, Wifey!

---


Up Now, in the Orlando PG-13 Section!
7/13/2007, 2:28 am Link to this post Send Email to Ambrosia Lady   Send PM to Ambrosia Lady
 
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Re: War Without End


Thanks, Am...your thoughts on the last chapter were much appreciated.


This next one took me a long ass time to write, basically cos I wasn't sure how to do it. But anyway, I think it's how it should be...


16


In the Winter animals hibernate. Once they feel the air change they spend much of their time preparing for this, storing away food in their bodies, preparing a safe, warm place to fall into their deep, undisturbed sleep. They do this for survival, protecting themselves during the long cold winters when it’s impossible to find food, when conditions outside make it unbearable to live.

Like an animal in preparation for a long Winter, Kathleen hid away from the rest of the world. She knew the baby was gone, lost forever, and somehow she knew a part of her had died with it. She lay in bed for days afterwards, hardly able to eat or speak, alarming her father so much that he threatened to get the doctor in. Frightened by the possibility that her secret would be revealed, she forced herself out of bed and back into the routine of her life. It took all her strength to go on, to hoard away the memories of what had happened, and to pretend like the child had never existed.

Like an animal preparing for the long cold season of Winter, she locked herself away in the house. Not that she never went out, she just never socialized, never lingered for too long in one place. She kept herself on a rigid schedule so that every waking moment was filled with activity, whether it be as a seamstress or keeping up with her chores around the house. Her father commented how he had never seen the house look cleaner, giving her a curious look whenever she wanted to clean something else that clearly didn’t need to be. This was all an attempt to erase feelings and memories that she no longer wished were a part of her.

It had been nearly two months and Matthew had not written back. She was hurt, didn’t know what to make of his silence, but added it all up to the fact that he must have been frightened off by her news of her pregnancy. It was like he had left all over again, as he had left her room that hot August night, abandoning her then and now. His silence stung her so much that she became angry whenever she thought of him. When her father once mentioned Matthew’s name she gave him such a stern look, saying she didn’t wish to hear it, that he should never say it again. She was angry over the loss her baby and now this act of silence on his part.

In passing the mill one day, Mr. Heinrich heard from the young man’s father, Seamus O’Malley, arguing bitterly with someone about the fact that his son he had enlisted. It had been nearly four months since the fact and yet his father had not managed to let go of some of the anger against his son. And yet now he understood the reason for his daughter’s odd behaviour and decided never to bring it up again, instead just watching in silence as his pride and joy seemed to disappear.



Kathleen had once been told, by her mother, that idle hands were the devil’s joy. This had always worried her growing up, which is partly why she decided to continue in her mother’s footsteps of being the town seamstress. During these hard, exhausting days before Winter set in, there was no shortage of customers. When there were, when she found she needed more work, she would go into town or stop by neighbors and inquire if they needed a new coat for the Winter, a new pair of pants, or a new dress for some occasion that might be coming up. Anything to keep her hands, and thus her mind, busy.

She tried not to think of the war but from what she heard her father and grandfather say, it was supposed to be over by Christmas. While it was difficult for Kathleen not to think of Matthew during this especially hard time, she managed to keep going. Time just seemed to go by, even though she wasn’t keeping track of it anymore.

She resolved never to speak his name again. It would only cause her pain and heartache, so it was best to pretend he had never existed in her life. That was her way of surviving, of coping with the fact that it had now been nearly two months since she had heard from him. It was hard to believe that time and distance could be so cruel, but by this time Kathleen had become so numb that she could barely feel it.

Even the things she once loved seemed lost to her. She tried painting, on several occasions, but nothing seemed to insprire her. As she stood in the shed, staring at the blank canvas in front of her, she wondered if she would ever paint again.


While she was in the shed one day, she didn’t know it but there was a knock on the door of her house. Mr. Heinrich got up from his spot at the table, laid the newspaper down, and then went to answer it. There stood a young woman, not too far off from Kathleen’s age, with a face that looked like a piece of stone that was about to shatter. It took him a few moments to recognize the face to be that of Carroline’s, Matthew’s sister, who he heard was engaged to be married to one of the local boys. He had not seen her in a long time and was surprised to see her now.

“Is Kathleen home?” she asked, looking up into Mr. Heinrich’s face as a child does when she is unsure of her surroundings. He immediately had an odd feeling.

He told her she was but wanted to know what it was about. When he heard her speak, he knew this was something he had to tell his daughter himself.


As Kathleen decided to give up trying to paint for the day, she put the dry brush down on the easel so she wouldn’t loose it. When she heard the footsteps crunching on the leaves towards her, she instantly recognized them as her father’s. The door to the shed opened and the pale light streamed in, falling on to the man’s face before her. She could see the grim look in his eyes and she stood still, waiting for him to speak.

“Are you all right?” she asked him, after seeing he was having trouble speaking. Little did she know that he had spent nearly a half hour pacing the floor in their kitchen, wondering how on earth he was going to bring himself to say the words he was about to say. When fathers see their children for the first time, as he had Kathleen, they make an unconscious decision to do everything in their power to protect them from harm. Inside it tore him apart to have to tell her the news.

“It’s Matthew”, he said with some difficulty, not being able to look his daughter in the eyes as his words choked in his throat.

She had not heard or spoken that name in a long time, and had instructed her father with just one look that she did not want it mentioned in her presence. When she heard it now the blood drained from her face. She immediately turned around and picked up the paint brush, feeling a cold chill sweep across her back.
“Kathë.”
“Stop”, she said, her mouth losing colour, the brush in her hand falling to the ground. She was out the door before he could continue.

Once inside the house she ran up to her room and searched for any small bits of the young man whose name she could not speak, even crawling on the floor to see if she could perhaps find one of those beads from the necklace she had accidentally tore from her neck. Yes, she had taken care to throw every single one of them away, had burned them with the rest of the things that reminded her of him, but she could not think of that now. She knew it was hopeless, that she wouldn’t find any, but she searched anyway.

Not finding anything there she went to her sewing room, looking for something, anything, which might link her to him: the book where she recorded his measurements, the piece of fabric. It was no use, she had thrown all those things away a long time ago. She felt herself panicing, as if she would burst, frantically turning things over and searching in boxes for just one simple reminder. She opened doors, searched in drawers, underneath furniture, looking for a scrap of memory. Her heart raced inside her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe properly, but the adrenaline in her body kept her searching.

She wanted to scream but she found the sounds only caught in her throat, as if to release it would mean she’d have to face something more terrible than she had ever experienced before. She wanted to cry, but somehow her body withheld the tears, somehow preventing her from cleansing herself of the pain.

She went to her room to look for the ring of his that she had put away after his long silence, thinking it was best to put it out of sight since it caused her too much pain. She found it tucked away in a box in her closet, and she took it out and stared at it, hoping that somehow this object of the existence of their love could erase the sudden pain she was thrust into.

But there had to be more than this.

In her frenzied state she found something, tucked away in a drawer she had overturned in her workroom, an engraved shape of a pattern she had drawn of his coat - and realized this was all that remained of his physical body now. This was all she had. Holding the piece of farbic she collapsed to the floor and held it to her face, trying to block out the light that was streaming through the windows, trying to block out reality. She wanted to reject the light, to be in the darkness now, because Matthew was no longer in it.

She had no idea how long she laid there like that, but she was surprised when she came to that she had been crying. She hadn’t been aware of it, but now that she was sitting up she felt the pain of realization hit her as if she had been kicked in the stomach. It was dark now, the light having gone out with the sun, and she was alone in the workroom. It was then that she felt sick and vomited on the floor, emptying herself of what felt so rotten inside.


Last edited by OrlilLicious, 7/13/2007, 7:59 pm


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Re: War Without End


Her father waited downstairs, his head in his hands, listening for signs of life coming from his daughter upstairs. He had left her alone because he knew that, no matter how much he wanted to, he could not help her right now. Some things, some pain, we have to experience alone. Besides, he knew his daughter would not let him comfort her, she would only push him away and crawl back into her shell as she had these past few months. He had never thought this would happen, though, and for some reason he felt guilty. He had been the one to ask for Matthew’s assistance on the farm and it was he who had secretly encouraged the two to be together. Why hadn’t he just let things alone?

He had no idea how long it had been since he had been sitting there when he heard her descending the stairs. Her face was drained of colour, even her lips looked blue, and her eyes looked like those of a dead animals, empty. She did not appear to see him but went straight into the kitchen where it looked like she was about to prepare dinner.

He could not look at her. Then he heard her speak:
“How did it happen?”

It was good to hear her voice, but not the pain behind it. Her father rose and went up to his daughter, a look of desperately wanting to comfort her on his face, but she would have none of it. He looked down at her, a look on his face that she had not seen since her mother died, but she motioned with her stillness to stay where he was. Her mind was full of questions and now she needed to know.

“Was it in the areoplane? Did he get shot down?”

He touched his daughter’s hand, holding it in his large rough one, lovingly. He wished to God he could take this pain out of her.

“Honey, there were thousands of men over there, most of them were foot soldiers. Matthew was a soldier, not a pilot.”
“Yes he was. That’s what he went over there for.”
“No, honey”, he said again, this time trying to be more gentle, yet truthful. “He wasn’t flying an areoplane.”
“Don’t say that!” she yelled at her father, the first time in her life having done so.

What he was saying was unbearable. Matthew loved that machine, and that’s what he went over to France to fight with, not his body. How dare her father say he was an ordinary soldier? All she could think about was how he had rushed over to see the thing when it landed in the field that day, and the look on his face after he had ridden in it. It was now somehow incomprehensible to think that he died any other way.

“He died in one of those stupid machines because that’s what he loved.”

Her father tried to control his own emotions. He had never seen her like this and he knew that this day, something would be changed in her, forever.
“All Carroline told me was -”

But she cut him off wither her words.

“Carroline?“
“She was the one who came to tell me the news.”
“She’s lying“, Kathleen said, dismissing what her father just said. “Why would she come to tell me when she had no idea that we loved each other?” Then she looked at her father suspiciously. “You had no idea either.”
“I knew”, her father said quietly.

For some reason hearing this made her even more angry because now she had to accept what he was telling her.

“Then why didn’t you stop him from leaving?!” she yelled again, this time bursting out into tears.
“I didn’t know”, her father spoke, broken by his daughter’s pain.
“Why, if you knew I loved him? Why didn’t you stop him?”

The words were so sorrowful and so dripped in agony that he had to turn away, despite himself. He wasn’t turning his back on her, just what he saw in her eyes. He then heard her leave and go back upstairs, leaving them both alone with their grief.


The next morning Kathleen came down the stairs, at her usual time, with no trace of the news from the day before on her face. In fact, it was just blank, as if she had not a thought in her head. Her father had been up for hours, barely sleeping, hearing his daughter pacing the floor upstairs. Now he sat at the kitchen table and tried to think of what to say to her.

She made something for him to eat, even though he didn’t feel like it, and once she put the food in front of him she spoke for the first time since last night:

“I’ll not speak of this again.”

Once her father was gone out into the fields she went up into her sewing room, where she found the pattern shape of Matthew still on the floor. Her father must have cleaned up the vomit from last night, not that she noticed. She was in such a daze. She picked up the pattern and stared at it for a long time, until her eyes grew blurry and she had to sit down. She cried all morning and afternoon, a deep, desperate cry that hardly made a sound, and she cried until she was too tired to cry anymore and fell to sleep where she rested her head on the large wooden table.
 
Her dreams were haunted by him. He was walking away from her, his back to her so that she could not see his face, and although she called out to him he did not turn around. She woke up screaming his name.
 
When she awoke it was still daylight and so she set to work. Her hands trembled as she wrote to the company in Toronto that would sell her the red fabric she needed, ordering plenty of it to make sure she would have enough. The handwriting of the letter looked like that of an old woman, though she hardly noticed. At the end of it she wrote the word ‘urgent’, then underlined it thickly so that the person taking the order would not waste time in getting her the fabric. Even though she had all the time in the world, there was this sense of hurry.

After a few weeks had gone by she started going into the post office in town to see if her order had arrived, sometimes twice a day, so that the employees eventually started to comment that the package must be of real importance if she was there so often. Five long weeks later the parcel of red fabric arrived. Holding it against her breast, she had a sense of having done this before, and indeed she had just six months before during Summer that was now long over. She would not let her thoughts go back to that time because she knew, if she did, she might not come back from that place.




---

~ Thanks, Shiloh! ~

7/13/2007, 7:58 pm Link to this post Send Email to OrlilLicious   Send PM to OrlilLicious
 
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Re: War Without End


Before she could go home she turned her steps down the path that led to her grandfather’s house. Cool, calm steps she took as she carried the parcel in her hand, somehow feeling drawn to the old man that was her flesh and blood. She had not spoken to him - and barely to her father - since she received the news of Matthew’s death, but now all of a sudden she felt she had to talk…to say something.

Her grandfather was working in his garden when she arrived, parcel in hand. He looked up and saw her standing there, then smiled up at the face that once brought him so much joy. Now every time he saw his granddaughter his heart tore in two.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” he asked her, getting up from his kneeling position.
“Yes”, she said quickly, as if she didn’t care one bit for small talk. “I’ve come to ask you something.”
“Anything”, he said, just glad to hear her wanting to speak. He knew, from his son, that she had closed in on herself and had not said more than four words to him every day: good morning and good night.

Then, in a calm manner and a coldness in her voice, she asked: “Have you ever hated being German?”

The old man looked puzzled, but quickly realized why she was thinking this way. The Germans were the enemy over in Europe, and it was her ancestral blood that killed the man she loved.

“No”, he answered her after several moments of thought. “I find it impossible to hate your own blood.”
“I don’t.”
She started at him, her green eyes looking into his blue ones with an intense bitterness and sadness much too old for her age. He knew there was nothing he could say.

“Kathë”, he said to her before she turned and walked away. “Have you been to confession at all?”

It had been many months since she’d been there, not because she didn’t think she was a sinner but she thought that with all the souls being lost over in France she didn’t think God had the time to waste on her.
“I think He has enough on his hands, don’t you?”

Her grandfather was puzzled by this answer, but secretly prayed that she didn’t give up on her faith. He didn’t have to ask what happened between her and this young Irishman, for they most likely did what comes natural to two people so in love.

“Don’t worry”, she said, and he saw a small smile on her lips, which gave him an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I’ve not given up on God…I just think maybe He’s given up on me.”


She started work on the red waistcoat immediately. She stood by her work table that afternoon in a sorrowful trance, staring at the red material, unable to pick up the scissors or thread a needle. She stayed in that sorrowful trance for nearly a week before she found the strength to begin. In her mind, as she worked, she allowed herself to imagine his body, sewing and stiching around the contours of his form. As a consequence, she cried as she worked on the waistcoat, almost every step of the way. It was as if stitch by stitch she was reconstructing the body that she would never again caress, the one that would be forever vacant in her life.

Furiously she worked to finish it, deep down thinking that somehow it’s completion would ease some of her pain, take away some of this ache that permeated every corner of her self. When it was finally finished, that feeling of closure that she had hoped for did not come; instead, all she had created was an empty red waistcoat that would never been worn. This was all that was left of him.

Outside it began to snow, the first sign of the season to come. She let the windows remain open, not affected by the cold that was seeping in through the curtains. Somehow the cold was a comfort, aiding her in the attempt to numb herself away. She would hibernate, just as some animals do, and exist only because she had to.

The Winter was there to stay.



---

~ Thanks, Shiloh! ~

7/13/2007, 7:59 pm Link to this post Send Email to OrlilLicious   Send PM to OrlilLicious
 
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Re: War Without End


There was a song once, called "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears", and since music has inspired the concept of this story I had to mention this, because it was what I thought of when I read this chapter.

All things seem so final in this chapter, beginning with the knowledge that Kathleen and Matthew's baby was gone, and with it a certain light in Kathleen's soul. And that was almost snuffed out with learning of Matthew's death, then to compound the sadness, there was no consoling her in this double blow.

It truly is a hibernation of sorts, the retreat from her family and the immersing of herself into work, as if she can only find the strength to go on if she toils without ceasing. I find it particularly sad that she chose not to share the miscarriage with her father, going on as if nothing happened but suffering anyway. Upon finding out Matthew's fate, she retreats further, going inside herself to a place where no one can reach her, finding a fragile refuge from her pain and only reacting to her sorrow and grief when she's alone. Her mission to restore something of her love with Matthew, by recreating the waistcoat at first seems like a catharsis, but in the end it didn't recapture the brief moments in time of their love and passion. I think at this point, Kathleen has found nothing but a deepening melancholy.

 
quote:

She let the windows remain open, not affected by the cold that was seeping in through the curtains. Somehow the cold was a comfort, aiding her in the attempt to numb herself away. She would hibernate, just as some animals do, and exist only because she had to.



And like all hibernating creatures, she looks forward to the long sleep, from which there may be no awakening.

---

Thank you, Shiloh~
7/13/2007, 11:59 pm Link to this post Send Email to Pammie312   Send PM to Pammie312
 
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Re: War Without End


Well, Miss Angsty Pants, you know how to rip a girl's heart out! The baby gone and now Matthew, too! *cries* I had thought there was a possibility to this, but I never expected it so soon. You've definitely pulled the rug out from beneath my feet.

This chapter was seriously beautiful with all the different imagery and the way Kathleen is so strong and resiliant in her grief. When she told her father she wouldn't speak of it again, a tiny shiver ran down my spine. While I admire her strength, I still worry that holding it all in isn't good for her. I really loved the way her first reaction was to run upstairs and try to find some rememberance of Matthew, even a stray bead from the necklace. This one was definitely one of your best..now I need someone to hold me!

I gotta wonder what you have up your sleeve now...I won't even try to guess it. I can only hope that Kathleen will find a way to break out of her sorrow. Love the way the Winter is coming on, too. Perfect way to end the chapter.

---


Up Now, in the Orlando PG-13 Section!
7/19/2007, 3:09 am Link to this post Send Email to Ambrosia Lady   Send PM to Ambrosia Lady
 
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Re: War Without End


17


When the survivors of the Great War started coming home, ship by ship, in the late Winter and early Spring of 1919, Matthew did not return with them. While whole towns of young men had been nearly wiped out (a trend that occurred not just all over Canada, but also Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, Australia, and the countless other combatant countries), Listowel was one of the few lucky ones to greet as many survivors as it did. Out of the nine men that enlisted five did not return, Matthew being one of them.

Though the history books did not record this, most of the survivors came back disfigured in one way or another: physically or emotionally, oftentimes both. In Listowel, for example, out of the nine men who had enlisted, there were four survivors: two were missing limbs and one man, ten years after the war’s end, committed suicide. Some of the townspeople said Keith Reily drowned by accident, but those who knew his private pain knew the war had not left him, and it was the war that drove him into the water that day. For so many the war did not end in 1918.

Through it all, there were a total of 66,000 Canadians killed during the years 1914-1918. Thousands of them have no known graves - Matthew O’Malley being one of them. Eventually Kathleen learned the horrible truth that her lover was never found on the battlefields of Northern France, so there wasn’t even a grave to mark his resting place. At first upon hearing the news she thought: of course he’s missing, he’s been gone for four years. She did not want to understand what this meant.

Yet as wounded men back from France arrived in nearby towns, their stories of the horrors of trench warfare, shelling and death spread like wildfire. Everyone, except Kathleen, wanted to know what it was like. Apparently shells so big could blow men to pieces, scattering their remnants in all directions, and these were the men who were called “missing”. Hearing this she understood she would never again feel the warmth of Matthew’s hand on her cheek, and it brought home the reality of his death for one final blow.

For years afterward she was haunted by the same recurring nightmare. In it she was walking through the fields of France, land that was once the battlefield was littered with the bones and the carnage of the war, yet somehow she was able to tell which bones belonged to Matthew. She was walking, head to the ground, searching. Soon she was picking up pieces of his bones - a thigh, an arm, a piece of a skull - carrying it in her arms as one cradles a baby. Eventually her arms would become so full that she couldn’t carry any more pieces, and yet she kept searching because every piece of him had to be found.

She would wake up from the dream feeling disoriented, as if the world of her room and house were alien to her. As horrific as the dream was, to her it brought a sense of comfort. She longed for these dreams, laying her head down at night on her pillow, waiting for him to visit her. It was all she had left of him.
The war had ended in 1918, but for Kathleen it never did.


In all of this loss, no one hardly noticed or cared about the existence of Kathleen Heinrich. She lived the life of what many in town called a “spinster”. In town she was seen usually in dark clothing, a style much too old for her years, her dark hair tied back in a bun, and dark, heavy shoes that made her look more like a man than a woman. She had let herself become plain, not caring that her appearance had dwindled over the years, not caring that there were other men who would have gladly married her. She was known as a bit of beauty by many men, but as the years wore on not much of that beauty remained.

Now in her late thirties, her youth had been spent in a cloud of mourning and she remained stuck in a past she could not - no matter how hard she tried - forget. Life went on, as usual, but it went on with a determination not seen in women her age, and the older she got, the more hard she worked at living.

It seemed that everyone who meant something in her life was dying. Six years after the war ended her grandfather died, at the age of 84. He went in his sleep and although she knew he had lived a long life, it was still hard for her to accept. Even more difficult was when her father died five years later, leaving her alone in the house and in the world. She inhabited the house all by herself, surviving from day to day as best she knew how, which usually meant occupying all of her waking time with things to block out the sound of her loneliness. Her house was full of ghosts and she spent her days as if she were one of them.

As most spinsters often do, she spent a lot of time at the Church, volunteering to help the order of nuns who ran it. She went to Mass every day which, in those days, was considered to be borderline fanatical. Yet, she had no inkling people thought this of her and felt her time at Church was an expression of her devotion and faith, and maybe even a bit of loneliness.


One afternoon when she was in the town’s local grocery, she saw a fellow resident pinning up a notice on the wall. She looked over curiously to see that he was trying to sell one of his bulls, and overheard as he told the store owner about the troubles he was having to get the young stud to mate.

“Brought him all the way from Owen Sound and yet he still won’t budge.”
“Are you sure you got the right bull?” asked the store owner.
“Of course I did! I hand picked him myself…and I spent a damn pretty penny on him, too.”
“How much do you want for him?” Kathleen asked, even though she wasn’t part of the conversation. The other man, Neil, turned towards her with a curious look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe she of all people was interested. It was well known that she ran the farm on her own, but it was more about keeping animals than it was about making a profit.

“He might be a little too much for you to handle, Miss Heinrich.”

She saw as Neil looked over at the storeowner and gave him a wink, without trying to be very discreet about it.

“I said”, she stated more firmly, “how much do you want for him?”

Neil cleared his throat, clearly not understanding that she understood what he was trying to get at. Most people think a spinster is a woman who has never known love or felt the warmth of a man’s body next to hers, and they would never know how wrong they were about her.

She stood, erectly, the stray grey hairs pulled back in the bun with the rest of her hair, patiently waiting for him to answer.

“Fifty dollars.”

It was a bit steep, but for some reason when she looked into the eyes of the young bull in the picture she knew she had to have him. There was something wild and yet natural about him that made her want him all the more.

“I’ll bring you the money this afternoon.”

She abandoned her shopping and left to go home to check her finances, to see if she could indeed afford the young bull. Whether or not she could she had it in her mind to buy him, especially after that little remark Neil had made towards her. That wasn’t the first time she had heard people say certain things to her, but usually whispers were made behind her back and she couldn’t hear them anyway.

She ended up buying the bull and a few months later purchased a female from another seller, of the same breed. She started taking in other animals, mostly rescues, and they all lived with her on the farm. She did the work of two men, plus her clothing business on the side, but that died down more and more as people were more willing to drive to Toronto to visit department stores like Eaton’s.

The Spring of 1934 the female bull gave birth to a calf, much to the amazement of some of the townspeople, especially Neil. Lewd remarks were made about how she got him to stud, but Kathleen was just happy to have a new addition to her family.



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7/20/2007, 8:49 pm Link to this post Send Email to OrlilLicious   Send PM to OrlilLicious
 
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Re: War Without End


One day as she was in the field with one of her old horses, she felt the wind pick up in the grass around her legs and could hear it in the tress around the farm. It was light, but when she looked up she saw that there were indeed clouds gathering in the sky. She was about to take the horse in when something, or rather someone, caught in the corner of her eye. She turned to see, off in the distance, someone walking towards the house. No, they were limping and using a crutch, yet it appeared they had both their legs from where she stood. Missing limbs were a common site around here and in every town in Ontario since the war ended, but that was a long time ago.

Something in her stomach dropped to her feet as she realized it was a man. He was wearing a hat, though she thought, or hoped, he had dark hair underneath. From where she stood she could not make out any features, so she couldn’t be sure.
Could it be…?

Her mind raced and she felt her body start to tremble. Then the rain started and her eyes watched as the figure who had approached the house now continued to the shed, at the back of the house, and clamored inside.

Tears stung her eyes. Her heart leapt. She started running towards the house and the shed where she saw him go, remembering this is where she and Matthew first made love. It had to be…maybe he hadn’t vanished.

Missing…for 20 years…and maybe now he had returned to her…

Her heart was in her throat but she stopped outside the shed, not aware that the tears were mingled with the rain. Hand over her chest she tried to calm the beating within, but it was useless, she had to go inside. But when she opened the door to the shed, a middle aged man turned abruptly and stared at her, looking startled. It wasn’t him. Her heart sank and she felt like she was going to be sick.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I was just trying to get out of the rain.”

She was just standing there, almost frozen in anguish. It wasn’t him.

“I’ll leave.”

But before he could walk past her, she spoke.

“Wait.”

He stopped.

“Was there something you wanted?”
“Uh, yes, actually”, he said, sounding uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed for having been found in there. “I was looking for work. With times being as tough as they are with the Depression I’ve not had much luck these days.”

At first she did not speak. He must have wondered why she was staring at him like she had seen a ghost or something, but slowly the colour came back to her face, yet the disappointed she felt did not leave.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any work for you.”
“Well that’s fine, I’ll be moving on then.”

He walked out into the rain.

“Perhaps you’d like some tea or coffee until the rain stops.”

He told her he would be grateful for whatever she could spare.


Inside the kitchen, she moved to not only prepare some tea, but a few sandwiches for the man. Her trembling had not fully gone, but something in her had resigned itself to the normalcy of her life again. She was foolish for having thought this man was Matthew, returned from the dead, but it had always been a possibility in her mind.

“I appreciate your kindness.”
“It’s nothing”, she said, handing him the sandwiches. “It’s the least I can do.”
She was staring at his leg.
“Oh, you mean this? It was nothing. A lot of them didn’t get out so lucky as I did.”

She sat down at the table.

“Where did you lose it?”

She had read and heard enough about the war that you asked questions like that, if any were asked at all, of men who had returned from the war. There was no sense asking how he lost it, but where, meaning what battle. But this was the first time she had ever spoken to anyone who had fought in the Great War, having avoided the other men from the village who returned, not wanting to draw attention or pity to herself. Now she was face to face with an actual veteran.

“Vimy Ridge, ma’am.”

The name made her heart stop. This is where, she had learned, Matthew had been lost. She felt goose bumps form all over her body. She wanted to know more.

“But that was a long time ago now”, the man said.
“It doesn’t feel like it though”, she said, but more to herself than to him. It had been twenty years since the war ended and it felt, to her, as if it was just last week. The pain she felt inside was deep and had never wavered, as raw and bloody as if he had died that very day.

“What was it like there?” she asked, not really wanting to know and yet not being able to resist asking. For some reason, out of all the questions Matthew’s death left, this was one of them that haunted her the most.

“Hell, ma’am, if you don’t mind me being so blunt.”

Not meaning to, she covered her mouth and sat there in thought, scared of what that meant. She didn’t want to think that Matthew had seen hell, somehow hoping that he could have been spared that. She knew a long time ago that he had not been killed in a plane, like she had hoped, but was a soldier who had been killed in a ground battle. Vimy Ridge was Canada’s most famous one of all.

“I lost my leg when a shell exploded near me, part of it cut it clean off.”
“That’s terrible”, she said, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s fine now. I can get along with it. Like I said before, some weren’t so lucky as me. Some guys were blown to bits by those shells until nothing was left of them.”

When he said this, it felt as though she had been kicked in the gut. She closed her eyes and tried not to imagine the vision he had painted with his words. She got up from the table and stood at the counter, her back to him, her eyes still closed. She felt as though she would cry.

“I’m sorry. People don’t want to hear that.”
“No”, she said, opening her eyes. “No, it’s fine. I needed to know.”
After a few moments of silence, she collected herself, and she heard him say:
“There was someone you lost there.”

She turned around: “Yes.”
“What was his name?”
“Matthew…Matthew O’Malley”, she said, the name leaving her mouth for the first time in years. She had whispered it in dreams, sometimes upon waking, but never voluntarily.
“What did he look like?”

She thought maybe this man had known him, maybe served with him, and so she sat down again at the table and told him:

“He had beautiful black hair with brown eyes…and he was tall, and strong”, she said, the words recalling the image of his face in her mind. She had heard that time erases such features from one’s mind, but this was not the case with him. His face was as clear to her now as it was twenty years ago. “He was beautiful”, she heard herself adding, looking down at her hands and feeling the tears leave her eyes. She started to cry, a steady flow of moisture leaving her eyes and falling down on the table. For some reason she did not feel ashamed to be doing this in front of a stranger, even though she had never opened up this much to her father.

Then she felt the man put his hand over hers, which surprised her. She looked up at him, but did not bother to wipe her face or apologize for breaking down in front of him. She saw that he had a sympathetic smile on his face.

“I lost my only brother in the war, so I know how you feel.”

Yes, she believed that he did understand this immense loss she felt. For the first time in her life she felt it was all right to break down in front of someone else and that maybe, just maybe, she could share her pain.



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