…And It Was Her Summer


“Go back to the children’s home, she said I have no work and
can’t afford to keep you” Late June afternoon she sat on a bench
with a man, I didn’t know. The man smiled I didn’t like him, but
took the coins he gave me to buy an ice –cream for; I was still
hanging about so mother got up and slapped me across the face.
” Get lost you, stupid boy!” My face was burning I threw the coins
into the lake and ran away. When I stopped running it was night
and I could see sheep in a field, I was tired and cold, thought of
seeking shelter in a little wooden church, but it smelt of fear and
I thought of ghosts, so I walked on till I came to a workman’s hut
near the road, it was easy to get in; here the smell was of coffee,
and kind men in overalls, perhaps one of them were my father?  
It was morning and warm sunlight when they came, they were not
angry, but gave me milk and bread and showed me the quickest
way to get home. The sky that day was enormous and from a hill
I looked down to the town, I could see the school building it must
have been early, no children in the yard; but I just sat there and
could not understand why my mother didn’t want to see me.