𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 | 𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐊 [Collins]

Chapter 31 - The First Day of the Rest of our Lives

(revised)

I was at work when the news broke. War was over in Europe. I felt relieved, just like everyone else present in the pub on that evening of May, all gathered around the radio. Joy quickly filled the room when the words we had been waiting to hear for years were finally pronounced, and beer flew freely from the tap to celebrate, but I could not join them, I had nothing to celebrate. War was over, but at what cost? My husband would not return home and be a part of my life again. There was nothing to celebrate and so much to grieve. So many lost lives and yet, I felt like I was the only person in the room who missed someone on that particular day. There was not another sad face among the crowd, it was just me, and so I left.

I told Billy and Joseph I had to go and I left. I fled, but the spectacle outside was just as cruel to me. The streets were packed with people, bursts of laughter and songs could be heard at every corner, bells were tolling in the distance, freedom was the word in every mouth. I fought my way through the crowd, feeling like a fish swimming against the current. A wave of bliss had flooded the city and carried me away. The weight of my loss was keeping me underwater, out of the present moment, unable to feel anything but a terrible emptiness, and nobody saw me struggling. Their joy had erased me from the picture.

I kept walking, with one destination in mind. Everybody was out celebrating while all I wanted was to lock myself at home. I sighed with relief when I finally closed the door of the building behind me. I climbed the stairs in a hurry, opened the door and dropped my bag and my coat to the floor before struggling to take off my shoes, trying to keep my balance on one foot and the other, getting rid of what I associated to my feeling of suffocation.

"Dad?" I called as I made my way through the darkness that filled my flat, as an echo to what I felt inside of me.

"Here, darling!" I heard his comforting voice at the other end of the corridor before I could see the dim light slipping through the crack of the door.

As I entered Tommy's bedroom, I was met by his radiant smile and his sweet voice asking for me, and the sorrow in my heart immediately vanished. I would not cry, I was strong now. War had taught me to lose everything and forced me to become someone else, a totally different person from whom I was years before. I would not cry, I had already cried enough.

"How do you feel, sweetheart?" my father carefully asked as he handed me Tomas.

I grabbed my son and kissed him, inhaling his sweet smell, what was now home to me, and I hold him tight, as if to be sure he was real, I had not dreamt it all.

"I feel..." I started as I turned to my father. "I don't know... I don't feel like celebrating, that's all."

I sat on the armchair next to Tommy's bed and crossed my legs to place him there, close to me.

"It's okay. You don't have to."

"But I should be happy, shouldn't I?" I asked, looking at him with guilt. "But all I know is that this war took my husband, while other men can come back home. And when I see these happy families, all I can think about is how unfair it is!"

"Yes, it's unfair. And you'll always feel like it is, no matter the years. You'll always be jealous of other families, but you'll learn to live with that feeling. You'll focus on your son just like I focused on you, and you'll see, you'll be okay."

I said nothing but faintly smiled at my father to thank him for his words, because it was what I needed to hear, to know my feelings were not wrong. My attention was then drawn to Tomas who was wriggling in my arms, full of energy.

"Hey, what's up with you lil' monkey?" I asked him before covering his chubby cheeks with kisses. "Shouldn't you be sleeping already?"

"The cheering outside woke him up," my father explained. "And you know him, he didn't want to go back to sleep."