With The Change Of The Leaves (sample page)

A Story by Reina

A man loses his younger sister in a car crash and is suddenly left with her kid. A story about self discovery and struggle.

It was mid-October; the leaves were all changing, much like his life. It was late on the 14^th when he received the phone call that would change everything. His little sister was gone, not from the province, not from the country from the world he could touch and feel. It made him question his beliefs, made him wish he believed in something else so that he could seek the solace that so many did that while his sister was gone she was somewhere. It wasn’t that easy for him though, it wasn’t like he could just believe what everyone else did; he couldn’t take comfort in that.

He sat on the balcony of his down town apartment staring up at the stars, between his fingers sat a blunt, he didn’t commonly smoke, but that didn’t stop him from keeping some around for times that life was too much to take. In the morning he would drive across the bridge to social services and pick up his niece. In the morning he would take custody of a 7 month old baby who had no mother left in the world.

They told him it happened on exit 13, that it had been quick and she had not suffered, he wondered if that was meant to comfort him, if that was the truth and that that was simply what they told everyone for comfort. He didn’t want to think about the other possibility; that she had lay on the pavement in the dark crying out for help, alone and scared. He knew that was more likely the truth.

It bothered him that the man who was responsible who had been drinking was in the hospital, but that he would be released in the morning with nothing more than a fine, no one would even know his name in relation to her. The world knew his name, but would never know he crashed his car into his sisters, that he had so carelessly taken her life.

Sister, Daughter, Mother, Widow. They called his sister many things in the coming days, but it seemed no one wanted to say the truth, Gone. That what she was.

He thought about the spare bedroom that he would have to turn into a nursery; he didn’t even know what he needed. He wasn’t sure he could live with himself if he took everything from her home and moved it to his.

In the morning this was exactly what the social worker recommended, that little Ray be given a surrounding that would be familiar to her. He was also told that if he needed time social services could wait to give Ray to him till tomorrow.

Las thought about it for a long time, okay more like 20 minutes, and maybe he should have been protesting even taking the child, he didn’t know the first thing about babies. But there was no one else, his father a widow with a teenage daughter. His last remaining sister, she was 15 there was no way Elie could take care of a baby.

The next nearest family being his mother, she was not a fit mother to raise him, his brother and sister, and custody never should have gone to such a heartless woman, it should have gone to his loving father. But the courts back then almost always gave custody to the woman.

When he was handed Ray, he held the small child to his chest with a great uncertainty, “It’s just you and me now.” He whispered to her, and she started to cry. “Shhh Ray I know, I miss Cecile too.” He told her awkwardly trying to rub her back and keep her held in his hands at the same time.