A New Day Yesterday.

My mind wouldn't rest easy...


filled with fragmented and strange dreams. Memories that  lingered like embers, still hot enough to sear. I rose wearily from my bed, leaned over to brush the locks back from and kiss the child in my bed, who'd managed to find his way into it during the night. Pausing to marvel for the millionth time, how such a beautiful boy could be all mine...


At least for a little while longer. Just a few more precious years of bone-crushing hugs, butterfly kisses, sticky fingers and boxes filled to overflowing with every artistic impression, imagined or otherwise.
   
Making my way downstairs through the darkness until I got to the kitchen brewed a cup of Earl Grey and added a splash of milk. Then I opened the patio door and headed outside to sit awhile in the cane armchair. Wrapped in an old shawl I'd made one winter long past, I sipped at my tea and felt the world come to life around me in the darkest hour before the dawning. That delicious coolness right before, that made my skin tingle with sharp awareness.


I waited and watched as the sun came up...


The gradual lightening of the sky. That smeared canvas of arbitrary shades that tinted a new day into being.


Sometimes, it's the simplest things that are truly the most profound...


Yet still I miss the music of birds, serenading in the day.
Even after five and half years of living here, it's one of the few things that still seems strange.
There are birds that squark, chatter and screech. The grackles, the crows, carrion birds of prey, red cardinals, blue jays and I delight in the hummingbirds.
But still miss birdsong...


Sometimes...
I'll close my eyes and fall into a visual memory of yesteryear...


"It's morning already, I open my eyes to the bleary half light and wonder what pulled me from my dreams...
There's a Tui outside my window sitting in the Kowhai tree, trilling the familiar haunting call of the bellbird. Carefully easing back the covers, sliding quietly from my bed, I'm careful not to wake my sister who must have jumped in, sometime during the night. She's such a scaredy-cat! I steal closer to the window to watch as it sups at the nectar, poking it's black beak in imperious little darts into the bright yellow blooms, that hang like little bells complete with clangers. His one eye I see, restless, sharp, rolls and looks everywhere at once. The pure white tuft of feathers at his nape like a cravat, such a startling contrast to the glossy blackness of those that cover the rest of him. He's fat too. Maybe he likes the juicy huhu grubs that lie beneath the bark of fallen trees and rotting wood. 


Who does it call to I wonder? The morning? A mate? Maybe it has a baby and its calls are to it? I wonder why it is so rare to see baby birds besides the ones that fall from a nest. Sadness envelopes me when I think of their poor little bodies with barely a feather cold and stiff with eyes that seem too large for their heads, locked and frozen in an endless stare.


Later at breakfast, Da is cutting doorstop slices of bread and toasting them under the griller. The four of us, my two brothers and sister and I, are around the table wolfing down bowls of thick Thistle Oats porridge lathered with brown sugar and lashings of thickened cream. The toast is plonked unceremoniously in the middle of the table in front of us as four pairs of greedy hands reach out for a share. I grab my sisters piece automatically and smooth butter over it and wait to see if she wants the plum jam Da made or Golden Syrup...while she makes up her mind, I do my own and grab the vegemite just before my brother Peter grabs and misses. I smirk at him as he frowns and looks beyond me to Da, the threat of telling in his eyes...easier to give it up.


My sister is clinging to Da's legs sniveling as usual as they see the three of us off on the school bus. I wave goodbye, wishing I could stay home as she and Da are going to the beach today.
Staring through the window as the bus lurches off and grabbing at the railing of the seat in front of me...
For the first time, I see the grey hair threaded through the black wings over his ears and wonder what it means. Is it 'old'? Will he die? What would happen to us kids? I wriggle in my seat uncomfortably, worry putting a sudden scowl on my face.


Our small country primary school on the peninsula has lots of kids. Maybe even as many as a hundred of us. It was a beautiful summer day, we played on the field at lunchtime and made time to search the trees for locusts. Their buzz-saw cacophony only appreciated to the full when they suddenly fell silent.
Not long after lunch, when we were all settled back in class again, feeling drowsy and listening to the teacher with one ear as she gave a geography lesson on New Zealand, the big fire siren at the Firehouse went off. The fire department is made up of mainly volunteers and our principal, doubles as the fire chief. 
Someones home or property was burning...


Just before the end of the day, the loudspeaker above the blackboard crackled to life and I heard my own name called for the very first time to report to the principals office immediately. Everyone in class turns to stare, my face heats in embarrassment as I try to sink deeper into the hard wooden chair. My teacher tells me I'm excused, not to dawdle along the way and to get move on!
I move in treacle. Wracking my brains for a clue as to what it was that I had done, because it must have been something. You only got called when you did something bad, at least that's what Alistair whispered as I passed where he sat. I feel teary and frightened. A dread and a powerful sense of certainty washes over me. I just 'know' that my life is about to change forever.


Ushered into the mans office, he urged me with a wave of his hand to come closer, he didn't look up. I stood nervously chewing my lip before his desk, uncertain, not knowing what to do or say and waited. He strode a small tight path back and forth behind his desk, one hand fisted on his hip, the other rubbing the back of his neck. 
Finally he stopped, leaned over his desk on outstretched arms and looked me in the face.


"...There's no help for it and as you're the eldest, you must be told and there's an end to it."
Satisfied with that cryptic sentence, he rose up once more, pulled out his chair and sat before taking up a pen and starting to write.
I stood there. Hovering, wondering what it was that I was meant to do or say. I was surely as stupid as everyone thought for I was none the wiser. Hadn't understood the message at all! My panic rising...I blurted, "Please Sir, what must I be told?"
He looked up and at me, seemed almost surprised to see me still standing there. A skinny ten year old girl dressed in boys clothing, rattails for hair and huge brown solemn eyes staring back. 
"Your house is gone girl. Burnt to the ground, not a darn thing we could do about it...too fierce! No water with this drought and everyones tanks are hovering on empty. We even drained the pool next door you know. Didn't do a thing."
He paused to look at my stricken face, then gave me the rest.
"Thing is, we don't know where your Father is. Or..." he shuffled some papers on his desk, "Ahh...yes, you've a younger sister I see, ready to start school soon... Anyway, there's no sign of either one of them..."


I had heard the words he'd said. They just didn't make any sense. How could our house be gone? Gone where? Then the bit about Da and Tara sunk in and I couldn't help it, an agonized cry of pain so acute...tore from my throat, my body shaking as I crumbled to my knees on the floor.


The rest of that long day was a blur. I'd asked for my brothers and they were brought to me. We were herded into a corner of the library and huddled together like frightened puppies as the adults around us discussed what, if anything was to be done with us. Words like "Social Services" and "funeral expenses....no insurance...hot water cylinder exploded, no known relatives that we know of..." were bandied about and didn't make a lot of sense at the time. So I watched them, eyes burning with unshed tears. Peter had fallen asleep, curled into a ball beside me with his head in my lap. Aaron watched me watch them... He'd tried to ask questions of me, questions I had no answers to that agitated us both, so we clung to one another and we waited...and we waited. Too frightened to eat or drink when someone had thought to offer us a sandwich each and bottle of cordial each.


It was dark outside before the deputy principal put us in her car and drove the short way up the hill, from the school to her home. Silently we all sat in the back...still waiting.


But as we got out of the car, another screeched to a halt at the curb behind us and turning to look, I felt a weight fall away as the tears held back too long, burst free from the dam at last. Da as I'd never seen him before, with my sister Tara in his arms came rushing towards us dropping to his knees in the stony road. Gathering us all close in his arms, he was streaked in dirt and grime. Tears of his own that I'd never seen him cry until that moment, flowed in tracks down his cheeks. But he was alive. He and my sister were alive... Whatever else happened, at least we were still together. Still a family."  

Pulling myself back from the memory, I slowly rose, picked up my teacup and saucer and headed indoors. Maybe I'd whip up a batch of cheese or date scones or some pikelets for breakfast. I knew I had some buttermilk in the fridge....