Days of the Yesteryears...

The pain pierced through her heart again, but this time it was sharper. She pretended it was nothing. Her smile stayed on her face and her feet went on their usual tapping. 1

“Are you sure Aurelia?” she asked again but she could feel her throat tightening.2

“Yes pretty sure Eliza. Hey, what’s wrong? You look pale,” her friend’s face peered in for a closer look but she backed away; away from this heartless creature who had suddenly crashed down the world around her.3

“Aurelia, you forgot didn’t you; you forgot that my father was on that plane that crashed. Why did you tell me Aurelia…WHY?” her screams became louder, and her sister came running, her golden locks falling onto her dreamy blue eyes. Father had loved those eyes, Eliza remembered with a pang, and she looked away from her little sister, back to Aurelia.4

“Don’t tell this to Beth yet, she is too young. We lost our mother already, and grandma came down, as you know, but oh Aurelia, we had always wanted our daddy. Never that horrible woman…” Eliza cried out in pain just as Beth came over.5

“Hello Aurelia, want to see my new dance?” Little Beth asked her, but Aurelia just shook her head and walked away. Never to come back, she thought, so that she would never make such a heartless mistake again. Her own eyes were filling with tears. Father had been right about Eliza. She was not right in the head, he had warned her. But how could that be, Aurelia had thought many a times, when she was pretty sure that Eliza was happy when she had left for Greenland in the vacation holidays. 6

So Aurelia had asked her Father, again and again, hoping that he would say something. In the end, he told her. Eliza’s mother was a pretty woman, petite and prim, but she had run away with a stranger. The town folks believed he was a man, but no one was sure if Eliza’s mother had all along been gay, that she had married because she had no choice and that in the end, after she had done her duty of giving birth to two daughters (it was customary that two kids were the minimum), she had escaped with her female lover to someplace far away. Eliza’s father was coming over to visit her and the family by the plane, but he had never known about his wife running away, but it was just as well, because the plane crashed, and he died; his body was never found.7

All this had happened last year, and yet, Eliza was waiting for her father. Somehow she was too stubborn to believe that the paper had got the facts right. She still believed that her father lived, that he was coming back with the most beautiful scarves and gowns. Eliza had believed that, only until she had come by and showed her the memorial dates for all the people who had died in the plane crash, Aurelia thought sadly. Eliza’s father’s name was on the paper, and Aurelia had shown it to her. The guilt was eating her alive, and somehow, it was time that Eliza moved on. She could not pretend forever that her father would come back. It would harm her more, to believe in something that just wouldn’t happen. Aurelia looked back at the house, at Eliza and Beth, at the old Grandmother who took care of them, at the house which was once a beautiful place of happiness and beauty, which housed a perfect family, but now, only three people whose names the town was beginning to forget. Aurelia dried her tears and walked barefoot down the dirt path, remembering all the times of yesteryears, when magic felt real and broken hearts always mended. 8