I walked away while their tears streamed down, my little one shaking her
head, trying to scare the nightmare away. A brother is meant to stay home, not
leave for a cause never worth fighting for. I didn’t, couldn’t look back.
…
…
I looked down on my little
Susanna, asleep in the room we once shared. She still had her blue aster flower
under her pillow; the one she said held my voice in her dreams and my eyes
watching over her. Her little stomach heaved with the effort of breathing in
the heat of summer under her asthma. I always told her it wasn’t a weakness; it
was an obstacle that she could always fly over. I concentrated on her flower,
and suddenly, I was there.
Aster was
my best brother. He helped me instead of teasing me like Jonah. Why did he have
to go fight bad men, leaving me? He taught me how to talk proper and how to
help momma around the house so that when he left we wouldn’t fall apart like a
mud pie left in the icebox. He always said I was his little one and to keep his
flower under my pillow so that he was always with me. Now he’s gone and this drooping
blossom is all I have left of my beloved brother.
Momma made porridge again, yuck! Aster
always cooked, he was good at it. I cried myself to sleep, again. I dreamed of
flying guns and wildflowers.
Aster opened his eyes
timidly. He stood in a field, just like the one behind his old log cabin that
he used to call home. He sat down in the tall grass and soaked in the summer
breeze tickling his nose. Suddenly, a little girl around four appeared out of
the fluffy clouds and ran towards him. “Aster!” She cried. Aster caught her
slight frame in his tired arms and swung her in the air until she giggled with
delight. “We miss you Aster. Momma doesn’t want us kids to notice, but she
cries at night and when she makes supper. But we notice and try to comfort her,
and, Aster, she doesn’t listen when we say that you’re watching!” Susanna’s
little legs shook and she sat down with her brother. He looked out at the
waving grass and chuckled. “I am always here, little one, even when that flower
is wilted and gone, me and my love will be right here.” He pointed to her heart
and smiled. “I never leave your dreams, baby girl. You tell Momma that.”
Susanna’s blue eyes lit up to match Aster’s sky blue ones. They say together in
the summer waves, soaking up the freedom of the wildflowers.
