Blue Sky

Blue Sky

‘Blue Skies in the morning, and clear skies at night.  It’ memories like that,’ she said, ‘that really make childhood.’  She sighed, pushed herself slowly to her feet, and began to wobble towards the kitchen on unsteady legs.  ‘More tea dear?’ she asked, as she struggled past.

I had already leapt out of my chair. ‘Let me...’ I began but she had already moved towards the kitchen.

‘No, No’  she hurried along, not wanting my help, ‘sit yourself down.  I need to keep mobile now.’  She smiled at me sadly, her wrinkled face crinkling even more.  I returned to my chair, not really knowing how to compose myself, I mean it’s not every day you have tea with an elderly lady that you hardly know.  She walked slowly back from the kitchen, in gnarled old hands she held out cups of tea, her back was hunched and she walked as if her legs gave her great pain.  I waited until she was settled in her chair and then I prompted her ‘tell me what else you can remember about your childhood’

‘Oh,’ her watery eyes brightened. ‘I remember my daddy,’ she said.  Her voice seemed to strengthen from the mention of him. ‘We lived in a big white house, with a front garden that led to the road.  Acorn Street I think it was.  And every day I would wait for my daddy to come home from work.  I would watch, and watch and suddenly he would appear at the gate.  He parked at a garage that was away from the house so the first thing I would see would be at the gate.  He carried his laptop on his shoulder in a back rucksack and he was always smiling.’  She broke off, and smiled herself,  a happy smile that wrinkled the crow’s feet around her eyes, and brightened her whole face.

‘The sky was always blue,’ she said, almost to herself , ‘ so I would run to meet him, down the path toward the road, and he would scoop me up and give me kisses.  Then we would walk up to the house and he would spend time with me.  He always read me stories at bed time.’

‘What happened to him?’ I asked.

A look of confusion passed over her face.  ‘I’m not sure,’ her voice faltered a little, ‘I don’t remember’

‘That’s OK,’  I said as gently as I could.  ‘What else do you remember’

‘I remember my room.’  Instantly she was back in the past, her confusion gone.  ‘It was pink, and had beautiful fairies on the walls.  I had a TV on the wall, and I had boxes of toys.  Everyone said that Daddy spoiled me, but he didn’t care.’

‘What about your mother?’  I prompted.

‘I did not have a mother.’  She was matter of fact about this, ‘She died when I was a baby, she had a terrible disease, and all her hair came out, and then she was gone.’ 

There was a pause and I thought of my wife, losing her hair, crying in the night from the fear of her not seeing her child grow up, the pain she had gone through.  I hoped she was at peace. 

‘I don’t remember her really,’  the old lady said.

‘What about the rest of your life, what can you tell me?’  I was getting to the main course now, the bit I really wanted to hear,  I smiled at her, hoping I appeared attentive and interested, not wolfish, or desperate.

The look of confusion came into her eyes, ‘I’m not sure, Dear,’ she said, ‘What did you want to know?’

I felt panicked,  not sure what to ask, I decided to go for safe ground.  ‘Are you married?  Did you find a wonderful man to take the place of your father?’  For a moment I hoped that my questions had found the way through to her, but she sat silently for a moment, staring at her hands as they twisted in agitation in her lap.  Finally she said ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.’

I reached over and patted her hands.  ‘That’s OK,’ I said ‘that’s OK.’  I had no other way to soothe her fears. 

‘What’s your name?’  She suddenly asked, sharply.

‘John.’  I was taken by surprise by the change in her.

‘My Daddy was called John,’ she said

‘I Know.’  I said.  I had seen enough, I knew who this lady was.  Getting out of my chair, I knelt next to her chair, and stroked her hand.  ‘Genna, Darling,’ I said, my eyes swimming with tears and my whole body shaking.  ‘I think...No; I know... that you are my daughter.’

Genna’s eyes widened and she stared at me.  I had been searching for her for so long, months of heartache, as the big empty house had taunted me with her absence.  I could not believe it when the police contacted me with a strange story, of a little old lady who had appeared out of no-where, who had called herself Genna Rowley, and who had no paperwork.  She gave her address as Acorn Street, and the only missing Genna Rowley was my little girl, age 5 on her last birthday. 

Genna looked at me with her old eyes, in her old face and that smile came back.  ‘Daddy,’ she said, and held out her arms to be lifted up, just like she always had.