Favorite starting line

It was love at first sight. (Catch-22.) Me and Tommy Kennedy from across the street. That street being the black paved barrier between me and the brown haired boy on the other side.

The air was freezing the first time we met. Emerald orbs glistening from behind thick spectacles peering into my living room window, he saw me first. I was reading my favorite book, Gone With the Wind, and surely believed myself quite beyond my years for taking interest in such an adult piece of literature. My mother had laughed when I lugged the thousand page blackhole that would absorb a week of my time -which at nine years old, I believed was my most precious currency- home.

His Rudolph red nose caught my eye first. It was a perfect button, the kind I had always adored. I had smushed my cartilage until it turned sore, but I had never achieved the perfection of a button nose. His hair was the same color as mine, honeyed from days in the golden sun but gradually growing darker in the winter months. We locked eyes, my murky blues meeting jade, and from that moment on, I knew I would speak to the boy in the tenth floor Chesterwood apartment across from me.

It was love at first sight, I repeated over and over again following that fateful day. With my only trips out being the grocery store and the public library, it was almost impossible to catch a glimpse of the mysterious boy. In my mind, I was Scarlett O’Hara, he was Ashely Wilkes, and I was still convinced they were star crossed lovers.

Eventually, on a slightly warmer December afternoon, his gawky figure could be seen parading down the sidewalk, my sidewalk. I begged my mother, a raven haired woman, slumped over in her favorite leather arm chair, if I might venture down the street to the library. Before she could respond, I took silence as affirmation and was on my way.

“Hello,” I began what was sure to be a wonderful courtship with a simple greeting.

He stared at me with wide owl eyes while I slung my satchel across my thin shoulders.

Pushing his glasses up his flawless nose, the object of my interest returned with the practiced ease of a politician, “Good afternoon. My name is Thomas William Kennedy. I live on the tenth floor of Chesterwood Apartments, room 126. How are you doing today?”

“I am very well, thank you. My name is Evelyn Anne Smith. I live on the tenth floor of Rosecrest Apartments, room 89,” I copied him in order to sound as adult-like as possible.

He seemed to appreciate it because he continued, saying, “Your hair is very shiny. It reminds me of my mother’s.”

His compliment made me blush, and I knew we would be fast friends, “Thank you, I brush it a hundred times every morning and night.”

A sort of unspoken agreement passed through our child minds. We dipped our black shoes into the fresh snowflakes paving the dreary grey sidewalks. We walked on in silence until we reached the intersection.

Thomas interrupted the silence with a question, "Did you ever make a New Year's Revolution?"

"Resolution, you mean." I corrected, hesistant to point out his flaws. "Yes, I did. I vowed to read a book a week."

"Wow. That's neat. I only promised to excersise more because my father says I'm not as big as I should be."

"Oh, well, I think you should do things you like. I like reading."

"I like the way you talk," he admitted with a slow grin, "It's really fancy."

Scarlett had not yet instructed me in full as to how to properly end a conversation. We were approaching the part of the street where the doors back to our homes were. If he left, I would be back in my room again. Alone.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" I asked with a hopeful inflection and my bottom lip between my baby teeth.

He seemed to mull it over in his head, "I have piano lessons in the morning, but I'll make sure to come out after lunch."

"Do you like cherry pie?" I wondered with a sudden idea.

"It's my favorite."

"Alright, goodbye, Tommy."

He gave a small, bashful chuckle at the sound of my new nickname, so I vowed to use it again the next day. He waved as he stepped into the doorway. Then, we retired to our respective apartments. Once inside, I could see what I assumed was a faint outline of him from my dining room table.

The next week flew by in a whirlwind of bliss. I brought him a thick slice of cherry pie my mother and I had baked. Both of us quite loved to bake. We went to the library and even a park Tommy had discovered about a year ago. Without asking my mother, I piled in with him into his father's car. I was wearing a yellow sundress, and he handed me a bright bouquet of yellow blossoms he had plucked from the damp soil. I did not know how to make flower crowns, so I cheerfully tied them into my braids.

"Here, I'll wrap this and get some pencils to draw on it, too," I soothed, passing him the roll of bandages for his crimson knee.

Tommy had scraped his knee against a sharp rock when he leapt from the apartment porch steps. I had rushed to retrieve my nurse's play kit to bandage his wound. It contained a roll of plain white bandages, a stethoscope, and an identification card for patients. He would be my first human patient, and I could not have asked for a better one.

My mother was a nurse, but she does not like to talk about it. My grandfather always got mad when he would come to our apartment. I am not sure about what. He would just start shouting about some kind of mistake she had made during her time at the hospital. Maybe she had not treated a patient properly. I hoped Tommy would be okay.

"Here, write your name on this line and your birthday there. I'll fill out the injury list," I instructed.

I wish I had been a nurse when Tommy got called to war. The year was 1941, and we had been married for fifteen years. It was a beautiful ceremony with yellow blossoms braided into all the girls' hair. I suppose fifteen years was enough. I should have been grateful to still be with the boy from all those years ago across the street.

But I wanted more. More time, more laughs, more memories. I wanted a child too. A little golden haired ray of sunlight to brighten our lives. The doctors told us we could not have one. I held my breath in the emergency room. We both cried. There was nothing we could do.

Then, we cried over something far worse when he was drafted. He packed a small bag because they told him he would receive all he needed when he arrived for training. I was scared, but I could not imagine what he was feeling. I dreaded when he would be shipped off for Europe.

We sent letters back and forth for months. Then, I recieved a message that no woman wants to hear: my husband was shot. He was in the hospital, but it was not looking good. I wanted to help, to bandage him up like when we were younger. There was nothing I could do.

He died the next week. They sent his belongings back with his body. I could not bare to look inside the casket. All I could think about was brown bangs pushed up with blood, sweat, or a mix of both. Eyelids covering beautiful green eyes that would never see the light of day again. I would see a scrawny frame with legs too long for his coffin. But most of all, I was afraid to see bulletholes. To see the result of one man's fury let loose against the one I loved.

I did not look inside, not even at the funeral. I gave a short speech because nothing could capture my adoration for him.

I remember when my father died. He was wearing blue, dress shirt and slacks and all. My mother said he went quickly, no pain. Out the window, down into the pavement below. I do not know why. Maybe we finally ran out of money just like everyone else. Maybe grandpa was right and our whole lives were a mistake. Either way, he died. It did not matter how, or when, or why. He was dead.

My husband was dead. My father was dead. My mother had one foot in the grave. My grandfather has not seen me since I was five. I assume he is dead too. My grandmother died before I was born. Everyone I love is gone, swept up into the murky blue waters of the unknown.

When they asked me to write a piece about the war, me, a ninety two year old woman with brittle bones and a heavy heart, I almost laughed. What would I have to contribute to a book about the war? I mean, just because someone lived through something does not make them an expert. I know nothing about military strength or facts and figures. I can barely remember my own name sometimes. All I know about the war is what it means to lose.

One morning, when Tommy and I sat in a large oak tree in the park, I asked him if he believed in love at first sight. We were fifteen, two years away from marriage, though neither of us knew it yet. He said, "Of course, but only when I'm thinking about you and me."

Headstones are like hospital identification cards. I laid his from when he scraped his knee against his headstone yesterday. Cemeteries have always been like shelves I could not reach, for even if I wanted to go inside, I would not dare. I do not know why, but I went in for him.

So at ninety two, I want to make it known to all the young couples who aspire to love and be loved, be warned because along with fireworks, butterflies, and laughter, love is a street riddled with potholes the snow cannot hide for long. They throw you into ditches filled with sadness that nobody has ever escaped from, not truly. I am still in one, and I have tried everything to get out. I guess what I am saying is do not take what I am saying as all sunshine and rainbows. Do not take it as the manual to follow. I do not know everything, but I know that when you see a sweet, skinny, spectacle wearing boy with a button nose red from the cold, do whatever it takes to hold on to him.