Four In The Morning

“Four, in the morning”

Four years old, the last of the 10 Mohicans standing alone in the kitchen leaning on the kitchen table that had the same linoleum top as the floor covered with cereal bowls and spoons, the table not the floor. The benches on each side covered in the same linoleum always out of place being left unattended by the rush of the morning. The sisters have gone off to school, father gone to work and mother in her little room next to the kitchen sleeping in from her very long day of working two jobs from 1 p.m. to 5 a.m. the previous day. She would sleep as long as sounds of the neighborhood would allow, then up and do it again. The only thing a four year old on her own can do is tip-toe from room to room occupying herself with quiet activity. Each day inspecting the china cabinet full of beautiful hand painted cups and plates but never touching anything just looking. My fathers multi-drawered desk of many slots and nooks were a temptation but I felt he would instantly know if I touched anything. The stairway up, led to many a “day-mare”. I never went up there without the protection of my sisters. I think they were the ones that gave me my fear of upstairs to begin with. The living room seemed like miles from the little room by the kitchen where my mother slept. It was a dark gloomy room with heavy drapes and venetian blinds and a huge mirror that I never understood the reason for it being there. I never wandered that far into the living room. There were many reasons I didn’t go outside in those days, the main one being I might miss my mother if she woke and left for work. I had to stand my ground and remain inside. I tried to stack up the breakfast dishes that were left on the table by the hoard of sisters in their rush for school. I remember feeling like I was in slow motion being oh so careful to not make a sound. When my mother finally came out from her room, she smiled at me with her broken hearted smile. The smile she wore everyday since the loss of her only son in WWII two years earlier. She tried to smile for me most mornings, sometimes she had no smile to share. Being four in the morning wasn’t always easy.