War Stories

Written as an assignment for my Canadian Short Story Class. It's my first attempt at something like this. Enjoy!

 

It was my daily ritual to put the world news on at six o'clock to hear news from Afghanistan. It was rarely good news. Mother always told me that no news was good news. However, I never really understood that saying because for me any news was better then no news.

 

I would click the television on, turn the volume up and leave the living room. I would stand in my beige kitchen and make supper for myself. I enjoyed not being able to see the television but still be able to hear the newscaster. I didn't want to see the images or the people who were injured or dying. I just wanted news.

 

News of Eddie.

 

 

 

Eddie was my little sister. However, she was legally born Edith Olivia Moyers, but had always been called Eddie, although no one can remember why. In my opinion, it may have been because she was supposed to be a boy.

 

A boy; that was what all the doctors told her and all the old aunts had agreed. Mother was carrying low; a sure sign of a boy. They painted the nursery blue and had planed to name the baby Edward Oliver after Father's father, since it was going to be their second son and they had named me after Mother's father, Tyler John.

 

When the doctor told Mother that she had a beautiful baby girl, she bust in to tears of joy. She had always wanted a girl to dress in lace and frills. She made me and Father go to the little boutique next to the hospital and go buy a pink dress and bonnet for her baby girl. My parents were unsure as to what to name the tiny baby dressed in frills and lace. They had no idea, until Grandfather came in to see his first granddaughter twenty four hours after she born. The tiny girl was held close to her strong Grandfather's heart and my parents agreed on Edith Olivia, after Edward. It was soon after that we began to call her Eddie.

 

 

 

"Three Canadian solider were injured in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan." the news reporter said from the living room. I dropped the bowl I was using - thankfully it was plastic - and rushed to the living room. The news reporter went on to say that the three soldiers had not been hurt badly and were recovering from their injuries. I sighed thankfully to myself, even if it was Eddie, she was all right. If I believed in God I am sure I would have thanked him, but I don't, so I just went back to making my dinner.

 

 

 

Eddie would sit on Grandfather’s knee, as he rocked back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, in the old wooden rocking chair. Grandfather, would tell his stories about the war: about the valor, the courage, the friendship, the sense of accomplishment, the pride and mostly the excitement. Eddie was always enthralled with him when he spoke. She listened to his stories more closely then she listened to the stories Mother told her of princesses and whimsical animals. Her blue eyes would be fixed on his face as he spoke to her.

 

Our younger brother, Luke, and I could have cared less about his stories. We had heard them all before, we did not care to hear them over and over like she did. When he visited we would play with little green army men on the carpeted floor in front of the rocking chair he was sitting on, making up our own war stories, which we played out with the little green men on the carpet. Stories we thought were far more interesting then the ones Grandfather was telling.

 

 

 

“Did you hear about the soldiers?” Mother said to me over the phone as I was eating my dinner. She went on to blabber about how she hoped it wasn’t Eddie. And that she should have never let her baby girl go to war. This was a daily conversation with Mother. It was one of those things I anticipated on a daily basis. It got to the point that if didn’t hear from her in a twenty-four hour period I would call just to make sure she was all right.

 

“Mother, I am sure Eddie’s fine.” I say, taking a big bite of salad. This was a mantra I learned to say to Mother every night. “Besides,” I added my mouth full of lettuce, “If something had happened we probably know by now anyways.”

 

Mother told me I was right, as she normally would. And we exchanged I love yous before bidding each other good night.

 

 

 

It was a brisk and early Saturday morning, the year I had turned ten, when Mother and Father had dressed us all in our church clothing and we were walking to Dupont subway station. It was Remembrance Day and we were all going to the Remembrance Day memorial service downtown at Queen's Park, both of our Grandfathers, Grandfather Moyer and Pepe Beanteau, would be there in their uniforms to remember their fallen comrades.

 

We sat close together on the over crowed subway. Looking around the subway I had realized that everyone was wearing the bright red poppy on their coats. We had worn the poppy on our coats since Halloween, long before the other kids in our neighborhood had. And no one on the subway was wearing their poppy as proudly as Eddie was.

 

We got off at Queens Park Station and met up with Grandmother and Aunt Kate just outside of the subway station. We made our way towards Queen's Park, where a large amount of people had already gathered. We found a spot to stand for the hour long ceremony. After waiting, somewhat impatiently on my part, for about forty five minutes, we watched the veterans march in; even caught sight of both Grandpa and Pepe.

 

We listened to accounts of survival and accounts of loss. We took the moment of silence before taps was played on a trumpet. I stole a look at my little sister, she was crying at this point of time, and I was confused as to why she was so sad. Our Grandparents had fought and survived. We should be happy. Father reached down and put his strong hand on her shoulder and leaned over to whisper in to her ear.

 

“Remember the stories.” He said softly. “Remember the bravery, the pride. Today is a day to remember and be proud.” Eddie wiped her tears and put on a strong face. I never understood how stories could make someone feel better. But it worked for Eddie.

 

 

 

Days after hearing the news of the three injured soldiers, I was having lunch with my younger brother Luke. He was home on a few days break before he headed back to North Bay for his final exams of his third year. Luke wanted to be a teacher and was majoring in History and Geography. I envied him as I would never have the patience to take on children and teach them anything. I could not teach anyone anything, which was why I hid behind my camera and my newspaper articles. I could tell and inform, but teach I couldn't.

 

"Do you worry about her?" Luke asked me abruptly after we ordered our meals.

 

I nodded my head yes. "Every day."

 

Luke looked over at me and said. "I do too."

 

"I'm sure she's fine." I said as the waitress arrived with our drinks. Luke bit his lip, the way he has always done when he wasn't sure if he would believe what he is being told and nodded slowly.

 

We enjoyed our meal and talked about everything; accept the war. It was nice to catch up. We had become distance since I had left for school some years ago. Meeting for lunch, like this, every now and then or at family holiday dinners in which we would joke around like we were children again. But distance didn't break our blood bond. It didn't matter how long we hadn’t spoke in or how far we lived from each other, we were siblings.

 

We sat in silence enjoying the coffees that were in front of us, when my cell phone went off. It was Mother, she was in hysterics. There had been an accident. Eddie was hurt. My mother didn't know how badly, or what had actually happened. She had just gotten a phone call and she had been informed that Eddie was injured.

 

 

 

It was the summer Eddie was seven and she had finally had enough confidence to take her training wheels off her bicycle. Father was busy at work and Mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner, so I removed her training wheels. And helped her learn how to balance on this two wheeled appreciate. She was getting the hang of it and I let go. I watched her ride away. She was steady, she was okay. All of a sudden she lost control and her bike tipped to the left and she was on the sidewalk.

 

I ran to her side and lifted the bike away from her. Both her knees were scratched and her blue eyes were brimming with tears. I was almost twelve at the time, and twice her size. I scooped her up off the ground and carried her back to the house and into the bathroom. I set her down on the counter and cleaned the dirt away from her knees before putting band aids on them to stop the little drops of blood from trickling out. I kissed them better, like Mother or Father would have done, and she smiled at me and asked me if she could try again.

 

We kept trying as the afternoon sun disappeared. She fell a few more times, I dusted her off, and we tried again. Finally Mother called us in to wash up for dinner and I let Eddie go one more time. She rode the bicycle down the side walk and right up the driveway into the garage. She was beaming as I ran up after her, pride radiating off of her. She had done it.

 

 

 

A miracle; we had been told. Eddie was a miracle. She had survived. No one else had survived. A disaster, one of Canada's biggest losses in Afghanistan thus far; Eight Canadian soldiers, a Canadian reporter, two Canadian translators and over a dozen of Afghani civilians, all dead from a roadside bomb. And yet, Eddie was alive, more then alive, she was basically uninjured. She had a few shrapnel injuries, but nothing major, and a concussion which had put her in a coma for six days.

 

She was now in back in Toronto, which made it easier for us all. Mother had flown to Germany where Eddie was originally was being taken care of, to be by her side. When she was in the coma, no one was sure how bad the injury could have been, or if she was even going to survive. She defied all odds when she woke up, with little memory loss, and what seemed to be no long term damage.

 

And yet, four weeks after the initial attack, she was still in the hospital. This is what really concerned me; it was what was causing me to pace back and forth in the hall in the white walled hospital. Jack was sitting on a chair watching me. Neither of us had seen Eddie since she shipped out almost five months ago. We are desperate to see our sister, for proof that she really was okay.

 

 

 

"I have an announcement." Eddie said, at the barbeque that Mother had put together for the extended family at the end of the summer. It was smaller then past large gatherings. Missing from the table were both Grandfather and Pepe, both had passed away in the last eighteen months, and were noticeably missing, especially Grandfather.

 

"I'm going to be going to Afghanistan." Eddie continued. Everyone stopped talking, everyone stopped moving and now everyone was staring at Eddie. Eddie had joined the military right out of high school and had decided to carry on the E. Moyers name in the Canadian Forces and had moved to Petawawa to live on the base there. But at that time there was no war that Canada was fighting in that we had to be worried for Eddie's safety in. It would be peace keeping missions and aid relief if she was shipped out anywhere. But soon after she enlisted Canadians went to the Middle East, where we had lost several Canadian men and women to the fighting. And now Eddie was on her way.

 

Mother had tried for weeks to convince Eddie not to go, but Eddie was stubborn and adamant about going. So she began the process of training to leave. She was preparing for just over five months before she had three weeks around Christmas. She'd be shipping off January 11th and spent a lot of time with us over the holidays, more time then she had ever spent with the family in the past few years.

 

That Christmas was a special one, we spent time just hanging out like we had done when we were kids, and exchanged gifts. It was obvious that we were all trying to cherish the moments we had together, because although no one spoke it, everyone was worried this would be the last Christmas as our family of five. Everyone was worried Eddie would not come home.

 

 

 

Father had come out into the hall, his face said more then his words would ever say. He was shocked by what he had seen in the hospital room. It was his first time seeing Eddie since she left. He told us we could come and see her now, that she was awake and fairly coherent. He said that she had even been asking for us. He looked as if he was going to say something more; maybe a warning about her, maybe something to prepare us. But whatever he had wanted to say didn't leave his lips and he motioned us to follow him into the room.

 

She looked so pale and small lying beneath the white sheets, as Jack and I walked into the clean hospital room. She wasn't paying attention to us as we arrived, she was talking to Mother. But Mother's gaze directed her attention to us. And Eddie looked over at us with her blue eyes and smiled. Mother would tell me later it was the first time in a month she had seen Eddie give a genuine smile.

 

We sat with her for over three hours. She wasn't talking much but she was listening, she always the one to listen. It seemed that no matter how much we wanted information from her about what had happened in the last five months, she wanted to know more about us. Any time the focus of our chat went to her or her experience, she would redirect the topic to something else. She was jumpy and nervous, something that was very odd for Eddie. And she refused to eat when the nurse brought her food, saying she was not hungry.

 

Late in the evening, a cart full of empty dinner trays crashed to the floor. The noise was deafening, and someone down the hall screamed. Eddie jumped up on her bed on her knees. She was yelling at someone, who was unseen to the rest of us, to get down. Eddie ripped her IV out of her hand and was on her feet and backed away against the wall. She began to cower against a wall, thrashing and wild like an animal. Mother was trying to calm her down, Jack was on the brink of tears, Father was as white as a ghost and I could not believe what was going on.

 

A nurse and a orderly came it, the nurse was holding a syringe in her hands. She and the orderly physically held down Eddie and gave her the needle, immediately Eddie fell limp against the wall. There was no fight left in her. The orderly lifted her into bed and the nurse told us it was time for us to go.

 

We bid Eddie goodnight, Eddie was already drifting into sleep, and was somewhat unaware of our presence in the room. The four of us walked down the hall together, with Eddie's presence visibly missing in our family dynamics.

 

"What’s wrong with her?" Jack finally asked.

 

"PTSD." Mother said simply, as if that was supposed to be an actual answer. It was not really an answer at all. But a part of me figured that it was the only answer my mother had been given as well.

 

That night I stayed up late into the early hours of the morning as I researched post traumatic stress disorder. The symptoms caused me to worry about my little sister; no Band-Aid or kiss on the knees was going to fix this situation.

 

 

 

Eddie, Jack and I were sitting covered by a single a blanket in front of the fire place at Grandfather's cabin. Grandfather had lit the fire as soon as it began to get dark, it was late August and the summer nights were a little cool. We were drinking hot cocoa as Grandfather sat in the oversized chair. It was a rare moment of quiet that one finds when there are three children in a family, and we sat there listening to the crackling fire. There was not much to do at Grandfather's cabin but sit by the fire when it got dark. There was minimal electricity and it was to dark to sit and play a board game. He always said that the cabin was his escape from the city and a place to relax.

 

Eddie loved it up at the cottage; all three of us did really. Grandfather would take us for the last two weeks in August up to his cabin. We spent most of our days playing in the forest and swimming in the cool lake. On rainy days we played cards and old board games. At night we spent our nights in front of the fire. Jack and I spent those nights learning how to tend the fire and make the water boil in a kettle that hung above it. And Eddie spent her nights listening to Grandfather's stories; sometimes, even telling the stories back to him. He seemed to like this the most, as did she. Tonight was no different as Grandfather began to talk about his time in Germany and Eddie slipped away from the comfort of the blanket to sit on his knee and listen to him tell her the story.

 

 

 

"Are you sure this is the right way?" I asked Jack, as I turned down a dirt road in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Jack was squinting in the fading sunlight at the map and he nodded his head unsurely at me. We were on our way to Grandfather’s cabin to give Eddie a break from everything at home, especially doctors and news from the Middle East. She hadn't been the same in a long time and when I asked Mother what I could do to help to make Eddie's recovery a speedy one, Mother said that Eddie talked non stop about the cabin in the woods that Grandfather owned and Jack and I decided to head up to the cabin with Eddie for a few days.

 

Eddie was now asleep in the backseat and had been on and off since we left Toronto. Mother had said that the medications they had her on made her sleep a lot and warned that we may not even see much of her for she'd be asleep. But that morning as she carried out her duffel bag from our little white house she seemed more at peace then I had seen her be all summer. And even for the time she had been in the car, although quiet, she was Eddie.

 

Finally after a few uncertain minutes of dusty road, Grandfather’s old cabin came in to view and there was a sense of relief which washed over me. We pulled into the drive way and almost on cue Eddie awoke and looked out the window and I was sure she smiled.

 

We got out of the car just as the sun was setting; Jack and I were worried about warming the cabin and unpacking. Neither of us noticed Eddie wander off to the waterfront. It was dark when I finally joined her on the dock. I was somewhat panicked and relived to find her there. She was sitting on the end of the dock, just as if she were nine years old all over again.

 

"This is the first time in a long time I've felt close to him." she said quietly and not really to me either. The him she was referring to could only have been Grandfather. "I joined like he did. I wore the outfit. I did the training. I fought the war. And this is where I feel closest to him." She continued, again not really talking to me, but then she looked at me with her blue eyes and said, "Funny, isn't it?"

 

 

 

The day Grandfather died was one of the toughest things my family had ever been through up to that point. He would be the last grandparent of Luke, Eddie and mine to pass away. And the last parent of Father. And for most of us too, it was as if we were losing a friend, a confidant, a hero.

 

Eddie was there, although, for awhile she wasn't sure if she was going to make it, but she got leave and joined us. She wore her dress uniform from the Canadian Army and stood as part of the honor guard at the gravesite. She showed very little emotion over the two days of visitations and then funeral. For me that seemed strange, since Eddie was indeed closer to Grandfather then any of the other grandchildren. She was indeed the only granddaughter out of nine grandchildren, but Grandfather and she shared a bond the rest of us could not have, a bond that had developed over time.

 

It was the night after the funeral, and Eddie was in her green bedroom in the little white house. She was packing her bags because she was leaving on the first bus back up to Petawawa. I wanted to talk to her, but had no idea what to say. I stood outside of her bedroom door and watched her through the slightly closed door. I watched her collapse on to her bed in tears; it was the first show emotion all day from Eddie. It was heart breaking to know that Eddie was taking this so very hard. I always regretted not going in and talking to her, comforting her, or even letting her know I felt the same.

 

 

 

Jack, Eddie and I sat in front of the fire for warmth in the small cabin. Darkness had completely fallen and the only light in the cabin seemed to be coming from the fire. We hadn't said anything to one another. Jack, was too afraid to say something wrong or insulting to Eddie. Eddie hardly talked anymore, especially when it was more then one other person in the room with her. And I was just afraid to break the silence, for in the silence lay uneasiness and I didn't want to face the uneasiness of the darkness.

 

"He fought in Dieppe you know." Eddie said suddenly. Both Jack and I turned to her and looked at her. We had heard countless stories about Grandfather, but never that he fought in Dieppe. "He never talked about it. He said it was his worst moment in the war. People, his friends, getting massacred right left and center. Somehow he survived. He didn't even know how. But he was there. He fought there. He survived."

 

"You survived too." Jack said, looking his big sister in the eyes. "You're here because you survived."

 

Eddie was silent, in the fire glow I could see that she had this look on her face that this wasn't the first time she had thought about the fact that she had survived. She nodded her head. "I know." She said quietly. She didn't say anything more and stood up from where she was sitting. Her blanket fell to the floor as she left the room and went to the room she would be staying in, the room she had slept in as a child.

 

Jack looked at me, and there was an apologetic glance in his eyes. I knew he hadn't meant to upset her. He had meant to comfort her. I nodded back to him as if to say it's not your fault but he shook his head and left the cabin to stand on the porch in the cool late summer air.

 

I got up from where I was sitting and walked to Eddie's bedroom door. I could hear her just inside the door. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door and seemed to startle Eddie. She jumped up from her bed and roughly wiped the remains of her tears away from her cheeks. We stared at each other for a moment, both not knowing exactly what to say.

 

It was in that moment which I saw the little girl Eddie once was inside of her. The one that had to put a brave face on at the remembrance day ceremony, the one who was determined to ride bicycle, the one who listened intently to her Grandfather's stories and the scared teenager who made the decision to follow in her hero's footsteps. I don't know what she saw in me, if she saw anything at all, but she fell to the floor in a heap of tears.

 

In an instant I was comforting her telling her she was all right and that she was going to get through this. I promised her over and over again that I would indeed be there for her when and if she needed me. I hadn't gone to war, but I was willing to listen.

 

For the first time in my life I wanted to hear the war stories. I wanted to know them and understand them.

 

I wanted to listen.

 

Author's Note

Any and all help would be wonderful.

Reviews

[Jessica]

*tears* I'm not kidding, my eyes literally welled up at the end. This is beautiful darling.