Corbin

December 24th

I had never wanted this to start with a death but in the end, it is the truth of how the story begins and since I wish these events to be written precisely as it happened, that is how the story shall start.

It was December 24th, perhaps the night where excitement is most expected to build in every household in the world. Some people I knew were exchanging the first gifts of the Christmas season, others were topping their trees with angels and others still were taking to the streets in droves to sing of glad tidings. Yet that is not how it was for me – not this year. I had spent the evening in utter turmoil as my Mother fought bravely to survive the round of influenza that she had been diagnosed with three weeks before. She was bedridden, as was expected, and the evening was taken up with mopping her brow, making soups and giving her what water she could drink. My back was killing me with pain from stooping over her, damp cloth in hand and the tension in my muscles from worry did little to aid the situation yet I knew I couldn't just sit back and let the inevitable happen.

The doctor had been fetched earlier in the day and his grave expression had done little to ease my fears. He had stood over Mother's ever decreasing frame and rubbed a hand down his face in exhaustion. When he had clamped his hand onto my shoulder, blue iris' rippling with the tears in his eyes, I had known the words he failed to speak in an instant. Around a lump in my own throat I had choked out the question of how long. He had sighed and glanced back at my mother, his voice lowered. "Keep her comfortable dear boy" had been his words, he couldn't guarantee she would see the sunrise.

For my little sister, Winter, the evening was again spent not by excitedly waiting for a jolly man in red nor by laying out milk and cookies for him and his antlered friends. Instead it was spent by Mother's bedside, watching her every move. I knew the risks, of course, of allowing her to be pressed tight to her Mother's side considering how contagious the influenza was... but how could I tear away a devoted daughter from her dying mother's embrace? I hated the thought but I knew from Mother's ever worsening condition, death couldn't be far away now. Her breathing was laboured, her skin pale and clammy and the only water she had drunk in the last hour had been dripped through her parted lips off of a cloth by my own careful hand. I did not mention the closeness of her end to Winter though, for the blow of something so alien to the heart of a four year old was not something I wanted to provoke.

Eventually, though, Mother's fever seemed to subside and we found ourselves with nothing else to do but wait. Winter, sitting on the edge of the bed, began to hum softly – whether to Mother or herself, I wasn't sure. My mind, however, drifted listlessly at the sound of the quiet and sorrowful tune that I had heard only once before.

It had been the night Father had left...

Father came home, as usual, around 6'oclock. He was donned head to toe in coal soot and work gear, yet as he stumbled and swaggered through the door it was clear he had been anywhere but work for the last several hours. Mother, slaving over a hot dinner, turned her attention to him and wiped her brow with a sigh.

"Please tell me you haven't been down The Black Fox again," she pleaded wearily.

"N' wha does it mat'er if I 'ave?" Father slurred, an intoxicated grin spreading over his soured face.

"Cor, please," tears filled Mother's eyes, "we can't afford for you to keep spending money we don't have."

Father appeared to sober for a moment at her words, then his eyes darkened as anger filled them, "I worrrk damn 'ard to provide for thisss family! I go t' the mines and I slog my damn 'eart out. I'm gob-smack'd I'm still ssstanding with 'em using me like the pack 'orse they dooo."

Mother's eyes grew stormy in return, "You don't think I know how hard you work for this family? You don't think I know that you deserve a break? Of course I do! We both do! But we are a one income family with two children and when you visit that pub nightly, ends don't meet!"