WIshing Away Curve Balls

Twinkle Lights

"Melody, please put Anne to bed"

"I slept on the couch with the first two... I intend to keep my method... It involves me getting up in a few minutes to put her in the crib and then I will be right in..."

I stared through the pegs on the stairs at my mother laying on the couch as she "rested her eyes" with my one month old infant sister on her chest. My younger brother, Bubba, just a year old was already asleep in his crib. My father had just finished his retort of a short grunt before passing me on his way up the stairs.

My father was a simple man, looked like the stereotypical cartoon of a cross between Paul Bunion and Fred Flinstone.

I was used to this daily argument... being 8 I knew what could be the risks of my mother falling asleep with the baby on her chest. I often would go and take my brother off her chest and put him in the crib once I knew she was asleep. If I was caught, I wouldn't mind the spank, but I had the secure knowledge that my mother was following me upstairs where she would then start the routine bedtime rituals.

I didn't think I was going to get caught this time, but I did... I received my usual swat (to be honest mommy never hurt me), and was instructed to go to bed. I obliged. after ascending the stairs, crawling into bed, I listened to hear my mother's usual steps coming up the stairs....

I shot up in bed when I heard the screaming of a man's voice. I have never heard my father's voice hit octaves in such a manner. Followed with it was a screech that could have put scaling one's nails across a blackboard to shame.

I went to run down the stairs to see my father grab the phone and Yell to me to get up those stairs and watch my brother until someone came for me.

I didn't dare cross my father... I didn't know what was going on. Life was going to change....

The front door slammed a couple of times as the banshee squalls continued to echo in my ears

In the front bedroom my brother awakened as the sirens come toward the house.

The lights reflected ands flashed across the room causing the source of my brothers current giggles... I picked him up to bring him to the front window to learn the source of his pleasure.

I stared at the scene bestowed upon me: clutching onto my one year old brother...

Watching a strange uniformed man with a side pack take my sister away from my mother's arms. My father dragged my mother backward away from the man as he leaned down to kiss my baby sister. I knew that something wasn't right because her limbs dangled like a puppet. I couldn't explain the pain in my belly or the sting to my eyes... but I watched them all enter the ambulance... The Medic followed... and everyone disappeared out of sight. The room became dark and full of sniffles as my brother began his preemptive sounds to the wails that would follow ... the source of his new joy had dissipated and he wanted it to return.