The Willow Tree

Chapter 7

Hey guys, I'm sorry I haven't been writing very much lately, I kinda hit a writer's block but I'm back!!! This chapter might be a little sad, but not as sad as a few I have planned!!! A big thank you to MB, (you know who you are) thank you for staying with my story from the start!!! Please vote and comment!!! 

Every day I go way down, and back again. It seems like a never-ending cycle of torture. Up, down, up, down. It really never ends. I mine coal and mine coal and mine coal and it seems like I never do anything else. I almost feel as if I'm in a trance, never doing anything different. 

Willow lately seems more, distant. She always seems lost in sad thought, I am too. 

All of this thinking goes on in that tiny elevator falling into the ground every day. When I step out of it today, I walk down a dark tunnel where I've been mining most days. I cut a hole in the wall and drilled above it to put in a small stick of dynamite. 

BOOM.  

Then, a slate fall, something not common in the mines and a severe cause of death. There is a small slate fall right where I'm mining. I do my best to get out of the way but my left arm gets caught under rock and coal. 

I let out a scream that could only be described as bloodcurdling. The pain makes my vision go fuzzy but my hearing is sharper. I can hear another miner yelling something about the elevator. 

The only thing I can think is, 'Help, please'. 

I wake up in a small room with little yellow roses on the wallpaper. I try to sit up but a sharp pain that shoots up my arm forces me back down. 

A young girl a few years younger than Willow walks into the room. When she sees that I'm awake she rushes out of the room and promptly returns with a grown woman who is clearly the girl's mother.

"Ruben," the woman says, "go get Willow."

A moment later Willow and the little girl come back into the room, Willow's eyes are red with crying and it is clear that she hasn't slept in days. 

"Hey," I say weakly.

"Hey," she says, her eyes brimming with tears.

The woman motions for her daughter to follow her and they both leave the room.

"Sawyer," Willow says, one lone tear slips down her face leading the way for many more.

"Sawyer," she starts again through the tears, "I-" she takes a deep breath. "I thought you were dead, and dad, and-"

Unspoken words cause me to understand exactly what she means.

"Hey," I say, "it's ok."

Willow wipes her tears with her sleeves and for the first time in far too many years, she looks like a little girl. Our parents died when she was six and I think it was then when she stopped being a little girl. I can see the weight that has been on her shoulders for so many years, and I can see how tired she is of carrying that weight. I can't remember the last time when I saw her laugh or play. 

When I would get home from the mines, I remember, she would already have dinner made and she had been working at the knitting factory for hours on end. I would eat and then go to bed. I wasn't trying to be ungrateful, somehow I just was. I was always asleep when she went to bed herself, I don't know how long she stayed up every night. Every morning she was up well before me, I don't know how much sleep she gets but I know it's well less than me. 

Now I look at her I see the little girl, the one from so many years ago, the one who rarely sees the light of day.

"It's ok," I repeat.