Once upon a time. What a cliche beginning of a fairytale. What a beautiful combination of word to describe the short-lived existence of different individuals all over the globe. You might ask where I am leading with this uncommon description? Well...
Weeks go by, and life moves on. It happens without a moment notice. Things just get better. Who would have thought last year that, our dear Marigold would move out of her obsessive overly-religious grandparents' house and get to stay in her uncle's, in the old mighty New York. Sometime faith is good to us. Even if it doesn't always offer the things we deserve, such as a loving family and great luck. But maybe, just maybe, a decent guardian, a little more permissive household and the smallest amount of luck are just enough for us to grow.
You don't have to be a genius to observe the glow on the curly haired girl. It maybe be health, happiness or both. I would prefer to think the latter. You don't heal out of the sudden, you may say and I would agree with you. But there is another thing we would both consent to, you heal when you are ready to give up the grief that was keeping you stuck in a loop of broken glass, broken skin and bones, an empty stomach every day and a way of hiding behind baggy cloths.
You may also add that a group of middle-schoolers can't make you move on. And, you can be right, as well. But they can offer you a table to eat at and enough confidence to speak up, a warm hug once in a while and the assurance that things have a way of coming into place. It is not much, but, in many cases, is just enough to make you leave the black-and- white past and move into a more colourful present.
Therefore,when in the morning the girl got into her uncle's kitchen to make breakfast her smile was visible, luminous with a tint of hope that surprised Joseph, the overly- serious, never stopping from work kind of man. He was never used to have in his house anything that resembled happiness. He had never shown it himself, something that may concern most of us. His only focus was work and, when he was announced that his nice needed someone to take her in he was, by all means, scared and reticent.
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It is not like he didn't love Marigold. Because he did, he loved her so much that he was frighten by the idea of raising her himself, taking into account how unprepared and still young he was. Or he though himself to be. He was her mother's brother and, to say that their relationship with each other was shaky, would be an understatement. They never got along. Thea and Joseph Greenwood. The brothers that chose different directions. The first fell in love, left UK just to move back, this time in a different region, Scotland, to be exact, where she gave birth to her lovely girl, away from her grey parents and still-in-university brother. He, on the other hand, had stood by his elders until the moment of their death, when, full of grief, decided to leave the crowded city of London and move to a much larger, noisier and polluted urban central, New York. He thought isolation will help him cope with the complex feelings he was going through. It probably didn't.
And this is how he turned cold. How he stopped getting himself out there or focusing on anything else but his work. He got lost in his own messy world...
