DANIEL HERON: BECOMING

2 - Truth hurts, doesn't it?

Mrs. Heron could bare to look into Daniel's eyes only for so long. She stood up and walked up to the window, turning her back to Daniel. She pressed her hands against the window sill to stop them from shaking. A strand of smoke rose up from the cigarette she still held between her fingers.

Did she remember Barbara, Daniel had asked?

Yes, she remembered Barbara, her daughter who left home on her eighteenth birthday. After that, Mrs. Heron never saw her again. She never spoke to her on the telephone, never wrote her a letter or received one from her; as if she ceased to exist.

Sometimes she would remember her. How could she just walk out like that and leave me alone with two unruly boys? was the question Mrs. Heron often asked herself in the days that came after Barbara had left. She drowned the memory of her only daughter in liquor. If it weren't for that one photograph, she would barely be able to remember her face.

Daniel, on the other hand, still remembered her vividly. He still recalled her black curly hair, her long eyelashes, her serious face and the sorrow she carried in her eyes. Sometimes he resented her. Not because she left. He was glad she mustered the courage to walk away from the life filled with misery.

The resentment came because she never came for him. Truth be told, she never said that she would, but a part of him always hoped that she'd come and take him with her.

"That was some birthday," Daniel said to his mother's back. "While I was drawing her a birthday card, she was packing."

He closed his eyes, remembering how happy he was when he finished the card and how quickly his happiness turned into sorrow.

"Barbara left," Daniel continued. His mother remained standing in front of the window. The sight on the other side wasn't particularly interesting; gray road, worn down façades and cars you would never see in better neighborhoods, but it seemed to occupy all of her attention. "You should have stopped her." Finally, Daniel said out loud what he's been holding inside for years.

"What was I supposed to do? Plead with her to stay?" Mrs. Heron only slightly turned her head, not enough to look at him.

"Yes! You should have pleaded! Begged her! Anything!"

"It wouldn't help," Mrs. Heron said in an icy voice.

"At least it would have been something. She told me and Robert that she was sorry she was leaving. She left because of you!" Daniel seethed through his teeth with bitterness. "She couldn't stand living with you anymore! She didn't want to be substitute mother to her brothers. She loved Robert and me, but she couldn't take the role of our mother. She wanted to be our sister. She should have been our sister! Instead, she made sure Robert and I got up on time, she sent him off to school, me to daycare, she made us lunch, washed our clothes, helped Robert with his homework. And why? Because our mother cared more about the bottle than her children."

Mrs. Heron was trembling. Whether from discomfort or from anger, Daniel couldn't tell, but her shoulders were shaking when she yelled, "That's not true!"

Although Mrs. Irma Heron began her days with a little rum in her coffee, and didn't stop at that, she still didn't want to hear Daniel's accusation spoken out loud.

He pulled out a chair and sat. "It's true. I didn't realize it then because, despite all, Barbara was protecting you. In fact, she was protecting me. I was only five then, too young to realize what she was doing, but I realized it later. Robert also knew very well what you were like. He left you as well. I remember that day as if it were yesterday." He lifted his eyes towards the ceiling and continued, "Shortly after he turned nineteen, he announced that he was joining the army. Our soldier!" His eyes twinkled with fond memories, and a sad smile graced his lips. "I was so proud of him. I thought he was so brave, that he was doing something so important. I wanted to follow his footsteps. But what does a twelve-year-old know? And then came the letter. Do you remember the letter?"