13 WINDOWS

Chapter 2 Part 1: The RAVINE

March 12, 1988

Probably the room was too small for two growing boys. Rupert would sometimes try to build a dividing line between the two halves of the room, using pillows from the couch in the family room as dividers. It was a great solution until their father, Andrew, came home to watch the news after a long day of work only to find his couch was missing half of the pillows.

Rupert felt that he should get more space in the bedroom since he was two years older than Terry, or "TEN whole years of AGE!" as he put it. Often there would be a light-saber battle to determine the geo-political division of the room. And Terry could be a surprisingly fierce opponent.

At one point Terry occupied the closet and bedroom door area, while Rupert occupied the portion of the room with the large wooden framed window, which looked out onto the backyard. A sheet was now used as the dividing line of the room, hanging hazardously from the light fixture. Rupert felt he had really scored since he could have a nice view of their large backyard anytime he wanted. He could also use the window as an escape hatch. He could be in the backyard in seconds if he needed to be. "Let's say someone scary was in the house - like the guy from the Halloween movies!" Rupert would reason with his father. "It's an escape hatch!"

"Yeah but it goes two ways. Someone could just as easily come in that way. What if Michael Meyers was outside. Like in the movie," his father explained. Rupert hadn't really thought of it but for some reason he felt safer being able to see out the open window into the backyard.

All was well and good until Rupert had to pee in the middle of the night. He tried to tiptoe past his younger brother, but was suddenly engaged in a phaser/judo/web-slinging battle to achieve access to the hallway door. The battle, bordering on dangerous, spilled out into the hallway. Their father ended the battle abruptly when he stumbled confused and angry out of the bathroom door. He had fallen asleep, with his head between his legs, still partially drunk on the toilet seat.

The next day the phasers were broken in two and dumped into the trashcan. Seeing how upset the boys were Sandra, their mother, secretly promised to buy the boys new phasers for Christmas and Chanukah as long as they both learned to share the bedroom. The boys both agreed. They were pretty much afraid of their father but always responded well to their mother's gentleness and warmth.

Sandra took them both hand in hand to their bedroom early that evening, through the hallways of their grandmother's old Rosedale home. Her blond hair glowed in the evening sunset. The light was magnified through their bedroom window making her seem like some sort of angel. She held each of their shoulders gently as they sat on Rupert's bed. Some dark clouds overtook the setting sun.

"You two rascals need to learn to share. Then you have twice as much. If you don't share, you're twice as poor," she said wistfully. "That's what your grandmother used to say anyhow."

"Lots of children in the world don't get to have a view like this, you know." She looked out into their backyard. "We are lucky to have what we have. You should just share it. Okay?" she said, her tone cooling. She looked out into the backyard.

Soon it would be summer again and everything would be green and lush. Wild roses were growing all along the hedges. Sometimes, in Rosedale, she could almost pretend she lived in the countryside, she thought to herself. But then she'd hear a siren and she'd remember where she was. Personally, she preferred the cottage. She hadn't felt fully relaxed in the city in years. Not since that night...

She smiled down at her boys' innocent faces. Terry, her youngest, had inherited her fair skin, grey eyes, freckles and natural blond hair. For a moment she worried about the sun rays causing cancer on his skin. That was how her mother had died two years before. She had died from a cancerous lesion on the top of her head.