A collection of short love stories from a different time, different place and whole other world entirely. All stories are written purely for escapism. Everything is fictional and are not intended to offend or resemble actual events, places and inci...
This is a trip further down my imagination. Somewhere I haven't taken my readers before. Please know that this entire story is FICTIONAL (town, characters, names, events). This is driven by escapism therefore lacks fact-checking. If this story contradicts your exceptional knowledge about history, don't fry me. I wrote merely to escape.
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Summer, 1940
Elise Cooper has anticipated her sixteenth birthday to be the happiest day of her life. She and her family will eat good food that her mother would prepare, and his father would take her to church to say their prayers. Bernard Cooper has always done it since she was a little girl. Elise, the second of three children looks forward to this special day, year after year.
James, her older brother brings her roses from their mother's garden and set it to her side table so it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up. Her mother, Josephine would ask her aunt Daisy to sew her another lovely dress she would wear on Sundays to the mass. Her youngest sister, though, has not done anything for her on her birthday. Susannah has always been bitter because their father has only taken Elise to Church on her birthdays. She understands her sister's hostility toward it. Although she understands their father as well.
Susannah never was the obedient one in the family. She often comes home with mud on the sleeves of her white uniform. Her skirt that settles right beneath the knees has been ripped a few inches up her thigh. Their mother would nearly faint in dismay. The long-sleeved uniform takes hours to get cleaned by hand. Susannah has gone into fight with a friend yet again no matter how their mother urges her to manage her temper. She is a hothead. Elise would have to lend her anything – even her priced coat her aunt Daisy got her from her couture – to keep her from that temper.
Her other sibling, on the other hand, is a godsend. James always got her back when she needs him. Although he and Susannah don't get along, he's close to Elise and has always been protective of her.
Elise thought it was just fortuitous that her birthday is on the summer because then his brother would have to come home from the university out of town. She feels great happiness being the reason her brother unfailingly comes home for the summer. Her sixteenth birthday though, this particular summer, is different from the first three years since he started college. This is the summer he comes home for good. He just finished college. Of course, Susannah is utterly jealous of her birthday – even more so when their brother swore he wouldn't miss Elise's birthday; that he rather miss his exams than her special day.
She knows he was just kidding. Their father won't allow it. He's always wanted the best education for his children. Susannah just took their brother's joke to another level. Even though their mother reminded her of jealousy being one of the seven deadly sins, Susannah remains unfazed.
Elise regarded herself on the mirror in a slow perusal. Her dress is new so were her pearl studded earrings. Her dark hair framed her face in delicate waves and brushes her shoulder blades. She decides not to restrain them in a ponytail. Her mother tells her her hair is better if left down. And since she wants to look better on her special day, she lets the strands hug her face.
