Honey Suckle

Part 9

After I had taught the children everything they needed to know for that day, I sent them home. As I walked home I noticed the leaves had began to reappear on the trees, and the air had began to change it's temperature. It hadn't donned on me until this very minute that summer had begun. It would only be a few short weeks until the children left my clutches for the summer vacation. 

When I got home to my lover, my home was quite silent, and she was snoring loudly upstairs in bed. The floor downstairs was wooden and was cold against my feet in the winter time, in the middle of the room was a tan sofa that Elizabeth's mother had given her when her and Charles had gotten engaged, in front on the couch was a beautiful bookshelf full of my books, and at the end of the room was where the kitchen was. 

I flopped down on the sofa with Hamlet and began to read. As I read I began to drift off to sleep. When I woke up Elizabeth was in the kitchen making sandwiches, lemonade, and blueberry muffins. "You want some help?" I said. 

"No thanks. I'm about done." She said, and put the muffin's into a container. The room smelt of lemons and muffins. It smelt like heaven. She placed the muffins in a small picnic basket. There was a small beach bag in the corner that held sunscreen, towels, and water bottles. "Go put your swimming suit on. We're going swimming at the lake." She handed me my swimming suit. My swimming suit was black, and looked almost like a dress but it stopped above the knee, and had what looked like shorts underneath the skirt.

I went upstairs to my room and looked up at myself in the mirror, I pulled on my swimming suit, and tied my sandy blond hair to the side. I turned to the side and up-served the places on my body where I should have curves but didn't. When I went back down stairs Elizabeth was dressed, and holding the beach bag. "Well don't you look lovely." She said. 

I began to feel less self conscious. I smiled at her, and went and grabbed the picnic basket from the kitchen. The picnic basket was heavy from all the delicious foods that Elizabeth had cooked up. We made our way to the lake, but as we did we watched dozens and dozens of soldiers being dragged into the hospital on stretchers. Some soldiers had lost their limps, some were bleeding to death, and others were already died. 

There were tons of soldiers, but one man really did stick out to me. The man was lying on the stretcher, and he was losing one of his arms he called out to the heavens above "Help! Help! Somebody help me!" When I saw him I knew immediately who he was. This man was Christoper Palmer, a man who fought along side Charles, and grew up just down the road from him when he was a young boy. There was blood flowing from his amputated arm, and spreading all over his clothes and the stretchers. His caramel brown hair was messy and detangled. 

Elizabeth stopped and looked into the direction of the soldiers. I knew she was remembering things because like thousands of other soldiers Charles died at war fighting along side some of these men. What struck me most is we were seeing the pain and suffering that Charles went through, through these men. "Come on, Elizabeth. Come on." I said and pulled her away from the hospital.

As we walked to the lake we tried to drown out the screams of the wounded soldiers.