“He gets the room behind the bush,” Mama ordered.
“But Mama,” Samantha tried, “we’re in the country now.”
Mama shook her head.
Samantha swallowed a sigh. This was the middle of nowhere. No neighbors. No roads. Old growth all around. Barely a dirt path to the cottage from behind the barn.
There will be no arguing with Mama.
She caught Daniel’s eye. He did his little special wink at her and she wanted to cry. He was comforting her even though it would be he who will be stuck in a room with barely light and zero view.
His eyes flicked toward the barn, and she understood — at least in the house he’d be warm, where she could keep an eye. At least Mama wasn’t hiding him in the barn.
Mama could not stand his disfigurement. Reminder of the fire she did not tend. The baby she let burn.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
Terribly sad story… How could she?
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Some parents never process their own blame and guilt and shame over their own (neglectful or tragic) accidents, and they blame the children instead – overtly or less openly – for the realities they are ‘left with.’
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I have a problem with parents, mainly my own…
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Oy. I am sorry … and I hear ya …
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie ~ Authors.
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Ouch, a very sad tale.
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Yes … alas I’ve known a family a bit like that. To add insult to injury, literally.
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Oh, that final line. Ouch.
This is very good. But of course, for you wrote it.
I wonder what you’ll do with next week’s?
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oh oh … now I’m worried about next week’s … 😉
Thank you, though, Crispina! That bush over the window caught my eye, and … I wondered why anyone would leave it to obstruct the window that way … and … well, the rest is literary history …
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Always something sparks us with the story
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Truth!
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🙂
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Jeez Louise, Na’ama!! How you create these stories is beyond me. Wonderful (horribly sad) stuff.
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Thank you, Dale … (I think … 😉 ) – the window covered with the bush had me wondering why anyone would keep it that way … and … well … my mind goes places … xx
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Yes, your mind does wander… wonderfully.
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Thank you … sometimes it is a bit morbid … but the sad thing is that I’ve known families where children had been hurt in accidents (preventable and not) and where there were complicated reactions of guilt and shame and anger and resentment, even if they were not always immediately overt … Sometimes from the parents, sometimes from siblings, sometimes from others. Oy, eh?
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I know. Such a horrible thing. To come from your own family is unacceptable.
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Totally unacceptable. And yet … there it happens … and stays hidden. Behind a bush or behind other things, overt or not. Those who suffer the most, of course, are those who have the least choices.
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I know it…
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xoxo
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Very sad. How could a mother…
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Yeah, alas, some do find it difficult to manage their guilt and shame over an accident (or neglect that allowed an accident to happen), and take it on the very ones who are already suffering the consequences of the parent’s lack of care. Then there are the siblings, who watch and know that they are only acceptable as long as they are ‘perfect’ … oy, eh?
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Heart wrenching, indeed but it happens for sure. It touched me very much.
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Thank you, Indira. It is a sign of empathy that it touched you. Those are indeed terrible realities wherever they happen.
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