Hardship

• Keira Wright, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2018

I never knew much of hardship.

I knew of freshly-ironed uniforms and pocket money. Every morning I would wake up to a roll upon the kitchen bench, made by my mother the night before. That was my world. The world of uniforms and pocket money and specially-made rolls.

This was never supposed to be my world.

A pair of curious eyes and a rosy face approach me. Just as quickly, they are gone. They turn around to face a mother, who doesn't even bother to quieten her voice.

“Come back here, don't touch her,” the woman says. The eyes and face follow her.

I know about hardship now.

My childhood was a collection of sun-stained memories and innocence. It was the feel of my mother’s copper hair, my father’s freshly shaved face.

He used to hold my hand and take me for walks around the block. We would sit down on my neighbour’s nature strip and pick flowers to make daisy chains. Dad was never good with fiddly stuff, but he was also headstrong. He would sit there until he had threaded enough of the flowers together to fit around my head, so I could wear my crown for the rest of our walk.

When I would say, “now I am a princess, Dad,” he would always reply with the same thing.

“You were always a princess, sweetie.”

The eyes turn back around. One pair is still curious, the other fearful. I look away, but I can feel them lingering. The others don't see me. They never do.

I don’t know whether it actually rained that day, or whether the memory's darkness had just stained it with tears. Either way, when I try to remember, it is always grey. My mum didn't cry, she just stared. Stared at the box bring lowered into the ground, stared at the faces around her, stared at the wall on his side of the bed.

I didn't wake up to a roll waiting on the kitchen counter anymore.

“Excuse me,” says a voice. I lift my head. “Would you mind if I sit?” I don't know what to say. I avoid her eyes, nodding.

She hands me a paper bag, blushing. “I saw you sitting here, and thought you might be able to use these,” the voice says. The voice belongs to a young girl, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Her eyes are gentle, sincere.

I was alone.

An empty person lived with me, a woman who had coppery hair like my mother, but who was nothing like her.

I used to go to a fancy school. Mum and dad chose it because it had such beautiful grounds. It was only a five minute walk from the nearest train station, but it was tucked away amongst a creek and fenced off with giant trees.

To be able to go to a school with pretty trees and creeks you need money. The school I moved to had no trees.

I open the paper bag. In it is a bar of soap, a banana and a pair of gloves. “Here,” says the girl with the gentle eyes. “You probably need them more than me.” She takes off her jacket, black and smooth on the outside, fluffy and white on the inside. She places it in my lap, then stands up.

“I hope things get better,” the kind eyes say. They turn and walk away.

When I went to the school with no trees, I didn't want to be the girl with a dead father and empty mother. I shaved my hair and painted my eyes black, and became the girl people avoided instead. Instead, I became the girl who had to drop out of school to work, so that she could work to pay rent.

One day, the small amount of savings stopped being enough. The copper-haired woman who I used to know made new friends, ones who had gifts in the form of pills and potions that promised happiness, a way out.

Eventually, it did give her a way out, and I was alone. I watched another box being lowered to the ground, but this time, the crowd of faces was much more sparse.

These streets are unforgiving, as are the people whom roam them. But the gift of kindness in the form of a paper bag and a jacket may have just given me the willpower to forgive this life.