Did you want to start the series from the beginning? The Letter: Part 1
SEPTEMBER 1948
Just two weeks after Alice had been diagnosed, a spot opened up and she packed her bags. Sam was eight and Victor was eleven.
Victor stood stoic-faced, his arms crossed rigidly in front of him. His lower lip trembled, but he refused to give in to the tears. Sam on the other was sobbing in his mother’s arms. “I don’t want you to go.” He said, over and over. Finally, Richard stepped forward and pulled Sam away so that she could step into the Dorothy’s car. His sister would be driving Alice to the bus depot.
“No!” Sam shrieked, straining against Richard’s arms as the car drove away. Once it was gone, Sam collapsed into sobs. Richard tried to hug him, but Sam pushed him away. He grabbed his bike and rode off.
“I’ll go after him,” Victor said, grabbing his bike. He knew his dad would have no idea where to look, but he knew. Sam always ran away to the same place. As he bent to pick his bike up, he brushed a stray tear away with the back of his hand.
It was their favourite place to go. He had build a fort out of abandoned twigs and branches in a little forested area in the neighbourhood. Victor found Sam’s bike laying on the ground. They came here when they were little and were waiting for their dad to come back from the war. Then, when he did, they came here to escape the fighting.
He dumped his bike beside Sam’s, got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the small opening. Inside, Sam was drawing pictures in the dirt with a twig. Victor sat down beside him and curled his legs up, hugging them with his arms.
“You okay?” he asked.
“What if she doesn’t come back?” Sam whispered.
“She will.”
“But how do you know?”
“Dad came back, didn’t he?”
Sam scowled at the ground.
“Maybe you don’t remember, but we were really worried that he wouldn’t. But he did. And so will Mom.”
“Promise?” Sam asked.
“Promise.” He said. He kept his face as blank as he could to hide the worry that was stirring in his stomach.
Scrambled Narratives 