The girl on a swing
The moon touched the girl’s long dark hair as she sat on the swing. Her hair fell down her back like a beautiful waterfall. The girl laughed and tossed her head back now. He eyes were laughing too as I watched from the window. She knew I would be there, stood in my nightdress, my bare feet wriggling in the thick carpet.
The girl looked up smiled and waved. She beckoned me down into the garden, as I knew she would. I moved toward the bedroom door treading softly trying not to wake Jim.
In the garden, still barefoot, I smiled, and sat on the old swing under the tree. The girl pushed me softly at first and then ever faster, laughing, tossing her head back in the moonlight, we laughed together. I enjoyed these nights when my friend came, we had always been together, her and I, we had started school together, grown up together and started the long journey into adulthood together.
It was Adele that first said we should become nurses. I would give us chance to leave the tiny village we had grown up in. I was always the quiet follower admiring Adele and secretly envious of her confidence.
War had come and we had joined the army to serve and help the lads on the front. It was then our destinies took different paths. I met Jim in the hospital I was serving in, he had come with serious injuries but slowly, with my care, he recovered. The stronger he grew, the stronger our love grew. Jim and I were married in the autumn and we returned to my parents home to settle down and bring our daughter, Jessica into the world.
Adele loved the freedom the army gave her, volunteering for ever more dangerous postings. She loved and laughed and brought warmth and joy to the men who had suffered so much. It was in the final few days of the war that the bombs had hit the hospital. Adele had saved many of her patients before being lost among so many others.
I cradled my baby in my arms as I sat on the old swing and cried for my lost friend and a life that would never be the same.
Jim had returned home and more children had followed. Our youngest was born when I was forty two giving me no time to get old.
In the moonlight Adele was always there never growing old and never feeling tired or watching her hair grow grey.
It was now in the darkness we danced, barefoot on the wet dewy grass, I felt young again, for a short moment the aches of my eighty years had passed. Adele beckoned me to the dell at the bottom of the garden, where we played as children. I watched, and with the first hesitant steps moved forwards to join her. It was then the bats fluttered by making me look up to the house. The light in the bedroom next to ours shone dully, just giving the occupant enough light so not to feel afraid. My young grand daughter had come to stay while her parents worked on the new farm they were building. Soon light would be here and Ellie would rise as would Jim, laughing, teasing, they would come down for breakfast in front of the old range. Ellie would make me rush her to school so she could return home and sit on the old swing or dance with her Gran on the grass, barefoot in the summer’s rain. Jim would be in his shed building a surprise for Ellie. Life had come into his eyes once again and warmth and laughter to our home.
I looked at Adele, standing at the edge of the dell beckoning me and I knew I would not follow. One day I would go, but for now the sun was rising and a new day had begun.