Tears of the Lonely

Silence, 

she sits quietly on her brown leather sofa, accompanied only by the click of the clock, as the rain pounds her large glass windows, as the fireplace sizzles, and she sits there, awaiting, wondering, pondering on why she’s alone. Why she always is and always has been alone.

Six days have gone by of her awaiting for the storm to pass, for the power to return to her televisions and her clocks. It took the whole world to be silent, waiting, alone in their homes, for her to realize that for her whole life she was lonely, never flanked by friends or a loved one. 

She gets up, the heel of her shoes echoing off the glossy marble floor as she makes her way down one of the many high ceilinged, long corridors, till the sound of her footsteps stop, the echoes calm down and she stands by a wooden entryway table. 

There is a box on the table. Its cardboard and the tape holding it together is uneven, the cuts messy, opposite from everything else in this building that would never be able to be considered a home.

She stands there for minutes, before her aged and wrinkled hands carefully rip open the box. She pulls out an envelope that came with the box. She pulls out an old looking book. She pulls out a dusty dictionary. But none of that matters to her as she throws them away till her hand pulls out a worn, fraying, breaking, fur matted teddy bear. It’s missing an eye and a leg but she doesn’t seem to care as she stops in place, her whole body frozen, her eyes glazed over as she is whirled back in time through her memories. 

I run my fingers over the fur of what I named Mr. Patty. Mr. Patty the bear. Father gave it to me yesterday and when I asked him if I could bring it to second grade with me today he told me “As long as you bring it back”.

I put it in my bag and zipped it up tight like Father said, and now that it is playtime I pull it out. 

I smile as I look down at my teddy bear in my hands and walk toward the rest of my class.

“Rose”

I turn around to see Annie Cohen tapping my shoulder.

“What is it, Annie Cohen?”

“Well, My Pa and Ma told me they can’t afford to buy me any toys this winter, and I was wondering if I can play with your new teddy bear for a little bit with you.” 

There is a hole by the knees in her tights and her braids are messy.

“No way Annie Cohen, you can never touch my teddy bear” I turn away from her with a huff and I can hear her start to cry like a baby.

I furrow my brows and cross my arms. I do not have to share with anybody. Mr. Patty is mine after all. 

And that Mr. Patty the bear turned into a red polka-dotted umbrella. 

My fingers latch tightly around the plastic of my new umbrella that Father and Mother bought me last week since I moved to a new high school. The rain is hitting hard against the polka-dotted top. My feet splash through rivers of water that are streaming around my legs as I hurry home. I’m fifteen minutes away from my house, shelter from this heavy storm, and not before long it's ten minutes, then five and now there are just three left to go. I am about to celebrate the fact that I am on the block that is next to my own when I stop to see an elderly woman walking. There is no coat on her back. There is no umbrella keeping the rain from splashing in her face, into her eyes, from tangling her gray hair into wet knots. She is holding what looks like a bag from the butcher and it looks like it's overflowing with water, not meat.

Her form is moving farther away from me, slowly, turning into one of the many shadows on this dark day. The umbrella in my hand grows heavier. The image of her, weighed down by the rain, glows stronger in my mind. And right before I let myself run wild, to chase after her, hand her my beautiful red polka-dotted umbrella, I turn swiftly away, averting my eyes, numbing my sympathy. It is not my job to give her shelter. The umbrella is mine after all.

And that red polka-dotted umbrella turned into a silver-plated watch.

My new watch Father gave to me for my birthday this year clunks against my wrist as I stumble out of the thick crowds of people by this train station. I feel a gruff hand wrap around my forearm and lurch me forward toward a train cart, and seconds later I feel my mother being pushed into me and I almost fall over. My chest is heaving up and down and I can feel tears that are threatening to escape my eyes and before I can climb into the cart that doesn’t even look like it's for humans I hear Mother’s scream.

“No! Please! That is my daughter, she goes with me!” I turn as much as I can to see a soldier, an ugly expression painted on his face, his hands around my younger sister Sarah, dragging her to another cart. Mother is tripping after her, and I squeeze my way toward them.

“I am begging you!” My mother chokes, tears running down her cheeks, leaking into her open mouth that is screaming and shrieking for Sarah to be back in her arms. “I will give you everything I can, please just let my daughter stay with me.” The soldier stops to smirk at her, waiting to see if what she offers him is good enough. She begins to pull out loaves of bread that she had thrown into her bag quickly when the soldiers came to drag us from our home, and starts to hand them to him. When he doesn’t look satisfied she begins to remove her dull, basic wedding ring, starts pushing her whole, entire bag towards him, all she owns into his arms, hoping she can have her daughter back. Mother didn’t have much to bargain with. Mother never liked owning fancy things. Up until now mother always felt rich, rich with love, rich with happiness, rich with family.

“This is not enough” The officer spits in her face. My silver-plated watch grows heavy on my arm. My heart beats fast. Mother had never seemed more poor, being stripped of one of the only things that made her whole. My heart beats faster. Sarah’s eyes are filled with pain and lost hope. The officers are empty and cold. I avert my own eyes, as my heart slows down its pace. I tug my checkered brown shirt to cover my silver-plated watch on my wrist. The silver watch is mine…after all?

A knock echoes through the empty house, and the old woman snaps up, dropping the teddy bear in her hand, no longer in the world of her memories. She dusts off her dress and with a heavy pain on her heart she gathers herself to answer the front door. Three tears slip down her wrinkled cheeks. One is for Annie Cohen whom she never shared with. The second is for the old woman whom she never helped in the rain. The third for her sister, Sarah, whom she never saw again after that day. 

The old woman wipes her eyes before opening the front door and before she knew it her eyes met five faces of a family, their clothes soaked through with rain.

“Hello, we are so sorry to bother you but our car broke down in this storm-”

“Come in, all of you” The small voice is unfamiliar even to the old woman herself. She invites them all inside to the comfort of her no longer empty home, and as they wipe their feet and step inside, she turns away, a new tear escaping her eyes. This time it’s a tear of redemption, a tear of joy. For the woman finally opened up her heart to share what's hers.