When Parents Are To Blame: Pt. 1
This a complete story in five chapters about how a child, Reagan, comes through divorce dealing with her mother’s baggage.
Prologue
It was a Saturday morning in April 1959. Rain splashed onto the grounds of a middle-class residential street in Chelmsford, Essex.
A pretty child, six or thereabouts, pushed her toy pram as rain fell on her dark curly hair. The child, stopping momentarily, pulled up the hood of her toy pram, protecting the toy baby from the downpour.
Along the street, a woman appeared on a pathway leading to a large home, sheltered under a raincoat held over her head. As the rain intensified, the woman, standing at the gate, beckoned the child to hurry.
Reagan Sparks did not know it yet, but as she hurried along, pushing her toy pram, this overcast and wet day was to mark a beginning — a formulation of attitude and outlook that was to have far-reaching effects, not only on her existence, but that of others.
CHAPTER ONE
The Vision
“Reagan, I told you not to stray far. Come along, you’re soaked through to the skin,” her mother said.
The child’s dark eyes widened appealingly. “Mummy, I was playing with…”
“Yes, well, come inside before we catch our death of cold,” her mother said, hurrying the child with a soft hand on her child’s back.
At the door, Gwynn Sparks lifted the toy pram inside. “Go upstairs and dry your hair; it’s almost time for lunch,” she told her, “you’re asking for another cold — up to the bathroom with you my girl and dry it thoroughly.”
Reagan’s small hand stretched out for the banister as she climbed the stairs, pausing at the top, sneaking a glance back to ensure that mother had returned to her chores before her enquiring mind led to her parents’ bedroom. The door was ajar. Halting outside momentarily, she knocked and pushed it cautiously wider, expecting to find her father, whom she’d not seen all that morning.
The bedroom was empty.
Dad must be downstairs after all, she thought, though he always visited Reagan’s room first thing in the morning, except that today he hadn’t. She shuffled through to the bathroom and duly obliged her mother by toweling her hair furiously. As she did so, Reagan heard the front door opening and closing, followed by the recognition of dad’s voice, raised in greeting.
Failing to hear a response from her mother, Reagan hurried down the stairs and into his arms:
“Hey angel, steady on,” he hoisted her up, “you’ll be giving me a hernia the speed at which you’re growing.”
“What’s a hernia, Daddy, and where have you been? You always…” the child stopped mid-sentence as mother appeared. The look her mother gave was severe, as cross as Reagan could remember.
“I think you’d better run along to your playroom angel,” her father said.
It was at that instant, glancing at both parents, Reagan experienced a curious anxiety as she slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
She’d been taught not to eavesdrop, but something was wrong in her organized and safe little world; she perceived it with all the keenness of her young mind. She could hear murmurings but was unable to make them out. Her parents’ voices weren’t raised; she could never recall them being so, but there seemed an intensity about the tones. Mummy’s voice sounded angry. Daddy’s apologetic.
When she heard them at the bottom of the stairs, Reagan stepped quickly into her room and closed the door. She went to the window and watched the rain falling onto the kept lawn and the garden with its array of daffodils, crocus, and tulips swaying in the strengthening wind, creating a cascade of bright wet color.
But this vision was changing for Reagan, becoming something that was to linger long after most childhood memories had faded. The landscape had been green and pretty — but before her eyes, the colors began changing to a parched brown as if every drop of moisture had been extracted from everything that was pretty, transforming into an all-encompassing greyness, which seemed to extend from the soil to the heavens.
Reagan felt fearful.
Dinner that evening had been late, an hour later than usual.
Her mother’s ordinarily soft voice sounded strained, and Reagan didn’t understand the strange hardness in her eyes. Father sat opposite mother at the table. Today though, Daddy was not smiling, his eyes looked heavy.
Reagan didn’t understand the silence; mummy and daddy didn’t want to speak, and she’d hardly seen them all day. It made her feel strangely lonely. Then mummy looked at her, and the stony expression seemed to change.
“Are you all right, Reagan? You seem down,” she asked.
Reagan nodded but gave no reply. She was thinking how pretty her mother typically looked, her black hair cleverly tied with a braid and ponytail, though tonight it wasn’t like that, it was scraggly and didn’t look to have been combed; more than that, she appeared sad.
“So, this business meeting that kept you over, was it a success?” her mother asked her father.
“I think so,” father said, pushing away his plate, the meat hardly touched.
Raymond felt his wife’s gaze on him, an accusing stare, then finally became conscious of his daughter’s strange blend of earnestness and uncertainty, “Actually, yes, no doubts on that score, none at all.”
Raymond reached for the newspaper, gathered up his spectacles, and scanned the pages.
“Now look, we all seem a little out of sorts. Who wouldn’t with this dismal weather? Why don’t I take you two lovely ladies out to the theatre? There’s a wonderful adaptation –”
“I think not. I’ve had a trying day,” Gwynn Sparks cut him short.
Even a six-year-old knew something was amiss. Why wouldn’t her parents simply come out in the open and tell her? She was a bright child, and it was plain to her that something was very wrong.
Chapters 2 below:
Karen Schwartz, Nancy Oglesby, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy, Julia A. Keirns, Pamela Oglesby, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Randy Pulley, Michael Rhodes, Lu Skerdoo, Pluto Wolnosci 🟣, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Kelley Murphy, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Patricia Timmermans, Keeley Schroder, James Michael Wilkinson, Whye Waite, John Hansen, Trudy Van Buskirk, | Dixie Dodd | Joanie Adams — Sightseer; Conjurer Of Words | Adda Maria | Dennett | Men.21times@gmail.com | Nancy Santos | Jenny Blue | Jack Herlocker | Love | Barbara J. Martin | Audrey Clifford | Maria Rattray | Jerry Dwyer | Denise Shelton | Trisha Faye | StorySculptress | Katherine Myrestad | Deborah Joyce Goodwin (Red:The-Lady In Blue) | Kelly Corinne Elliott
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