Sticks and Stones

an excerpt

I started first grade about a month after Dad disappeared. This would have been in 1987 when I was seven. I don’t recall the exact time frame but I remember that he left in summer while my sister, Mom, and I were on holiday in Canada, where we had lived before moving to Sweden. When we returned to our apartment by the train tracks, five stops north of Stockholm, we were greeted by extra closet space and a bowl full of rotting peaches. I haven’t retained much after the peaches, except for how my sister and I watched TV while Mom dialed her way through the address book. I do remember understanding that he had gone and that nobody knew where he was but everything after that is pretty much a blank. I don’t recall crying or waiting by the door (although I imagine I must have done both). I don’t remember going to get my baby brother at our grandparents, or preparing for school. I don’t remember getting a backpack or Mom pinning up my bangs with those plastic barrettes that were impossible to adjust without ripping your hair out. I don’t even remember that first walk up the hill to the yellow brick building where the neighbourhood kids attended elementary. I don’t recall feeling one way or another about it. At some point, however, my memory flicked back on, and by that time I was already well into the alphabet.