There was nothing special about the night Hannah was born. It was a normal night, maybe a little windier than usual, and it was one out of three hundred and sixty-five days that year.
The alignment of the stars on that star-studded evening determined her destiny and her future. The configuration of the planets in relation to each other decided her fortune and her fate. It was already decided what her life pursuits and her secret desires would be.
When Hannah was a little girl, she believed people could get what they wished for if they wished hard enough and long enough and were good enough, and although she was fifteen now and she had long ago stopped believing in fairy tales, she never stopped believing there was something magical in the world around her. Somewhere, there was somebody or something watching over her, keeping her safe, considering her wishes, her dreams, her ambitions, and her hopes, and sometimes, only sometimes, if she were deserving, her prayers would be answered.
Her dad taught her this. Her dad told her when she was still a little girl and they went for their long walks together, without her mum, there were angels and angels would do anything and everything to get people to believe. He said although people stopped hoping as they got older, sometimes they still made a wish when they blew out their birthday candles or made a wish on a shooting star, and sometimes they really believed the wish would come true.
Hannah had a lot of wishes. Firstly, she wished they did not live in the trailer, but that they lived in a real house. Not a house on wheels, but a house built with bricks and a solid foundation, with a garden and a huge oak tree in the back garden, with a swing hanging from one of its branches. A house that would be solid and stand firm in any storm, even the strongest winds which sometimes rocked their trailer and made her feel scared when she was trying to fall asleep alone in her bed.
Secondly, she wished her mum were happier and would spend more time with her. Hannah had a back-of-the-mind suspicion her mum never really wanted children and that is why Hannah was sometimes, most of the times, referred to as the ‘surprise’ baby by her mother, when Hannah overheard her speaking to her friends.
Her mum worked as a waitress and she complained every day how unhappy she was. Hannah thought her mum was very pretty and sometimes, when her mum was in a good mood, she would tell Hannah, she looked just like her when she was a little girl. Hannah had the same small facial features, her hair was blonde, and she had eyes the colour of melted milk chocolate.
Her dad was six feet tall and weighed nearly two hundred pounds, all muscle from working at construction sites for so many years. Although some days, Hannah would see him grimace when he moved after he came home from work, or she would see him stretch his sore muscles, he never uttered a word of complaint.
She used to sit for hours, staring out of the dust streaked window waiting to see him walking up the rutted, overgrown pathway to their trailer. Hannah would then start running toward him and when she reached him he would drop his lunch bucket to the ground as he scooped her up with his tired strong arms, and he would lift her with ease up into the air so she looked down onto his happy smiling face. Now that she was older, she still ran to him, but he no longer lifted her into the air, now he twirled her around.
Most of the times when her dad got home from work, her mum would not be home yet, and sometimes her mum would only stumble up the steps into the trailer long after dinner.
Her dad did most of the cooking and early in the mornings he would pack lunch for himself and Hannah, because her mum would still be fast asleep, but he never complained when her mum was not at home or still sleeping, and sometimes he would tell Hannah sympathetically that he and her mum got married too young. He never said what Hannah always suspected about her mum not wanting children, but he did not have to, because Hannah knew. Her mum was not like other mothers. Her mum did not care about her at all and sometimes Hannah thought if she had to disappear one day, her mum would not even notice or she would be so relieved, she would not even bother to come looking for her.
Hannah always asked, “Even if you were young, you must have been in love?”
Her dad would always smile the same smile when he replied, “We were, but we didn’t listen to our parents and we just ran off and eloped without thinking about the future. Your mum soon felt as if she had missed out on things and working long hours at the diner does not really help to make her feel better.” He would then always nudge Hannah playfully on the shoulder, before he continued, “And that is why we should let her have her freedom so she does not feel trapped by all of our love for her.”
Hannah frowned. “How can love trap someone?”
His soft green eyes would get a faraway glint and he would say, “When you love someone as much as we love her, you want that person around all the time, but having that person around all the time might make them feel as if they are in a cage. Sometimes you are afraid to let something you love go, even though you know letting them go will make them happier.”
“Why does she not love us as much as we love her?”
“She does, in her own way. Now eat your dinner before it gets completely cold.”
They would then change the subject and talk mostly about what she had done at school that day.
© Lynette Ferreira
Delivery 2 - 3 weeks.
