How She Disappeared

My mother was once in the hospital for a whole year. My father, didn't have the heart to tell us at first. Truth be told, it was easy enough not to notice she was even gone. We had already gotten in the habit of seeing her disappear.

Her favorite place to disappear from, was the living room window. She'd sit for hours on an old barstool, smoking whatever cigarettes were on sale that week down at the PX. She'd lean herself back up against the lacey linens, which her mother, my Oma, had gifted her long ago, and she'd just stare out.. Past the miles of military housing complexes, even way past the small end of Berlin's only forest, the Grunewald, itself.

The first time I saw that she had disappeared, happened in the winter time. My brother and I were playing King Of The Hill with some other army brats, up a slide on the playground, in front of our apartment building. I had just victoriously scrambled up to the top, my fingers, numb and stinging, from the cold of it.

I had barely out-witted the red-headed girl, who lived upstairs from us, who was trying to be King in front of me. She was my brother's secret crush. She had paused momentarily, to pull some hair out of her face, starting the motion of placing it behind her left ear. I had seen her do this often enough, as she skipped down our building's stairwell, or while she walked her family's dachshund, after dinner time. She looked pretty when doing it. Sometimes, when I was supposed to be brushing my teeth in the bathroom before going to bed, I would mimic her hair move. Because of this intimate knowledge, I knew I had enough time to push her off balance, and squeeze past her to be King.

I stood on top of the slide, all showy at first, then turned to make sure my mother had seen my conquest from her perch. But, it wasn't me she was fixated on. My eyes followed her gaze. Absent-mindedly, I placed my lips on top of the slide's frozen handrail. Wondering if she was looking for the Church steeple, from where my Oma lived, on the other side of the city.

My Oma didn't care much for my father, not for any reason, other then for the fact that he was an American. She was never able to shake the taste of war from her mouth. She once bitterly told me, she would never forgive the Americans for sending corn amongst the rations for the starving, during the great airlifts, after the Soviets blockaded Berlin. Americans were to stupid to understand, corn is what you fed pigs, not the German people.

The metal handrail started to feel sharp and tingly against my chapped and jagged lips. My breath, warm, steamy and exaggerated, from my exhausted efforts, forms a thin layer of ice, causing my lips to stick, lickety-split, onto the very slide itself.

It's at this moment, my brother snatches at my foot, yanking me down from my hard earned temporary Kingdom.

Before I even hit the bottom, I could see someone's dad running towards us, in the distance. Still in uniform, he was carrying a regulation briefcase in one hand, the other hand was desperatly reaching out in front of him, trying hard to will the event not to unfold.

The wind from the fall, whips my hair against my face. The hair has no choice, but to keep company, the blood which oozes wet and warm, from the place, that had just been my lips.

The look of horror on my brother's face gets blocked, as the red headed girl, finds her way to me first. "Hey, you okay?" She pulls a strand of bloody hair from my mouth, pushing it gently back, and securing it behind my ear. She turns and yells at my brother. "Get your mom, STUPID!!!" The Dad arrives, drops his briefcase, falls to one knee, and picks me up.

I see my brother, below our second story window, yelling and waving frantically up at my mom, who doesn't move an inch. She's still gazing off into the distance, to what could've been. I bury my head into the dad's chest. My bloody lips staining his uniform, which smells like starch and a hard day's sweat.

It's this moment, I first realize that she has disappeared.