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Show 4-5 She never read the newspaper accounts of the war and we never talked about it at home. The day after the young men went away, she burned all the sheet music of the war songs they had left on the music stand of her piano. One day, when I came home from school whistling "Keep the Home Fires Burning", she clamped her hand, hard, over my mouth and told me never to sing those songs again. I didn't, except in school where we jumped rope to their rhythms and began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance and a patriotic song. I always felt faintly guilty at this betrayal of Mother's command. So I hummed the tunes but didn't sing the words. While Father was gone, Mother was busy keeping the house going, helping my grandparents, tending the garden that Father had always cared for before. She never talked about the young men who used to come and talk and sing to her. I wondered if she missed them. I did because they were a part of our life while Father was here and I missed him. Mother and I grew closer in the year Father was gone. We talked a lot, about the family, about Father, about the animals that I loved so passionately. I even began to join her friends for evenings and I felt completely grown up as I sipped iced tea and listened to their poetry and stories, none of which I understood. We brushed each other's hair in the evenings before I went off to bed. Mother had long wavy brown hair, halfway down her back. She loved to try new ways to wear it, coiled around her head in braids, in a thick knot at the base of her neck, in one thick braid down her back. As I brushed her hair, I always was reminded of the night before Father left for the war. I had been in bed for hours but suddenly awoke. I heard my parents talking from the next room. I got out of bed and tiptoed to the door. Mother was sitting on the low stool in front of her dresser and Father sat on the bed |