The Bedroom Window

Family History Writing Challenge - Day 4  

** NOTE: The italicized font is creative non-fiction. Based upon the stories of my mother and uncle it is my creative writing of their memories. **

In each of the many trips I have made down the South Lubec Road to visit “The Light” it never fails I hear my mother’s words narrating the trip. As we pass Maple Tree Road, mom speaks of the two story cape style house she grew up in. I remember as a small child staying in a second floor bedroom at my “Aunt Hazel’s” house, next door to where mom’s childhood home stood. Regardless of whether it was Memorial Day or August there was a persistent breeze off the ocean and a specific sound, cars made as they passed below. It is my memories of that window that helps me to imagine what my mother must have seen and heard from her bedroom window.

It was later evening when Mason went up to her room to read. Looking out her bedroom window at the ocean, she could barely make out the outline of Grand Manan Island in distance as the fog began to roll in. Earlier in the day she had been able to see “the Wolves;” little specks on the horizon, but those were lost to the  gray bank of fog, always present this time of day, this time of year. Floating on the late summer breeze was the sound of the “old groaner” the foghorn on distant Grand Manan, followed by West Quoddy’s distinct call. Soon the patches of burnt orange Indian paintbrush in the field across the street would be shrouded by the encircling mist. Mason closed her window, shutting out the chilly breeze that rolled in the fog. But just before it closed, Mason smelled the salt, mingled with spruce and yawned. Soon she would fall asleep to the sound of the “old groaner” and West Quoddy’s answering call.