Condemned to Live
an excerpt

Yarm Rekab looked sadly at her family for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Well I hope it is fresh coffee.” She said with a falsely cheerful voice.

Yarm stood up and walked over to the table and made a production of pouring her self a cup of coffee. She looked at her mother and asked.

“Mama, I’ll make you a cup of tea. Would you like 2 sugars and milk?”

Aras Snikta looked at her daughter with tears still running down her face. She blew her nose on a hanky she kept tucked up her sleeve and said.

“Yes dear that would be lovely.”

Yarm turned to her husband and asked quietly.

“Cram, would you like coffee?”

He had sat down on the chair furthest from Aras Snikta because the woman tended to annoy him. He said.

“Yeah that would be fine. A little milk would be nice.”

Yarm prepared the cup of coffee and handed it to her husband. He grunted in reply and sipped from the cup.

She then looked at her grandson with an ache in her heart that made it hard for her to speak. “Etan, what about you?”

Etan stared at her silently, then stood up and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. When she automaticly brought her arms around him Etan burst into tears. Sobbing with his head bent down to her shoulder. She held him in her arms and rocked gently.

Yarm thought to herself ‘When did he get so tall?’ a flood of memory crossed her mind.

The first time she’d held him as a baby. When he smiled at her with his toothless grin. Swimming together and craft projects. The Halloween they had worked for 2 weeks making a troll mask out of paper mache. Yelling at him for tormenting Bob the cat. Kissing him softly after he had fallen asleep. Going fishing together. Watching him play with his baby sister. Remembering his small serious form standing at his sister's coffin after she was killed in the accident. Making him sweaters every winter. Seeing him graduate from High School. Hearing his stories about falling in love and then falling out of love. Days of watching him help his Grandpa Cram work on a car. All of these precious moments anchored in the young man weeping softly on her shoulder.

“Oh Etan,” she said softly “I’m sorry. I am so very sorry.”

Yarm continued to rock him gently fighting back her own tears. It wouldn’t help any of them for her to fall apart. She had always been the strong one in the family. She hoped that once this was over her family would still survive.

She looked over at Cram after heard him blowing his nose loudly.

She remembered their wedding when she was 17, put together on a shoe string. A faded black and white image of two children standing together pretending to be adults. The fights they’d had. The look on his face the first time he held his son and his grandson. How his heart broke when their granddaughter Ydnic Nyl had been killed. The times he surprised her with his soft side. She noticed that he’d forgotten to shave again. She recalled the silly picture of the two of them in Micky Mouse hats. As well as his on going disappointment with how Mije had turned out. While refusing to take responsibility for contributing to Mije’s behaviour. Cram was her first love and she knew in her heart she would miss him forever. He looked at her and gave her that crooked half smile he always used when he knew he was in trouble and she was gonna yell at him, but he loved her anyway.

Yarm reached up and grasped Etan firmly by the shoulders and held him at arms length. He was still crying. She shook him gently.

“Etan, listen to me now.” She said quietly knowing he wouldn’t hear her if she shouted “I know this is hard for you, but you need to pull yourself together. Grandpa Cram and Grandma Grandma are gonna need you. So does your dad.”

A look of anger crossed Etan’s face, he drew in a breath ready to speak angry words about his father. Then he felt her gentle hand on his month and saw her pain filled eyes as she shook her head to stop him from speaking.

“Don’t” was all that she said.

He said “Okay” softly. Reached up and took her hand away from his mouth and kissed it. Wiped his eyes with his sleeve and turned to sit across from his Grandpa Cram. He pulled him self together and said.

“Well Granny Yarm if you’ll let me I’ll have a cup of coffee as well. Since I’m taller than you are now, I figure I’m old enough.” he gave her his cheeky grin.

A ghost of a laugh crossed his face at this old argument. He remembered when he was about five years old, asking her when he would be old enough to have coffee with her and swear at Grandpa Cram like she did. Etan had come up behind her unexpected one afternoon when she was angry with her husband and standing in the kitchen talking to herself and calling him everything but her husband.

Granny Yarm had told him at the time he’d have to wait till he was taller than she was. Every so often Etan would look at her and ask her how tall that was. She told him taller than the old oak tree up by the creek. He would run down to the creek and stand with his back against the tree and sigh.

It had been a running joke between them. When ever Etan would give Granny Yarm sass she would send him down to the creek to measure him self against the tree. He would cool off and come back to give her a hug and tell her the tree was still taller.

Yarm fixed a cup of coffee for Etan, took a cup of tea to her mother. She went back and poured herself a cup, even though she didn’t really feel like it. She wasn’t sure that after today she would ever get another cup of coffee, so she was determined to enjoy this one. She walked over to the chair between Cram and Etan and sat facing her mother.

For a few moments they all sat quietly drinking, just that comfortable togetherness that is found in family groups.

Yarm finally found the strength to look at her mother. Aras was holding her tea cup in both gnarled hands. Her arthritis had become progressively worse this winter. Yarm tried to block the memories of her childhood but found her self helpless as a kayak on a water fall. She knew her mother’s life was nearly over and expect that it would be a relief for Aras to finally join her beloved Bocaj.

Yarm remembered her Daddy Bocaj telling her over and over that it was no use to fight against the tide. That Yarm needed to learn that at times it was best to just go with the flow. Yarm remembered her self standing as a small child with her fist swinging, always ready to fight first and ask questions later. It is no wonder she ended up here in this blue room waiting on a High Justice who had no reputation for mercy to decide her fate.

She finished her coffee and set the cup on the small table next to her chair. She cleared her throat and looked at each of the people she loved most in the world. A small corner of her heart was breaking because she didn’t expect to ever see Mije again and she was sad that she wouldn’t get to say good bye to him.

Taking a deep breath she spoke in her clear voice. “I do not feel any need to go over what I did any more. I have heard more than enough about it the last week and a half. I expect you have as well.” Involuntary the other three nodded in agreement.

Yarm smiled and continued her voice getting stronger

“What is important now is for us, as a family to be ready for what ever comes next. If this is the last time I will get to spend with you, I want that memory to be of me telling each one of you how much I love you and how precious you are and always will be to me.”

She turned to Etan and took his full grown hand in hers and looked him firmly in the eye. “Etan, I expect you know now that I am no where near as tall as that tree.” He smiled and his eyes twinkled

“While I expect you are big enough now to swear at your Grandpa Cram. I would prefer if you chose not to. I think you are a better man than I.” Etan could not help but grin at the way she spoke to him. Even with tears running down his face.

Once again Yarm forced herself not to cry.

Yarm grinned back and went on

“I have loved you from before you were born. You have carried my heart in your back pocket your whole life. I want you to remember all the happy times we had together and all the good things about my life. I have made some mistakes, but there was never a time when I did not love you with my entire heart and soul. Even when you broke the Mikasa candy dish and had to have stitches.” Etan looked sheepish despite the tears.

Etan remembered that day, he had decided to climb the shelves of the dish cupboard to get to the candy bowl on the top of the cupboard. He was so sure he could get a handful of candy and get back down before any one noticed. Grandpa Cram was working on the truck and Granny Yarm was making beds.

When Etan levered himself up on the middle shelf his foot slipped and he had pulled the heavy glass candy dish down on his head. It split his head open and fell in to the sink with a crash of shattered glass. He landed on the floor and had the wind knocked out of him self. When Granny Yarm heard the sound of breaking glass she had come running into the kitchen and found him bleeding on her kitchen floor. She had grabbed the dish rag off the work top and put it on his bleeding head. Took him to the emergency room and held his hand while the doctor put in the stitches. Fed him ice cream on the way back to the house. Then she made him spend the entire summer helping paint the back fence to pay for breaking her candy dish.

Etan said through his tears "Granny Yarm you will always be taller than that old tree to me. I love you."

Yarm leaned over and took him by the chin and kissed him softly on the forehead. “I love you Etan, I always will.” She took a moment to wipe the tears gently from his face.

She let go of her grandson and turned to her mother. Her mom looked so sad and so drained after her emotional outburst. Yarm walked over and knelt in front of her. She put her arms around her mother and whispered.

“Mama, I’m so very sorry. There just isn’t any thing more I can say.”

Aras looked at her only child and with tears running down her face said

“I know Yarm, I know. I will love you forever. You will always be my baby.”

Aras held her daughter for a moment and kissed her softly. Yarm returned the kiss, held her mother for a moment longer.

Yarm stood up and walked over to her husband. Cram looked at her and opened his arms. She sat on his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. She took a deep breath, she loved the way he smelled. A mixture of soap, car grease and man.

She spoke softly to him “Cram, please watch over Mama, she is so frail.” She felt him nod in agreement "And remember to feed the dogs."

Yarm took a deep breath and said

“I know you are mad at Mije, but keep an eye on him as well.”

She felt him stiffen in her arms. “Please, promise me this. No matter how he chooses to behave, he is still our son.”

He turned his face to her and she could see the frown on his brow. She reached up with her left hand and smoothed his brow.

Looking deeply in her husband's eyes, Yarm said

“I love you Cram. You have always been my best friend.”

She leaned forward and kissed him fiercely. He hesitated for a moment and returned the kiss. They held each other for a moment before she got up.

Out of habit more than anything, she gathered up the dirty cups and took them into the toilet room to rinse them in the sink. She carried them carefully to the side table and looked at her family once more. Still blinking back tears, no matter what happened she refused to be seen in court with puffy eyes or crying.

Yarm Rekab walked over to the barred window and looked thoughtfully out at the street below her. She saw below a crowd of people carrying different protest signs. Mixed among this crowd were those people who were called the Ghosts in the Street. Not quite shunned, but given space around them. The seen but unseen.

Was she about to become one of them?