Wishes Are For Children - tragedy

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My father clutched his chest, as I blew to make my sixteenth wish. The next sun rose before my birthday was remembered – wishes are for children. Marked by my mother with a six-wick orange candle and an oval locket. A picture of my father nestled in the silver.

“Allow yourself tonight to grieve,” she said, “but you’re a grown-up now. One night will be enough.”

Worn every day, an ornament, like the smile on my face, I kissed it on waking and as the sun set. The candle had real slices of orange, and delicate blossom enrobed in its sweet-scented wax. I saved it for twelve years. Until the night I got the call.

A sorrowful nurse shook her head as she met me. Tears fell, more saline along the clinical corridors.

I returned home and lit all six wicks. Placing mother’s candle by my bed, I rocked myself from side to tearful side. I whispered in the flickering shadows: “Allow yourself tonight to grieve, but you’re a grown up now. One night will be enough.”

The curtains caught as I drifted into dreams. I awoke to crackling, smoke-heavy air. Pulling myself, lightheaded, from my covers I staggered towards sirens and blue flashes. Smashing glass, deep voices, then curtains ripped away, showed me my exit.

Something snagged at my neck as my rescuer reached rough hands around me.

A house can be rebuilt. But my locket was lost to the flames. And wishes are for children.

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