Day 125: Lavinia

Green was all she had ever known. Rising out of cracks and crevices, smoothing lines of stone. Gazing into the tumbling brooks or wide, clear streams--it gazed back at you. Even in winter, it never fully retreated, but instead became a muted backdrop. In summer, it burst forth in profusion, greeting you with it's heavy scent and rustling branches. It was all green.

Lavinia was born on a warm summer day--the first day of July. Wrapped in a cool linen blanket, her grandmother had carried her over to the broad window and held her up to the sun dappled afternoon light. She had studied her tiny, bruised face and stroked the clenched fist. Her mother Hannah, in an exhausted sleep, did not see her stern mother-in-law lift the tiny child to her face and place her cheek against the dark hair, rocking gently.

She was the third child. There was nothing remarkable about being the third. But the first girl. And there was certainly something special in that.

In the next room, her father William tried to quiet 4 year old William and 2 year old Edwin, called Ted. The boys were tired of being cooped up all day. They wanted their mother. Short of that, they wanted their father to swing them up to the ceiling like he normally did, and not constantly shush at them.

Grandmother Jane laid the baby softly in the beautifully carved wooden cradle, her soft smile fading, and then, setting her face, she turned and brushed out of the tiny bedroom.

Chapter 2