June. I immediately thought of Clara, but I didn’t want to be the first one to face her. Once again, I waited.
Life was slow and quiet after receiving the message. My father didn’t talk, my mother always cried but still went on with her normal daily actions. Both of their eyes were filled with so much pain. I went to work at the factory everyday. No one noticed a change in me, or if they did, they didn’t say anything.
It was July 18th, 1942, just two weeks after the message from the man in uniform, I went to see Clara. As I approached her home, I heard the screams of a man in terror. My first reaction was to run and see what had happened. When I got to the stairs, I noticed the front door was wide open, only drawing me inside to the foyer. The sound of my steps echoed against the hardwood of the entryway of the house. A soldier was kneeling on the ground, and when I approached, he turned around to look at me. A scream tore out of my throat. It was Ben. His eyes filled with tears.
He had been reported falsely dead, when he had just been badly injured during the invasion. I was so taken aback by his appearance that it took me a minute to realize that he was screaming too, and was screaming about something different.
In the living room, he kneeled on the floor, holding the hand of his lifeless fiancé. Her face blue and cold, surrounded by bottles of alcohol and spilled pills on the floor. He screamed, begging her to wake up through his tears. I didn’t know what to do. I stood in horror, feeling as though there was something I could have done,
but I knew nothing I said or did for Clara would have filled the void of Ben.
— Daisy Haywood, Class of 2014