Replacement Child Read Online Free Page A
Author: Judy L. Mandel
joined in to add her stories. At the time, I took a look at it all and shoved it into a file folder without much thought. Now their notes are a gift that helps me pull the story together and see my place in it.
A ragged manila folder holds my mother’s longhand on several yellow legal pads with her many attempts to put the story down on paper. On paper, she had relived it again and again,using different verbs and adjectives, but always ending up with one daughter gone, one daughter brought back from the dead.
In the same folder is an envelope with yellowed newspaper clippings that chronicle the event and offer journalistic snapshots: the day of the accident; hospital treatment; the funeral; the investigation.
Reading the news stories, I recognize the familiar feeling of being separate from my family, like I have always been pressing my nose up against the glass trying to get inside.
The clippings only graze the surface of the story I want to know. Even the notes left by my family tell me only snippets. How did my parents survive losing their firstborn child and watching their other baby go through the agony of being burned over 80 percent of her body and the resulting medical care? How were they able to maintain their marriage through it all? And what was my part? How did they have the courage to even have me?
Whenever I have a new project, whether it’s writing a marketing piece, a news article, or a feature story, I first immerse myself in the facts surrounding the topic. It’s a technique I’ve used since my early days as a reporter, in hopes that the story will bubble up from the minutest detail.
This trail is old, fifty years plus, but Elizabeth fireman Gary Haszko remembers it when I call the fire department. He wasn’t there, but he digs in the archives and sends me news clippings and an eight-by-ten-inch photo of the apartment building just after the crash.
I have never seen this photo before. It didn’t show up in any of the newspapers so far. The detail in it mesmerizes me. It showssmoke still spewing from the building, firemen standing in the front door pointing a hose up the splintered stairwell. It looks like the picture was taken just after they quelled the flames, and I imagine what was going on inside at this moment. I conjure an image of Donna in the scene, lying in a pile of smoldering ash, trapped under a blackened beam, fighting for her life. I try to see her face, but my mind’s eye only registers a small lifeless body, nearly indistinguishable from the black ash surrounding her.
I picture firefighters sifting through the rubble, spotting her remains camouflaged in the scorched splinters, and I no longer wonder why it took nearly twelve hours to find her.
I get out a magnifying glass to search the faces, to stare at the second-story window and look for my sister.
chapter seven
JANUARY 22, 1952 (DAY OF THE CRASH)
7:30 AM
“O KAY , GIRLS , LET ’ S get going,” my mother announced and clapped her hands for attention.
“Donna, are you getting dressed? Linda, come on over here, honey, and let’s finish our breakfast. You can see Donna later when she gets home. Mom! We’re going out soon. Your breakfast is on the table. We’ll be back a little after noon.”
Finished with breakfast, the three readied to head out to walk Donna to school. Donna was pretty and petite with clear green eyes. She had on her black jumper with a white blouse underneath, the lace of the collar tickling the edge of her cheek. The night before, my mother curled her chestnut brown hair into a pageboy. Now, she furrowed her brow.
“I don’t need those leggings, Mom; I’m too old for them!”
My little girl is growing up so fast, my mother thought. “At least put your gloves on!”
Linda was content to be snuggled up warmly in full winter garb, protected from head to toe with wool leggings, sweater, coat, hat, and mittens. My mother threw her coat over herselfand buttoned it on the way out the door,
A ragged manila folder holds my mother’s longhand on several yellow legal pads with her many attempts to put the story down on paper. On paper, she had relived it again and again,using different verbs and adjectives, but always ending up with one daughter gone, one daughter brought back from the dead.
In the same folder is an envelope with yellowed newspaper clippings that chronicle the event and offer journalistic snapshots: the day of the accident; hospital treatment; the funeral; the investigation.
Reading the news stories, I recognize the familiar feeling of being separate from my family, like I have always been pressing my nose up against the glass trying to get inside.
The clippings only graze the surface of the story I want to know. Even the notes left by my family tell me only snippets. How did my parents survive losing their firstborn child and watching their other baby go through the agony of being burned over 80 percent of her body and the resulting medical care? How were they able to maintain their marriage through it all? And what was my part? How did they have the courage to even have me?
Whenever I have a new project, whether it’s writing a marketing piece, a news article, or a feature story, I first immerse myself in the facts surrounding the topic. It’s a technique I’ve used since my early days as a reporter, in hopes that the story will bubble up from the minutest detail.
This trail is old, fifty years plus, but Elizabeth fireman Gary Haszko remembers it when I call the fire department. He wasn’t there, but he digs in the archives and sends me news clippings and an eight-by-ten-inch photo of the apartment building just after the crash.
I have never seen this photo before. It didn’t show up in any of the newspapers so far. The detail in it mesmerizes me. It showssmoke still spewing from the building, firemen standing in the front door pointing a hose up the splintered stairwell. It looks like the picture was taken just after they quelled the flames, and I imagine what was going on inside at this moment. I conjure an image of Donna in the scene, lying in a pile of smoldering ash, trapped under a blackened beam, fighting for her life. I try to see her face, but my mind’s eye only registers a small lifeless body, nearly indistinguishable from the black ash surrounding her.
I picture firefighters sifting through the rubble, spotting her remains camouflaged in the scorched splinters, and I no longer wonder why it took nearly twelve hours to find her.
I get out a magnifying glass to search the faces, to stare at the second-story window and look for my sister.
chapter seven
JANUARY 22, 1952 (DAY OF THE CRASH)
7:30 AM
“O KAY , GIRLS , LET ’ S get going,” my mother announced and clapped her hands for attention.
“Donna, are you getting dressed? Linda, come on over here, honey, and let’s finish our breakfast. You can see Donna later when she gets home. Mom! We’re going out soon. Your breakfast is on the table. We’ll be back a little after noon.”
Finished with breakfast, the three readied to head out to walk Donna to school. Donna was pretty and petite with clear green eyes. She had on her black jumper with a white blouse underneath, the lace of the collar tickling the edge of her cheek. The night before, my mother curled her chestnut brown hair into a pageboy. Now, she furrowed her brow.
“I don’t need those leggings, Mom; I’m too old for them!”
My little girl is growing up so fast, my mother thought. “At least put your gloves on!”
Linda was content to be snuggled up warmly in full winter garb, protected from head to toe with wool leggings, sweater, coat, hat, and mittens. My mother threw her coat over herselfand buttoned it on the way out the door,
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