Tuesday Tales: From a Picture

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day. This post marks the beginning of a new story called Sea Breeze. This is picture week, so I selected one that fits with the initial incident in the story, why the main charcter left home so abruptly and without proper planning. Here’s the image I chose. As always, our picture prompt posts are limited to 300 words!

“Fine. Go back to the scene of my greatest humiliation, the place that killed your father, but don’t come back crying to me when it crushes the life out of you and breaks your heart and leaves you with nothing as it did me.”

Her words devastated me, and with the wine I’d drunk loosening my tongue, I responded to her attack with a volley of my own. “So I’m nothing? Just a humiliation? Fine. If you don’t want me, not that you obviously ever did, why should I stay here? I might as well leave now.”

In the wake of that statement, I turned on my heel and left the room, her “Ungrateful child. You’re a taker just as he was,” chasing me up the stairs.Tears streaming down my cheeks, I entered my room, pulled out my new suitcases and packed up my meager belongings. My father hadn’t been the man she’d described, nor had he been killed. The man had died a hero, rescuing two children who’d been caught too far out when the infamous tides on the Bay of Fundy had come in. In the process, he’d inhaled a lot of water, and while everyone thought he was fine, seven hours later, the forty-year-old man was dead. Secondary or “delayed” drowning happens when someone inhales water into the lungs, which causes edema or swelling of the little air sacs inside them. That swelling can happen hours or even days after the initial water incident, and the person dies because those swollen air sacs prevent oxygen from getting into the bloodstream. I’d been five at the time, the same age as that of the kids he’d saved.

That’s it. Stay safe and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales