A Shaw Thing – part 4
A Shaw Thing – part 4
Madeleine���s story
It���s funny how you look back on life and you can pinpoint when things changed direction. At first, it was all a slow decline into a life of less. Then there was a turning point where suddenly I was having to share what I had with others����� people brought into my life through no fault of theirs or mine. And then there was the next bend in the path����� the day Reuben was left on my doorstep.
We were already two to a bedroom, there being eight of us by this stage, so I had no idea where to put him. Ryan carried the poor, frail thing in and placed him on the couch. We washed him and reclothed him, warmed him and fed him, and as the days passed he began to come back to life. He was no bother, and once back on his feet, pottered around helping in his own small way. I couldn���t ask him to leave and so we let him stay and he slept on the couch.
For nearly three weeks, everything was fine, until one evening there was another knock on the door. An elderly man stood there, and asked if I could take him in. He looked nearly as frail as Reuben had, so how could I say no? It was nearing the middle of winter and to turn him away would have meant certain death. I asked why he had come to us, why our door, why not knock on someone else���s, and he told me that a young fellow with a rickshaw had told him that he knew a place he could stay and he would take him there. The cost was his government allowance for one week.
I couldn���t believe it. Frank���s arrival meant we were now ten in a four bedroom house and someone was selling people rides to my place! I���d been struggling to feed the eight of us, and now there���d be ten of us. I was scared, really scared, about what would happen next. About what decisions I was going to have to make. About the people I was going to have to face��…
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