Those Were The Days

The sun came up before breakfast, perfectly round and yellow, and we dressed in the soft light and shook out our long blond curls and waited for Maid to brush them flat and place the part just where it belonged. We came down the carpeted stairs one step at a time, in single file, gleaming in our sailor suits, two four year olds with unscratched knees and scrubbed teeth. Breakfast came on silver dishes with silver covers and was set in table center, and Mother handed out the portions of eggs and bacon, toast and juice. We could hear the ocean, not far off, and boats firing up their engines, and the shouts of couples in white on the tennis courts. I thought, Yes, this is the beginning of another summer, and it will go on until the sun tires of us or the moon rises in its place on a silvered dawn and no one wakens. My brother flung his fork on the polished wooden floor and cried out, "My eggs are cold, cold!" and turned his plate over. I laughed out loud, and Mother slapped my face, and when I cleared my eyes the table was bare of even a simple white cloth, and the steaming plates had vanished. My brother said, "It's time," and we struggled into our galoshes and snapped them up, slumped into our pea coats, one year older now and on our way to the top through the freezing rains of the end of November, lunch boxes under our arms, tight fists pocketed, out the door and down the front stoop, heads bent low, tacking into the wind.