
Swallowed by a House, Carol Radsprecher
HOMESICK
— Anita Haas
“When I was four,” Mum reminisced one day, “I slipped away from your Oma while she was nursing the baby. I snuck back to our house and, on tiptoe, peeked through a break in the hedge. There were the soldiers, boys really, who had driven us away. One by one, they raised their rifles and fired. Gretel, my big dolly, crumpled, full of holes. The soldiers were shooting Gretel for target practice!”
I crumpled. But it was Mum’s chuckle that shot me full of holes, and told so much more of her story.