The Living Room Window

I was an only child. Learned to be content with silence and time alone. I lived through a couple of incarnations of the living room on Braefoot Road, but the earliest one brings the fondest memories, before the decor went tacky and nylon. The chesterfield, as we called it, was deep green velour, when green and burgundy were de rigueur, but most of the couches were burgundy. That I didn’t realize till some 20 years later, scouring the second hand stores for nice plushy couches, cheap, and the best were those overstuffed burgundy ones. But the Braefoot Road one was green, which I suppose set us apart. Had a matching chair, monstrous thing, took up a large corner of the room. The rug was British India, intricate knotted wool, dark red background, with blue and gold designs. I traced the outlines so many times, fingered the pattern, the sun slanting warm in the window. I remember sitting on the cushioned arm of the couch, looking out, just looking out. There was a farm across the road, past the small oak sucker that was my favourite climbing tree. It rose on a hill above the road, a field, trees, a barn. They raised Shetland ponies there, a little stud horse called King was normally the sole habitant of the field outside my window. Sturdy, black and white, I’d visit him with carrots or apples sometimes. They’d bring in the mares for breeding periodically, and I’d watch them, right out there by the road. I don’t know why I had to ask my mother about where babies come from, years later - it was all there in front of me, but I didn’t make the connection somehow - like horse, like human.