Note: As I do not currently have access to a scanner, I am not including the photograph that inspired this piece. I will post it when I again have access to the scanner.

Seth might have been born with a tennis racquet in his hand. The little toehead with the huge nose. That nose sucked in oxygen so hard sometimes I thought his head would pop.

That’s me on the left, all awkward and fat, even then. Mummy built the dirt court when Dad died in the War, and that afternoon one of the men who came calling was trying to impress her by pretending to teach Seth and me the proper rules of tennis.

I think that may have been the last time I ever held a tennis request. I found some baby bunnies off under the shrubbery and mashed them something awful with the racquet. That’s when Mum locked me in the closet. I came home with blood on my woolies and she cried, spilling her gin. Seth told me I should be ashamed, treating the racquet that way.

But Toby gave us the racquets before I found the bunnies in the shrubbery, I mean, and was determined to teach us how to hit those furry gray balls on that first day. He wasn’t so concerned with us trying to get them over the net, just that we could hold the racquets properly, Like shaking someone’s hand, he said, in his American drawl.

It was all so silly, expecting babies like us to be able to hold such monstrosities, but Seth tried, and that was enough for Toby. He scooped Seth up into his arms and swung him ‘round. Seth was so serious. Even then. He smiled, but didn’t laugh or giggle.

I strayed away, then to the garden which is when I found the rabbits. But I always get ahead of myself. I always do.

Though it hadn’t rained, the garden was wet with dew. I walked along, shaking the sparklies off the bushes with my tennis racquet. I put the racquet down and sat down in the lavender, which smelled like Mummy. And then I saw the bunnies. They were eating the lavender, and I got mad at them. Got mad that they would eat Mummy’s smell. They were so tiny, they could not run away. So I found my tennis racquet. And mashed them. Mashed them mashed them mashed them. Real good.