Nov. 19 Chernobyl

 The prompt for the daily Flash Fiction piece was to write about something from the 1980s. 

 

Sally stood on tiptoes to try to see her daughter Maida when she walked through arrivals.

She hadn’t wanted her to go on the Munich exchange program run by the Goethe Institute after the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl. She’d read about radioactive clouds poisoning crops. Her daughter could eat contaminated food while there. Or worse, Maida might be outside. Her only child would have no protection from particles dropped from the skies.

Maida had rationally presented all the reasons she should go, including improving her German, see another culture, make new friends. She’d be staying with a family and their daughter would be coming through the arrival gate with Maida for the next three weeks.

Sally’s mother had been over-protective. Sally had vowed she wouldn’t make the same mistake, but a nuclear meltdown wasn’t your average danger. The cloud of radiation blew over the continent. Almost every day Maida was gone, Sally’s mother telephoned to berate her daughter for endangering her granddaughter’s life. Sally would put the phone down on the desk and periodically say, “hm, hm.”

Maida burst from the crowd and threw her arms around her mother then turned to the girl next to her. “This is Renate,” she said. They shook hands.

“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.” Renate spoke only with a slight accent. Sally hoped Maida’s German accent was as good.

The two girls babbled in German from the backseat on the ride from the airport.

“Speak English,” Maida said. “We are in my country. I spoke German for three weeks in yours.”

“Of course,” Renate said

Renate had brought Sally a red fringed scarf. “For my hostess from my parents.”

The jet lagged girls, fell asleep early.

Sally was relieved to have Maida safely home. She was glad that her fears had not limited her daughter’s opportunities. After the girls were asleep, she reported Maida’s safety to her mother. “No thanks to you. You don’t know the long-range affects,” her mother said.

The bedroom door that the girls shared was open. Sally peeked in, and in her dark place dug by her mother, she half expected the girls to glow in the dark.

As she crawled into her own bed, she congratulated herself for not stopping Maida from doing things based on her fears, rational and irrational as she had been stopped. She might make mistakes with her daughter, but they would not be the same ones her mother made with her. She wondered how to say that in German as she fell asleep.