Back in London
The train chugs into Euston Station.
I glance eagerly down the platform,
hoping for a familiar face.
No one.
No one has come to meet me.
It’s okay.
I know my way home.
Then
I hear my name.
“KEN!”
It’s my dad,
MY DAD!
I hobble as fast as I can
into his outstretched arms.
He hugs me hard
and try as I might,
I can’t stop the blasted tears.
Harry Peard would be disgusted.
“What a lot of rot,” he would say.
Dad laughs, wipes his own eyes and nose,
stares hard into my eyes,
and says, “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m safe, Dad. I’m safe.”
Arm in arm,
leaning on each other,
we make our way home.
Together.
Homecoming
Back in Wembley,
I turn the corner
to Lancelot Crescent,
where a crowd lines the street!
The rest of my family
stands at the gate to our house,
flanked by people on either side
clapping and cheering
beneath Union Jack flags
hung from every window.
My little sister gives me a kiss.
“You’ve made us proud,” says Mum.
The neighbors crowd in around us.
The mayor of Wembley
steps up. “Ken,” he says,
“we took up a collection
to buy you a welcome home gift.”
He hands me a small box.
“Open it.”
I look at the smiling faces
and lift the lid.
Inside is a silver watch.
“There’s an inscription,”
says the mayor.
“Read it.”
I turn the watch over and read aloud:
PRESENTED TO KENNETH SPARKS
BY HIS NEIGHBORS IN ADMIRATION
OF HIS DAUNTLESS COURAGE
WHEN TORPEDOED IN
SS CITY OF BENARES
SEPTEMBER 17, 1940
Dad says to my stepmum,
“He’s really home.”
“Now we can look at his bike
without crying,” she whispers.
I look up at her in surprise
and, maybe for the first time,
notice how weary she looks.
I turn to see two houses across the street
have been bombed
and the sidewalks are full of rubble.
They’ve had a tough time of it here, too.
I turn back to hear what
my mum is saying.
“When we first heard
that the ship had gone down,”
she tells our neighbor,
“we read that boys
in one boat were heard singing
‘Roll Out the Barrel.’
It’s Kenny’s favorite song,
and I knew he was in that boat.
I could see him standing up
and singing in his new grey overcoat.
Every time I thought about the singing,
it made me go on hoping.”
Hoping? What?
She wipes a tear,
an honest-to-God tear.
For me.
“Look, Mum,” I say.
“I still have my coat.
I went back to get it.
That’s how I missed Lifeboat 8.”
“Missed it for a coat? Oh, Ken!”
she says.
“Newspapers say Lifeboat 8
had no survivors,”
our neighbor says softly.
“I went back to get my coat,” I say.
“That’s how I ended up in Lifeboat 12.”
“Oh!” Mum cries, covering her mouth.
Slowly she reaches a hand to me.
I reach right back.