a ticket stub from a movie you really liked or a four-leaf clover that you pressed between wax paper so you would be able to feel lucky any old time you wanted to? But to your surprise, when you dig them up, instead of making you have a happy memory, those parcels from the past get you filled to the brim with so much wanting for something that you might never have again. That’s how I’m feeling, just like that.
Our mother placed the family pictures on the wall across from their bed so she could look at them before she fell asleep and have sweet dreams. This past New Year’s Day, I caught my father stuffing them all into a cardboard box like he’d made a resolution to do away with them, like his family was a bad habit. Right here next to the window is where Woody and my favorite portrait used to be. The one we’ve got in the fort now. I asked him, “Do you mind? Could we just keep that one?” Papa handed it to me and said, “Salt in the wound,” and went right back to his packing. I thought it would work like a splint on Woody’s and my broken heart, but Papa was right. Whenever I look at the picture of us in the lily field, it burns so bad right below my wishbone.
I run my finger over the frames’ smudged outlines. Shots of Woody and me looking like baby bookends in Mama’s arms once hung here. There was another of us attending the first day of school in matching white blouses and navy skirts. I especially loved the shot of my sister and me wading in the creek with Boppa Joe and Gran Jean. Mama’s mother and father passed away in a boating accident a few years back on the chilly waters of Lake Michigan up in Wisconsin. That’s why she steers clear of boats unless it’s too risky to get where she is going any other way.
Woody and I weren’t allowed and Papa was involved in a trial, so our mother had to travel to her old home and to make the funeral arrangements all by herself. When she returned, my sister and I noticed that she was different. Of course, she was thinner from grief, but what she’d lost in weight, she appeared to have gained in spirit. Mama became so recklessly outspoken after her parents’ deaths. Grampa Gus always says, “Money talks,” and my mother had inherited a bundle in her parents’ will, so maybe that had something to do with her newfound mouthiness, I don’t know.
There never were any pictures hanging on the bedroom wall of Grampa, his arm thrown around the youngest of his sons, the both of them beaming with pride. It’s the job of a camera to capture truth for one second in time, and the truth is—Grampa is not proud of Papa. He got rheumatic fever when he was a child and that’s why he’s stunted and not rough and tough like his father and his brother. Grampa calls him “the runt.” He makes fun of his job at every opportunity. Gus Carmody thinks being a judge comes in handy in certain situations, but that it’s not a very manly way to make a living. “What kind of man wears a robe to work?” he razzes.
There were pictures from Mama and Papa’s wedding day on the wall. Our mother in Gramma’s high-necked gossamer dress holding a white ribboned bouquet. Our father looking natty in a long-tailed tuxedo and top hat. They looked like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. In the old days, when something with a beat came on the radio, Mama and Papa would jut their hips and move smoothly into one another. Or sometimes watching a movie together late at night, they nuzzled close on the sofa, the light of the television bouncing off their sweetheart faces. And on Saturdays, they’d go into town for a date to have dinner and when they’d come home, I’d hear their bubbly laughter out on the porch.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Tried to pinpoint when their happy-ever-after story came to The End. I don’t think it was just one thing that made everything start to go bad. It was a thing here and a thing there, and over time, the same explosiveness that’s inside Grampa
Our mother placed the family pictures on the wall across from their bed so she could look at them before she fell asleep and have sweet dreams. This past New Year’s Day, I caught my father stuffing them all into a cardboard box like he’d made a resolution to do away with them, like his family was a bad habit. Right here next to the window is where Woody and my favorite portrait used to be. The one we’ve got in the fort now. I asked him, “Do you mind? Could we just keep that one?” Papa handed it to me and said, “Salt in the wound,” and went right back to his packing. I thought it would work like a splint on Woody’s and my broken heart, but Papa was right. Whenever I look at the picture of us in the lily field, it burns so bad right below my wishbone.
I run my finger over the frames’ smudged outlines. Shots of Woody and me looking like baby bookends in Mama’s arms once hung here. There was another of us attending the first day of school in matching white blouses and navy skirts. I especially loved the shot of my sister and me wading in the creek with Boppa Joe and Gran Jean. Mama’s mother and father passed away in a boating accident a few years back on the chilly waters of Lake Michigan up in Wisconsin. That’s why she steers clear of boats unless it’s too risky to get where she is going any other way.
Woody and I weren’t allowed and Papa was involved in a trial, so our mother had to travel to her old home and to make the funeral arrangements all by herself. When she returned, my sister and I noticed that she was different. Of course, she was thinner from grief, but what she’d lost in weight, she appeared to have gained in spirit. Mama became so recklessly outspoken after her parents’ deaths. Grampa Gus always says, “Money talks,” and my mother had inherited a bundle in her parents’ will, so maybe that had something to do with her newfound mouthiness, I don’t know.
There never were any pictures hanging on the bedroom wall of Grampa, his arm thrown around the youngest of his sons, the both of them beaming with pride. It’s the job of a camera to capture truth for one second in time, and the truth is—Grampa is not proud of Papa. He got rheumatic fever when he was a child and that’s why he’s stunted and not rough and tough like his father and his brother. Grampa calls him “the runt.” He makes fun of his job at every opportunity. Gus Carmody thinks being a judge comes in handy in certain situations, but that it’s not a very manly way to make a living. “What kind of man wears a robe to work?” he razzes.
There were pictures from Mama and Papa’s wedding day on the wall. Our mother in Gramma’s high-necked gossamer dress holding a white ribboned bouquet. Our father looking natty in a long-tailed tuxedo and top hat. They looked like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. In the old days, when something with a beat came on the radio, Mama and Papa would jut their hips and move smoothly into one another. Or sometimes watching a movie together late at night, they nuzzled close on the sofa, the light of the television bouncing off their sweetheart faces. And on Saturdays, they’d go into town for a date to have dinner and when they’d come home, I’d hear their bubbly laughter out on the porch.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Tried to pinpoint when their happy-ever-after story came to The End. I don’t think it was just one thing that made everything start to go bad. It was a thing here and a thing there, and over time, the same explosiveness that’s inside Grampa
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