voices and yip-ping fade, then disappear behind the clack of the closing screen door, and still I lie on the grass, stroking, sniffing, and loving the ground I lie upon.
When I was six years old, Marcus, a man Mom was dating, took us on a train trip to the East Coast to see the Atlantic Ocean. Marcus was thin, fair skinned, and rubbery to the touch, like a piece of string cheese. We traveled there on a vintage passenger train with red velvet seats and hanging chandeliers in the dining car that rocked above our heads as we ate our omelets. I don’t recall much about the trip itself, except that Milo vomited most of the way andthat when you flushed the toilet, a trapdoor opened and the water and waste splattered onto the rocks and railroad ties bumping by beneath us. I excused myself often, flushing and watching, and wondering how it was that the health department could allow such a thing. But what I remember most of all about that trip, our only vacation ever, is the ocean. I didn’t know how to swim, so Marcus carried me out ’til the water was washing his colorless chest hairs, then he stretched me across his arms and just held me there. I closed my eyes as the waves lapped over me, and I went as mute as I am now and wished for the moment to last forever. It didn’t, of course, nor did Marcus, though I’d wanted him to be my dad too.
Only when my belly cools to the point where I start to shiver do I roll over and sit up. I draw my legs up and wrap my arms around them. I tuck my chin on my knees and look past the yard, past the patch of trees, at the rolling hills dotted with houses that, from this distance, look as tiny as the houses on a Monopoly board.
It is quiet here. Peaceful. I smile as the breeze brushes my cheeks and dries my eyes as if I’m ice skating. I look to the north of the house, where the red maples in low-lying spots are blotched with deep red, and to a patch of sugar maples that are just beginning to tinge with a brighter, orangier red, and I wonder how tall those trees were when Mom was a kid and if she climbed them or raked their leaves into piles and jumped in them, as I’ve always heard country kids do. I look at the line of upstairs windows and I wonder which of them belongs to her childhood bedroom and if Oma ever read her
Goodnight Moon
before tucking her in.
I head to the house. Inside, it smells like frying hamburger, oatmeal cookies, and poop. I stand inside theentranceway and see shoes—including Milo’s tennies, Mom’s loafers, and Oma’s beaded slippers—lined up on a rug alongside a narrow, short pair of oxfords. I take off my tennies and pair them up with Milo’s, and hang my jacket on the coatrack beside the door. There is a man’s hat propped on the tip, wool and charcoal gray. I lean over and study it. The silk band rimming the inside is stained darker in the front, as though it has sopped up a million drops of worry.
I can hear the women’s voices, and when I step into the living room, I can see into the kitchen. Oma is standing at the sink, running her hand up the tiny shelves that sit beside the window. Mom’s shoulder and hip are peeking out from behind the door frame.
Milo comes into the living room and looks at the TV, from which an excited man standing before a rotisserie oven is shouting, “That’s right, just set it and forget it!”
“It’s an infomercial,” I explain, knowing he doesn’t get it by the way he’s blinking at the screen. “I studied them for my paper on pop culture.” Then, “Where’s Grandpa?”
Milo shrugs and sits down on the couch, refusing to allow his back to rest against the orange and yellow afghan that looks older than us. He opens the top book on his stack, but his eyes keep darting around the room. He looks like a fish on pavement.
My eyes wander above him, where a plaque hangs next to a gob of artificial flowers. The plaque bears my grandfather’s name, Samuel McGowan. “Milo, look at this.”
“What?”
I try to
When I was six years old, Marcus, a man Mom was dating, took us on a train trip to the East Coast to see the Atlantic Ocean. Marcus was thin, fair skinned, and rubbery to the touch, like a piece of string cheese. We traveled there on a vintage passenger train with red velvet seats and hanging chandeliers in the dining car that rocked above our heads as we ate our omelets. I don’t recall much about the trip itself, except that Milo vomited most of the way andthat when you flushed the toilet, a trapdoor opened and the water and waste splattered onto the rocks and railroad ties bumping by beneath us. I excused myself often, flushing and watching, and wondering how it was that the health department could allow such a thing. But what I remember most of all about that trip, our only vacation ever, is the ocean. I didn’t know how to swim, so Marcus carried me out ’til the water was washing his colorless chest hairs, then he stretched me across his arms and just held me there. I closed my eyes as the waves lapped over me, and I went as mute as I am now and wished for the moment to last forever. It didn’t, of course, nor did Marcus, though I’d wanted him to be my dad too.
Only when my belly cools to the point where I start to shiver do I roll over and sit up. I draw my legs up and wrap my arms around them. I tuck my chin on my knees and look past the yard, past the patch of trees, at the rolling hills dotted with houses that, from this distance, look as tiny as the houses on a Monopoly board.
It is quiet here. Peaceful. I smile as the breeze brushes my cheeks and dries my eyes as if I’m ice skating. I look to the north of the house, where the red maples in low-lying spots are blotched with deep red, and to a patch of sugar maples that are just beginning to tinge with a brighter, orangier red, and I wonder how tall those trees were when Mom was a kid and if she climbed them or raked their leaves into piles and jumped in them, as I’ve always heard country kids do. I look at the line of upstairs windows and I wonder which of them belongs to her childhood bedroom and if Oma ever read her
Goodnight Moon
before tucking her in.
I head to the house. Inside, it smells like frying hamburger, oatmeal cookies, and poop. I stand inside theentranceway and see shoes—including Milo’s tennies, Mom’s loafers, and Oma’s beaded slippers—lined up on a rug alongside a narrow, short pair of oxfords. I take off my tennies and pair them up with Milo’s, and hang my jacket on the coatrack beside the door. There is a man’s hat propped on the tip, wool and charcoal gray. I lean over and study it. The silk band rimming the inside is stained darker in the front, as though it has sopped up a million drops of worry.
I can hear the women’s voices, and when I step into the living room, I can see into the kitchen. Oma is standing at the sink, running her hand up the tiny shelves that sit beside the window. Mom’s shoulder and hip are peeking out from behind the door frame.
Milo comes into the living room and looks at the TV, from which an excited man standing before a rotisserie oven is shouting, “That’s right, just set it and forget it!”
“It’s an infomercial,” I explain, knowing he doesn’t get it by the way he’s blinking at the screen. “I studied them for my paper on pop culture.” Then, “Where’s Grandpa?”
Milo shrugs and sits down on the couch, refusing to allow his back to rest against the orange and yellow afghan that looks older than us. He opens the top book on his stack, but his eyes keep darting around the room. He looks like a fish on pavement.
My eyes wander above him, where a plaque hangs next to a gob of artificial flowers. The plaque bears my grandfather’s name, Samuel McGowan. “Milo, look at this.”
“What?”
I try to
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