What I Was Raised By

 

What I Was Raised By

I saw a bald head with a swath of hair near the back. He dipped his comb in the sink. Back and to the side. Dip. Back and to the side. Repeat. Mom trimmed his moustache in the kitchen. He’d be a stranger without it. Not my father. He’d be too vulnerable and sheepish. But that was part of him, too. He had dirt and grease-seasoned hands, weathered by his curse. The land. It was all he ever wanted. But the droughts blew in and called the shots, lingering, calling him names and giving him slivers. But after droughts come miracles. And it was all he ever wanted. A farm wife is strong, with childbearing hips and a wizardry of the kitchen. His bride, though, was Cecil and Emily’s oldest. She was raised in the rain and the clouds of the coast, with her head down and her eyes squinting at the print in the attic light. Now thousands of miles away, she puts the laundry on the line as the kittens jump in and out of the basket. Up go socks and gitch of her three boys and her Herbie. There she is with the breeze and the sun and the socks and her thoughts. I was allowed a glass of water before bed, tucked in with a whisker rub from dad and the door left open. He sat on the recliner in his house coat, his white legs peeking out underneath while watching the news in the house he grew up in and built on to. The box Yelled at him. Liberals and war, murder and euthanasia. Unsolved mysteries and secrets. Not In this room, not in front of the children. The duo, together, but pillars, alone. They were committed to more than each other, more than us, more than the crops but to their one true God.