*I Shut My Eyes and Think of You*

I'm pretty sure you’re the reason I'm afraid of heights. If I shut my eyes tight, I picture you flinging me in the air. I clutch the collar of your white dress shirt to keep from going too high. My wispy, almost-white, baby hair brushes the ceiling and I whimper. Gentle and close you gather me, make my chest flush with yours. You indent your fingers into a spot near my heart. Your beard tickles my neck and I feel the bones beneath your skin.

            "There, there, honeypot," you say. "Everything'll be all right."

~~~

Most nights, you tucked me in and told me a tale. My favorites all  started with, "Once upon a time, many moons ago, there lived an Indian girl named Mini Haha.” I wanted to be her because I liked the way you spoke her name—with awe and tenderness. I wanted to be you because you made up the best bedtime stories ever.

~~~

Three years in a row, in the spring, we attended  the Campfire Girls' Father-Daughter Banquet at the Field House downtown. I wore my navy blue Campfire Girl get up and you'd still be in your suit from work. We'd stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken with eleven herbs and spices and buy two box dinners and Dr. Peppers. You ordered regular chicken. I requested extra crispy. You always asked the gal at the counter for an extra wet wipe. Because you knew how much I loved their Fruit Loop fragrance.
            Of all the daddies, you were usually the last to finish eating, but I didn't mind. It meant we had more time together. Alone.

   ~~~

Monday through Friday in the summertime, Mom and I went swimming at a hotel pool downtown. Sometimes you walked over from Marshall on your lunch hour and joined us.

            As I raced to hug your hips, Pat, the super tan lifeguard, would blast his whistle and bark, "No running!" 
             I'd perch on the smooth, red-tile edge of the pool, breathe deep the Coppertone and chlorine aromas, and witness your get-wet ritual. You proceeded gingerly down the steps until the water's reflection cast a wash of blue up your thighs. The minute the water licked the hem of your swim trunks, a tremor would skitter from the top of your body down. You'd scoop up water and skim your arms with it. Collect more coolness and pat it on your chest and fish belly-white tummy. I liked to imagine I had a magic marker. Then I could connect the dots of all your chocolate brown and strawberry-colored moles.
            You'd tread water near the rope between the shallow and deep ends and watch me go off the board.

            "Do a jackknife," you'd say. "Now a swan dive."
            You clapped when I attempted my first flip, even though it was more of a flop.

~~~ 

At the end of every summer you and I always cooked up a batch of homemade V-8 juice. First we plucked all the tomatoes off the vines in the backyard, even the ugly ones. Then we tucked them inside Mom's jumbo-sized pressure cooker. Added carrots and celery, salt and pepper. Simmered the concoction to death. After it cooled, we hooked Mom's foley mill onto her giant, baby poo-colored mixing bowl. You ladled the limp veggies into the mesh. I rotated the red-handled crank and watched the vegetables bleed out. You poured us each a glass, drizzled in some Worcestershire sauce, and stirred. You took a sip, smacked your lips, and grinned. I did the exact same thing because I knew it'd make you laugh.

~~~

You walked me to school every day—first through sixth grade. I was sure that meant you loved me more than the parents who put their kids on a bus. In between Green Oak Drive and Gallaher School, you addressed me like I was a grown up. Told me about B.F. Skinner and Pavlov's dog.
            "Remember how I taught you and your brothers to pee when I whistle? It's the same concept," you said.
            When it came time for seventh grade, I mourned . Beverly Hills Junior High wasn't on your way to work.

~~~

Year-round, school or no, most evenings I'd sit with you and Mom out in the living room. You'd nurse your Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and plow through half a can of Planters' Spanish red-skinned peanuts. I'd sneak some nuts when you weren't looking. Pinch 'em one at a time to make them slip out of their greasy, rosy little husks. Suck the salt off my fingers. Just like you.

            You devoured words while Mom and I laughed at the Carol Burnett Show or Sonny and Cher. You were especially fond of your Morse code magazine, Time and Newsweek, and books about the Civil War. You knew a little bit about a lot. I always thought that was cool. Still do. You reading all the time? More than likely, that's the reason I've adored books all my life. 
            And remember that spot near my heart? The one you pressed into me when I was wee tiny? The place where you both created and rescued me from my fear of falling? I can still locate it. Right here. Like my first chicken pock, it'll mark me forever.

No More Messes

The dog got sick last night on boy child’s bed. He took to the stairs, all hands and feet, to tell us.  Sliced through a dream I never would’ve remembered had I not been wakened in its midst.

            The beautiful blonde boy who lives three doors down in the castle-looking house? His folks fussed him out for making his like-Drew-Barrymore-in-E.T. little sister have bad dreams.

            “Give her good ones,” the parents said. “Of silver and gold unicorns and pastel pink lollipops.”

            Weird with a beard, I remember thinking as I sat on the back porch in my Me-Jane nightgown, sleep still wrapped around my head like gauze.

            It was probably the anchovies. That made the dog hurl. No one but me knew they were in the substance that bathed the Cavatappi Nicoise. Gave it a mud-colored hue. The hairy slabs hid in the bell of the immersion blender, but I found all four of them. Whirled them into an omega 3-rich, silken sauce. Daisy, the not yet dead dog, received the rest of the fish on top of her kibble. Maybe one got stuck in her craw and she couldn’t stop the plunger action of her digestive system ‘til it evacuated.

           

The back porch light blinked Morse code messages into the night. Its motion sensor has never worked right. Not in the sixteen years we’ve lived in this house. I splayed my fingers on either side of my belly button. I was pregnant with the sandwich child the day we moved here. 

            I raked the mosquito bite on my neck and squinted out at the yard. In lightness and in dark, the dog snatched great mouthfuls of grass.  Puppy Pepcid. After a bit, she disappeared over the hill. I waited for the sound of heaves but it never came. I’ll be mopping in the morning. Least she’ll be gated in the kitchen. Vinyl’s way easier to wash than quilt, sheets, and mattress pad.

            I watched a leaf make its way to the ground, unable to resist gravity, all but a hint of green drained away. It’s almost time. Fall. Cooler weather, thankfully. Kids gone, all day, Monday through Friday. And then some. One down the hill to high school. Another a mile away to middle. The oldest off to college. Not here. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Reckon the others will say the same.

            I counted on my fingers. It’ll be this way for the next seven years. Someone departing every autumn. Me mourning. Then a one-year break before boy child ventures out into the world. Five minus three will equal two.

            I should’ve had six kids. That would’ve postponed the solitude. The quiet. The piercing. Right? Right?

            The dog won’t even be here. She’ll be gone by then too. I’ll have no more messes to clean. Except for my own. Laundry baskets heaped with soaked handkerchiefs for sure.

I Remember Dad

My father doted on me. It’s no wonder really. I was the youngest child and the only girl. Sometimes Dad called me, “Lil Svester” which I think means little sister in German. Other times he called me, “Honeypot.”


Every Saturday morning we’d run errands. We’d drive to his office at the local college where he taught psychology. He’d catch up on work and I’d whistle at the guinea pigs and rats in the lab.

After an hour or two we’d walk uptown to the bank.

“Would you like a lollipop, sweetie?” the teller always asked.

I’d rest my chin on the counter and look up at her. “Yes, please.”

“We got some new piggy banks. Would you like one?

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What color?

“Pink, please.”

Next stop was The Peanut Shoppe. I loved the aroma of roasting nuts, royal red cherries and chocolate bridge mix.

When it was our turn to order Dad would go first. “I’ll take a fourth pound of Spanish peanuts. Svester, tell the lady what you want.”

I’d point at the glass. “I’ll take a fourth a pound of pistachios—the red kind, please.”

I’d eat them on the way home and my fingertips would be red until the next Saturday. Dad would save his peanuts to eat later. He’d eat them while he drank a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbon beers each night.

Every month or so we’d cross the bridge into Ohio where he could buy beer cheap. He always let me get a couple of plastic mermaids to hang on my glasses of blue raspberry Kool-Aid.


Dad’s office was three miles from our house. He walked to work every day, weather permitting. My school was on the way so he and I would walk that far together. If it was rainy or really cold, we’d drive. He had a little blue Subaru. It was the first one in the state. It only cost $1,500.00.

When we got to the gate of my school he’d put his hands on my shoulders and look me in the eye.

“Learn lots of interesting and useful things today, L’il Svester. And remember, you can learn from anyone and anyone can learn from you.”

Actually, I lied. That’s what I tell my son when I put him on the bus every morning.

Dad would pat me on the back and I’d run up the steps to the playground. Most days I’d watch until he disappeared over the hill. If he looked back I’d wave until it felt like my arm was going to fall off.

My friends thought Dad looked like Abraham Lincoln with blue eyes.


Dad had a hobby. He was a telegrapher—a Morse code operator. It was what got him out of the house at a young age. His father had one idea of what his future should be. He had another. Dad didn’t want to be a banker so he lied about his age and joined the Navy. Off he went to World War II where he worked as a telegrapher. He was just a couple months shy of eighteen.

Every night after supper Dad would push his chair back from the dinner table and say, “I’m going on the air now.”

He’d go down to the basement and spend a couple of hours sending telegraph messages all over the world. Sometimes I’d sit beside him and watch him and his equipment. I liked the dial with the aqua glow.

Dot, dot, dash. Dash, dot, dash. It all meant something.

Sometimes we’d be in the living room and the phone would ring. Mom would answer and hand it to Dad. “It’s for you.”

If I was sitting close I could hear the person on the other end.

“I want to send a message to my grandson. He’s stationed in Japan. Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am. I sure can.” Dad would grab a notepad and pen and jot down the message. Then he’d head for the basement. It was a mystery and thrill that my dad, his telegrapher’s key and his Morse code buddies could somehow talk to people on the other side of the world.


I regret not learning Morse code. I think Dad would have liked that. Sometimes I wonder if I could’ve communicated with him in Morse code once he got dementia and pretty much stopped talking.

How do you say, “I love you, Daddy” in Morse code? What about, “I miss you.”