Sorry, Sweetheart
Ruth backed her car down the driveway. The dream was in her head again. She figured it was about her dad. She was so small in the dream, yet so ready to fight, especially since the trouble was all her fault. As the dream faded, she chased its details. There were barbarians surrounding the farmhouse, hiding in the DDT-covered corn. Her childish logic had created in her a trigger reaction to all things shameful. It was no wonder she dreamed of cornfields with Visigoths on the outskirts.
She let go an explosive sigh like her mom had always done. She remembered her mom's words,"You'd never let him hold you!" That always made her feel guilty, as if it were all her fault. They hadn't explained to her until she was 10 years old what really happened to her dad.
They said Aunt Bonnie stored solvent in a whiskey bottle and he swigged it Christmas of '51 in one final toast. No one knew if she poisoned him on purpose. Ruth imagined her mother at the funeral in the new holiday coat he gave her. "Bright red!," the ladies said, heads solemn and shaking with disapproval. And they spoke in hushed intonations the condolences of loss.
You could feel him weeping in the back row, before the drive to the graveyard in the Nebraska cornfields, flattened by winter. Nearby a singular straight row of pine trees clattered in the brutal wind, like the sound of a train careening off a track. Mom said she turned from the grave and felt him touch her shoulder when she wondered how she would raise two daughters alone.
He whispered in her ear, "You'll do just fine, Honey."
This was all Ruth knew about her dad. Except she saw him as a ghost, tall and handsome, grinning with dimples before he floated up through the attic door in the ceiling. And he had haunted others, she knew for sure. She chased the details like a lost dream again and again. She had thought about it often her entire life.
The traffic light turned green and She looked up from her thoughts. She was tired of this drama in her head that repeated itself so often.
A car changed into the lane ahead In the exact center of the bumper of the black car was a small sticker with only two words stacked one atop the other, forming a perfect square. It read simply, "Sorry, Sweetheart."
She let go an explosive sigh like her mom had always done. She remembered her mom's words,"You'd never let him hold you!" That always made her feel guilty, as if it were all her fault. They hadn't explained to her until she was 10 years old what really happened to her dad.
They said Aunt Bonnie stored solvent in a whiskey bottle and he swigged it Christmas of '51 in one final toast. No one knew if she poisoned him on purpose. Ruth imagined her mother at the funeral in the new holiday coat he gave her. "Bright red!," the ladies said, heads solemn and shaking with disapproval. And they spoke in hushed intonations the condolences of loss.
You could feel him weeping in the back row, before the drive to the graveyard in the Nebraska cornfields, flattened by winter. Nearby a singular straight row of pine trees clattered in the brutal wind, like the sound of a train careening off a track. Mom said she turned from the grave and felt him touch her shoulder when she wondered how she would raise two daughters alone.
He whispered in her ear, "You'll do just fine, Honey."
This was all Ruth knew about her dad. Except she saw him as a ghost, tall and handsome, grinning with dimples before he floated up through the attic door in the ceiling. And he had haunted others, she knew for sure. She chased the details like a lost dream again and again. She had thought about it often her entire life.
The traffic light turned green and She looked up from her thoughts. She was tired of this drama in her head that repeated itself so often.
A car changed into the lane ahead In the exact center of the bumper of the black car was a small sticker with only two words stacked one atop the other, forming a perfect square. It read simply, "Sorry, Sweetheart."