A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,23

down the street when I was little. But even those memories had been vague and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember what your voice sounded like.

We sat on our porch silently until your summer-sweet voice shook. “I haven’t felt strong in a very long time.” You didn’t look at me. You just reached your hand over and squeezed mine. Then you stood up and walked silently back into the house.

The house that never heard you sing.

16

House,

I stare up at you. You are scruffy paint, creaking steps, and broken glass. You tucked our tears and fears into your nooks and crannies. Our whispered prayers stained your floorboards. You never heard songs, but you heard my last breath.

Maybe you were never trying to trap us in.

Maybe you were trying to hold us together.

17

Father,

The house didn’t need to hold us together before you came with your sad-puppy eyes and fists. Before you came with such pretty words and gentle embraces. You were the burn and the balm at the same time. You were Tabasco sauce and warm apple cider. Because just when we would scurry off into our silent rooms, you’d coax us out with your rumbling voice and tuck us into your arms as if you forgot that you hurt us with those same hands.

We lied to you too. With our smiles and apprehensive glances. But also with our little secrets. Momma begged you to let her have the job. I went with her to the Dixie and the manager said it would be $14.35 an hour. She asked to be paid in cash. When she got home she told you that the job paid eight dollars an hour. I almost corrected her, but the look she leveled on me—not in anger but a wordless plea—kept me quiet.

You didn’t give her an answer. Then a few days later, an old minivan was parked outside in our driveway. It looked like our old one. It had the same mismatched doors. This was your answer. Your act of love and mercy. She could get the job.

That month, Momma stopped smoking.

18

Momma,

You are staring at the flowers in the middle of the dining table. Father left them there for you.

Father would always bring you roses or daisies or whatever was in the $4.99 flower bin at the supermarket after a rough night or a fight or a drunken beating. I always loved their colors and how delicate the petals looked in the sunlight. You would always smile. Always say thank you. Always fuss over taking care of them right away: looking for the chipped glass vase in the cabinet, cutting the ends of the stems at an angle, putting a little sugar in the water.

I think Father thought it was a cheap way to make you smile, but he never noticed how you looked at the flowers when he looked away. You’d skin chicken and your eyes would scan the flowers, cut end to bloom and you’d furrow your brow and look out the window with sad eyes. That’s how you look at them now.

One day when Father worked late, we played in the fields behind the school. Patches of wildflowers sprang up in the tall grass and I remember reaching down to pluck some.

“No!” you said, your voice was sharp and sudden and made my hand snatch back. You saw my expression and your face softened. “No, little dove. Don’t pull the flowers.”

“Why not?”

You were quiet for a moment and then motioned for me to sit beside you in the grass. “It—it is selfish to pluck something just because you want to keep it to yourself. The flowers die faster.”

“But lots of people have flowers…”

I looked at the flowers. They swayed in the breeze and danced in the grasses, innocent and unaware.

“Just leave them there, dove. We can sit with them. We can love them even if we don’t take them home.”

And so we stretched back and lay there. Breathing in the warm air and the smell of wildflowers, eyes up to blue skies and wispy white clouds, holding each other’s hands.

* * *

You leave the flowers on the table.

19

Funeral Director,

Momma never answers when you call, but I hear your voice beep in on the answering machine every day.

You speak in a cadence and tone that sound too bright and breezy for a call about dead daughters. Momma is about to click delete on your message when your voice pitches up in a singsong melody. “A teacher from your daughter’s school has