My mother
left the first time in late
spring of
that same year.
We stood on the front steps, my older sister holding my one-year-old brother, my little sister beside
me. Then my
father, my anchor, tears streaming down his face.
All
the land spread out before me, all my previous escape routes, and I could not now run away. There was no safe haven from
the reality of her leaving.
The metal links of the swings in front of their bedroom windows, beneath my favorite
tree, clinking. The tree, crawling with ants, along the soft bark. The ribbed edges of the
leaves. The
leaves new and soft on the branches. And beyond that, the rows of
old Jonathan trees, the buds just gone. The trees old and twisted; though my father
pruned them, they grew along their own curves. Down the hill in the front lawn to the large trees beside Star Route, with their fingery twigs, and in the autumn, brown dirt-smelling
leaves in piles. Farther than we were allowed to go, our property sloping onto the road below.
Beyond the highway, other
orchards, newly
blossomless. The irrigation
pond we couldn’t wade in, the
fig tree with its roots in the water. The lush pasture, sparsely cowed.
The Navarro River wide and bridgeless, cutting through the farm. Acres of trees and dirt and seeds and tomato seedlings in
fish emulsion across the river from us. The grove crowded with
old-growth redwoods. The state woods beyond.
The sun was already disappearing behind the
ridge. The air was beginning to cool. The hot smells of dry grass and of the redwood steps, the cooling air, the angle of the sun,
the empty expanse of sky,
suddenly sharpened.
My mother reversed our
red station wagon, eased down the driveway, and turned east.
We stood still,
exposed, framed by the living room window, its drawn curtains baring the house to the street outside. It was the first time I’d seen
my father cry, and
I wanted to put my arms around him. I remained frozen instead, beside my sisters and brother, gazing at the stretch of road where she had just been.
from The Book of Revelation
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