Acre Under a Green Sky

My father time traveled during his last days –– weeks –– months. We sat by his bed waiting for some glimmer of consciousness never knowing in what year he might resurface or what parts we might be asked to play in his travels. It didn't seem to me that he was remembering the past –– nor was he reliving it. He was somehow making the past present. I don't know how to do that.

I relive the past counting heavily on memory –– mine and other's. But memory is fallible. Some things we don't remember at all. Some things we remember all wrong. And sometimes, we're actually remembering someone else's memory of an event. I've heard my father recall these events so often that I'm sure I've adopted some of his memories as my own, but I see and hear them as clearly as if I had been there like a boutonniere in his lapel.

Memories out of context are the most disturbing and strange, especially when there are no images attached to them. No snapshots. Words and fragments of conversations echo through my memory as if trying to find their rightful places in time –– as if finding a location would give them meaning. If only I could remember when I heard the words, "Why don't you just leave," I might begin to understand what it means and stop the resounding echo of that line in my brain. If I could find its place in a sequence of events, I could make it be still, but it floats about this particular landscape of time –– before, during, and after ––like the loser in a game of musical chairs unwilling to accept the fact that there is no place for it.

Stranger still is my relationship to the boy that used to be me. I speak and his voice echoes back to me with all his superlatives and exclamation points –– his wonder and rage. He isn't me, but he is. I can't stop him asserting himself into the narrative. In many ways, it's more his than mine. Strange.

More to the point is the echo of my mother's assertions that Gwen had a lover. She was like a spiteful little girl tugging at your pant leg with vital information that no one wanted to hear. It all began the day she and I entered the Death House to get clothes for the funeral and it came up again and again throughout the coming weeks. But none of us could see beyond her anger at Gwen. My mother was that same spiteful little girl making up stories to avenge a real or imagined betrayal.

My father said that my mother was angry at Gwen for dying, but I think Gwen said something to my mother at the picnic that day –– something that really pissed her off. They would have patched up their differences had Gwen not been murdered that night –– maybe even become best friends. But their friendship got stuck on a sour note like a scratched record going on and on, and it was driving my mother crazy.

I have tried to set the scene for these forays into slander, but there are no snapshots; just echoes. I can still hear the anger and the breathless, grating rasp of frustration in my mother's voice as she once again tried to impress her views on my father.

"I'm telling you they had separate beds. If it wasn't Gwen sleeping on the couch, then it was Luka. And that suit of hers has been taken in a good two inches. By the look of her, I'd say she lost fifteen –– twenty pounds. Oh, don't tell me you didn't notice! She's been on a diet for months. She won't even have a drink, for Christ's sake. And, believe me, she didn't lose that weight for Luka. She had a lover, and I have a pretty good idea who it was. You know, she went out that night. After the picnic. I saw her leaving the house around 6:00 that evening all dressed up in that whittled down suit of hers. And it wasn't the first time I'd seen her stepping out. No, she was off to meet her lover. I'd have a little talk with Joe Scarceletti if I were you. Ask him if he's noticed Gwen's weight loss. Just ask him."

Had my mother relayed these facts calmly, they might have had some impact earlier, but they were always so embroiled in resentment that we recoiled from them without ever hearing them. And yet, every time she spoke of it, I saw Gwen through my mind's eye stepping out of their house in her blue suit with the big frilly bow at her neck and the setting sun reflecting off the gold circle pin on her lapel. I saw her side-stepping down the porch steps and adjusting the veil of her little black hat before moving on down Ledge Avenue. I even heard her high heels clip clopping against the sidewalk like a pony. It's a magical sound; high heels echoing on down the pavement.