Acre Under a Green Sky

The next morning I bought three paperbacks and was deep into one of them when my father said, "What do they want from me? Why don't they go off and make a life for themselves the way you did?"

"Dad?" I said as if I weren't sure who he was.

"You look like hell," he said, and I could see that he was himself again.

"Oh God Dad, I thought I'd never see you again."

"Where'd you put my teeth?"

"There," I said, pointing to the plastic cup on his nightstand.

He put his teeth in, and they looked too big for his face. "I'm serious," he said, "What do they want from me?"

"I think they want a happy ending."

"I'm not in the happy-making business. Can you figure them out, cause God help me I can't. You're good with words. Tell me what to say to make them let go and get on with it. I tell them I love them everyday."

"Tell them everything's going to be all right."

He looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. He understood perfectly, and I wondered if he had dreamed those words, too.

"I love you, Dad."

"I know you do," he said with a smile, "Remember when we came to this hospital to see Luka?"

"Course I do."

"And how we tailed that old mud-colored Mercury through the Hill?"

"Yeah, I'll never forget."

"And how Dad killed the copperhead in the daffodil garden. Just crushed its head between his thumb and finger?"

"That was Grandpa."

"And Mother used to go riding through the high pines where the brake shoe factory is now. Your mother was so beautiful."

"That was your mother, Dad."

"So beautiful! The only time I saw her happy was riding the high pines where the brake show factory is now."

We time-traveled together all that afternoon. He took me swimming in the Pacific Ocean with my mother toward the end of World War II. We beat up a boy who was much bigger than him for messing with his sister, Midge. We won an essay contest in Miss McBurney's class, and helped Grandpa build the chicken coop and corn crib at the Farm. And we made love to the prettiest girl at Waterstop High under a weeping willow on the banks of Collier's Creek. We were like brothers that afternoon, and he looked divinely happy like an angel.