I screamed my first five months. My insides, a tortured mess the doctors called colic, squirmed with the stress of Mom’s alcoholic ex-husband. Sound blinded me to the pain: the vacuum’s carpet-sucking rumble; the sweet hum of the Dodge Duster’s engine. Upon returning from their first weekend away since my birth, Mom and Dad arrived home to my crocodile tears and my babysitting aunt, whose experience caring for me had firmly erased any desire to have children.
I was Mom’s third child and Dad’s first. They got married three months after I was born. The ceremony began at dawn at Rockwood Park next to the deep pool where Mom took what she calls her leap of faith. One day, high above the water, she decided to fall in love with my father. She jumped …show more content…
I would have screamed.
Autumn arrived, and I stopped crying. Mom thought I was dead. But I wasn’t dead; I had decided to try and understand the world that was my parents.
The following spring, Dad took me outside. I looked up at the weeping willow in Stonehaven’s backyard, a drooping tower of long, green threads that rustled my ears. The sound kept me focused. I preferred grass to carpet and crawled eagerly over the shallow roots towards the willow’s gnarled trunk.
Dad stood next to the tree: my two pillars of strength. “Such a beautiful willow,” he told me, “but we need to be careful. This tree looks strong, but if a storm comes, its branches might break.”
I reached my fingers between the grooves of the bark. On some level, I understood that here was a place secrets could be kept.
I was in the living room when it happened. While Dad strummed his guitar, I crawled past the piano towards a kind of metal tree with a light at its top. A cord ran from its base and plugged into the wall. I wanted to understand and touched the point of connection with my hand.
“That’s not to touch,” Dad said gently between verses of “The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night.” I turned to look at him, saw that he was right, and did not touch the cord again. I always
I was Mom’s third child and Dad’s first. They got married three months after I was born. The ceremony began at dawn at Rockwood Park next to the deep pool where Mom took what she calls her leap of faith. One day, high above the water, she decided to fall in love with my father. She jumped …show more content…
I would have screamed.
Autumn arrived, and I stopped crying. Mom thought I was dead. But I wasn’t dead; I had decided to try and understand the world that was my parents.
The following spring, Dad took me outside. I looked up at the weeping willow in Stonehaven’s backyard, a drooping tower of long, green threads that rustled my ears. The sound kept me focused. I preferred grass to carpet and crawled eagerly over the shallow roots towards the willow’s gnarled trunk.
Dad stood next to the tree: my two pillars of strength. “Such a beautiful willow,” he told me, “but we need to be careful. This tree looks strong, but if a storm comes, its branches might break.”
I reached my fingers between the grooves of the bark. On some level, I understood that here was a place secrets could be kept.
I was in the living room when it happened. While Dad strummed his guitar, I crawled past the piano towards a kind of metal tree with a light at its top. A cord ran from its base and plugged into the wall. I wanted to understand and touched the point of connection with my hand.
“That’s not to touch,” Dad said gently between verses of “The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night.” I turned to look at him, saw that he was right, and did not touch the cord again. I always