Bake Them A Pie
When you finally receive a letter from your father, four months after you’ve eloped, and he tells you in the small, precise handwriting you’ve always loved, the one that whispers dad, that by leaving the way you did, with a garbage bag stuffed mostly with books, not clothes, because you were too terrified to think straight, when he tells you that you divorced them, and according to Jehovah God, divorce is a sin, worthy of extreme punishment, so they are cutting you off – bake them a pie. No matter what season, make it pumpkin, because pumpkin is your mother’s favorite, pumpkin anything has always won her over, so scour the pantry until you find one dusty can of pumpkin pie filling, and in the middle of May bake a pie, the most golden, glowing pumpkin pie, worthy of the Thanksgiving you never celebrated because you were raised Jehovah’s Witness, drive out to their house which only a few months ago was yours and where all your clothes, photos, journals, and cats still reside. Deposit pie in mailbox with a note that exclaims It’s pumpkin! Surrounded by hearts.
Yell DAD! From Your Balcony
When your father’s carpet cleaning van, the one he painted bright pink to attract more customers, the one your mother thinks looks like a strip club, but you think looks like a Valentine’s Day heart, even though as a Jehovah’s Witness you didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day either, when his carpet cleaning van rumbles and clatters past your apartment like the sign you’ve been praying for even though you don’t know who to pray to anymore now that you don’t believe in Jehovah, so you pray to the dove couple nesting in the tree because they are gentle, and you trust them, depositing your prayers in their nest alongside their little freckled eggs, the moment you see your dad’s carpet cleaning van, jump to your feet, spill your book off your lap, lean over the balcony—yell DAD! Like you did when you were five and the ocean knocked you on your butt and you needed him to come find you and pick you up, which he did, running barefoot down the sand, swooping you up, like you did when you were nine and he showed up in the stands, in his carpet cleaning uniform, sweat and dirt-stained after a long day, to watch you race, the fastest kid in fourth grade, and you needed him to know you saw he was there, and it meant something, everything, like you did when you were twelve and he started taking you on jobs with him and you got to carry the hoses up three flights of stairs because he knew you were strong and you called to him from the third floor with the hose swung around your shoulders like a feather boa because you wanted him to beam at you, be proud—call like that, call just like that, with the force of your lungs and your whole entire Valentine’s heart, as pink as his van that turns the corner, rattles from view.
Send Them Pink Roses
When their wedding anniversary arrives in June, the one thing you celebrated as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the one thing not soiled by pagan tradition, your mother baking a vanilla cake with rose geranium leaves pressed into the batter, edible decorations, because one of the things you loved about her, still love, will always love, no matter how she raged behind closed doors, acting out her drunk father’s patterns on her own family, though she was a Jehovah’s Witness and never drank, but you never talked about all that, and still don’t, about how in the end she scared you off, scared you right out the door with your book-stuffed garbage bag, though your dad-in-denial wants to make it about Jehovah, one thing you loved, still love, will always love, is how she used flowers and herbs from her garden in all her cookies and cakes, your first memory with her at two-years-old, she’s teaching you how to eat violets in her garden, and on their anniversary all of you giving gifts, the whole afternoon, all your pent up celebratory energy finally released in a dazzle of balloons, streamers, confetti, wrapping paper, and pink roses, their wedding flower, so when their anniversary arrives, five months estranged—send them pink roses. Not just a dozen, but two. Make that three. Heck, send them pink roses all damn day. Tell the florists to write, on every card, Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! Surrounded by hearts.
Scream From a School Bus Window
When you’re on a field trip with the elementary schoolkids you work with as a teacher’s assistant, six months after eloping, and you’ve prayed to the doves, now a dove family, every single day, and now you’re on a yellow school bus, returning from the zoo, the kids bouncing in their seats, riotous, and the bus stops at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross and when you turn to look, you glimpse only a hat, moving across your line of sight, but you know that hat, that frayed straw cowboy hat with the tattered brown feather, his lawn mowing hat, his leaf raking hat, his fishing hat, his tomato growing hat, and in a flash you’re up, on the other side of the bus—fling open the school bus window and scream. Lean halfway out and this time, go on, really put your guts into it: DAD! DAD! DAD! Until finally, finally, he turns, he sees you, he sees you, he does, he sees you, then wave, wave so hard, wave like the little kid you were on the school bus all the times he dropped you off and walked away down the long gravel lane and then, just like now, sink onto that sticky green vinyl and sob into your hands, dad, dad, don’t ever leave me dad, until the kids, the kids you teach, are watching, watching, watching you, in silence, in a cloud of awe.
Surrounded by hearts.
