Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

In the years to come, much will be lost to him. Many details will simply not make it past the blinkers of his mind’s eye, and many more will be lost to the unraveling threads of time, but even at five years old, much will survive for him to carry forward.

He comes home from school, running up the hill, shoes scuffing the rough surface of the concrete sidewalk. The sun is bright despite the thin clouds. Past the last corner, he smacks the juniper in his neighbor’s yard, feels the sting of its prickly fronds and smells its sharp scent. He passes under the fading leaves of the Fillingame’s plane tree, kicking a path through the fallen litter. He looks up. His father’s car is in the drive. Dad is home? Already?

Dark, green ivy climbs the yellow stucco of the bungalow’s wall near the front door. He reaches up to turn the knob and enters. It is dark within. Shrouded. Silent. Immediately he knows. Something is wrong.

The living room is empty. Off to his left, he hears a voice, a whimper. He follows the sound.

The kitchen is dim, the shutters closed, dark wood and dark floor soaking up what light leaks through the louvers. He turns right, sees the family room, sees it as a long narrow room, shadowed, the curtains before the sliding glass doors drawn close.

He hears his sister’s sob, and as he steps past the counter, he sees his father, sitting in his red wingback chair. His sister sits on Father’s knee, leaning against him, weeping. He sees tears in his father’s eyes, but that must be wrong, for his father never cries. Father beckons to him. The boy’s mind says, No. No. But he is drawn forward, tears already in his eyes, feet moving him step by step, his heart running away.

He climbs up onto his father’s other knee and is taken into the embrace. The red leather, slick and shiny, creaks as the three of them lean together. The hammered brass tacks glint in the pale light. He smells his father’s cologne, Old Spice, bright against the lingering sweetness of pipe tobacco.

His father begins to speak. His voice is deep, but shakes with emotion. The boy will not remember the words. His father has agonized over the words, seeking the right way to tell this boy that his world has changed forever. But the words are lost, unable to penetrate the screaming in the boy’s mind.

He remembers the last time he saw his mother, their last trip to the hospital with its harsh light and knife-edged odors. He had not seen her face, that last time. She was reduced to a silhouette, a woman in a wheelchair seen down a dark and echoing corridor. Again, any words said are lost to him, and he sees only the shadowed form, the waving hand, and feels the pain in his head as he tries to understand.

Now, he understands.

No one speaks of heaven. No one speaks of peace. There is only the fact: she is gone and cannot return. The afternoon wanes and the three of them, the new number of their family, hold each other through the hurricane winds of grief.

When night comes, exhausted from the day, he sleeps. He dreams of skeletons, of death, and of the empty space that he will carry with him for the rest of time.

k