Page 35 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #1

“Dad, could you help me with a job down on the farm?” Jack asked gently. Granddad nodded approvingly at Jack.
Granddad and I sat across from one another and listened as Jack’s jeep pulled out of the yard. Granddad tapped his fingers on the table in time to the clock. A log shifted in the grate.
“Granddad?” “Yes, Lizzie.” “Is Dad a nut?”
“Good things come from nuts. C’mon child, let’s tidy up here and then plant those walnuts we collected. You’ll see, down the years we’ll have grand trees from them nuts.”
“When I was ten, I found one of the truths Dad had been digging for.”
Granddad was six-foot-two, a lean wiry man, with a mad brush of faded blond hair and in- tense blue eyes, just like Dad’s. Everything he did was with exaggerated force, from setting a tea cup on the table to closing doors. Dad was a younger version of his father. People who knew my Dad would say to me, “You’re your father’s daughter to be sure.” Granddad, Dad and Jack were my three most favorite people in the whole wide world. It’s not a good idea to have favorite things; favorite things get taken away.
“Granddad, why is Mother moving Dad’s things into the guest bedroom?” Granddad sat into the willow and hazel chair we had made that summer.
Jack was thirteen years old when I came along. He ran the farms, now thatDad was digging holes. Jack was Mother’s favorite person in the world.
“In this life,” he continued, “some swallow their words, others, like Mrs. Dunne, swallow pills. Sure, Bull-Ryan swallowed his own tongue one time. Your mother has to swallow her pride. She needs to forgive your father.”
The next morning I woke up to a commotion in the passage outside my bedroom. I crept out of bed and quietly opened my bedroom door. Mother was dragging two large bags down the corridor. Black shadows, like huge ink drops, darkened the white-washed walls as they fol- lowed her. One caught me looking and rolled back to me, but I slammed my door before it got near.
“For what, Granddad?”
I found Granddad in the greenhouse, labelling our newly planted walnuts.
(Continued on page 35)
“Girleen, your mother was a great beauty in her heyday; still is. She could have married any man, she chose your father. She thought she’d change him, make him worthy of her.”
“For being himself, Lizzie child, for just be- ing himself. Audrey has her demons, that’s for sure.”
“Granddad?”
“Yes, Lizzie.”
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