My father’s a simple man, or at the very least that's what everyone thinks. people whisper it to each other when me and father walked down the street, as if they don't know we hear. As we walk and get judged, father keeps his head held high, but I can't. How could I? Their judgment starses have always cut me like a knife. So the town thinks he is simple.
Especially Mrs. Jackson, she thinks she is so great because she’s an egg, but not all of us can have a cousin thats
“Making it big in the city”
We’re at her house eating dinner and she is telling us his fame story for the hundredth time, how he went to new york and started a grocery. the food is from his “state of the art facilities” but expensive, I can taste it. We all knew she only ate like this with gests, never by herself, but that doesn't stop her, it never would. She is wearing her nice jewelry and her fur jacket, even though it’s 90 degrees at the very least. I hope it gets full of sand and ruined, but father tells me not to say stuff like that out loud, because “it’s rude, and she has given us so much already.”
It makes me sick. She only gives us anything because she and father were high school sweethearts. And she wants to “relive the good old days. I think he doesn't like it either, but would say if he did. He wouldn't let me know if he did.
“I have to use the bathroom.” I stand than left before I got an a response, I hate her fancy silverware, I hate her surplus of food, I hate her fur coats, I hate her nice jewelry. I hate her. But I couldn’t tell her, she would kick us out, we would be hungry, I would be even more of a disappointment to my father.
I step out onto her porch, she has the nicest land in the hole county, but it’s still a brain mess. The air smells like dust, and the porch feels like sad on my shouless feet. I sit, legs cross, my face in my hands, thinking, praying. I’m not praying to god, I never did, not even before bed, I always prayed to ma.
Ma was different than all these wanna be gossips, she was smart, I use to pretend to be like that. She was so pretty, in fact as soon as she moved to this small town father fell head over heels for her. She told me stories about the city, and when I asked why she left she would hold her gold and silver locket closer to her chest. I miss that locket, she was buried with it. I never got to see what was in it.
Whenever I feel scared or lost or stupid, I pray to her and she would always give me an answer and it was always right. So in this time of trial, in this time of strife, she would know exactly what to do. And so I pray for a way out of this situation.
“Wal, come back inside,” it’s father, he always knows when I’m thinking about her, “you know it’s rude to leave in the middle of dinner.” he sounded tired, because he was. It’s times like this, when his fave is weak and limp, that make me hope he likes Mrs. Jackson as much as me.
“Why?”
“Because she took the time to-”
“I don't mean that,” I know I shouldn’t interrupt, but no one was around “I mean why do people as rude and completely socially inept like Mrs. Jackson, get to live in such lushery, such wealth, when Ma, the smartest person to have ever lived, who always knew everything about everything, who told me stories about the city even when it stung to speak.” he looks at me, he knows what I’m about to say, it wasn't going to stop me, “when people like Ma don’t get to live at all?”
My father opens his mouth as if to say something, closing it he sits down next to me pushing my head onto his chest. “Some people,” he says, “some people are scared of what will happen if they are forgotten, Wal. Some… most people are so concerned about their legacy that they don’t realise that they don't get to choose it. And some live vicariously through others legacys so that they can be important and live spectacular lives, and in the process forget to make their own, to care about their own. They forget, aswell, that people, well... other people, live as rich and complex lifes as themselves. And I know that can be extremely frustrating, but you have to approach these things with caution, and grace, and not by leaving halfway through dinner.”
My father isn’t a simple man, like everything thinks. He’s smart. He tells me how people work, he’s good at people. He can find me weeping and be able to calm me down before we have to go to dinner. He can tell me stories and every one felt true. He makes life less dark.
“Shh, it’s ok, its fine. Thares Moon dust in your lungs, stars in your eyes, you are a child of the sun, and you are the ruler of the skies.” he tells me, that’s what mom would say when I was sad. I don’t know why, but needed that right now.
I can’t see his face, but I can feel his tears. He is always like this when I talk about her, even though it had been 2 years. Even though we don’t even remember what she looks like.
“Can we go home?” the question hurt coming out.
“Yes… yes we should…”
His hand moves, I know he’s cleaning his face of tears, but I pretended not to know. I can hear him cry every night, but I pretend not to know. I see how little we have, but I pretend not to know. I hear what the town says about Ma, but I pretend not to know. I know, but I pretend not to know, because knowing it is accepting it.
We said are good-byes. Walking home no one was around. People noramly shun us completely, but this time it felt different. Then we see it, a dust cloud. The sand rose over the horizon. Consuming. We quicken our pace, running into our small cupboard of a house. As soon as we were inside father put the potato burlap sack over my head. It’s hurt to breathe in, but I would rather struggle for air than not need it at all.
I heard a shuffle, a door open, and I can’t feel his presence by me anymore. I have been in dust storms before, but this one is darker, quieter, scarier. I want to call out to father, but he wouldn't be able to hear me even if I did.
The taste of dirt. The howle of wind. The sound of cows. The fear of death. The door opened.
My father’s back. He sits next to me, I almost cried.
“Do you think this one's ganna-”
“You know we cant think like that” he interrupted.
A ping of gilt lands in my stomach, he never interrupted me, not ever. But dust storms were different, he was different in them. Before I was born there were already 14 graves on the mountain, now thares 15, and I know he couldn't bare one more.
The storm was gone as quickly as it came. The very next day my father coughed, and a cough now a days is a death sentence. We went to Dr. Hibbert and we feared the worst, we were right.
He was dead a week later.
I really had nowhere to go, no one has enough food to support a child. Well, all except Mrs. Jackson.
I reluctantly enter her house, it smells exactly the same, perfume and food. I refuse to speak, why should I? She’s the reason he’s dead! If we hadn't gone to her house the cows would have been brought in. if she wasn't such a pain, we wouldn't have left early. If every time she saw him, she didn't flirt shamelessly. If. If. If. “coulda, shoulda, woulda,” thast what ma would say.
I go to the spare room she-
“-just made up for you.” her voice as piercing as ever, “there are plenty of toys and games for you to play with.”
Looking up from my new shoes I give a disinterested nod.
“Yes I know your father couldn't get you stuff like this, but now you can have a better life.”
Holding back a glare I grit my teeth into a smile. She’s no better than us.
It rained during the funeral, but it was nice. The ground is muddy, which was a new sensation to my booted feet, the rain decides my tears. And there’s Mrs. Jackson standing next to me, dressed in black and furr, saying, as she always did, “he was a simple man.”
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