Memorial

April gets to know Violet's father, and what Violet doesn't say.

I look at myself in the mirror, wondering how the world must see me, how David must. Even though it’s long since lost feeling, I still feel the graceless line on my throat. I want to untie my scarf, but even here, alone in the restroom, I can’t open Pandora’s box.

The world is quiet here; despite the small size and proximity to the living room, the radio your father’s Sunday Gospel music is playing from can’t be heard, nor can whatever conversation you make. It’s just me staring into a long mirror, the shower behind me, the world in front of me. I force a smile, adjusting my white blouse and navy blue skirt so I don’t look hopeless, use your brush to straighten my hair, wiping the cordlike black strands that stand as intruders on my flat blonde strings.

Finally, I can fear no more. I take a deep breath, I pretend that I’m beautiful, and two pairs of identical gray eyes split their gaze as I leave the room. Immediately, the noise of the world interrupts me- the gospel music hits its crescendo, I hear dishes clashing, and I vaguely hear you speak with half-interest in an amusingly familiar way only you can master as David throws himself into every word in a painfully familiar way only she could hold; God only knows why I can't stop thinking about her. I tighten my scarf, trying to drown out the memories.

“It is excellent to hear about your success,” he says as he removes a pan from the oven, humorously dressed in a black apron that dwarfs him. “I’m thrilled that you’ve found a path in what you love. It’s the only way to succeed in this world.” At once his words are graceless yet poetic, striking me from a distance.

“Yeah,” you reply, trying to pretend you don’t feel the same way as you finish setting the dishes. “It’s cool. But, you know, it’s just plants. You don’t have to care that much.” I shake my head, because I know how much you care about ‘just plants’ based off how you can detail the minutia of every petal on a daisy’s function during morning coffee, or some sort of microscopic wonder. I don’t remember the words, just the cutting enthusiasm.

He shakes his head, setting the lasagna down on the kitchen table with a thud that rattles the dishes. I politely take a seat. “Nonsense, Violet. Anything passion of yours is a passion of mine.”

“You say that,” you mumble, to the point where only I can hear you. I reach for your hand under the table and squeeze it. You’re so far away, even though this table can only seat four, and probably hasn’t in years. David sets a bottle of sparkling cider on the table. Ruefully, I am again reminded how different he is from us, and a subconscious desire for a tall glass of the blood of Christ reaches the forefront.

Regardless, I go to reach for it, but I’m cut off. “Please,” David says, kind yet firm, freezing me in place. “I would like to say grace beforehand.”

I nod, startled. You close your eyes after your father does, but your scowl is deep. I know neither of you are looking, so I watch you both, apologies to God. Your father begins prayer, for once at peace as he talks to potentially the most paramount entity in his life.

“Father God,” he says, words rolling off the tongue. “I thank you so sincerely for the food we are about to receive. I thank you for the humble life I’ve been able to maintain with your guidance. I thank you for the continued safety of my people in Goodland, and I am humbled that you’ve esteemed me with the power to protect them. I thank you so sincerely for bringing my beloved daughter Violet home safe and sound, and that you’ve helped find her a friend, a true friend, in such a large and dangerous world. I pray that your peace and your love can rest over all of us, as we take this time to reunite and learn about each other. Even though the world is a shifting, broken place, your love is eternal and keeps it together, and for that I thank you. In your name we pray, Amen.”

I find that my eyes closed partway through his prayer until he says “Let’s eat!” and you kick me under the table. His prayer still echoes in my mind in scattered bits and sentiments that disappear as words swallowed by silence. I look at you, clearly affected. You look shocked and a little betrayed that I fell under the spell of prayer so easily. There’s something poetic about having someone to care for you, and the strength to appreciate it so vocally. I shake off the spirituality with a gentle kick to your shin. You smirk, and I give a sly smile, subdued by choice, content to inhale the smell of the lasagna David is cutting.

“I hope you enjoy,” he says, slicing evenly and perfectly, each movement too precise for such a mundane task. “I’d worked on this before the bus arrived. I was concerned it might have cooled down too much.”

“It’s good,” you tell him, even though you have yet to taste it. I smile at him, nodding, and he turns to me, handing me a plate of lasagna. I don’t hesitate to take a bite, and as it turns out, your father is a decent chef. It doesn’t blow my hair back, but it’s better than any food the college cafeteria makes. I nod with a smile, and David grins in kind.

“You seem to enjoy it,” he observes, preparing your plate. “I’m glad.” I nod again, an April bobblehead at this point. I reach for the sparkling cider, pleasantly cold from the fridge, like a car window during a rainstorm. It’s a corkscrew cap, but the cider tastes the same either way- calm, nice, but not filling any needs.

David speaks again. “Violet has informed me” is all he needs to say before I immediately give you a sharp glare. Usually, when you inform people of something, it’s you trying to help others understand me far more than I wish they would, assuming I trust everyone the way I trust you. You c**k your head, confused yet not surprised. David himself is unsettled to the point of silence.

“Never mind…” he says, trailing off and focusing on dinner.

“April.” One word, firm, calming, clarifying, reassuring.

I calm down, my hackles lowered, but I still swiftly mouth “What did you say?”

You quietly reply “Just enough, no more.” I sigh, and return to dinner. David pays us no mind, missing our transaction.

“I was just telling dad that you didn’t talk much,” you explain. “That you’re down sick for now, but that he didn’t have to worry about catching anything.”

David nods, buying this clumsy explanation likely solely because it came from you. “If you need any cough drops or similar products, you can find them in the restroom. Take care of yourself.” I nod so we can move on. Unlike you, he doesn’t pepper me with questions, to my relief.

You say, “Is it alright with you if I tell Papa a little about you? Just let me know if I get anything wrong?” I swallow as I consider the possibility of you telling my life story for me. Uneasily, I nod. Such is the life of an aspiring poet; if you fear letting others know your deepest secrets, you should never pick up the pen.

Thankfully, you go for the diplomatic start. “April’s from Portland. She came to Wyoming a few years ago, for a change of pace she says.”

David nods. “This is certainly a place to observe change. The fields just outside the window were green only a few weeks ago.” I nod, forcing a smile.

You continue before your father can get philosophical. “She’s going for her English degree. She wants to do poetry, so she’s been taking a lot of those type of classes.”

“Is she good?” He asks, point blank. I cannot wait to hear your answer to this.

“Papa, you have no idea,” you enthuse. “She’s really f…” You clasp your mouth, turning red. I grin, shaking with quiet laughter. You slowly correct yourself. “She’s very good.”

“Thank you,” David responds, clearly amused yet startled on a fundamental level. I return to my food, pretending I’m not there. “I must ask, Violet, how the two of you met.”

“April showers bring May flowers,” you say, and I blush, my blood pleasantly boiling. Your father smiles, but clearly doesn’t understand. You explain by not explaining. “Sorry, that was just…a thing. Uhm, we took poetry together.”

It’s the truth, but you’re nervous enough to make it sound like a lie. I nod to help matters. “I didn’t know you were into poetry,” David says, clearly inquisitive.

“It was an elective,” you insist. “I still suck at it.”  David shakes his head, and I snicker, but do the same. Your poetry isn’t bad, but it always amuses me how that was your takeaway from poetry class. Besides me, of course. “But April’s really good at it,” you say. “I mean, breathtaking. It’s…”

You stop talking and focus on your dinner. You’re hot enough to turn the fork you’re holding into molten lava, but you manage to stab a piece of the lasagna and eat it.

David finishes his plate. “I wish you were feeling better, April,” he says, “because I would love to read this poetry. Perhaps after you get back you should mail me some of your work.”

I don’t respond, because I most certainly will not. You know this, but like a personal secretary, you dismissively say “I’ll be sure to remind her.” I finish my plate, but my body feels like shutting down, so I pour some more cider and drink it. I pretend it’s a fine wine and not store bought cider that probably has Kansas dust as an ingredient. You notice, resting your leg against mine. Your skin is hot enough to melt to the bone, but I survive. I try not to get lost in thought, not here, not now, not as your father watches us, waiting for one of us to slip, to give in.

He takes his plate and says “I should clean the dishes. I urge you, April, walk around, and get a feel for this place if you so desire. There’s a garden outside, although August flowers are not the same as May flowers.” Knowing the line hit, he smirks, and I can’t tell if it’s the grin of someone who knows he made a mediocre joke designed to embarrass, or if he knows something he thinks we don’t, or knows what we think he doesn’t.

He walks out of sight, but not out of mind, as he enters the kitchen. I look at you, and you sigh, mouthing an apology. I still find it odd how sometimes you lose your voice around me when you don’t need to, even as I know why. I nod slowly, my leg leaving your side, and stand up, finishing my drink and running my hand across her shoulder as I walk to the living room.

I sit on the couch. The gospel music has passed, and another sermon is on, this time over the radio. The words are backdrop in my mind. “Through Man, this is impossible, but through God, all is possible, according to…” My focus is lost in the familiar verse as I look around the living room. I notice how untouched everything is, and the decoration seems unchanged over the decades. I read scriptural platitudes straight from Salvation Army, that looks like her handwriting if written far too formally for her. Your father's badge rests on the mantelpiece amid photos of him nearly completely unchanged, you throughout a decade and a half of growth, and occasionally of a woman's unfamiliar face, one who looks closer to you than you do to David.

The sermon re-enters my ear. “At the same time, in Matthew 5:17 he says he has not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. One has to wonder…” The familiar verse scorches me again, and I’ve tuned it out. I relax on the couch, nearly asleep when I feel your body compress the couch next to me. My eyes creak open, and I see you smile at me, trying not to lean on me despite an instinctual gravitational pull, one I still am not sure you understand completely.

“You seriously that tired?” you ask, facing me. I shake my head, because I’m just that peaceful. There’s something about this place, this memorial of a house, that comforts me, but leaves me melancholic. It's a different kind of melancholy than the rest of Goodland. I identify with it. With loss, holding onto it, how it never really lets go, and you just take a little piece of it and go on with your life, even as that piece becomes a stone in your shoe you can’t shake out. I wonder what it’s like for you, because as I should expect, you never told me more than cursory details.

I motion to one of the pictures of the nameless woman. I know who she is, but I’ve rarely heard you talk about her. I don’t even know her name, even though you know more of my address book than my mother does. You sigh. “Yeah, I shoulda saw that coming. Uhm… that’s Lupita. She’s my mother, apparently, although…”

You stop looking at me, and I wonder what I did wrong. I reach for your hair, but you interrupt me. “Don’t worry,” you say. “It’s nothing you did.” It never is, even when it is. You continue while I bite my tongue. “I just… I barely knew her. Y’know. So sometimes I feel like something’s missing, but I’ve never felt like someone is missing. Not like…”

You stop short of saying her name, and I’m at once grateful and ashamed- grateful that you stopped short, ashamed that you correctly assessed how I’m still too scared to think of her years later. I nod my understanding, mouthing “it’s okay”, wanting to heal you. You force a smile and look away. “I think more than anything… it’s seeing Papa deal with this loss that hurts. I lost a mother, but he lost Lupita, more than I ever will.”

I take it in, and say “how long?”

You stop and think for a moment, resorting to counting on your fingers. “Twenty-four years.”

I close my eyes, shocked that it’d been that long. I try to imagine you at four years old, dealing with the loss of your mother, none of it quite sinking in, all of it dissipating before the formation of permanent memory. I look behind us, noticing David with his back turned to us, silent, washing the dishes, either listening to the sermon on the radio or to us. I imagine him doing this every night for twenty-four years. I try and imagine if I will still miss her in twenty-four years, and even as muted as some scars are, if others are forever.

I adjust my scarf, wrapping it tighter around my neck. You notice, and loosen it up before I end up asphyxiating myself. Surprised, I hold the edges of my scarf, but you take my hands and place them in my lap gently, leaving my scarf loose enough to breathe, tight enough to conceal. I take a deep breath and let it be, too exhausted to fight it. I slump over onto your shoulder, too exhausted to fight it.

“You really are tired,” you note, amused. You let me rest against you for a few minutes, and time ceases to be, and my thoughts grind to a halt, even as I feel you softly slip out from beneath me, lying me down sideways, legs on the couch. The preacher’s sermon continues, becoming a lullaby that takes me away even as words become moot background noise.