Big Man(25)

Wish I could deal with all my problems that easily. Pluck them out and let them fall to the mud.

But this one, especially, is going to be hard to rid myself of.

So I try to do the one thing I really don’t want to do.

I try to remember.

I start with the house itself. I have good memories there. Playing underfoot in the kitchen while Mama cooked. Running in and out of the living room, to… I grimace, rub my temples. But I force myself to relive that memory. Running in there to find Dad with a newspaper. Leaping onto the couch beside him, tugging at the paper. Making him sigh with exasperation, but then reach for me anyway, tug me onto his lap and ruffle my hair. He’d sit with me, let me read the paper with him, ignoring my childish attempts at pronouncing the big words in the news he always read.

Dad had wanderlust, Mama always said. He traveled for work at first, just weeklong trips here and there. I always cried when he left, but he never looked sad. He only looked sad when he came back.

That’s what made him run in the end, she told me. He couldn’t stand this life. Too country, too provincial. Too small.

He was never mean to us. Never seemed to hate us. Just… when he finally ran, his conscience didn’t let him look back. He used to send me a letter once a year, on my birthday. They’d be filled with a whole lot of nothing. Just platitudes. “Miss you, hope you’re doing well, thinking about you today.” No details about where he was, what he was doing. Why he left.

On my sixteenth birthday, the letters stopped coming.

On my eighteenth birthday, when I left for college, I burned the ones I had saved. I didn’t need that reminder. No more than I needed him.

But I only ended up doing the same thing he did, I realize. I ran too, I left Mama behind to deal with it all herself. I wrote off this whole town because of him.

No wonder people hate me now that I’m finally back. They look at me and see my father. They see another runaway. Another person who abandoned them for something bigger without a backward glance.

I look up, surprised to find the fence has ended. I’ve circled all the way around to the front of the house without realizing, and now my feet, almost by habit, have led me away from the fence line. Toward the big tree out front, the one I first noticed when I pulled up. The one some part of me remembered, even when my conscious mind didn’t want to.

The tire swing is still hanging from its thick lower branch. Up close, I can see that the rope doesn’t look damaged at all. It’s grimy, dirty from all these years out in the weather. But it’s thick and steady as ever, and the tire dangling from it looks exactly the same way it did years ago when I took my last spin on it.

I can see it now. Me and Grant. He still scrawny, but starting to get taller, leaner. Starting to have that athletic build that would eventually turn into every muscle a guy can possibly have.

Back then, we’d play tag across this front field, barefoot. Chasing a couple of the neighbor kids, having them turn around and chase me in return whenever I managed to catch one of them.

Grant would always grin when he caught me, apologize through that gap in his front teeth, a gap that’s long since vanished now.

I remember the way I used to catch him stealing peeks at me whenever we’d sit down around the dining room table in the kitchen for lunch. Mama would be out back eating with the grown-ups, his parents, and other kids’ parents. They’d leave us to our own devices, and we’d shoot eyes at one another, elbow each other for taking the last slice of bread, eating the last helping of stew.

I remember later on. When we were older, maybe at the start of high school. Just before he made friends with the jocks. Before that group of kids all drifted apart, before we made other friends, forgot about each other. I remember him pushing me on the tire swing out front, the way I’d scream higher, then shriek with fear, delight, some mix of it all.

I remember the two of us standing opposite one another on that same tire swing. Pushing it around and around until the rope was wound up tight. Then standing up at the same time, letting go, so it spun as fast as it could. We’d hang onto that rope, our hands touching, both of us shrieking. But our eyes were locked the whole time, like we couldn’t get enough of that feeling. That adrenaline rush, and… each other.

I used to wonder if he wanted to kiss me. I used to think about it. I even almost kissed him, once. But Mama came out, called me home, and I let the moment pass.

I let Grant Werther go.

My feet lead me across the yard, until I find myself standing below the tree. I circle the tire swing, taking it in. I tug on it once to test its weight, and I’m surprised to find that Grant’s right. It is sturdy. Maybe even as sturdy now as the day my father first strung it up.

That’s why I never think about this. About any of it. It hurts too much to think about anything right after Dad’s leaving. But it’s been here all along, at the back of my mind, tugging at my subconscious.

My memories of Grant are all tangled up with Dad leaving, with heartache and pain. But still, I never forgot him. Still, I knew him again the moment I saw him. I’m still the girl I used to be—and he’s still the boy he was too. My brain was trying to remind me, trying to show me what I so desperately wanted to forget.

I walk past the tire swing, letting it drift back and forth on its rope as I approach the tree trunk instead.

Sure enough, I find it on the first try. The set of initials carved one on top of the other. Almost like the initials kids would carve later, in high school, with their sweethearts. We hadn’t dared to put a heart around it back then. Neither of us wanted to admit we liked each other. That would be putting ourselves at risk, going too far out on a limb. We just circled it, flirted, made eyes at one another the way kids do, without ever taking it farther.

But I remember. I remember lying on the grass out here with him late one night, before sophomore year of high school started, before he made it onto varsity track and drifted away, started hanging out with the athletes, the hot girls, the cool kids. Before I lost him—before I pushed him away so far that he couldn’t help but let himself get lost.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted more. I never had the nerve.

I reach out and brush the tree trunk.

SB

GW

Right there in front of me. The evidence I’d been looking for all along. Grant and I used to be close.

But he abandoned me first. He started hanging with another crowd, stopped coming over to the farm. He never kissed me. That’s the part that really rankles. He never took this chance when he had it.

Then I came back, gave him another chance all over again, and he got angry.

Angry because he thought I forgot him. He believed the same thing I did. I thought he forgot, he thought I forgot…

No wonder he’s pissed, I realize. It’s the same reason I was so angry at first.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. A little too much sense, and it makes my skin itch, to know that I’ve hurt him, too.

I trace my fingers across those initials, over and over.

Deep down, I’d always believed Dad was right about this town. This place is a waste, I remember him shouting at Mama, late at night after they both thought I was in bed. The year before he left. The year he traveled all the time, tried not to come home at all if he could help it. The year he spent trying to talk Mama into leaving with him. But she wouldn’t budge.

This is my home, she said. I like this life.

I can’t stand it, he’d always say. How can you live like this, cooped up? Trapped? There’s a whole world out there. Opportunities! We could make so much more money doing the same thing we do in a bigger city, out in the Midwest…

I believed him. Deep down, even though he’s the one that threw us out, ran away… I always believed he was right. I left here as soon as I could, went chasing my dreams. Success, money, my big-shot career. That was what life was about. That was what was important.

No one would ever abandon me again, as long as I had those things.

But that hasn’t proven true. Guys have dumped me, and I’ve dumped guys, over and over. I’ve never really connected with anyone I’ve dated, not long-term, not enough to trust them to stick around.

And my money, my career? What has that brought me? A whole lot of anxiety about getting more. More money, a better career, the next promotion, and then the next and the next and the next. I’m never satisfied with what I have. I always want more, but more doesn’t satiate me either.

Maybe less is what I really want. Maybe less is actually more, in the grand scheme of things…

I turn away from the tree to squint back at the house. The farm house where Mama grew up, and her parents before her. The farm that’s been in our family since as far back as Mama knew to tell me about.

There’s a light on in the living room. I can’t make out anything more, but I figure Grant must be inside somewhere. Showering or sleeping, if he’s angry enough.

I take a deep breath of the fresh air. Hope that it clears my head enough to say what I want to say without stammering, losing my place, getting distracted.

I cross the lawn and quietly turn the handle on the front door. Step into the living room. He’s not there, but the kitchen light is on too. I follow that to find him still in his work clothes, chopping vegetables on the counter, his shoulders taut with tension. There’s already something bubbling on the stove beside him. Dinner, probably, or lunch for tomorrow. He always cooks when he’s upset.