Light breaks through the window. Warms my face. Wakes me. And I linger—between morning and night. Sleep and dream. In the hollow place. Where another night has gone and another day appears. I’m alive. But exhausted and empty.
I look out the window. There are turkeys and deer sharing the gray field across the road. Pecking. Grazing. Warming under the bright afternoon sun.
They’ve made it. Through hunting season. Through the harshest season. And they are safe. For now.
So it is a Sunday morning. I’m hungover. But I’m in the old Ford. Traveling a familiar road. Passing deer. Wide-open fields. And I can’t help thinking of Dad and our Sunday drives—the one thing that brought and kept us together after Mom died.
He would call me Saturday nights to confirm our trips. When I wasn’t home, when I was with Jake or Kali, or when I was alone and too drunk to care, Dad would leave messages on my answering machine.
Aden, this is Dad. Just called to shoot the shit. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.
Dad. Calling to shoot the shit. Always reaching out. Without saying much. Talking about the weather. About chores. About how he couldn’t sleep because of the neighbor’s barking dog.
All I have left of Mom’s voice is memory. But Dad’s is saved. In shoe boxes. Full of answering machine tapes. Under my bed.
(This excerpt is from BLACK by K.J. Stevens. © K.J. Stevens. All rights reserved.)
Leave a Reply