The Redemption

Chapter 7

Reminiscence

            I walked out onto the porch with the first cup of coffee from the first pot that morning. The sun was beginning to rise and the gray field was beginning to turn golden with a new day at hand. I sipped and listened to the sound of birds nearby. These were familiar sights and sounds with the silent machines and lack of commotion being all that was out of place.

            I heard the screen door open and close. I held my father’s hand on my shoulder as he stood beside me, sipping his next cup of coffee. We hadn’t slept. We’d traced and retraced the past I never knew and the present I’d mostly denied.

            “We can walk. It’s been a long time.”

            “You haven’t slept. Aren’t you tired?”

            “There’ll be plenty of time to sleep later. Let’s walk.”

            “I used to watch you walk,” I said, remembering myself as a boy.

            “I saw you,” he said.

            “You never asked me to walk with you.”

            “No.”

            The corn rows were gone, which made walking easier though it left me somewhat uncomfortable. The soil formed a slight crush that crunched under foot. Each step left a footprint several inches deep. We walked out of sight of the house not talking for a long time. I could hear him breathing heavily but not labored.

            By the time we reached the meadows the sun was well up in the morning sky. It was pleasant but by noon it could be hot. Even the shade from the trees was comfortable. We sat at the picnic table to rest. Then, we walked back to the pond and it was as I remembered it.

            “You’ll probably be able to book a flight when we get back,” he said, as we walked along the fence line back toward the house.

            The lack of corn was unsettling to me. My instincts told me this wasn’t right. Being able to see the house appear from half a mile away wasn’t natural.

            “Come over here,” he said, suddenly making a sharp left turn and crossing the field away from the fence.

            I followed as he made track toward the one lonely tree right in the middle of the main field. By the time we reached it I was breathing hard from walking in the deep soil, but he seemed fine and he looked far better than he had the day before.

            “I never could understand why you grew corn around this one damn tree, Daddy. It made no sense to me,” I said, walking up to where he stood under it.

            “It’s dead now. You might see about having Uncle Junior save a section of it. You could make a small table out of it. A little varnish and wood preserver would make it look nice,” he said, running his hand over the wood.”

            “No, offense Daddy, why would I do that. It’s a dead tree.”

            “Yes it is, son, but that’s how come the elders are in charge and the kids are disregarded. Come here,” he said in a secretive whisper. “I want to show you something.”

            I stood beside him as he brushed the wood tenderly until he found the spot he knew was there.

            “Come on. It don’t bite.”

            I had to look close to see the carving in the wood. There were names and dates. It was a record of the men who had run the farm before my father. Like the ancient artifact that I might investigate for months or years to gain some sense of its meaning, my father was there to explain my history to me as was carved into a tree.

            “Why’s my name under yours?” I asked. “I never ran the farm.”

            “No you didn’t, son, but the day you were born I had to record it on the family tree. I had a pretty good idea that I would be the last Sorenson to farm this land. It’s one of those inklings you get from seeing so many farmers around me fail. I just knew I would never ask you to farm it, and so I put your name in its rightful place. I didn’t figure our ancestors would complain.”

            “So that’s what you did out here when you walked alone once the crops were in. I never could figure out why in the hell you’d want to walk in the fields where you spent so much time working.”

            “For a journalist you sure do satisfy easily. Come here. I’ll show you what brought me out here every day, rain or shine.”

            I followed him to the opposite side of the tree and he went through the same process of feeling his way up on the bark until he located what he was looking for.

            “Come here. You’ll understand when you see it.”

            I looked at where his hand came to rest and there was a heart with both Sven’s and my father’s initials. A chill ran through me. This was the final piece of a puzzle that had been put together since the day before. I understood as clearly as I’d ever understood anything. I couldn’t imagine a love like the love my father felt for Sven. It was something you needed to experience to be able to understand it. I regretted I never had but I was no longer angry that my father had lived a love far more intense than most people ever know exists. It made me smile through my tears and my father patted my back and hugged me like a father might do to his little boy who just tripped and skinned his knee. We didn’t need to speak and I hugged him back. At last I was my father’s son.  

            “You hungry?” I asked, as we made our way to the gate.

            “You trying to get me fat?” he said seriously, before he smiled easily at my reaction.

            “I thought I might stay around for some more of that meatloaf this afternoon.”

            “Café’s open. They make a mean plate of biscuits and gravy,” he said.

            “Anything like Momma’s chip beef gravy?”

            “No, nothing as good as that, but tolerable. I haven’t been there for breakfast in a spell and their coffee ain’t half bad,” he said, easing the latch off the gate and lifting it open for me to pass through.

            “Sounds good to me,” I agreed. “I was thinking I might want to stay a few days, Daddy.”

            “Don’t be neglecting your life on my account. That’s fine.”

            “No, I just want more of that meatloaf this afternoon. I eat out a lot. Pay a nice price I don’t mind telling you. Haven’t had a meal that good in a blue moon.”

            “You just want to eat up Lula’s frozen dinners. I’ve got your number,” he said.

I looped my arm over his shoulders as we headed toward the house.

            “You sure do?” I said as we headed for the car.

            “What about work, Robert. I don’t want you getting fired on my account.”

            “Daddy, that station was doing just fine when I got there. It’ll do fine without me for a few days. You got to learn to live one day at a time, you know. I like being home. I’ll be heading back home by and by.

            Being home was nothing like I expected it would be. I’d made up my mind how things were a long time ago, but I found out things were nothing like I thought they were. Going home turned out to be just like going home is. It was familiar and strange at the same time. I’d gone in a circle but the circle wasn’t finished until I came back home to look at where it had started.

            I don’t know if you can go home again. I don’t know if we can undo years of misconceptions and disregard, but I did. Whether I could or not never entered into it. My father taught me something about life by telling me the story of his life. He shared the intimate details that a father rarely tells a son, but life being what it is, he could tell me once I came home. For better or worse he explained who he was and why he was the way he was without apology or exception.

            I called work and my friends to let them know I’d be a few weeks. I was in no hurry and I made no excuses. This was time I needed and so it was time I took so that my life was back in balance or maybe it became balanced for the first time.

            Being home became where I was until I was somewhere else.