Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Answers



Harry looked into the mirror and paused, toothbrush in hand, as though he did not recognize the face looking back. Right now, Harry could not remember what it was like to be young. He couldn't picture the thick, dark hair or the face that was smooth and happy. All these creases and wrinkles, painstakingly carved around the eyes and mouth and forehead from half a lifetime of cringing and wincing. He didn't remember standing or walking without the pain or stiffness. He hadn't always been like this, but when had it changed?

He remembered looking at his father sitting the chair in the nursing home, leaning to the side. When Harry put his arms around him, his hands would sink through the clothes to find his father's skeletal frame hidden within and he'd wonder, where had he gone? How can time erase us, layer by layer, until we disappear.

When Harry was young, his father, Thomas, had been strong and substantial. He'd worked the farm from sun up to sun down and sometimes, when the animals were sick or calving, all night. The farm was his life and the life of his family, and Thomas kept it alive through sweat and the force of his will.

When he was little he remembered holding his father's hand when they walked into the Presbyterian Church on special Sundays. His hands were like scarred leather, they were rough and calloused and he was missing the tip of the little finger on his right hand and the finger next to it wouldn't straighten out, but they were so strong. When Thomas picked up Harry he was impossibly gentle, as if afraid the child would snap if handled too roughly. Those same hands could pull a 65-pound calf in breech position, out of a birth canal or put the dislocated hip back in place on a 750-pound heifer.

Many summers Harry helped put up hay for the winter and his father would walk alongside the wagon throwing 50-60-pound bales to Harry to stack on the wagon. It took around 150 bales to fill a wagon and by the time they were on the top row, his father was tossing them up 15 feet onto the wagon in a single movement from the ground. He'd once seen his father throw his arm around a heifer's neck and choke it to death when it's leg had been badly broken and mangled and he had no other way to put it down.

When Harry was little, his father seemed old, but it was a trick of the light on an unformed mind. Later, when Harry was grown, he'd seen him grow old, for real, in leaps. It happened in between visits from Harry and very quickly.

He saw his father on his deathbed, holding onto that right hand with it's crooked and missing finger, Harry could clearly see the arteries in his wrists pulsing insistently until his heart simply yawned and went to sleep. Finally to rest.

Harry remembered how his face relaxed and he took a couple jagged breaths before becoming still and pale. Harry sat there for some time, holding his hand, because he knew it was the last time he would, and he realized that he still had questions.

That was 35 years ago and those questions remained unanswered. The thought made him wince and he looked away from his reflection.

Harry took a deep breath, closed his eyes and moved the toothbrush up to mouth.

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