Nate
When I finally made it to my parents’ house that night, I pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment. The small blue frame house I’d grown up in had been well maintained, in spite of the fact that my mother had been alone for so long. She had blossomed while Pop was in prison, and her own personality had been allowed to shine. I liked seeing her like that every time she came to visit. I hoped he didn’t put the kibosh on it now that he was back.
The impatiens in the little bed out front added a sweet hominess to the small yard. But the broken-down home next door was a stark contrast to the Beckett house, and I wished the neighbor could be convinced to haul off the rusty car and old stove in the front yard. But even if that house were cleaned up, there was still the house on the other side to contend with. With its peeling paint, foot-high grass, and grease stains on the driveway, it never let us forget we were from the side of town where property was something that deteriorated and pride rarely had a chance to shine.
I parked my truck on the street in front of the house so I wouldn’t block in the small Toyota Drew and I had bought our mother a few years ago.
I didn’t know whether to knock or just go in, because I didn’t know what might ignite my father’s wrath. Would he be sober and contrite, or angry and defiant? Had he already started drinking to make up for lost time?
The truth was, I didn’t even know who he’d become in the last fourteen years.
I rapped softly on the door, then pushed it open. Pop was sitting in the recliner that had been unchanged since he left. “Pop,” I said with a laugh. “Welcome back, man!”
The footrest snapped down, and Pop got up, looking a lot older and thinner than he had when he went in. I couldn’t really shake his hand without him seeing my bandage, so I pulled him into a half hug with my left arm. He looked and smelled sober, and his eyes glistened like he was genuinely glad to see me.
“Nate!” Mama was at the door in a flash, her white hair cut in a sleek bob. I suspected she had done a makeover so she’d look nice for Pop, who’d convinced her over the years from a ten-by-twelve cell that he was a changed man.
“I didn’t know you were coming today! I thought you were fighting the fire.”
As I kissed her, Pop said, “Your mama’s been worried sick about that.”
“I was fighting it until a couple of days ago. Had to get home to see the old man, right?”
My mother looked at me as if she knew something was off. I’d never been able to get anything past her. “You’d never leave a fire.” She looked me over and saw the bandage. She lifted my hand. “Nate, what happened?”
“A little injury. Second-degree burns. No big deal.”
She ushered me to the couch and instructed me to put my feet up. That’s when she noticed the bandage on my leg. “You should have told me!” she said. “Nate, I’m your mother!”
“I didn’t want you to know until you could look me in the eye and see that I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine! What can I get you? Tylenol? Should we do anything with those bandages?”
“No, Mama. I’m absolutely fine. The dressing doesn’t have to be changed for a while. So, Pop, how does it feel to be out?”
As we talked, my mother fussed around me, bringing me a drink and a plate of fresh-cut pineapple. When she was satisfied I wasn’t going to collapse on the floor, she finally went back to the kitchen, humming a hymn I vaguely recognized. She came out with a pie, set it on the table, and began to cut us pieces. “Mama, I’m not hungry. But you and Pop go ahead.”
“Are you sure? It’s good.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, now that you’re here, we can have a family dinner tomorrow, to welcome your daddy home and celebrate our whole family being back together.”
I looked down awkwardly. We’d never been the kind of family that basked in the joy of being together.
“Can’t you eat something? Your body needs energy. You’re healing.”
“No, but I’ll sit with you.” I brought my iced tea to the table. Pulling out a chair across from Pop, in my traditional spot, I sat down.
My mother set my dad’s pie in front of him.
“A far cry from the food in the joint, huh, Pop?”
Pop smiled. “If everybody there had a cook like your mama waiting when they got out, there’d be some incentive for rehabilitation.”
“Did you ever think the governor would actually pardon you?”
“I have your mama to thank for that,” he said. “She worked night and day on it. Put together everything in a nice little package for the governor to see, showed up at every public event any of his staff were at, had dozens of people write letters vouching for me.”
“Dozens, huh?” I wondered who in the world would have done that.
“Your pop has good friends who believe in him.”
I thought of all those drinking buddies who’d kept him on that broken path. They weren’t the type to write letters. I wondered if Mama had written them herself and had them sign them. I wouldn’t put it past her.
I looked around to see the house through Pop’s eyes. The couch had been covered with a slipcover for the past twelve years so that it would be exactly as he remembered when he came home. My father’s old easy chair had been cleaned. That hole in the arm brought back memories. I’m sure it was all a great comfort to him.
I couldn’t forget what my mother had told me a few nights ago when she called to tell me Pop was coming home, after I warned her there was a lot of water under the bridge. “That old bridge flooded over years ago,” she said with the wisdom that always surprised me. “But we can build new bridges.”
“No one really expected you to wait for him. You could’ve divorced him. Gone on with your life. Remarried. You’re a beautiful woman, and surely there was someone out there who could treat you better than Pop did.”
“Sweetie, you don’t understand a thing,” she said. “I love your father. I haven’t always understood him or approved of him or been happy with him, but he’s my husband. I made a vow to him before God.”
“He made the same vow to you. Your marriage was never what it should be. Maybe it was a mistake from the beginning.”
“Don’t ever say that, Nate. I chose him for my husband, and right or wrong, blessed or cursed, I’ve chosen to live with that decision. You don’t break vows just because things don’t turn out like you want.”
“I guess that’s why I haven’t married,” I said. “Life has too many bad surprises that you wind up being stuck with for the rest of your life.”
“But life has a lot of good surprises too.”
I couldn’t believe how positive my mother’s outlook was, despite years of enduring the drunkenness of her husband, the alienation when he’d killed the preacher, the heartache when we suffered because of it, the injustice of my getting blamed for a fire I hadn’t set just because I was my father’s son.
But Mama ran on a power I found foreign, a power that gave her a peace I couldn’t fathom. Somehow, that power had gotten her through those bad times.
Now, as she sat down to eat, Pop cleared his throat. “You want to say grace, Sue?”