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To Don Caudill's previous piece

She Had To

"It's a restlessness, a feeling to flee, like how the bound up toes of those little Japanese girls must feel."

"And what is it exactly that you would like to flee from?" I asked her.

"You."

You

me...

And she did.

She had to because I am my mother. I sat stock-still and watched her go because I am my father.

She had to.

I have seen people turn into ghosts, shadows of themselves that grow shorter instead of longer with the day. I say people, but that's just the game I play. I don't mean people and I know it. I mean my father. He wasn't strong enough to play the role of Messiah. He was not a fighter so he did not grow hard and bitter to evenly counterattack the spleen of my mother. He did not rage against The Dying of the Light. He surrendered, grew quiet, empty and still and with a half frozen feigned smile upon his worn lips. He did not curse her or her wretched disappointment or her unpreparedness when slowly she discovered herself in the hollow reality of adult life. She grew resentful and she hated him. He had poked the poison into her. He was thin skinned and therefore absorbed it all and became the specter that haunted the den in an ethereal mist of thick gray pipe smoke. Suddenly, he no longer danced with Sister on his shoes and a gleam in his eye. He did not dance because the music ceased to play.

Until the day mother killed herself.

He danced then. I'm quite sure of it. Sister and I and our Aunt and Uncle found him three days after the funeral in a dead, lifeless heap.

"A heart attack." They told us.

Some of our more romantic relatives say that he died of the proverbial broken heart. They talk of how he must have mourned her and grieved until his poor heart could take no more. They blame themselves for thinking it a good idea to have us stay with them for a couple of days after "Mother's Decision".

But, Sister and I know. We know the shoes he was wearing and we know the subtle, steady hiss of the needle just off the record.

I imagine him in that empty house, Mr. Bojangles, dancing to beat the band. I imagine him smiling and laughing and I wonder if he even slowed down when the first electric blue pain ripped through his chest and into his arm. I wonder if he danced all the way down.

***

"You." She said.

"You."

You

me...

And she did. She had to.

And I sit in here now in this grave silence, wondering should I put some music on or my head into the oven.

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