Standing

I opened the door, and there he was.  Always the one never to listen, always coming back. Just . . . standing.  I knew he'd be back for this.  His mother would have called him.

"Hi, Dad," he said quietly.  I looked down at my boots.  Years back, that would be the first swing.  "Hi, Dad.  How's it going, Dad.  What's up, Dad."  He always swung first, playing the offspring card.  It worked with his mother, but I didn't have the connection they did.  Shit, when he was a kid, I'd come home some days and find them under a blanket on the couch, reading or playing some game she'd made up.  Not a lick to be had for dinner, but I didn't begrudge her being a momma.  But for every "Dad," I never gave in.  Not a one.

As he got older, I seen it coming.  I'd finish a weld, push my helmet up and catch the guys in the end of a joke or a saying.  They said making a big to-do about it was the rage, so I knew what we had to do to hold our heads up.  His mother wouldn't have any of it at first, but we talked it out, talked it at church, talked it with her sister.  Talked it until it was clear what to do.  I mean, Christ, this was our town.  In the city, he could just be "away." 

"Dad.  Can I come in?"  I gave him a look, then back down at my boot tops.  He had her eyes.  Those eyes got me through every lost job, every unpaid weld, every broken tractor coupling.  Her eyes that would never open again.  I looked at the dust on my boots, the burns from welding sparks, the fresh scuff from getting her down the stairs.  I had some hard years on these boots.  I moved my eyes across the threshold, looked at his shoes.  City shoes.  Shoes you bought because they'd go with a job, a date, a funeral.  His were thin soled.  Hard years of a different sort.         

I looked at him.  The sun was setting, blowing the leaves I'd not had time to rake across the lawn.  Over his shoulder by the curb, I saw a shadow in his car.  A man.  I saw a leaf flutter down, and a light rain began to patter.  The light was fast dropping off.  I looked down again, standing inside the doorway, searching through the years in the leather.  I'd been so smart pushing him out.  No boy; no problem; no questions.    

It first hit me in a question.  Where were all them who'd talked us through it?  Told us it was the righteous path.  Her sister was long dead.  If I had any comfort in her passing, it was she'd never know how few of them had shown their faces. Or how quick the service had been. In the end, they were rushing to just shut door.

The questions kept on.  Who was that here with him?  No doubt some brave sumbuck, knowing what he was getting into.  I was grateful he'd had the grace to wait in the car. The more I let it in, the more trouble I had breathing. As I stood there in the night, in my mind, the boy and his mother of years ago looked out at me from the couch with those eyes of theirs, books scattered on the floor in their happiness.  How many years had I denied?   

The first drop spattered on my boot top.  The rest just rolled down as I looked back at him.  I reached up for him, and I held him.