David Seaman: Campo del Alfarero
The thin sixty year old woman held on to her floppy sun hat as she high stepped it through the tomato patch. Kira watched from the safety of the garage as her mother ran from the sudden downpour that caught her working in the garden. She disappeared into the old farm house, and the scene became awash with rain, like the bleeding of watercolors on a wet canvas.
Kira waited as the deluge passed. She turned her attention back to the mission at hand, the sorting of the contents of the garage. The twenty year old took on the task of her own accord, desiring sentimentality above order. She was also curious. Pictures of her father always made her curious. Besides, she liked the garage. It was only five years old, clean, red, and shaped like a small barn. It was a great place for storage, as well as a place to park Ingrid’s truck.
A small pile of Polaroid pictures, some faded a bit, stacked on the shelf above the shoe box she had been rummaging through. The rain slowed to a sprinkle. She eyed the small pile and decided it was enough. She scooped up the paper memories and followed her mother into the house. She found her, wet, sitting at the dining room table sipping red wine. Two more glasses were set out on the table. Mother was forever hoping to be joined. Kira sat and poured a small amount into a glass, set the pictures down so her mother could see them.
“Sperm donor,” Mother noticed.
“Della Jean,” Kira started, “stop calling him that.” When Kira was upset she called her mother by her first and middle names. Kira was upset.
“Well that’s what he is honey.”
“He’s my father.”
Della fell silent. She looked thoughtfully at her daughter, trying to figure out the correct thing to say. Finally deciding that correct thing was nothing.
“Sorry,” Kira apologized. “Feeling a little sentimental this afternoon. I have such vague memories of him.”
“So what brought all of this on darling?” Della asked sincerely. She took a sip of her wine and fiddled with bread on a plate before her. The round table was made of fine finished oak with flowers and a fruit bowl to decorate it. She picked a pinch of the bread and dipped it in a tiny bowl of olive oil and ate it. Kira reached over in front of her mother and did the same. Then sipped some wine.
“I think about him once in a while,” Kira answered. “Especially when I’m down.”
“Well you shouldn’t let being fatherless bring you down.”
“It’s not that Mother. I just wonder sometimes, if he is sick too. The psychiatrist says what I have is biological, and yet I’ve never seen you suffer a day in your life.”
“Was sick,” Della thought to herself.
“There are times that I feel a bit deprived, not having a father growing up.”
“Ingrid and I weren’t enough for you?”
Kira was silent.
“How about now?” Della asked.
“Yes now too. It would be nice to have a respectable principal male role model in my life.”
“So you assume your father was respectable?”
“You tell me.”
“Well, he was lured in by my wiles…”
“So he didn’t know?”
“No dear, not until I was pregnant,”
“That’s deplorable.”
“Say what you wish. I’ve been happy with the results.”
Kira finished her wine in one gulp and poured some more. Della did the same. They looked at each other silently for a few long moments. Della looked into Kira’s soft dark brown eyes. She had a square jaw and a chiseled look. Her eyes deep set with too much dark mascara.
“Come now. The consequences haven’t been so bad,” Della pleaded.
“I’ve had my share of boys.”
“That’s not what I was referring to.”
“Guess I’m a lot like my dad, lured by a lover’s wiles.”
“Or a lot like your mother, finding similarities more with your own kind.”
“I’m the apple to your tree Della Jean.”
“Drink your wine dear. You need to dull that tongue a bit.”
Kira cautiously stood and left the table. She didn’t want to seem to be leaving in a huff, but she was finished with the conversation. She was heading out the door when Della asked her a question. “How long has it been honey?”
“You put far too much emphasis on relationships,” Kira said without turning to face her. She continued walking, and found she had nowhere to go except back to the garage.
It had only been a few months since her last break up. She didn’t know why Mother cared so much about her love life. That one was a basket case anyways. Mother didn’t understand how hard it was to find a decent girl in this area. All the good ones were straight or married. Mother didn’t have to date anymore. She had spent the last twelve years of blissful whatever with Ingrid. In a rural area like this, surrounded by small towns, it was hard enough to find your kind of people, much less an available girl who wasn’t a complete nut case.
She was bored with looking for, or at, pictures of her father or anyone else. But she was also sad and empty inside, just from the conversation. She needed something to do, an action to help organize her feelings. There was a note pad and a pencil on the workbench. She sat on the garage stool and wrote a letter.
By the time you read this…
I will be grown up. You will be old, and we will have had the greatest of times together. I remember the laughter, the games, and how you made me feel special. And that will be all that I wish to remember. Because life is short, and I wish to hold onto the memories that bring me joy. That was the real you, right? Our arguments were few, your discipline lenient. My heart was full of you, my spirit rested in our love. No boy ever measured up. And that’s the trick isn’t it? I’ve been often disappointed, but my consolation is that I didn’t run off with the first one who acted like he cared about me.
This isn’t how it happened though Father, Dad, sperm donor. Because by the time you read this I will be filled with grief and angry with men as a whole. Caused by your sudden disappearance, and my loss. I will find solace in the disappointment that I described. I’ll want for them and believe every word. By the time you read this, I will be older, and finding refuge in denial. The only genuine hiding place I can find.
Kira found the kitchen empty when she came back to the house. But dinner was cooking in the oven. She knew not what, but it smelled good, like most of Mother’s food. Ingrid had been out of town for the last week. They were expecting her to return tonight. But at the moment the house was theirs. She found an envelope at the role table in the office. She put her letter in it, folded the flap in without sealing it, and wrote “mail this please” on the front, making the assumption that her mother had an address to send to.
Kira set the letter on the table and left the kitchen. She traversed the staircase to her bedroom on the second floor, passed her mother’s room on the way, but saw no sign of her. Della may have been on the first floor still, or in the basement finding more wine. She felt better after writing the letter, but was nervous now at the thought of her mother reading it.
Dinner was eaten in silence. Della stopped drinking wine as soon as she saw the letter from Kira. She needed her head clear. Kira was old enough now and could be told about her father. And she displayed the same symptoms, so she needed to know.
“You’re not a mistake,” Della began.
Kira looked up from her plate. She swallowed before speaking. “I had never even considered that I was.”
“Well what I’m about to tell you may make you think so.”
Kira put her fork down and silently waited for her mother to speak.
“Your father took a trip to Mexico and never returned.”
“He’s in Mexico?” Kira asked.
Della took a breath and sighed. She looked her daughter in the eye, cool, poker faced. “His body is in Mexico.”
Kira’s eyes blinked rapidly for a bit. “What does that mean?”
“It means that the last memory you have of him is the last time any of us saw him, alive.”
“So he’s dead?”
Della slowly nodded her head in affirmation.
“He was found dead with enough pentobarbital in his system to bring down an elephant, and no form of ID on his body,” she explained. “He wanted to die anonymously and disappear from everyone’s lives.”
“He did that to me?” Kira asked.
“He died of a disease Kira. Just as if it had been cancer. He didn’t want to just die, have someone he loved find his corpse. Burden us with a funeral and all. It was the potters grave he sought. And in the end that is what he found. Only the one mistake gave him away.
“His thinking was clouded by illness, his desire that of his daemons. He did not wish to do anything to you, or me. He just wanted to disappear.”
“So how did you find all of this out? What was his mistake?”
“A tattoo across his chest with a simple statement, ‘I like to be read to’. He had that tattooed across his chest in case he was ever incapacitated and hospitalized. He wanted the hospital staff to know that he preferred to be read to.”
Kira smiled. Found a chuckle to punctuate her tears. “Awesome…” she whispered.
“Some coroner in Mexico decided to check with the authorities in the states. Zach had been arrested in the past, during the NAFTA protests in Seattle. He was processed in jail, his tattoos duly noted. A match was found. Unfortunately he was buried before I was notified.”
Della became silent letting this sink in a bit. Kira picked up her fork and started picking at her food.
“He was supposed to be in your life. That was the deal we made. I insisted on having you and admitted to tricking him. He said he would go along with it but wanted to be in your life. He wanted to be your father Kira. It wasn’t really that he left you. It was the illness.
“I’m telling you this now because of the time you spent in the psych ward.”
“My inheritance?” Kira quipped. She stood from the table, no longer hungry, but requiring the solace of her room, or the garage again. She stood still, deciding, a red wing black bird charooped from outside, drawing her attention to the garage. But upstairs was her soft pillow, in case she needed to shed a few tears.
Her decision was made for her when she heard the sound of Ingrid’s truck returning home. There was no reason to involve her in any of this. Let Mother do that. Kira made for the stairs
“I don’t want you going to Mexico.”
The engine cut out. Kira heard the door of the truck open and then close. Another charoop from the bird. She stood at the foot of the stairs, not looking at her mother.
“Don’t worry Della Jean, I’ll make sure that it’s you who finds me.”
Della’s cool poker face broke, her jaw dropped, and a tear rolled from her eye. DSS
David Seaman, of Peoria, IL., usually writes under the name of Iris Green. Under this name his publications include works in several literary magazines. He is an English/Literature major at Bradley University in Peoria, where he lives with a wife, five dogs and three exotic birds. A novel, Redemption Story, published by Czykmate Productions, is currently available at Amazon.
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