The Boots My Mother Gave Me

by Brooklyn James

  I got involved minimally, skeptically. I didn’t know how to invest myself completely in anyone, other than Mom and Kat. Kat didn’t know how not to invest herself completely in everyone, especially our father.

  I took him a care package with food and music, reading materials, and general care supplies, like his shaving cream and aftershave. He had used Old Spice for years. I remember, a long time ago, I cut my knee playing outside, and Mom had run out of rubbing alcohol, so Dad poured Old Spice over my knee. He said it contained mostly alcohol anyway. Boy, did it ever burn, so he blew on it to cool it off. I loved that memory. I sat there on the bathroom sink, where he had lifted me, watching him in awe as he tended to my wounded knee. I was completely happy to have fallen down, tearing my flesh open, simply to have him fuss over me, showing me attention, certain I would have done that every day, purposely, had I known it would bestow the same result.

  The care package contained a pack of peach cups, the ones kids carry in their lunch pails. Mom and Gram used to can peaches, and Dad would eat them as some sort of delicacy, taking care and pleasure in every single bite. You would have thought those little cups were filled with gold. He raved about those things for days.

  It kind of broke the ice, really, peaches. I hadn’t had a real dialogue with him since August, and that one didn’t go so well. He opened up that box of goodies, pulled out those peaches, and the discussion was on from there. We talked, actually sat together and talked like I pictured most normal fathers and daughters. It was nice.

  We talked about peaches, and music, and back to peaches, and life, and peaches, and the books I brought him he had read, and once again, peaches. You could say those tiny little nuggets of sweet, golden goodness became a significant opener in our previously shaky line of communication. And here I had always thought grapes, ripe and squished with the perfect mixture of fermentation, were the chosen fruit of conversation.

  Mom stood in my bedroom at Kat’s, hanging her clothes in the closet for her stay a few days before Christmas.

  “Harley,” she called to me from the bedroom. Leaned over the sink in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, I quickly finished, wiping my mouth as I made my way back to her. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing into the closet. My guitar case and the boots she gave me sat piled neatly in the corner. I put a sheet over them, out of sight out of mind. Mom now held the sheet in her hand.

  “I put them up for a while,” I dismissed, grabbing my pajamas off the closet hinge where they hung.

  “How long have they been there?”

  “Since August.” I hadn’t put the boots on since I took them off and threw them out on Jeremiah’s lawn. I hadn’t picked up my guitar nor sung a single verse as of that same day, after my conversation with Dad in the barn.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to see them. I don’t even want to acknowledge them.”

  “What did they ever do to you?” she joked.

  “It’s what they represent.” I pulled my pajamas on.

  “Me and your father?”

  “Maybe. It’s nothing, Ma. I’m just pouting, that’s all. I’ll get over it.”

  “Not the Harley pout,” she paused. “When Kat used to pout, I knew she was pouting. It was obvious. Her bottom lip stuck out farther than her forehead and she moped around, dragging her feet, waiting for me to notice how much she was pouting.”

  Mom continued while hanging her clothes, “But the Harley pout, I never knew you were pouting until something of yours, something treasured, came up stowed away, given away, or thrown away. And don’t tell me it’s nothing. It’s always something. As little as you let on, when you say anything at all, it’s something.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to wear those boots anymore or play music anymore. Ya know? Maybe it hurts a little bit, and maybe I don’t like that too much. I know, essentially, they’re just a pair of boots and a guitar, but to me they’re more than that. They make me feel connected to you guys, a part of you,” I said. “And maybe I’m a little disappointed right now, and I don’t want to feel connected. Maybe it makes me feel good to throw those things in a corner and shut the door on them. I’ll come back to it, just not right now.” I turned the bed down.

  “Punishing yourself isn’t going to make it better, honey. It’s not going to make it go away.”

  “Who said we have to talk ourselves up all the time, make everything better. Sometimes beating yourself up just feels good.” I slipped under the covers, sitting upright, my elbows resting on my knees. “Don’t worry, though, I’m an equal opportunist. I build myself up nearly as much as I beat myself up. It’s an intricate dance, the yin and the yang. Keeps me balanced.” I smiled.

  “Hmm. I guess I never heard it put that way before. You always had your own peculiar way of looking at things, Harley.” She smiled back.

  “So, how’s Casey?” I changed the subject.

  “He’s doing good. He told me to send you his best. He and his wife had a baby boy. They’ve moved there, to the ranch, permanently now, from Nashville. They stay year round,” she divulged, sitting on the bed next to me. “Is it strange for you to talk about him?”

  “No, not at all. That was a different time in my life. He was a good guy, a good experience. Perfect for me, who I was then.” I fell back into my pillow, looking up at the ceiling. “Why does it seem like a hundred years ago, but only yesterday?”

  “Wait until you get my age.” Mom giggled, tapping her hand on my leg, leaning back on her pillow beside me. “He’s a good dancer, that Casey Timmons.”

  “Yes, he is. That’s what I would say I miss about him, the dancing. We had a ball. And those boots in there, yours, I wore them every time. You’ve been waltzed across more dance floors between here and Texas than you’ll ever know.”

  “So, you took me everywhere, huh? I like that. That’s when I miss your dad, too. When the music plays and I feel like dancing.” She sighed. “I hear Jeremiah’s still in town?”

  “He is,” I stated flatly. “You should stop over and see him. I bet he’d love to see you. Cassidy said he’s applying for jobs with the Secret Service, FBI, SWAT, or something like that. He’s not happy here as a trooper.”

  “Has to be pretty uneventful for him, compared to what he’s used to,” Mom agreed. “So when are you leaving?”

  “After the first of the year. I want to stay with Kat through the holidays.”

  “I was sure you and him would be an item, living in the same town now for better than six months,” Mom said, brandishing the big fat elephant in the room. She turned up onto her side, looking at me.

  I rubbed my sheet between my thumb and forefinger, a diversional tactile habit I had since childhood. “Do you want us to be an item?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “You’d have beautiful babies, the two of you.”

  “Mom!” I shrieked, playfully swatting her with my pillow. “Don’t even say that. You could jinx me.” I knocked on the wall behind me, any wood would do.

  “I wouldn’t mind a few more grandchildren,” she continued. I hid my head under my pillow, blocking her out. Kat and Megan came through the bedroom door, diving onto the bed.

  “You guys are having way too much fun in here without us,” Megan said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jeremiah,” Kat stated knowingly.

  “Uncle Miah,” Megan corrected her.

  “Uncle Miah!” Mom exclaimed.

  “A girl can dream can’t she?” Megan replied, having heard Kat spew the same sentiment a time or two. Mom laughed.

  “She loves Jeremiah.” Kat pointed to Megan.

  “Thanks for the support, Kat,” my voice muffled from hiding under my pillow.

  “Aunt Harley loves him, too!” Megan squealed. “She pretends she doesn’t, but she really does.”

  “Oh, I do, huh?” I teased, removing the pillow from my head and grabbing her playfully.

  “She’s just playing hard to get,” she choked out between giggles a
s I tickled her, doubling all of us over with laughter.

  Mom avoided Dad at all costs while at home. She still cared about him, what happened to him, and she did not want to expose herself to his requests she come home. She didn’t want to hurt him or seem only a reminder of what used to be. She wanted him to move on with his life, finding happiness, and finding it within himself to want the same for her, someday.

  Before she went back out west, Kat and I took her dancing at the local Georgia Volunteer Fire Hall New Year’s Eve celebration. It seemed like everyone in town attended, everyone except Jeremiah. I hoped to see him, if only to get a look at him, but he was nowhere to be found. Kat and I took turns dancing with Mom. We had a big time.

  I dug my boots, the one’s my mother gave me, out of the back of my closet and wore them that night, finally burying the hatchet. The guitar stayed; I remained unprepared to cross that bridge.

  It felt surreal, wearing Mom’s shoes while dancing with her, the thing she and Dad used to do nearly every weekend in those very boots, while she carried me for nine months. My feet, a genetic mirror image of my father’s, pressed against the mold of my mother’s in the sole of her boot. It was ethereal.

  Maybe in addition to my mental soul, could I have a physical soul after all, located in my feet? Sole or soul, could they be interchangeable? Reflexologists believe feet connect to everything in the body, and feet figure in spirituality, most often representing our walk through life, our journey.

  These shoes embracing my feet had carried both of us, my mother and me, on the dance floor and in life. I thought of the irony of my mother’s life juxtaposed to my own, similar in some ways, polar opposites in others, yet we both walked in the same shoes, figuratively. All the times we disagreed on the way I chose to live my life, or the way she chose to live hers, one telling the other what she should do, what we would do, never understanding until we truly walked through life in each other’s shoes, literally.

  I’m not sure who has the greater fear, mothers or daughters, that daughters will, in fact, become their mothers.

  Raindrops On Roses

  One month later, February 1, 2007, all ran smoothly. Mom was back to work in Jackson Hole, Kat in her last semester of classes, Dad seemingly coming along, returning to better days. I prepared for my departure.

  Early evening, I finished up at Benny’s, my last day with him and the guys, when a call came over the scanner, the address to which EMS responded, my father’s. I immediately called Dad’s house, no answer. I called Kat’s, no answer. I knew she and Megan planned on going to see him after school. My heart pounded out of my chest with worry and worst-case scenarios, sure it would break through my ribcage. I ran to Charlene, putting her engine to the test, once again, in the direction of my father’s house.

  An ambulance and two police cars sat in the driveway. All the lights inside the house and the barn burned bright. The police cars were parked in front of the woodshed, their lights shining into it.

  “Ma’am,” someone called to me. “You shouldn’t go over there. Stay back here,” the voice counseled from the back of the ambulance, as I hurried toward the woodshed.

  “Kat? Kat!” I yelled, my warm exhalation causing a cloud to form in the cold night air, my eyes searching for her. Her vehicle parked in the driveway, I had to find her.

  Yellow caution tape surrounded the woodshed, where two cops took up residence, searching with their flashlights. What the hell was going on?

  “Kat!” my voice trembled, frantic. I heard the front door open to the house. My eyes darted toward the sound. “Oh, thank God.” My hand automatically found its way to my heart. She walked to me, her expression tragic, dazed. I met her, wrapping my arms around her, relieved to find her in one piece.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered. I pulled away, searching her face, her eyes, for further explanation. “He’s gone,” she repeated in disbelief. “I came up today, after school, with Megan. His truck was here, but he wasn’t. I looked in the house, the barn,” she began to explain, walking herself through it, retracing the steps. “He wasn’t here. I thought maybe he went to Aunt Clara’s, but then she called me later, and said she was at the house, here, and she couldn’t find him, either. I came back up, and she stood outside the woodshed...screaming.”

  She continued, tears streaming down her face, while she remained physically calm, shocked. “I tried to help him. He didn’t have a pulse. He wasn’t breathing, nothing. I gave him CPR until the ambulance got here. I tried to keep him warm. He was so cold.” Her own body shook from the freezing temperatures. I rubbed the arms of her jacket trying to warm her, as my own lips chattered. “There was blood everywhere, Harley. It was frozen...in his nose, and his mouth...all over his chest.”

  I grew angry at her explanation. How could he do that to her? Leave her with that image? The selfish bastard, he knew she was coming to see him, with Megan.

  “Where’s Megan?” I questioned, immediately with the thought of her, my mind distraught. Please don’t tell me she saw this?

  “With Jeremiah,” she said. I didn’t know how she ended up with him, and I didn’t care. Just as long as he had her, I knew she was safe.

  I turned Kat toward the house, taking her inside to the kitchen table. I made her some hot tea, as if that would fix anything. A cop lingered, going through Dad’s things, his guns, his sock drawer, everything.

  Aunt Clara ran around like a decapitated chicken, adding to the confusion. With all of the commotion, inside and out, I didn’t care about any of it. My main concern sat at the kitchen table, Kit-Kat. How would she ever get over this? “How are we going to tell her...Mom?” Kat asked.

  Aunt Clara, close enough to hear, came unglued. “You’re not going to tell her! She can stay right out there. It’s her fault he did this. She killed him. She did this!” she brayed. Was she honestly doing this, now?

  “Ma’am, you need to calm down,” the officer warned, coming into the kitchen upon hearing her outburst.

  “This isn’t the time or the place, Aunt Clara,” I spoke calmly, trying to maintain my composure.

  “You don’t deserve to be here. None of you! You deserted him. Walked out on him,” she squawked.

  “Ma’am,” the officer called to her again.

  I remained seated beside Kat, afraid if I stood up, I might lunge at her jugular or something. My temper boiled. “Please, get her out of here.” I wasn’t going to stoop to her level, but I wanted to with everything inside of me.

  As a kid, I remember seeing a cartoon where this character gets fed up with his nemesis, and he sticks two of his fingers, one up inside each of the guy’s nostrils and picks him up by them, slamming him on the floor from one side to the other, until it knocks some sense into him. That’s what I wanted to do to her. The officer escorted her from the room, leaving us to ourselves.

  “Is this really happening?” Kat asked. “I keep thinking maybe I’ll wake up...like it’s just a bad dream. How am I going to explain this to Megan?”

  We had a small viewing for him at the local funeral home. Approaching his casket, I half expected him to sit up and start telling us how the ceremony was all wrong, and it should be like this and like that, ordering people around as he used to. I wanted him to. He did not. He just lay there, his eyes closed, his hands one on top of the other, crossed over his stomach.

  I put my hand over his. It was cold, completely devoid of blood flow. I leaned my head down next to his ear, quietly singing a bit of Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, the old Jim Reeves tune we used to sing together when we strummed around on the guitars. I kissed him on the cheek, feeling my eyes begin to fill with tears.

  I stood, returning both of my hands to the side of the casket, looking down at him, and with the tears came anger. It flooded over me like a heat wave. My tears vaporized, halting in their tracks, my almond flexing. He simply lay there, so peaceful. It was just like him to make a mess and leave everybody to clean it up. How would we get over this? Why did he do t
his? To punish us? He always had a reason for everything. What was his reason for this?

  “Get up,” I whispered, shaking his casket lightly. He lay there. I could hear his laughter in my head, that laugh he had when he did something terrible and got away with it, when he did something and there was nothing any of us could do about it. I could see him laughing at me. “Get up!” I whispered louder, through clenched teeth, shaking his casket, harder this time. My entire body felt like an electrical current ran through it.

  Mom and Kat came to me, one on each side, walking me to the door. And there, in the cold February night, leaning against his Jeep, ready and waiting in case I needed him, was Jeremiah Johnson. I guess it’s true what they say about muscle memory, body memory. At the sight of him, my tense frame calmed, in an instant. For as long as I could remember, I ran to him for comfort and security. My body no longer acting, but reacting, the way it trained itself to do in his presence, relieved, relaxed, and peaceful.

  He walked me down the street to the café on the corner, where we sat in a booth way in the back, warming up over a hot cup of coffee. I talked, he listened, trying to work my way through everything, understand it somehow. We sat there for hours, waiting on Kat and Mom.

  Kat would not leave Dad until the funeral home director advised her he must close up for the night. She stayed, holding his hand in hers. She must have cried a river for him. I remember her tears running down her face, dropping onto the satin inside his casket.

  It reminded me of raindrops on roses. If rain makes the flowers grow, maybe Kat’s tears could make Dad’s spirit flourish. That’s what happens when you die, right? Your spirit is released from your body?

  I pictured his casket, the white silk turning into an enchanted garden, blossoming with greens, reds, blues, and yellows, encompassing his body, growing taller and more beautiful until he stood, barefoot in the garden. His feet firmly planted in the soil, a smile on his face, his eyes luminous, his soul free, his spirit awakened, he walked from the never-ending garden into the light.