The first time I went back up the holler after our Ma died, my aunt Loo set me down at the old kitchen table and plunked a big plastic box in front of me.
“I know you’ll wanna go through these. Mom always said she was gointa put ‘em in an album, but she never got round to it,” Aunt Loo said. She sniffled and got real busy around the coffee pot. I sniffled a little too, hearing the words ‘before the cancer’ floating in the air even though my aunt didn’t say them.
The old house was a lot quieter without Ma’s joking around and her constant loud laughter, but at least the smells were all the same: Ivory soap by every sink and fresh coffee perkin’ on the stove. Ma drank coffee like other folks drink milk – even if you got up in the dead of night when you were visitin’, you could find her sippin’ a cup in the glow of the night light all by herself. “My throat needed somethin’ warm,” she’d laugh and then go straight back to bed and be snorin’ away in no time at all. Coffee just couldn’t keep up with her, I guess. She just kept herself too busy…before.
Aunt Loo turned from the stove and set down a big brown cup with the local electric company logo on it in front of me. Just like Ma, she’d already stirred the sugar and milk into the coffee, and I smiled at the coffee like a loony before I took a sip. It was way too hot and a little sweeter than Ma’s had been, but that was okay. It was still good coffee. I sipped again and burned my tongue.
Aunt Loo clucked her tongue as I squawked a bit. “Take your time. You’ve got lots of good photos in there to look at, so your coffee can cool a bit. Plenty more in the pot, too, so you don’t got to rush.”
“What kind of pictures are in here, Aunt Loo?” I asked as I popped the top off the big flat box. It looked like the kind that you might have shoved under your bed. Like she said, it was full of pictures – all sizes, some color, most not – but I also saw a lot of greeting cards and ripped envelopes all shoved crazy like in with the stacks of photos. It was really more like layers really rather than stacks. Other papers were stuck in there, so I wondered what Ma might have stored in this box. “Pictures of me when I was little?”
“Older than that mainly. Mom always stuck the ones of you grandkids up on the wall or on the dressers, so a lot of these are ones of me and your daddy when we were small. Some I remember seeing out when I was a girl, but some are older than that according to the dates Mom wrote on the backs.” My aunt had a cup of coffee, too, but she hadn’t drunk any yet. She just kept stirring it round and round with one of Ma’s pineapple-handle spoons. She’d always just looked like Aunt Loo to me, but I thought she looked old right at that moment, sitting there in Ma’s quiet kitchen. With my dad gone and now Ma, I guess Aunt Loo was feeling pretty alone. I felt sniffly again, so I hid my face with a long drink of coffee.
When I set the cup down, I reached into the box and shuffled a bit through the contents. The photos were old, like my aunt had said – smaller and odd-sized with crinkled edges and silvery handwriting on the back that looked about to fade away as I looked at it. One of the first ones I pulled out was of a young guy that looked a lot like other pictures I’d seen of my dad when he was my age. He looked a lot like me, I thought. He was kneeling outside this very house by a tree that wasn’t there any more with a big black dog close at his side. The back just had one word and the year 1946 written in Ma’s familiar handwriting.
I flipped it around and asked, “This is my dad with the dog, right? Was it his? It says ‘Gander’ and the year on the back but nothin’ else. ”
My aunt stopped stirring and took a drink finally. I held out the picture a bit closer to her, and she squinted at it. She smiled at me around the rim of her coffee cup.
“That’s Gander alright, but he was your granddad’s dog, not your dad’s. Your dad was just a baby back in ’46 and way too little for your ma to let play with any dogs as big as ol’ Gander. He wouldn’t have hurt a hair though. Not Gander. Your granddad loved him – the only time I ever saw him cry was when that dog got hit by the phone company truck. You ought to take that one. You always had dogs growing up yourself.”
I looked at the picture of my granddad and his dog a bit longer, sipping slow at my coffee. I looked like him, just like I looked like my dad, but had never known it till now. I only remembered Pa propped up in his bed, chewing his tobacco and making me sit on those scratchy wool blankets while the rest of the family told stories and cracked jokes. I remembered now that Pa had always asked about my dogs and how were they, but I had no idea that he’d ever had a dog he’d cared about enough to pose for a picture with. I felt warm all of a sudden, like the coffee went too deep and too quick. I set the picture of Gander off to the side near where I’d laid my keys and dug into the photo box again.
Gander was the start – I’d never known it but that dog had always been there. He’d been in that box under Ma’s bed, in my aunt Loo’s head, in my dad’s and probably my mom’s memories, even in my own as a kid sitting on Pa’s scratchy blanket – I’d just never heard him or if I had it didn’t stick in my head. That dog had been in my life all along, and I’d never even laid eyes on him until today.
Nearly two pots of coffee later, I had a sandwich-size stack of pictures and a kind of dizzy feeling behind my eyes. Gander was the start – but there were cars, cats, toys, fishing trips, birthday parties – so much that I discovered through Loo’s stories and my Ma’s silvery writing. I felt like I’d been squinting through some binoculars and spinning that focus wheel back and forth trying to get a good look at something that just wouldn’t stay still. I don’t know that I ever got a close look, but my aunt wrapped that bundle of photos with Gander on the top in a brown grocery sack and let me take ‘em.
I drove that winding road out of the holler with my right hand steadying that packet the whole way so it wouldn’t slide around. I didn’t want anything to get bent up or ripped, not when Ma had kept them tucked away for so long. I couldn’t help wishing that she’d drug them out one of those nights when I’d spent the night as a kid. My dad never was able to tell me about most things I saw in that box, and as busy as she was, Ma never got round to it either, before the cancer came and took her.
I needed picture frames, lots of them, and some paper to write everything down, so that my kids would know about all these things from the get-go rather than from the other way round. I wanted them to say mornin’ and good night to Pa and old Gander every time they climbed up the stairs. I patted the bundle of photos next to me and swore that what I got from that afternoon at Ma’s kitchen table wouldn’t get shoved to the back of somewhere in a drawer or box. My kids wouldn’t need binoculars to see these parts of themselves. I was going to put them right in front of us all.
“I know you’ll wanna go through these. Mom always said she was gointa put ‘em in an album, but she never got round to it,” Aunt Loo said. She sniffled and got real busy around the coffee pot. I sniffled a little too, hearing the words ‘before the cancer’ floating in the air even though my aunt didn’t say them.
The old house was a lot quieter without Ma’s joking around and her constant loud laughter, but at least the smells were all the same: Ivory soap by every sink and fresh coffee perkin’ on the stove. Ma drank coffee like other folks drink milk – even if you got up in the dead of night when you were visitin’, you could find her sippin’ a cup in the glow of the night light all by herself. “My throat needed somethin’ warm,” she’d laugh and then go straight back to bed and be snorin’ away in no time at all. Coffee just couldn’t keep up with her, I guess. She just kept herself too busy…before.
Aunt Loo turned from the stove and set down a big brown cup with the local electric company logo on it in front of me. Just like Ma, she’d already stirred the sugar and milk into the coffee, and I smiled at the coffee like a loony before I took a sip. It was way too hot and a little sweeter than Ma’s had been, but that was okay. It was still good coffee. I sipped again and burned my tongue.
Aunt Loo clucked her tongue as I squawked a bit. “Take your time. You’ve got lots of good photos in there to look at, so your coffee can cool a bit. Plenty more in the pot, too, so you don’t got to rush.”
“What kind of pictures are in here, Aunt Loo?” I asked as I popped the top off the big flat box. It looked like the kind that you might have shoved under your bed. Like she said, it was full of pictures – all sizes, some color, most not – but I also saw a lot of greeting cards and ripped envelopes all shoved crazy like in with the stacks of photos. It was really more like layers really rather than stacks. Other papers were stuck in there, so I wondered what Ma might have stored in this box. “Pictures of me when I was little?”
“Older than that mainly. Mom always stuck the ones of you grandkids up on the wall or on the dressers, so a lot of these are ones of me and your daddy when we were small. Some I remember seeing out when I was a girl, but some are older than that according to the dates Mom wrote on the backs.” My aunt had a cup of coffee, too, but she hadn’t drunk any yet. She just kept stirring it round and round with one of Ma’s pineapple-handle spoons. She’d always just looked like Aunt Loo to me, but I thought she looked old right at that moment, sitting there in Ma’s quiet kitchen. With my dad gone and now Ma, I guess Aunt Loo was feeling pretty alone. I felt sniffly again, so I hid my face with a long drink of coffee.
When I set the cup down, I reached into the box and shuffled a bit through the contents. The photos were old, like my aunt had said – smaller and odd-sized with crinkled edges and silvery handwriting on the back that looked about to fade away as I looked at it. One of the first ones I pulled out was of a young guy that looked a lot like other pictures I’d seen of my dad when he was my age. He looked a lot like me, I thought. He was kneeling outside this very house by a tree that wasn’t there any more with a big black dog close at his side. The back just had one word and the year 1946 written in Ma’s familiar handwriting.
I flipped it around and asked, “This is my dad with the dog, right? Was it his? It says ‘Gander’ and the year on the back but nothin’ else. ”
My aunt stopped stirring and took a drink finally. I held out the picture a bit closer to her, and she squinted at it. She smiled at me around the rim of her coffee cup.
“That’s Gander alright, but he was your granddad’s dog, not your dad’s. Your dad was just a baby back in ’46 and way too little for your ma to let play with any dogs as big as ol’ Gander. He wouldn’t have hurt a hair though. Not Gander. Your granddad loved him – the only time I ever saw him cry was when that dog got hit by the phone company truck. You ought to take that one. You always had dogs growing up yourself.”
I looked at the picture of my granddad and his dog a bit longer, sipping slow at my coffee. I looked like him, just like I looked like my dad, but had never known it till now. I only remembered Pa propped up in his bed, chewing his tobacco and making me sit on those scratchy wool blankets while the rest of the family told stories and cracked jokes. I remembered now that Pa had always asked about my dogs and how were they, but I had no idea that he’d ever had a dog he’d cared about enough to pose for a picture with. I felt warm all of a sudden, like the coffee went too deep and too quick. I set the picture of Gander off to the side near where I’d laid my keys and dug into the photo box again.
Gander was the start – I’d never known it but that dog had always been there. He’d been in that box under Ma’s bed, in my aunt Loo’s head, in my dad’s and probably my mom’s memories, even in my own as a kid sitting on Pa’s scratchy blanket – I’d just never heard him or if I had it didn’t stick in my head. That dog had been in my life all along, and I’d never even laid eyes on him until today.
Nearly two pots of coffee later, I had a sandwich-size stack of pictures and a kind of dizzy feeling behind my eyes. Gander was the start – but there were cars, cats, toys, fishing trips, birthday parties – so much that I discovered through Loo’s stories and my Ma’s silvery writing. I felt like I’d been squinting through some binoculars and spinning that focus wheel back and forth trying to get a good look at something that just wouldn’t stay still. I don’t know that I ever got a close look, but my aunt wrapped that bundle of photos with Gander on the top in a brown grocery sack and let me take ‘em.
I drove that winding road out of the holler with my right hand steadying that packet the whole way so it wouldn’t slide around. I didn’t want anything to get bent up or ripped, not when Ma had kept them tucked away for so long. I couldn’t help wishing that she’d drug them out one of those nights when I’d spent the night as a kid. My dad never was able to tell me about most things I saw in that box, and as busy as she was, Ma never got round to it either, before the cancer came and took her.
I needed picture frames, lots of them, and some paper to write everything down, so that my kids would know about all these things from the get-go rather than from the other way round. I wanted them to say mornin’ and good night to Pa and old Gander every time they climbed up the stairs. I patted the bundle of photos next to me and swore that what I got from that afternoon at Ma’s kitchen table wouldn’t get shoved to the back of somewhere in a drawer or box. My kids wouldn’t need binoculars to see these parts of themselves. I was going to put them right in front of us all.
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