Things Kept, Things Left Behind (Iowa Short Fiction Award) by Jim Tomlinson

Author:Jim Tomlinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-12T16:59:00+00:00

"Unexpected gifts," whispers the plump nurse, whose name I've forgotten. "That's what remissions are."

From beneath his pillow, my father takes a photograph. It's black and white, small and square, the edges deckled in crisp halfmoons. He taps the gloss image with his tough fingernail. "That's me," he says, showing it, "me and Betty Lowe."

It's Mom and Dad all right, so young in swimsuits.

He lies back on his bed. "I was twenty-two, Betty, seventeen. We picnicked, down on the river."

"You remember?"

The nurse pokes me. "Don't spook the gift," she seems to mean.

The doctor warned, of course, that there'd be lucid days. "Keep your hopes in check," he reminds me again, clicking his pen like some code. "These brief remissions aren't significant in the longer view of things." He pockets the pen as he leaves.

"Everyone's gone now who cares," my father says. "Once I'm gone, it'll be like it never happened." There was more life in his eyes, more animation in his face than I'd seen in a very long time, and coherence to his words.

"I'll remember," I say. "I'll care."

"My son's a writer," he tells the nurse, as if I'm not there. "He can imagine anything, make it up from nothing, and care like it was real."

I turn away, scolded and shamed, still his boy at fifty-six.

"Here's a tablet," she says to me, "a felt-tipped pen."

I take them and a tissue that she offers, too. There's an Indian on the tablet cover, a chief in full headdress. Inside, the paper is pale, like old skin. The lines are the color of veins.

"Write this down," my father tells me, pointing. "All of it."

I uncap the pen, touch nib to paper. "A perfect day," I write, knowing that's how he'll begin.

"A perfect day," he says, "the river high on its banks. Chill water laps our ankles. Beneath our feet, river rocks are slippery with moss. There's a muddy smell to the breeze, and shore weeds make riffle sounds like pennants in stiff wind. Downriver, a paddle wheeler puffs out clouds of steam, its whistle shrill, louder than any toy."

I look over when he pauses. It's so good to see his face alive like this. As he starts up again, my breath catches high in my chest. It's all I can do to go back to writing.

"Betty's beside me, on the plaid blanket we've spread-three blankets, three couples, my box camera passed around. A Victrola somewhere plays music, Skinny Ennis singing 'Too Many Tears.' Overhead, split-tail martins fly cursively. We try to read their penmanship, decipher what they write on the undersides of clouds. Betty traces their paths with a weed stem she's plucked. 'Maybe,' she whispers close to my ear, 'they're writing infinities."'

"Wait," I say, scrawling fast now. "Infinities?"

My father's eyes find me. "Like eights," he says. "Just write."

"Just write," the nurse says, too.

The old man sits straighter now in bed, propped on an elbow. "Betty tells me, 'Infinity means forever in algebra. Enormous. More than you can ever know."'

I draw the symbol on my pad and he nods.

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