To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts by Caitlin Hamilton Summie

Author:Caitlin Hamilton Summie [Summie, Caitlin Hamilton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-944388-16-4
Publisher: Fomite

6

SONS

When I was eight, my father woke me in the middle of the night to watch a calf being born. I woke to the rolling, rich sound of his laughter, then boards creaking as he climbed the stairs. Before I could drift back to sleep on my warm, soft feather tick, my door opened. I smelled the cold air on him, a whiff of manure, and sat up in bed.

“Harry,” he said, “get up.”

In the kitchen, he handed me my first cup of coffee. The coffee tasted bitter, and I set the mug down, believing nothing could be worth all this trouble. But my father was alive that night, as if on fire, as if someone had set a light inside him. He glowed.

My father grabbed me by the hand, and we jogged across the yard. The night air was cold. Subzero temperatures slapped me awake. Our boots crunched the snow as we ran. I will remember this always, this jog to the barn in the middle of the night with only the light of the stars. I couldn’t quite keep up with my father, whose legs bore him forward in great strides.

Our three, one-story barns stretched long and low in front of us. My father pushed open the door to the second, ushering me inside. The barn was flooded with light, which made me blink. I wanted to stop to catch my breath, but my father’s palms rested on my shoulders, propelled me forward to the far end of the barn, where Dr. Vargas with his pointy beard stood, a black bag opened at his feet and his arm stuck up to the elbow in one of our cows’ back end.

I started to leave.

“No, no, no,” my father said, grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me back. “This is okay. This is life.”

Dr. Vargas laughed, then lowered his head. His forehead wrinkled. He spoke to my father. “This will be a difficult one, James.”

The cow moaned.

I looked up at my father, whose hands still rested on my shoulders. “What’s he doing?” I asked.

Then my father did something that focused my undivided attention on that moaning cow. My father spoke to me in Swedish.

He said, “Titta här, Smulan.” Look.

My father called me Smulan affectionately. In Swedish, Smulan means crumb.

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