treatswords

I pull him from my closet.

I promise I didn’t forget him, he has been intentionally preserved on a wooden hanger.

When my grandpa passed, my dad picked his checkered red flannel and Carhartt suspenders for me to keep.

They smell of him.

I asked my mom how long the scent of him would linger in the cheap cotton.

“Not as long as you’ll want it to.” She said.

The flannel is missing it’s center buttons. The ones that would have pressed against his round, warm belly. His right hand rubbing over his elastic suspender strap, his left over the flannels breast pocket.

“Where in the hell are my glasses? I’ve always kept them here.” He would say, his finger digging into the empty square.

I imagine my grandma tried to rehabilitate the flannel, her delicate wrinkly fingers trying to replace the white plastic buttons.

“Clifford, pay attention to what your doing in your clothes. You are always reckless in them.”

He would have chuckled, his eyes softening over her. His eyes were a clear blue, a wise blue. I saw galaxies shifting behind them. Dimensionally layered with stories of him and Lou.

He admired her with every cell in his body. I think if asked, he would have said his greatest achievement in life was the gift of sharing it with her.

I rub my hands over his shirt. I wonder how many whiskey stains have been bleached out. A glass of Windsor/coke, little ice, resting on the kitchen table. Deck of cards in his hands, about to shuffle and play his third round of Solitaire. Grandma in the kitchen, boiled dinner bubbling, her blonde, curly hair sticky with humidity and pork grease. She sets the dinner table, a plastic container filled with melting butter in the center, hot buns in a bowl to the right, a ladle floating on hot stew to the left. The red flannel soaking in the burn of his second whiskey, the smell of a dinner cooked with my grandma’s entire beating heart. A full stomach was how she showed love best.

After dinner they would have a fire by the river. My grandpa tossing logs in from his days work as a logger. He would stir the fire, crackling and popping sounds echoing across the water. His flannel smelling of smoke at the end of the night when he tossed it in the dirty hamper.

The woods were my grandpa’s home, outside of Lou. I imagine that’s where his missing buttons are hiding. One buried in his garden near the river. He would pick carrots and peapods and bring them to us before dinner. We would pop them in our mouths, still covered in a light dusting of dirt. He smelled of pine trees, oak, and gray exhaust. His four-wheeler ripping through the forest, leaving his cheeks a pinched red color. I can still smell some of the earthiness on his flannel if I inhale deeply enough. I also get hints of his greasy silver hair he would comb deliberately to one side. The smell transports me to the last week I spent with him after grandma passed away. His mind had already been unraveling for years, but after losing her, he ran out of thread, a bare spool left for us to comfort.

We cuddled on the couch daily. I tried to squeeze all the love I had into him, hoping it would piece together some of his missing fragments. But I knew deep down only Lou could do that.

Through all his years of forgetting, he did not forget losing her.

“Lou’s gone isn’t she?” He would say, rubbing his breast pocket.

“Yeah, she is dad.” My dad would say, turning to flick away a falling tear.

Him living without her didn’t feel right. Something was off-kilter, out of focus, amiss. The gapping hole her passing left, made the word unbalanced. The wooden floor tilting to one side, our hands pressing firmly into the wall, trying not to teeter.

Grandpa and I took a walk outside one evening after the sun had set. The moon was glorious, a large silver coin in the sky.

“Look at that moon! How large. It almost takes up the entire sky.” He said, his short wrinkled body limping around the yard.

“It’s all alone up there now, isn’t it.”

He said tilting his head upward, drinking in the moon, a metallic taste lingering in his mouth.

“Oh grandpa, the moon is never alone. There are always stars, so many stars.”

He smiled, and we walked back inside together.

He passed about a month later.

The last time I saw him, I knew this was it for us. I wanted to pack him in my suitcase, fold him underneath my sweaters, cozy for the long flight.

“Or, I could stay here. Maybe work will give me more time off. I could care for him.” My heart made excuses, it couldn’t bare the thought of saying goodbye.

He gave me one last sloppy kiss. I left it there as long as I could. Cold air blowing against the wet spot as I entered the airport. I would miss that feeling deeply.

I was finishing my shift at the bar when I saw I had a missed call and voicemail from my cousin.

“We lost him Cal. He’s gone to see grandma.”

I cried the entire drive home. Selfishly I wanted to see him, just one more time.

But, the world felt balanced again, the road finally leveling, a parallel line in front of me.

He was with her.

As I drove the moon spotlighted the street.

It looked a little different tonight.

Wispy gray hair, blue galaxy eyes, a hand rubbing over its breast pocket.

And right behind it, the brightest star I’d ever seen.