And it makes me want a story.
The thing about my father is outside he doesn't wear gloves when he should. I can tell because his hands itch like crazy. They're red from not listening to his own advice. He takes the vine again, pulls, even when I ask him to stop. “Dad, it's okay. Really it's alright.” He pulls again. “Remember what mom said, Dad, they're unpredictable. Right? You can't control these things. You can't even see them.” He's crying now, pulling harder, more often. “Dad, stop. Stop it.” He wraps some of the furry brown ivy vine around his wrist, yanks it, kicks the tree. “Come down here,” he yells, “We want to see her.” He calls her name, my mom, the princess. He yells, “Sara,” up at the tree. He pulls the vine harder. “Goddamn it. Take us to her,” he shouts. “She's in the clouds, you fucking stupid beast. Come down, please.” I reach my hand out, put it on his shoulder. “Dad, for Christsakes,” I say, “Stop. C'mon, please.” When I grab his coat, when I pick his gloves up off the ground and say, “I love you, stop, c'mon, she's not up there, Dad, she's not,” the thing happens, the thing about my father and his stories, it happens because he pulls again, and the sky, it just kind of falls, just like that, clouds, blue, crashing down on top of us. And when it hits, it's heavy like an entire school building landing, like a father telling his son she's gone. It lands so hard, we fall, the both us, to the ground, and stare at the fallen sky in front of us spreading its wings. We watch cloud patches ripple across its chest. And when we finally stand, my father, he looks from his red hands to me and says, “Remember about the tail.”
8 | Psychopomp Magazine