~the Backward Fall

                                    i just want to share this..    (For Joann and Clyde)

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1

"Dad?" she says. "I swear, I can't remember the words to my own songs."

She is sixty-two and sitting on the edge of the couch, her old acoustic guitar perched on her knee. Her husband of forty-seven years walks into the living room from the kitchen.

"What's that, Mom?" he says. For decades, ever since they had their third child together, he has called her Mom and she has called him Dad.

"I can't remember how the second verse starts."

"Well, what are you singing?"

"You must be ignoring me. I've been trying to sing the same song for the last twenty minutes."

George, her husband, looks up at the ceiling. "Well, let's see," he says, rubbing the gray stubble of his beard. "Picking Flowers in the Rain?"

She smiles and strums the guitar with a flourish. "Lucky guess."

"The second verse is when it starts to rain. Something about drops on the petals, I believe."

"Of course." She nods her head once. "How could I have forgotten that?" She begins to play again, simple chords on a wooden guitar, and sings a song she wrote when she was much younger.

It is the story of two lovers who walk in a field of wildflowers. A warm rain begins to fall, and instead of running for shelter, they pick flowers together and realize they are in love.

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"Dad?" she says. She is sixty-four. "Will you get in that closet by the door and …"

"What's that, Mom?" he says.

He is instantly on his feet, poised to do her bidding. "What do you want me to do?"

He sees the look on her face and lowers himself back into his chair. He hates that look, although he sees it so often it has become his old, evil friend.

It is a look of confusion, one of bewildered fear.

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2

"I forgot what I wanted." She shakes her head, settles back into her own chair.

"That's all right. It'll come to you."

She stares straight ahead. Their two recliners are set up in front of the television, but she rarely watches anymore.

After a few moments, she turns her head to him.

"What are we going to do when I can't remember anything?"

"The doctors said it might not get any worse. You know that."

"But what if it does? What if one day I wake up and I've forgotten everything?"

He reaches across the small table between them and pats her hand. "Then I'll just remind you of everything."

She smiles at this and the evil look fades away. Above the television is a mantle full of pictures.

Her entire family, from her grandparents to her own great-grandchildren, rest on that mantle. She ignores the television and stares at the pictures, even though they are too far away to really see.