Easter Storm

“The leaves, they’re dead Dada?”

I studied Strongland as much as he studied me. He gave me a moment to answer. “Yes.”

He cocked his head, the way I do… “How long did they not dead?”

“One year. They are born in the spring, just about now. They grow through the summer. Some fade to nothing and fall to the ground. Some go gloriously. This ridge will be a royal’s robe of scarlet and gold. It just depends.”

“Dada?”

“Yes?” He wasn’t asking me about the leaves exactly, hell, I knew that much. I wanted to tell him we would live forever but I couldn’t.

If he was gonna ask something he put it off. A dark brown and tawny lizard scuttled across the broken concrete foundation. There used to be a trailer here. I remember eating dinner in it once, when autumn pushed from the mountain, real slow, paused at the highest elevation, then tumbled with a tide of red maple down the north side of the ridge. It has been far too long since when we gathered with Strongland’s cousins around the fire pit Paw set out in a circle. We devour Kaki’s hobo pies when we can’t bear the smell of the spiced meat and onion and potatoes roasting in the embers any longer. They are worth the price of burned fingers, to tease the foil pockets open, and watch the steam escape.

Strongland shuffled through the leaves around the perimeter, poking a crooked stick underneath stone, prying them up one by one. “Look Dada!”

I knelt with him, kissed his forehead. He had disturbed a fire-ant mound, the ants exploded out of their caverns, deep orange rivulets of instinct and determination. Without thought they carried on. Civilization will carry on— without us—in spite of us.

“Where’s mama?”

I pointed back down the mountain, to the south facing wash of down-slope. “At the overlook.”

“Eat, eat, eat.”

I nodded. “Do you want to lead?”

“Carry me Dada.”

I stepped off the cement foundation and carried him across a shallow swath of dry sandy dirt, layered ankle deep with disintegrating leaves and bone white rock. His mama sat on the rocking chair. I gave him to her and he nursed. I took the other chair and scanned the valley, bursting with pockets of emerald and shadowy conifer green. Strongland finished and crawled across the arms of the chairs and sat with me. I pointed out the one object I could find that was made by man.

“Is it a farm?”

“Could be.”

“Who lives there Dada?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are they alone?”

“I don’t know baby.” I considered why he might have asked. Was he still wondering about the leaves? Why they died? He has noticed many dead things lately. The snake on our morning walk. The black beetle, as shiny as it was lifeless. The small toad on our driveway. Was he contemplating there could be a person there? Alone. Who would notice them if they died from the sickness?

“Can we walk there?”

“It would take all day.” His mama said.

Two buzzards careened along the updrafts. We were higher than them still, enough to see the setting sun reflect across the tops of their broad wings.

On the far side of the valley a blanket of chalk-white cloud slid west to east. “The first sign of trouble I guess.”

“No,” she said to me, “It’s too early.”

“The storm mama?”

“Yes baby.”

“Will there be lightning?”

“There could be.”

As she said it Strongland clutched tight. “I don’t like lightning at the night.”

“It will be okay.” I told him.

His mama and I already decided we would pull the mattress into the hall to sleep. I struggled to push my anxiety of the reports of tornadoes pushing east out of Arkansas. The storm would arrive on Easter. If my memory is right tornadoes killed seven people in the county just across the river from us exactly a year ago. I thought of my sins and resurrection and the grace of God and wondered what I was worth.

I am afraid, weighed down with fears I never considered before becoming a father. They wear at me in the dark when I listen to Strongland breath and watch his eyelids twitch as he sleeps. Two nights ago, I dreamt of a black snake emerging from a house I recognized on our morning walks. I dream of people wearing masks, walking the streets, separate from one another, clutching plastic bags filled with any chemicals scrounged and hoarded. I wake and wish I had gun locked away. But I can hear Strongland’s mama asking, “What are you gonna do with a gun, shoot a tornado?” I know I don’t got the guts to shoot a man anyways so I let it lay.

We watched the sunlight shimmer across the early April growth in the valley.

“I want to go home Mama.”

We repacked the backpack, set the chairs in their places on the wood perch and retraced our path to the chain spanning the entrance to the property. His mama carried him across and buckled him in the truck. I kissed them both and we drove back down the mountain. I set the cruise control at exactly one mile an hour less than the speed limit. Nobody passed us, even on the highway. I was in no rush to get closer to the blanket of cloud and the city streets. We drove slowly past the park, and the long bands of yellow caution tape around the still swing sets and empty basketball court.

“We can’t go to the playground because of the sickness.” Strongland stated. It made me want to bawl, this innocent comprehension of the fear and worry that shuts down parks and keeps him home from school. I am in awe of this boy who wants to know how long leaves haven’t been dead and if people live alone and why these things might be.

“Yes, because of the sickness,” his Mama said.

I caught her eyes in the rearviewmirror. She is worried. I know it.  I can’t do enough for her—I know that—there is just too much outside my control.

I pulled the truck into the drive. Strongland’s toys dot the yard; bright yellow diggers, tow-trucks, a small plastic shovel and his green rake. His mama and I collected his things and set them on the brick porch. You couldn’t see the clouds from our house, set down among the towering oaks that line the streets. If you chose to ignore it you could pretend you and your boy and his Mama were in heaven on earth and people weren’t walking the streets in their masks, avoiding each other, clutching plastic bags full of chemicals pulled off of near-bare store shelves.

I can’t ignore this; tomorrow is Easter. A storm is coming. A sickness is here. I went to Strongland and held him. “Time to go in.”

He nodded and followed me through the front door.

“Can we have that?” Strongland pointed to the strawberry cake on the counter he and his mama made in the morning.

We’d already told him it was for after dinner but I changed my mind. “Yes baby.” We ate the dense cake and drank lemonade on the floor before sitting together in the dining room for our meal.

Strongland rubbed his eyes, “The trees are getting dark.”

His mama got up and he followed her and nursed until he fell asleep. In the dark still of night, I watched his twitching eyelids and reconsidered all my sins and resurrection and the grace of God and prayed that I am worthy enough to protect them. I slipped off the mattress and put the coffee on, re-checked the shutters and door bracing and waited for the storm.