SHADOW – M. MEDINA — Martin Matthews

“Love is...”

Creased and long-forgotten-- a face kneeling forward on the warm earth below an April

sun. Behind him lies a shadow created by its strong light. His shoulders carry its cold, longing weight. He remembers a father whose face was creased in the same way. He remembers deep-set eyes and the eyebrows that furled over them. As a child, the eyebrows seemed to never shift; always sitting in a serious scowl. The small hands that reached up to touch his father’s face failed to ever touch their dark hairs.

New hands, now old, clutch an acorn no larger than his thumbnail. Still, he shakes as his hand grips around it. He is older. Remembering is a blessing, but not always. It is too late. The memories of many lives ago flood his mind, the tidal waves of anger, hurt and sadness hitting him time and time again. The night before his father passed. A hospital room created where there once were sofas, an IV stand taking the spot of the family Christmas tree... He’d been charged with watching Father for the night, as the family worried that days were getting shorter with each passing hour. It was a physically-easy task: bring water when you hear a cough, check the vitals every few hours, and only sleep for a half hour at a time.

Father never spoke much to begin with so the room was usually silent. But while he sat and watched him, he only prayed for a few words with the figure lying next to him on the bed. He didn’t want Father to leave without getting to tell him that his only son loved him. He had tried to tell him all his life. From the small hands reaching for eyebrows to the middle-aged man sitting next to him on Father’s old wingback chair. But every time, Father, sensing the softness in his son’s voice, turned away in... embarrassment? Rejection? Some strange, inhuman emotion that disconnected him from someone he’d given life to, perhaps. The moment never came. At

some point in the night, he left to fill a cup of water. And when he returned, only the shell of Father remained.

The acorn catches a few tears that drop from his eyes. Something in him breaks and the whole acorn ordeal seems unbearable. “Do any of us really know our fathers?” He thinks, attempting to chuckle to himself. All that escapes from his withering lips is a dry cough. “Maybe we don’t need to know them. We eventually become them.” He dries his face with his free hand, then parts the grass in front of his knees. The ground is still a little hard from the lingering winter. April rains have begun to loosen the grains of soil, but it is stubborn. Even then, a few specks cling to his finger enough to turn it a deep brown. Brown like his Esme’s eyes.

If only she saw him now, digging in the dirt with his wedding band around his finger. He looks around to make sure she hasn’t followed him to see “what in God’s name” he was doing now. Esme, who still kept up with his antics after 52 years of marriage. If there were ever a color for stubborn, it would be her brown eyes. He starts to dig with the trowel next to him. Fighting with the dirt is like fighting with Esme. It’s like fighting with your best friend, wondering when she’ll finally listen to you and realize your only crime is loving her.

But somewhere in digging he comes to a conclusion, probably by the time the hole is a few inches too deep. It’s hard to remember you don’t have to dig alone. It takes years to learn that your wife isn’t the soil, she’s the trowel. Maybe that doesn’t sound like the most romantic term. But the trowel digs a whole lot better than the hand. He thinks of her witty replies and still feels their sting. Too many days together and a couple children later, he doesn’t know if he’s unlocked the big mystery of a successful marriage. But that’s not why you get married. He said his vows on a ridiculously hot summer day. In that Southern incalescence, he got married

because he found someone he couldn’t live without. Every day thereafter, he chose to live with her. With her and her brown eyes, and her stubborn spirit.

He drops the acorn in the hole and covers it with dirt. He names each handful for his children, dropping them in with the gentle hands that raised them. As he sprinkles the last one in, the pad of little footsteps lands in front of his knees. His granddaughter. She has Esme’s brown eyes, and the little crinkle between her eyebrows is undeniably his. But he can make no selfish claim on her and her spirit. He sees her mother and father perfectly blended into one small person. He sees his Father and Mother, too. And this little girl has no idea the branches that have built her. She, the leaves, loves them all the same.

Her eyes blink back at Grandfather. She reaches out to touch his leathery face and peppered eyebrows. He quickly welcomes her to sit on his knee and she giggles when his hands, covered in dirt, try to pinch her cheeks. She pats her hands in the loose soil, lifting her grubby fingers to smudge Grandfather’s face too. The two chase each other until they both lose their breath and lay weary on the ground. They look up at the sky, the warm sun soon disappearing followed by the stars that replace it. Moonlight casts over her sleeping face, a sign that it's time to go home.

Years go by and the acorn becomes a sapling. The sapling becomes a tree. A tree, tall and creased, baking in the April sun. The shade its leaves provide cover the head of a young man. He leans his head back in a moment of solemn stillness. It's been hours and his eyes are red from weeping. All he can think of are his mother’s brown eyes. He remembers the days they spent at the foot of this tree, always ending with his sleeping head on his mother’s lap. He is weary from loss and being lost. The child in him lays his body down, remembering the earliest comfort. His head rests on one of the roots. He swears he sees his mother’s face in the shadow of the leaves.