Flash Friday 5-30-14 Slipping Beauty in Adjunct to 8/9/2013 flash friday; a trinity of flashs

He drank strong spirits. He spat and swore. In late Autumn his brother would pull up in his battered f150 and the two of them would drive north, a few days later coming back with venison or a story. Our son was born in October of 2003. He handed out cigars and early November the f150 crunched on our gravel and he was gone for a week. Twice a night that week I’d pace the floor with a crying infant and fantasize murder, divorce, sleep.

A week ago, the third week of May 2014, we drove the kid, my son, Paul, to the Y where the school bus was being loaded with camping gear. I kissed my son goodbye. He shook his sons hand. The drive home was quiet. We’ve had nothing to talk about for years.

He stopped at the mouth of the quarter mile gravel trail that lead to the house.

“Are you happy?” he asked me.

“Yes” I bit the word off harder than I had intended.

His guard fell for a moment. For a moment he let sorrow pass across his face, grace across his heart, he let beauty slip across his eyes.

“Good, me too,” he said and would not look me in the eye.