LAST FRIDAY AT 5:30 P.M. I COULD TASTE BLACK JACKS IN THE BACK OF MY MOUTH. I knew self-pity was having its way with me and I was skating on ice with a blowtorch not too far behind.

I was about to get out of bed, put on my pants and head toward a meeting when my phone rang. It was the X. I hadn’t heard from her in two years and the boys in four. She called to thank me for paying off child support the week before. There were questions about the boys and questions about my parents. Silence suddenly descended into the conversation like a tornado touching down in Tulsa and I thought it was time for us to climb off the bull and thank the Guy Topside for not letting the conversation descend into a shouting match in a pig pen when she blurted out, “My mother died at Christmas.”

This took my breath away. I slid into the silence that lie between us like an aged gully, ground down but open. I wanted to yell at her and call her nasty names for not telling me sooner, but God took my tongue and made me sit on it. She begged off — had to get something to eat, had people coming over — and hung up first.

I put on my pants and went down to East Second to the meeting and sat next to an old friend. It was a step meeting and they were reading from The Book. I didn’t pick up the book. I just sat there stunned and thought back over a year ago when I saw her last.

It was before Christ Mass and the X and I weren’t talking and my youngest didn’t want me to “just drop by and drop off the gifts.” So I called the X father-in-law and asked if I could drop off the gifts at his house and see him and the Missus. He said yes and we made a time.

The day was bright and the traffic was nonexistent at 2 p.m. I parked on Spruce and walked down the hill to his back door. Opening the door I shouted hello and Katie, the oldest daughter from Jersey, came down. I hadn’t seen her in four years and she looked good. She divorced her husband about the time her sister and I split. She taught school in Jersey with her X, still. The girls were upstairs getting ready, the youngest and Katie had caught the redeye from Newark the night before, while the oldest arrived a couple of days before from Reed.

There was a second of awkwardness and then she came over and held me tight. “You always will be my brother-in-law,” she whispered into my ear.

“And you will always be my sister,” I said as I smiled and looked in her eyes. They were worn. I didn’t want to ask.

“Where is your father? I bought the boys their Christmas gifts.”

“He had an errand to run.”

“Can I see your mother?”

“She is lying down.”

“May I see her?”

“Yes.”

We went upstairs and went into the X’s old bedroom. Joan was in bed in the middle of the room, tired and weak. She saw me and her eyes lit up, I went over and took her hand and kissed her forehead.

“How is it going, old friend.”

“Fine.”

“I missed you.”

“And I you.

We held hands. No words. I just looked into her eyes and whispered, “thank you” over and over like a brook finally running clear over rock.

* * *

IT WAS MY TURN TO READ and I read the words in a steady pace, like a horse plowing a field. I made mistakes, but went on. When I finished I told the group that I had lost my boys’ grandmother and began to cry. It was short, too short. I stopped and left the meeting.

Going down First Street I parked and looked at the gulls on the pier’s post. Tears came, then rage, then tears, and then the memory of the Christmas visit came to me. We said goodbye then, but I must say it again:

Thank you for being in my life; until heaven.

END

M.R. Merris is a Benicia resident, writer and poet.