In Our Father's Absence
"Seven Ways In" by James Tipton
Myrrh is obtained by repeatedly wounding small, thorny trees until the bark bleeds and bleeds, covering itself in waxy boils, which are picked off for medicines and perfumes.
We knew people rode horses, saw them galloping through dusty fields in old black and white Westerns, heard of them jumping off high dives into shallow pools with women standing on their backs. Some girls even wanted ponies for their birthday. Not us.
Our neighbor had a mare, shiny brown like a milk chocolate bar. My sister and I would visit her on long summer days, walk through a half mile of forest until the trees opened up and threw us next to the fenced pasture like our mom did every morning, screen door slamming us out. We stared. She grazed, snorted, and stomped.
Through the fence slats we fed her carrots swiped from the crisper. The clack of teeth meeting teeth was like an ax splitting wood, like thunder cracking, like three hearts breaking all at once. We imagined losing fingers, hands, whole arms in the dark tunnel of her mouth, losing our body down her neck. We knew horses didn’t eat children but were still worried because there had to be a first for everything, even the bad, so why not us?
***
The last gift our father gave our mother was a life-size nativity scene—hard-molded plastic in the shapes of Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, three wise men, a shepherd, two sheep, and a reindeer in the place of a camel. She told us this was before our father died in a drunk-driving accident or before he left to start a new life with his secretary or before he served a life in prison for breaking her heart.
***
The December after our father was crushed in a coal mining explosion or after he’d stolen a car and ran off to Vegas or after he’d left her with us and another on the way and what kind of man does that anyway, the wise man disappeared. That night, the bony fingers of barren trees clawed at the windows as winds roared and ice seeped in from under the door. We corralled together in my bed, sheltering from the cold loudness left in the wake of something missing.
***
The next summer we saw our wise man in the paddock beside the water trough, head dented in, hoof marks on the crushed-hard corners, gold paint dulled by dirt. The wind had left him there, with her. We rushed home to tell our mother, knocking until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and what did we want, interrupting her cleaning and soap watching and peacefulness, as ice clanked in her glass, sweat slowly dripping onto the clean linoleum floor. We found the wise man, the one that blew away, the horse stomped him. She said wise men don’t get themselves blown away, shook her head and shut us out.
***
We stopped visiting the mare, afraid of what we might find, forgetting about her until Christmas came and the gap in the nativity scene split our mom in two because our father was still dead and rotting in the ground where he belonged or he was still living with that no-good woman or he was still not man enough to know a good thing when he had it and now he had three kids he better get right with after he makes it up to her first. The remaining members of the Nativity were stuffed into the living room beside the silver-tinseled aluminum tree. We imagined what the mare, what anyone might see of us. If you had peered in from the outside, you’d have witnessed a scene framed by peeling sage shutters, figures waiting, wanting, without.
About the Author
Melanie Maggard is a flash and poetic prose writer who loves dribbles and drabbles. She has published in Cotton Xenomorph, Ghost Parachute, X-R-A-Y Magazine, Peatsmoke Journal, The Dribble Drabble Review, Five Minute Lit, and others. She can be found online at www.melaniemaggard.com and @WriterMMaggard.
About the Artist
Chicago-area based Native American artist James Tipton repurposes his acrylic paintings of nearby woods and forest preserves through a captivating blend of traditional and digital art. The process begins with his original paintings, landscapes, and organic forms bursting with color and texture. Through this exploration, he embarks on a digital metamorphosis, reworking and reinterpreting his paintings to express something new. The resulting artworks transcend their origins, evolving into mesmerizing digital landscapes that resonate with his love for often-visited places close to home. To see more of Tipton's work, visit https://tiptonartdaily.wordpress.com.