His eyes were distant,
staring at the white-washed
cabinets in the kitchen when
I walked up and asked him
“Daddy, what you lookin’ at?”
He glanced at me, through me,
then turned his gaze away from me.
I could see his mind going into the distance,
running swiftly, by the way he looked at
those white-washed
cabinets. I was letting him
stare some more when
I heard him scream. When
he did, I did. No one heard me
yell and struggle to lift 250 pounds of him
off the kitchen floor. His eyes remained distant
and glazed over as seizure washed
over his body causing him to jerk out at
me, up and down, feverishly. At
that moment all the memories from when
we were a happy family washed
over the back of my eyelids-images of me,
mommy, and him-as I squeezed my eyes shut. Distance
had never been so close. Mae finally heard me yelling for him
to stop and placed her arms around him
to stop the shaking, then called 911. The clock sat at
twenty-four past the hour when I heard sirens in the distance.
The white-washed cabinets turned red when
the ambulance arrived. My heart jumped out of me,
leading me to the sink to wash
my tears and daddy’s saliva off my hands, then wash
the dirty dishes in the sink as I thought about him
leaving me.
He never sat in the kitchen again. He slept at
the hospital from then on. I didn’t go see him much when
he was there. I kept my distance
not knowing my distance would hurt me. His skin was white-washed.
Ashy. His eyes were slightly open when Mae placed her hands on him.
She closed them shut. That was the last time he looked at me.