Her brother remained unspectacular and Mama’s parents gave up pushing him forward once Mama herself quieted down. Mikar’s uncle said that Mama settled for Papa-Petr as part of this defeat years later, but I think that he was in love with Mama and hated Papa-Petr for it. How could Mama complain? The blisters, the planting and harvesting without return, the drought, the children’s demands and the loneliness, Petr’s neglect… dents in a car that’s already had its wheels stripped. If she opened her mouth, where would it end?
There was always something about her that you couldn’t put your finger on. It was always as though she had done something new to her hair or that she was wearing some lipstick, or jewelry that was only for special occasions, or even that maybe she was wearing lingerie under her dress. But her hair was always covered with a clean kerchief, her ears, neck, wrists, fingers, and dresser drawers completely free of jewelry, and of course she had no lingerie – I doubt that she knew it existed anywhere, but that could be my child’s ignorant adoring vision.
It was in her eyes. Mama was not a beautiful woman. She was short and heavy, with the long arms of someone who carries too much weight too often. Her face was short, her mouth disappeared between her cheeks, nose and chin… though no feature stood out from her face. Except her eyes. Glancing around a room you would not notice, but catching her gaze… she looked through you. ‘Catching her gaze’ is not quite correct. You couldn’t catch it, you got hit by it. When Mama looked through you and spoke you knew she was right. If she was wrong today, it was today that was mistaken; she’d be right tomorrow.
The time that I started to be born and she cried out Young Petr hid there in the two room house somewhere. Outside Papa-Petr dropped his sledge of potatoes and he ran. Stiff legged through the snow, he ran. With the sun shining through a ribcage of trees on the horizon he ran. “Mary hold on there!” he shouted out. The wind was blowing against him so his voice came back to him. He grunted under his breath.
When he came through the door into our little house he dropped clods of snow across the stoop. Mama was sitting in a birthing chair. “Don’t let the snow melt into the floor,” she said, her eyes shut tight enough that they created their own spots of light inside against the lids. “And don’t leave the potatoes to get ruined out in the field, I don’t need you here.”
And Papa-Petr just stood there breathing. I was coming.
