1

The Wars We Fight From Home

My dad was always too hard on me. His back was injured from WWII. He knew too well
the steel that made the weapons. He had a bullet go through his side and lodged in his spine. The
doctors were amazed he wasn’t paralyzed. It caused him chronic pain in his back, his head, and
my ass.
He had a special way of yelling at me that made me feel powerless. His balding head
would get all red. He slammed doors, it shook the house. It was like a toddler throwing a fit, but
that toddler was two hundred fifty pounds. It made my mom cry when we fought, so I stopped
fighting back. He would yell about my grades, I silently tried harder. He would yell about house
work, I silently worked harder. He never let me get a job.
My dad would walk in from working at the Soudan underground mine with a handful of
flowers in his hand and a goofy smile on his face. He and my mom were in love. I saw it
everyday in their interactions. She would put them in a vase. Until they wilted, she thanked him.
She had long brown hair. I loved her hugs. I would wrap my arms around her. As I got older my
arms got longer. I would hug her even tighter. My mom was so good to my dad. She knew when
he was hurting without him saying a word. She would put a hot water bottle between his chair
and his back to ease his pain. She cooked for him and cleaned for him. He always told her she
didn’t have to. But she did.
When my father was in the tunnels they used candles to see. This was when he was much
younger and could still touch his toes. He worked in the mines his whole life except when he was
in the service. The candles were sold to them by the mine. The price made the paycheck useless.
That's how my mom started her work in candle making. Selling candles that burn longer and
brighter for much cheaper than the ones they were conned into. That's also how he got a bad
reputation with his bosses. He sold her candles at work, until he got busted. From then on, our
neighbors, coworkers, and friends would come to our small home to buy her candles. He told this
story a lot. He was proud of my mom.
Sunday was the only day my old man didn’t work. We went to St. Paul Lutheran Church.
It was a small white church on the corner of the street. Its peak reached four stories high plus a
metal cross at the very tip. He went fishing Sunday afternoons. In the summer he’d fish off a
dock. In the winter he’d drive his Ol’ Ford F-1 to the middle of the lake to do some ice fishing.
 2

He wanted alone time or to get drunk with his buddies. When I was fifteen he took me
out. Just him and me. We didn’t talk much. We cut holes in the ice with his ice auger and sat in
the cargo bed with our lines in the water. Most winters we saw negative numbers for weeks on
end. The lake picked up wind so we had to wear our scarves up over our faces. He wore a waxed
canvas jacket with a fleece lining. The wolf fur on his hat blew in the wind. He drank hard liquor
out of his steel flask. He kept the flask in the pocket of his red wool flannel. It would’ve froze
and stuck to his lips if it wasn’t up against the heat of his body.
At home my chores were to split and haul the wood into the house. It was satisfying
splitting the wood but it was a bitch to haul it in. Every once in a while, I wouldn’t haul it all in
right away. It was me being lazy, that was knocked out of me later in life. My dad used these
moments as opportunities to teach me lessons about the working world.
“When you get a job your boss isn’t going to put up with your half-assing.”
I wouldn’t respond.
He would start doing it for me. Not in a helpful or supportive way.
“You don’t have respect.” He would say, “Goddammit, I work so goddamn hard for this
family.” Again he said, “You plan on half-assing everything when you start working?”
He had had enough of my ignoring him and he pushed his chest up against me, trying to
intimidate me with his size. I knew I was stronger than him, he knew it too. I could haul twice as
much wood with ease. He tried to intimidate me anyway. I didn’t step back and kept my gaze to
the ground. I felt his eyes. I felt the wetness of his breath.
“You need to grow up, Nancy Boy. When are you going to start following through?”
I knew if I made eye contact it would’ve started a fight.
“You deaf? Answer me, goddammit.”
He was a soldier at war but an officer in our home.
It took until he died of a stroke for me to get a job. I joined the underground mine at age
seventeen. All of us men, young and old, stuffed ourselves in the elevator shaft. Maybe twenty
can fit at once if we really squeeze. It was tight. We worked in pairs. They made sure to pair us
with people that spoke a different language so we wouldn’t waste our time, and their money,
talking. My partner’s name was Julien. He was french. I was the one to initiate introductions.
“I’m Leevi,” I pointed to myself.
He only looked back at me. His silence translated to timidness.
 3

We spent that day filling the rail cart with iron ore. We sorted the green stone and left it
off to the side. It was pointless dragging it out, we just worked around it. We worked from before
the sunrise to far after the sunset, given the sun is only up for eight hours on the shortest days of
winter. We never saw the sun working underground. We got nasty looks from our coworkers like
having fun wasn’t part of the job. The sun didn’t shine under there. Our light source was the
flashlight on our helmets. It was part of the uniform. I had to purchase it to work there. My mom
couldn’t make homemade light bulbs. The weather didn’t matter either. It was always fifty
degrees in the mine. It could be blazing hot or twenty below zero and the mine was always fifty
degrees.
Julien’s timidness went away with time. He sang a song when he worked.
“Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, zou bisou
Mon dieu qu'ils sont doux”
He started to teach me these songs, correcting me when I mispronounce a word.
This was when I started learning French. I would go home to my lone mother, she would
kiss me on the cheek, and I sat in the living room reading from a French to English dictionary.
I learned he came to Northern Minnesota because he was told there was gold, a myth
from the mid 1800s. His mother and father were artists and he had five siblings. I wish I could
remember any of their names.
Those tight elevator rides I rode up and down right next to, behind, or in front of Julien. I
went from the freezing Minnesota winter to pressed against Julien. There was a small window at
the door to see which level underground we were at. We could also see the thick layers of granite
pass as we descended. It was loud in there. Anything said had to be shouted to be heard. It was
part of the job I always enjoyed.
More people got in the elevator than normal, those couple assholes that got there late and
thought they would get on another ride down and not get in trouble. I was in the back right
corner. Someone pushed their way in and it shifted the rest of the group. Julien got shoved into
me, front to front. His chest was pressed against mine. He was just a little taller than me so my
face was close to his neck. I could feel his heart beating fast through his uniform jacket.
 4

We started getting closer. That is, until we got reassigned partners. I have a feeling
someone reported us for talking during shifts. Soon after we parted he died. That day before
work a wolf walked right up to me. The wolf was but ten yards away. I studied its long legs up to
its dark shackles. Its ears were flattened to its head and it was hunched down. It was submissive
to me. I made a guttural noise. I grunted again. I picked up a large stick and swung it at a balsam
tree making a loud bang. I yelled and swung and yelled and swung. The wolf turned, tail tucked,
and walked back into the abyss of deep forest it appeared from. I’d seen wolves before and I
would continue to see them for the rest of my life. But only this once in the time I was breathing
did a wolf walk right up to me.
The last shift Julien was working he was responsible for removing any loose rocks from
the ceiling above us. He used a metal pole to jab at the ceiling. A massive chunk of granite fell
and crushed him. His passing so soon after my father made me long for male closeness. That was
when I quit working the mine and moved to Duluth.
Duluth was home to one of many steel mills. On the edge of the St. Louis River was
Morgan Park where the plant was as well as a neighborhood. We lived where we worked. The
community was open to all residents of Duluth. In block wall buildings, families lived alongside
us steel workers.
My job was to feed steel wire into a machine. The machine did the rest of cutting it and
pounding it into a nail. I hated this job, thankfully, I didn’t have to do it for long. They moved me
to the hot side. There, I ran the furnaces. It was out-dated technology. Most plants used basic
oxygen furnaces. The men in charge were too focused on selling a crap ton of steel to beat the
competing prices. It didn’t matter to them the air quality inside the plant or outside. The
Minnesota Pollution Department was on their tail for dumping waste into the river. These were
the people I was sweating for.
I was late to work one morning. I saw the cranes outside moving the iron ore from the
rails to trucks. The truck started driving right as the crane was about to dump and the load hit the
ground. The truck hits the brakes. The girl operating the crane got out and slammed the door
behind her. She jumped down from the high step wearing her uniform the same as every other
man. She lost her temper with this guy.
“Damn, Richard. How many times have we done this?”
“Sweetie, I don’t care if you're on the rag. Get back to work.”
 5

“Get your crap together, Richard.”

She returned to her crane, heaving herself up to her seat.
The next time I saw her was at the St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. I noticed the
resemblance she held to the twin angel sculptures stood atop the romanesque arches in the front
of the room. Her body was so still. Her brunette hair was lightly curled resting on the back of her
neck. It was a regular Sunday service, she sat with her hands clasped and her head bowed from
beginning to end. When everyone stood up, she did too. I was only two rows behind her. Her
light blue dress clung to her thighs rendering her shape. She turned and glanced at me, her eyes
darted away. I kept my gaze sturdy. She looked again, I smiled. She turned away, blushing.
That Friday I ran into her at a German bar. This time, she greeted me with familiarity. As
if we had known each other well, not strangers who made eye contact twice.
“You know what - “
“Leevi”
“You know what Leevi, I like you.”
“I like you too, but let me ask your name.”
She laughed like she was laughing at me. “Melony,”
We stepped out onto the sidewalk. The heated bar made the cold sharper. I threw my arm
around her and I stumbled. She wasn’t stable either and we fell to the ground. She sent out a
large messy laugh. An unfamiliar man grabbed her by the hand and elbow and lifted her to her
feet. She turned to me and called my name. The stranger pinched her ass. She yipped.
“Leevi, aren’t you gonna do something?”
I shrugged and she swung around and decked that man in the face. That was all I could
remember from that night but I woke up in her bed. I left before she woke up, I was completely
embarrassed. That evening I did what I thought I should do and I went to her house with flowers.
She took them and set them on their side on the countertop. I tried to not let it bother me. We
went to church together the next morning. We went to church every Sunday for many months.
She was a gorgeous girl, but I didn’t love her. That didn’t stop me from marrying her. She
told me she loved me but I could never tell what was going on behind her eyes. There was a
disconnect. I told myself she didn’t love me either. We got along fine together. We didn’t fight.
We didn’t cry. Sometimes she would try to get me to talk. She was so gentle when confronting
 6

me that I knew I could dismiss her. She had met my mother at the wedding but she had never
seen my childhood home. I took her to where I came from.
At the table I grew up eating is where she announced her pregnancy to me for the first
time in front of my mother. I was mad we didn’t talk about it privately but I didn’t want to show
it in front of them both. My mother cried. She said it was because she was happy, but it looked
like she was truly troubled.
On the day Melony gave birth I called my mom.
“I’m so relieved you had a baby girl.”
“You were hoping for a girl?”
“Yes, a boy would’ve been too tempting for you. But God blessed us with a sweet little
girl.”
In 1967, not long after my daughter was born I was drafted. Straight to Da Nang,
Vietnam. Basic Training was eight weeks; Advanced Training was the same. I learned what steel
was for - bullets. It was seven hundred thirty eight days of combat. It hurts to admit I saw
unspeakable things. Nameless men and women were erased from history. Innocent people were
violated in the worst ways imaginable. What I saw but also what I did would haunt me for the
rest of my life.
Returning home I found out about my mother’s passing. Logically, I didn’t need a
caretaker anymore. I was relieved I didn’t have to face her after what I had done at war. We
moved into her home, my childhood home. Being on the iron range made me feel closer to my
lost loved ones. I could see Julien in the red tinted gravel heavy with iron. I saw my mother in
the wax drippings on the worn hard wood of the kitchen. I heard my father everywhere I went.
The mine had closed at that point. I got a job editing for The Ely Echo. I copied the files
from a floppy disk and then used a typesetting machine to print the text. Between fires in the
Boundary Waters and the high school sports teams, I knew what was happening around town.
Melony was already a mother when I returned from Vietnam. I didn’t know my child like
she did. She had a big personality at two. She didn’t cry often. Only after bumping her head or if
she had a toy taken from her hands. Together we named her Katherine, Melony called her Kathy.
I felt like an imposter parent. When Katherine looked at me I saw myself from her eyes. I saw a
stranger in myself.
 7

My mom and I did a lot of communicating through silence. Melony was not like that.
When we weren’t talking it was because we didn’t understand each other. My mom seemed to
have a gift for knowing what the men in her life needed and how to help them. Melony changed
during my time away. She was no longer the independent person I admired.
My wife didn’t need me in the ways I was able to give. She clung onto me. She was
always touching me. It made me tense up. I didn’t like feeling like I couldn’t move freely. I tried
to hint that I didn’t like it. I would sleep on the edge of the bed. When she was younger I didn't
pay much attention to her body. She gained weight over the years I was gone. I preferred when
she was thin and practically flat chested.
I can tell when Melony wanted me. She would rub my thigh and lick my neck. The wet
tongue made me cringe. We didn’t speak, she just put her robe on and went to the bathroom.
Light flickered from the crack under the door. The tub water was running. It shut off. My
curiosity took over. I held onto the door frame and peaked through the keyhole. The tub was
filled. She had lit candles. She was sitting in the tub. Her arm was extended down between her
legs. Her eyes were closed. She let her head hang back. She was released from her straining. Her
breathing slowed. She brought her hands to her face and began crying. She didn’t make a sound
the entire time.
“You good-for-nothing, can’t even make your wife happy.”
My internal voice sounded like my dad yelling. He haunted me. He scolded me for being
a bad husband. Then again, he got lucky when he married my mom. She wasn’t a demanding
person. She didn’t push peoples’ boundaries.
It was about a year after I settled back in at home when the night terrors started. I’d wake
up bloody from scratching myself. Melony wore a black eye from me hitting her in my sleep.
She started sleeping in Katherine’s twin bed with her. She was afraid of me. I was afraid of
myself.
Katherine would beg to sleep in bed with me. She would cry, it broke my heart. She
wanted to cuddle her daddy. I hugged her. She had chubby little cheeks with pouty lips. The skin
around her big round eyes were red from crying.
“It's not safe. I love you too much to let you get hurt.”
 8

Melony watched this from the doorway of what used to be our bedroom. She was jealous.
I could see it in her eyes. She saw me hug and love my daughter but never her. Katherine’s
precious nature made the guilt only worse. I sang to her a song to stop the tears.
“Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, bisou
Zou bisou, zou bisou
Mon dieu qu'ils sont doux”
“Come on Kathy,” Melony took her by the hand and led her to their bed.
Melony came back to the bedroom to say to me, “We need to get you back to church.
You’ve neglected your relationship with God.”
So we went to church as a family. We went every week. Katherine joined bible study with
the other kids. Melony and I listened to the priest’s lectures on scripture. He was a boring
son-of-a-bitch. He read from the bible and interpreted it - voicing his opinions on sodomites. All
it brought me was regret.
Fear of nightmares kept me awake. My unconscious mind took me back to war to relive
my shame. I would be awake for eleven days at a time until my body finally shut down to rest.
This lasted for years.
Katherine was in second grade when I crashed the car with my family inside. The roads
were clear: no ice or snow. It was my fault, I fell asleep at the wheel. I went right off the road to
hit a hundred year old white pine. No one was buckled. Yet, Katherine was the only one to have
real damage from the accident. She hit her head against the window and from then on had
permanent brain damage. It was minor but her grades got worse and she cried much more. It was
like she lost the ability to tell us how she felt which meant she had to suffer in silence. She didn’t
beg for my attention anymore.
We continued to go to church. I prayed and prayed until I stopped all together. God’s
intervention was invisible to me. He seemed to punish my daughter for my sins. I realized this
completely when Katherine was thirteen. My darling girl started growing. Her petite body began
to show signs of her femininity. She was already struggling with her emotions so puberty only
made it worse. She started finding her style but then she started showing signs of serious distress.
I had a feeling she was hiding something from me.
 9

“Kathy, just try to go to school like that and see what happens.”
“What's the big deal?”
“I can practically see your underwear and your face looks like a toddler colored it with
markers.”
“Sorry I’m way more rad than you. Maybe I should put a stick up my ass and be more
like you. My God.”
“Don’t you dare use the lord’s name in vain.”
I drove her to school in silence that day. She was so quick to get out of the car she didn’t
wait for me to come to a complete stop. She slammed the door behind her without saying
goodbye. I watched her walk away, her mother was right about her mini skirt. She ran up to a
boy who looked to be a senior with his letterman jacket and neck beard. As they embraced each
other she lifted both her feet. He kissed her on the neck and she shied away. Katherine hadn’t
mentioned anything about boys. She was living a secret life separate from the little girl I knew
her as. She wasn’t as grown up as she was pretending to be.
That boy, practically a man, would pick her up in his car after school. One day, I followed
them. He took her down an old dirt road. He parked the car overlooking a small pond. I kept my
lights off and waited at a distance. They were there for nothing but two minutes when I saw his
silhouette lean over to her side of the car. I got out of my car and left my door open so as not to
expose my presence. I whipped his driver's door open and pulled him out by his collar.
“Daddy,” Katherine screamed.
I slammed him up against the side of the car.
“How old are you, son?”
“Eighteen.”
“Are you aware the girl in this car with you is barely a teenager?”
“She’s very mature for her age.”
“Something you’re not because any eighteen year old that has an ounce of maturity
wouldn’t be creeping around middle school girls trying to get up their skirts.”
“Take a chill pill, old man. We were just fooling around.”
I gripped his neck and squeezed.
“I’ve ended lives before, son. I’ve cut off the hands of evil. I’ve made boys like you cry
for their life and dignity. You better forget you ever knew Katherine.”
 10

His face started getting redder.

“Daddy, stop.” Katherine kneeled into the dirt, held my leg, and weeped.
I looked down at her pathetic plea for mercy and instantly let him go. He gasped the air
he was deprived of. He scurried inside his car and locked the doors. Katherine wept so hard her
ribcage was expanding with every moan.
“Let's go, Katherine.”
She held my leg tight.
I picked her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck and legs around my waist and I
carried her to my car. She instinctively held me like when she was young. Her douchebag of a
boyfriend jerked his car into a K turn and sped away. Neither of us told her mother, but after that
Katherine came to me when she was bothered. She would hug me, that's how I knew. We didn’t
talk about it; I didn’t pry and she never offered it up. We would go out to eat. We watched our
favorite movies together. I took her shopping and bought her the clothes and makeup her mother
despised.
Melony grew to hate how close Katherine and I were. She wanted my love in that way, in
any way. She nagged me to go to couples therapy to force us to talk. I fought it and fought it until
she threatened to leave me for a more affectionate man. I agreed to one meeting.
The therapist was a man - Dr. James Salonen. He spoke bluntly. He diagnosed me with
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He recommended I take an anti anxiety pill. I refused. In session
he wore glasses to read and write. When we walked and talked he’d take them off. His thick, full
head of hair was graying. I wished I looked more like him. He was fit. I started seeing him
separately on a biweekly basis. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we spoke for an hour. He was the
only man I could open up to.
“Once you are honest with yourself about what happened, you can be honest with me.
Therapy doesn’t work unless you're honest Leevi.”
“I am so scared.”
“It is okay to be afraid. This is a safe place. A judgment-free-zone.”
“I hurt innocent people.”
James waited patiently for me to continue.
 11

“I did it in a malicious way. I was told to by my commander and my fellow soldiers. It

happened right in front of my face. I did what I was told. It felt like I had no choice, but I
committed to it.”
“Tell me what you mean when you say you ‘committed to it’”
“I mean I didn’t put up a fight. I did exactly what the others did. I copied their behaviors
but I also acted on my own sinful thoughts.”
James and I would make eye contact. I could see what he was thinking by looking into
his eyes. I could feel what he was feeling. We started going out to the bars for drinks. Our
conversations only got better. He made me laugh harder than I’d ever laughed before. He drank
Chardonnay. I drank Bourdan. It was casual with him.
A drunk threw himself between James and I when we were sitting at the bar.
“Another beer.”
“Ay, Legless. How about some personal space?”
“Shove off.”
“Okay, buddy. I get it you’re having a good time but I’m asking you to take your good
time to another section of this spacious practically empty bar.”
“Shove off,” Legless repeated louder, “pretty-boy.”
“You think I’m pretty, huh? Is that why you found your way so close to me? Well, I’m
flattered but I don’t go for sweaty pig-heads.”
“I’m not a homo.”
“Hey, whatever you say.”
“I’m not gay. I’m literally married.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry for your wife.”
“You piece of crap.” He got up in James’s face, he was about to punch him.
I applied pressure to where the carotid artery enters the head and he passed out.
James burst out laughing. It made me crack a smile. We ran out together before Legless
woke up. His place was nice. He had a leather couch and a bookshelf in every room. The lighting
was soothing as well.
He introduced me to pot. It wasn’t an official prescription but it ended up curing my
insomnia. It was soothing. His couch while drunk and high became my happy place. He sat on
 12

one end and I sat on the other. Until, we both sat in the middle. His warmth was something so
comforting. I never knew what comfort was before his touch.
“I am so ashamed.”
“Why?”
“You know why. I feel so guilty for feeling the way I do.”
“It isn’t your fault. You’ve been traumatized your whole life. There are so many cases of
young boys experiencing extreme stress like the loss of a parent. It comes out in homosexual
thoughts and behaviors. The reason I am the way I am has to do with my formative years only
having a mom. You are damaged, but you are who you are. Love yourself. You are so worthy of
love.”
Years of lovers' bliss and good nights of sleep went by until Katherine got into UMD for
undergraduate schooling. James had family in Duluth. I met them when I was moving Katherine
into her dorm. He introduced me as his friend but his parents treated me as a son. He had two
younger brothers. His mom had James when she was only nineteen. Her other sons came later
when she was married. His dad, technically his step-dad, wasn’t easy to read. He was quiet and
went along with everything. He was in his seventies. He was a shorter man with thin white hair.
His face, although wrinkled, was structured and handsome. James was much taller and looked
like his mother. He resembled her features in subtle ways, he had a soft masculinity about him.
I lost James that winter. He was so thin when I last saw him. He wasn’t the same person I
knew. He was forgetting things and he had visible sores in his mouth. God played a cruel trick on
him. He refused to see me once he got his diagnosis. He wanted to protect me from himself. I
cried for weeks before his death and I cried for years after.
I continued to go to his family’s home for dinners. They were very giving people.
“Eat. Eat.”
His mother was proud of her cooking and wanted others to enjoy it. His parents would
carry out polite dinner conversation when I came over. My presence was company, they were
entertaining. It wasn’t that the food or the conversation was particularly amazing that made me
keep coming back. It was the feeling of family. It was the resemblance in his mom’s face. It was
the photos of him from infant to graduation around the house.
 13

They insisted on Katherine to come to dinner. She went, although she was unclear on the
importance of these people in my life. They treated her like a guest. James’s mom complimented
her young radiating skin.
“Your skin is glowing. You are so young and beautiful.”
“Thank you, you’re so kind.”
“How are your classes? What are you taking?”
“She’s taking her generals. She doesn’t have a major yet.”
“Yeah, but I am enjoying college.”
“How are your grades doing, hun?” I was worried so I made sure to ask her in a loving
manner. So not to sound like my father.
“Uh, not so great actually”
I heard my father’s words in my own mouth, “Not so good? You better be taking school
seriously. You know you need to work extra hard to make up for the head trauma.” I wanted to
take the words back.
Silence heated the room. James’s mom took the empty plates from the table and changed
the topic.
“I was going through James’s things. Would you like to come sort through them, if there
is anything you would like to remember him by.”
We went to the basement and sorted through the boxes labeled James. Katherine was
visibly uncomfortable, twiddled her fingers. I avoided her eyes, I felt them on me. Seeing
James’s belongings stirred up feelings I did my best to suppress. Katherine saw through me.
I held James’s reading glasses in my hands.
“You miss him don’t you?”
That was enough to tip me over the edge. I cried. The only person I had ever cried with
was James. Katherine leaped to hug me. I pulled myself together quickly.
“I loved him.”
“I can tell. How close were you with James?”
“Oh, those boys were practically teenagers in love.”
“Mrs. Salonen.”
“Did I say something I shouldn’t have? I thought she knew.”
 14

I refused to look at Katherine. I felt a pain in my chest. I drove her home in silence. I
walked her to the door of her dorm and she hugged me tight. Much longer than normal. We
looked each other in the eyes. She got so tall over the years.
“You know,” the beginning of her sentence filled me with fear, “it's okay, Daddy.”
I looked her in the eyes. That three seconds of eye contact was charged with
understanding, love, acceptance.
“I had a feeling you felt that way about James.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I’m in college, Daddy. I have friends that are gay.”
I flinch at that word.
“Sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about it but I’m glad I know now.”
“Your mother and I - we’re just -”
“Don’t explain. I am not in a position to judge any of your life choices. I’m glad you two
have stayed together although you’re - you know.”
“Katherine, I’m so sorry.”
“Why?”
“For everything. And I don’t care if you don’t have perfect grades. I just want you to be
happy.”
“Thank you. Really.”
We hugged again, quickly this time.
“Goodnight, Daddy. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
This was the first real conversation I had with Katherine. She was so open with me. It
was refreshing. It was short but it opened up a new world of communication with her. It changed
the way I saw her, how I saw life. I walked away from it with a sense of self-love and joy.
Melony and I continued to live side by side supporting each other in ways we could. I
was happy to see her branching out and meeting new people. We were legally tied together, and
Melony was a woman of God. I started treating her like my friend rather than the person which
reminded me of my suppressed feelings. She stopped pushing for intimacy when I told her
outright that I didn’t enjoy it, not because of her but because it made me uncomfortable. That one
interaction was enough for her to respect my boundaries.
 15

She had her friends over more often. It was a group of men and women, some married
and some single. I could tell she had a special connection with one of her guy friends. I didn’t
ask her about it when I saw them kissing in the hall outside the bathroom. In all honesty, it gave
me relief that she was finding what she needed in someone that could give it to her. It also made
me feel less guilty for cheating on her for those years.
My symptoms came on slowly. It was small things like rashes that went on for years. But
the rashes turned to fevers and it became harder to ignore. Melony wanted me to go to the doctor
but I refused. She threatened to drug my food with sleep meds and drag my ass there. So I agreed
to go to the ER. It was at stage two. They didn’t know how long it would take to kill me, they
didn’t know much about the virus.
It took ten years. I honestly wished it could’ve gone quicker like it did for James. The
weight loss, the pneumonia, and the diarrhea I could handle. Not the depression though. I was
hopeless, and for good reason. I cursed James for not letting me say goodbye. I don’t even care
that I got it, I just wish he didn’t have to be alone for his death.
Which brings me to my death, right now. I can see my withered body on the hospital bed.
They remove the breathing tube from my mouth and lungs. What comes after this, I’m not sure. I
see my beautiful daughter in tears holding my colding hand. I wish she would look up and see
me six feet above it all. Melony goes to hug her, Katherine shrugs her off. An hour passes when
Melony takes Katherine’s hand and leads her out of the room. I want to follow them but I feel
like my limbs are chained to my corpse. Is this it? Is this the end? I refrained from calling onto
God for my times of suffering. I’m ready to move on in some way. If that means I cease to exist,
so be it. I await for the final stage of death, but here I stay conscious. The pain has ended. I have
no body therefore I have no sensation. My thoughts race and then settle. Maybe this is the peace
I’ve been craving.
I follow my body to my grave. This is where I stay. The isolation turns from peaceful to
torture. I don’t see a soul around me. Am I the only soul trapped in this graveyard? In the night, a
wolf and her three wolf pups walk up to my grave. The three pups roll on their backs. They yip
and play with one another. Their mother stares into my eyes. She sees me, she must. She sniffs
persistently for minutes on end. She approaches closer. I reach out my hand. She licks my hand
and rubs her face against it, she feels me. I feel an instant release and soar into the sky. My spirit
expands and swirls with the clouds. I see the translucent faces of my lost loves. My dad, my
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mom, my James. We all morph into one then disperse completely. I forever live in the earth’s
atmosphere, one with every atom of the sky and every soul that ever died.
“Zou bisou bisou, le bruit des bisous
Dans les buissons sous le ciel du mois d’août
Les amoureux glissent à pas de loup
Comme les oiseaux ils ont rendez-vous
On l’entend partout
Zou bisou bisou
Zou bisou bisou,
mon Dieu qu’ils sont doux”