It's Like Home
no. 55
Walled in. The boys tumbled on the concrete, shoving and barreling into one another. They groaned under each other’s weight. They crashed into the trucks strewn across the patio. I turned away, my body cringing. “They need to do this, right?” I asked Leifer. I wanted to tell them, “I knew this would happen.” I waited, sealing my lips, bracing myself for a fallout.
“Let’s get out of here. Get your shoes on, boys,” I told them. They wanted to know where we were going, but I wasn’t sure, and that was the truth. With our shoes on, we left the house.
We walked down the familiar path alongside the orchard. I noticed the branches trimmed from the peach trees. Sunlight flooded the ground, exposing the boys’ play fort underneath. We took a right at the corner and pressed on. We walked to the hillside with the immature avocado trees, already a foot taller. We started down the steep slope. Enzo found his own path. At the bottom, we kept going to the raging river. “We’re going to the river?” The boys wanted to know, our voices of fear and concern echoing in their heads. We avoided the cactus and closely watched each step. My next step was a trap, and my foot fell through. My body lurched forward, and with a giant effort, I pulled myself back upright. The ground flattened in front of us. River rocks polka-dotted the ground, of different shapes and sizes and colors. They were slick, and once again, I encouraged the kids to slow down. They fanned out in different directions. Their steps quickened again, with each discovery. Closer to the river, the ground changed. We looked down. It was sand beneath our feet. The boys knelt down, fanned out their fingers, and kneaded the earth. “It’s like home, a sandy beach.” The sun was at our backs. The water lapped against the rocks and the boys formed castles and houses and mounds. Leifer picked up rocks and tried to skip them across the water. Then he demonstrated how to check the depth of the river. We listened for the sounds the rocks made near and far as he tossed them. It’s deep, we concluded, telling the boys to stay close. One after another, they took off their shoes and socks- everything was soaked through. Leif collected rocks and displayed them in front of me. I told him about how his great-grandfather used to polish rocks. I had a rock collection as a kid. We found discarded clothes and an empty one-liter cola bottle. River became ocean- the boys cared little for the distinctions. Our next step would be swimming. But for now, we picked up our strewn wet clothes and left to barbecue for Father’s Day.