The Landscape of Our Childhood

I watch the dust kick up under the tires of the bike as he locks the brakes, skidding out and sliding toward me through the gravel. He laughs as he stands, brushing the dirt from his black jeans. ‘That’s how you crash a bike, fucker.’ He walks past me, smiling back over his shoulder, a cigarette poised for lighting between his lips.                                   

‘Whatever,’ I turn in place, staring at his back as he continues toward the porch. ‘You’re gonna break your fuckin’ neck someday. And the only thing you’ll be showing me is how to change your cath bag.’ I turn to follow him onto the open deck. ‘Fucker.’                   

He laughs again, dropping into one of the chairs and sparking his cigarette to life. He stretches his legs out, crossing his ankles as I move to sit next to him. We stare out at the empty gravel of the drive, down the dirt road that curves toward the highway. There is no wind today; just a dry heat forcing the sweat from my body, making it run in trickles down my back, sticking my shirt to my skin. ‘Are you ready for fall?’ My brother asks, flicking ash onto the wooden planks of the deck.                 

‘Hell no, never,’ I tell him, pushing my hair off my damp forehead. This heat is stifling, but it is no match for the cold of winter. A cold which threatens to turn me into a recluse, its bitter winds driving me inside and taunting me as it whistles across the loose shingles. The sweet tease of fall is a deception, lulling me into a comfortable ignorance with its soft breezes, just cool enough to blow the hot of the sun off my skin. I let myself enjoy this, every year, even though I am aware of the lie.           

But right now, today, I am clinging to the last days of summer. I embrace the heat that burns my white flesh red, the hot winds that blow dust up the road like tiny twisters, the musky scent of sweaty bodies being cooled as evening sets in. I am aware that fall is waiting to chill the morning air, drag the sun down with a speed that seems forceful, waiting to pull me away from this place once more. But for this moment my brother and I are safe from its reaching hands. Hands that I can feel, even now, stretching out to us like the limbs of the trees it leaves bare and dead in its wake.                     

I stare out across the yard, the gravel drive and dirt road cutting a dull line through the brilliant green of the grass. The trees that surround us are still, the afternoon sun filtering through the leaves and casting shadows on the ground. We will leave soon, and I know I am not ready. The earth is trying to prepare me for this, trying to push me away from my dearest comfort, turning the nights colder and the days shorter. This is happening with blinding speed this year, or perhaps I am just clinging that much tighter as each year slips away.                                 

My memories of this place are happy ones, all of them. They are not the only happy memories I own, but they are by far the most comforting. I can see my mother clearly in my mind, her back to me, standing out in the field that stretches out across the road. Her dark hair, much like my own, blowing softly around her face. My brother, so young then, stands next to her. His small hand reaches up for hers, both of their heads are turned to face my father and me as we stand on the porch. She is smiling at us, waving with her free hand. A hand which holds a cluster of the wildflowers that still grow in that field. My brothers eyes are squinted against the sun as he looks back with our mother. His golden head shines under the rays, his skin an incredible tan. The kind that only children are capable of achieving. Pure, unadulterated summer, browned onto the skin like a tattoo.                             

My brother and I seldom speak of these memories to one another. We know they are shared, but we choose to keep them to ourselves and relive them in the silence of our minds. It seems to me that to give them voice, to breathe life into an image so long silent, would be a tarnish on the perfect landscape. The landscape of our childhood. Perhaps my brother understands this unspoken fear, and that is why we sit, quiet, together yet apart, as the evening closes in around us every night.                 

We spend the days here much as we did when we were young. Walking the fields and picking wildflowers as we had with our mother so long ago, riding the same rusty bikes through the same colorless gravel. Countless years of sweaty hands have rubbed the paint from the metal frame. We play in the creek that flows behind the house, splashing and laughing like we are children again, finding box turtles and frogs and exclaiming over them with the excitement of boys. When we are here, we are untouchable to the years that have since made us men.                             

My brother and I are connected to each other by the blood that courses through our veins, but more so by this place. Every year we come back here, to visit our parents and let them know that they did right. We return to the world they created for us, a world where we always felt safe, to show them that we have grown into good men. That we have not forgotten that this is the reason, they are the reason, that we are who we are. I come here to feel that security again, to feel my parents lives in this soil, to feel my childhood return to me. It wraps itself around me like a coat; it clings to me in a vain attempt to fight off the cold of winter, the passing of another year, the time which will again steal me away.               

We are both well into our thirties now. We are successful men, happy and satisfied in the choices we’ve made for ourselves, the lives we’ve built for our own families. We do not come here out of grief or loss or the hope of finding some sort of peace. We come to be with our parents, for these few weeks, and to be the brothers we once were. The brothers our busy lives and demanding jobs have left little time for. I am never ready to leave, never ready to see the house slip away in the rear-view as we drive down that bumpy dirt road. I am never ready to go out back, to sit under that willow and say another good-bye to my mother and father. I always look back as we walk away; one final glance at the small headstone they share, shaded by the protective branches of the tree. I know they are safe, I know they are at peace. I know they are together.       

Sometimes I think of coming here alone one day, not by choice. But one of us will outlive the other, that is almost a given. When that day comes and there is another stone under that willow, whether it be his or mine, I know that there will still be a man coming here, every summer, to ride that rusty bike, pick the pure white wildflowers and sit and talk to the open air under a faded willow tree.