January 7th, 2014

"She left me a list of things NOT to do" he says "what?"
says the girl he walks next to in the hall "after she dies"
he says. their tone is light. They laugh. It isn't that I'm
glad my father is gone, I want to tell them, but rather
that with him went the burden I've been dragging for seven
years now. We read Hughes' "A Dream Deferred" and when
I tell them my dream of taking over the U.S. department of Education,
they clap and chear and I am happy until I go home exhausted
and fall asleep in the darkening afternoon and wake to a
memory of my father making apple turnovers while we
watch Little House on The Prairie or The Bible or
A Christmas Carol. How he laughed at Scrooge and repeated
the line "An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy!" over and over again
until tears ran and we in our nightgowns giggled and sighed. 
.