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Catherine M. Chastain-Elliott. My Father’s View. 2012. Acrylics and Georgia red clay. 18 × 24 inches.

Photo by J. M. Lennon.

They Lived on a cul-de-sac. The mother, graceful as she was, spent her days pouring tapwater into floral arrangements while the Magnavox hummed through the wall, dramatic music telegraphing moments she would never experience firsthand. There were too many rooms, a bed no longer slept in though she made sure the sheets were always fresh. Packages were left conspicuously on the doorstep, even when a signature was required. The son, obedient as he was, attended Sunday school at the Methodist Church, solved Ten Commandments find-a-word puzzles in a portable behind the chapel. He leaned his bike against streetlamps, knocked on doors to houses that looked similar to his own only to find out that no one was home due to the neverending pull of teams, lessons, vacations. The big news—if you could call it news—was the neighbor’s potting shed washed into the creek during a freak October storm, but they were able to salvage the jars of blackberry jam and still give them out at Christmas with little bells tied to the bow.

The mother, however, never complained. This was the contract she entered into, her compensation for a life of comfort, safety. The luxury to budget her own time, read magazines after her chores were complete while others squirreled away behind too-small desks answering phones for men who they would eventually have to rebuff. There was no renegotiating. Such was the nature of contracts in that day and age. The son didn’t watch this unfold, rather absorbed it like gas fumes from a balky pump. He discerned the fine print using other senses—a twisted gut, tingling at the base of his skull—and there was an everpresent feeling that someday the whole accord might make the mother sick, but he felt unqualified to express this at such a young age. The son, through no fault of his own, was born intuitive. Not smart, rather an antenna for the refracted energy that bounced around in the mother’s life—invisible wavelengths of ambition as she prepared dinner while her husband did push-ups after work, half-smiles illuminating prison break fantasies as she stood on a chair and dusted cobwebs from the exposed beams above the flagstone fireplace. If she felt trapped, she would never admit it, not even to the son. A cage with golden bars, perhaps, but a nice life in a nice town.

If there was one blemish on their otherwise pleasant slice of nirvana, it was the spur line of the Southern Pacific railroad that ran behind their quarter acre. Nirvana. That’s what the father called it. How was your day, son? He would say as he pulled his briefcase out of the Buick. Nirvana treating you right?

The train did its best to temper any suggestion of paradise, rumbling by every day during the mother’s favorite soap opera. The conductor was required by law to sound his horn at the nearby school crossing, and the mother, hanging on every word, refused to miss a single confession of love or murder from her favorite stars, who went by names such as Brent and Tad and Jacqueline. Her solution was to move the television to an unlikely spot as far from the tracks as possible, a nook in the foyer protected from the white noise of the encroaching world. It proved a worthy fix.

After unloading its cargo, the train would return shortly after school ended, just in time for the son to sit on the back fence and watch it pass. He imagined throwing a rock at the boxcar once he was sure the conductor could no longer see, but if he did this he was certain the train would screech to a halt and armed guards would jump off, taking him into custody. The son’s only solace came from knowing he was a good hider and their yard possessed many good hiding spots, the most prominent being the...

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