There Is No Right Word

There Is No Right Word Roberta Hartling Gates Absolute. That was my father. Alone, shining, so big that his grandsons, when they were smaU, believed he had supernatural strength. He towered over other fathers, both literally and figuratively. It was the German in him that you noticed most: how resolute he was, how self-contained, how contemptuous. And then, of course, the covered-over anger. He never understood how anyone could be less than he himself was. It didn't matter ifyou were a child. You were still less, and growing up didn't fix it. B is for bathroom, the single thing my mother most desired. But my father refused to put one in. I don't know why. To prove to himself he was the boss? To put her in her place? It's hard to think of another reason. He bought her other things, a microwave oven, for instance. It was one of the first, as large as a cedar chest practicaUy She hadn't wanted it, but there it was, like a coffin in her kitchen. He seemed to be saying, You can have what you don't want, but not what you do. Cats, dozens of them, roamed the farm when I was growing up, and they stiU do: the black ones with dainty white paws and tuxedo-type bibs or the smeary gray ones or the big orange toms that looked vaguely like lions perched atop the gateposts. My father, coming and going from chores, could never pass them without pausing to stroke them, and not just briefly either, but generously, from the tops of their squarish heads to the faraway tips of their tails, until they rose, backs arching higher and higher, like ballerinas on four feet. He was like this: any animal anywhere had his attention . People might not interest him, but for an animal he'd do anything. I remember one night in particular, when it was so cold they were warning people to STAY INDOORS OR ELSE! Flesh would freeze in a matter of minutes, or possibly even seconds. We were clustered around the big oilburning stove in the living room when we heard Penny, our mild-mannered 122 Roberta Hartling Gates123 coUie, barking, barking, barking. We were aU very excited. It was not Uke her to bark at anything. She didn't even chase cars. Maybe she'd treed a coon or a possum. Our father thought not: "It's probably nothing," he said from behind bis Wallace's Farmer. But the barking persisted. We could actuaUy hear Penny's voice growing hoarser. Sometimes it even seemed to slip over into a whine. FinaUy my father went out to investigate. He didn't say anything,just put on his fleecelined coveraUs with the hood and took one ofthe shotguns down from the rack by the door. Could it be a hobo? Mother was terrified ofhobos; she'd grown up during the '30s when there actuaUy were some. Or was somebody messing with the cattle? Every few months in the Advocate, we'd read about cattle thieves, how they'd sneak in at night with their trucks and loading chutes and make off with anywhere from a few head to a whole herd. Of course, that happened on places where there wasn't a house, or at least not a house where anyone lived. StiU, you never knew. When my father finaUy came in again, his glasses fogged over and little icicles clinging to his nostrils, he told us that Penny had treed a cat. Because she'd mouthed it up pretty good beforehand, the poor thing was now frozen to the tree. We looked at each other, stunned. Did this mean the cat was going to die? But we could see that wasn't going to happen. My father had the situation in hand. He told Mother to heat some water whüe he went to the machine shed for a ladder. Later, watching him from the house as he climbed up and down the ladder , we were amazed. This was our father, the obtuse one, making trip after trip with a steaming tea kettle to unloose a cat...