the year i turned thirty one, i found a little park in north mcallen

with perfectly even sidewalks forming a perfect circle

a sturdy bench positioned at north and west and east and south

the best place i thought to help my father regain strength and mobility

rehab released him unable to walk unassisted unable to bathe or toilet

himself easily fatigued blood sugar wildly out of control spiking and falling

one morning he told me that if he’d known how much pain he’d

suffer after the quadruple bypass he’d have chosen to die instead

i walked every circle with him innumerable times as he slowly

progressed from barely being able to walk from one bench to another

to walking entire circles before needing to take a break and my father

was a talker when i remember this time his voice is what i remember most

while he rested he’d admire the white blooming acebuches everywhere in

the park while i greeted the pirules and sang their song under my breath

there’s nothing i love more than a rebellious tree a thorned tree an unwanted tree

pobre leña de pirul que no sirves ni pa' arder nomás para ser llorar

he told me he’d dreamed my mother had visited him in the night

full of rage a witch a vampire declaring that she’d come to take him with her

i swallowed a half chuckle and said nothing about how he’d been in the

hospital on every anniversary of her death four years in a row as of then

no way i could have known it was his fate to share the same date of death

exactly nine years apart 11/19/2001 on her stone 11/19/2010 on his

he told me stories he’d told me my entire life how he’d stopped going to school

in first grade how he’d worked in the fields how he’d worked day and night

but when i was a child he’d told us those stories to say we had no reason to

complain that we had the privilege of sitting all day at school learning things

but in the park and maybe because he’d come close to dying or maybe because

i have always known how to listen to stories he told me the whole story

how when he was a child his father would leave him for weeks or months

at a time with other families on other ranches other farms without protection

no one to make sure he was fed to make sure he had a place to sleep to make

sure he was allowed to rest to make sure he wasn’t beaten abused hurt

that he’d never known if his father would return for him or when or even how

much his labor was worth to the people he was left with or to his father

i was there to listen all the months of his recovery i knew i was there to listen

not to weep not to forgive only to witness maybe only to understand

i kept my horror to myself i kept most of my thoughts to myself as he

reminisced over old girlfriends voiced his bewilderment at his life as a widower

as he spoke of the woman younger than my oldest sister that he’d been seeing

before the quadruple bypass and how that was now a vanished dream

as he puzzled over the lives and thoughts and decisions of all my siblings

as he remembered and remembered and remembered he’d wake me to talk

my older siblings visited but never stayed took no part in his care my father

lived with one of my brothers but neither he nor his wife knew how to help

my youngest brother the one my father had molested the one my father had driven

to six suicide attempts the one my father threatened when our mother was dying

my youngest brother had come with me to care for him i still don’t understand

how he was able to cook for him and bathe him and wipe his ass

but i could see the fracture lines appearing as the weeks passed even though i

tried to keep him from breaking i insisted he be free for at least 12 hours a day

my brother took on the cooking and the gardening two things he loved to do

and that kept him away from our father and the house and the stories

for months i slept only 45 minutes at a time for months i barely wanted to eat

for months i dreamt of all my teeth falling out and a screaming baby in the freezer

i’ve always had the bad habit of seeing things through just because i said i would

looking back now i should have said no i won’t go i should have cut my losses

i should have pulled my brother out sooner i shouldn’t have broken myself

but you don’t know what you know till after and i wasn’t myself those months

but the day came when i gathered myself and told my brother go you can’t stay

here i’ll be okay here by myself and he fled and i stayed but i wasn’t ok i wasn’t

time passed and my father could dress himself again and drive again and regained

his alertness and the day came when i challenged him for something he’d confessed

to my youngest brother and that was the day he drove me to the Greyhound

station and left me there without a word and i don’t remember the trip home

my older sisters wanted a report on my father i ended my story by saying

that was the closest i’ve ever come to wanting to die as an adult

one of them said well at least you lost some weight and i think that was the

moment i realized that my youngest brother was all i had left of family

to understand does not mean to forgive that day at the Greyhound was the

last time i saw my father and after he died i was a razored ball of fury inside

it felt like there was fire instead of blood racing in my veins like i saw the

world through billowing clouds of black smoke there was no forgive in me

and everyone said you must forgive and forget but someone born to carry

stories can’t ever forget and i was never taught and never learned how to forgive

the only mercy i found was in setting aside all of the rage burning inside me

there was so much living to be done and writing and working and weeping

the years passed and now it’s been fifteen years since my father died and

my youngest brother is gone too and i was right he was my only family

a week ago i went to South Texas and though i didn’t visit the little park

i saw acebuches blooming white everywhere and i thought of my father

and i thought of the past and i thought about living and dying stories and what

we survive and freedom i thought of how long it takes to finally put it all down