DEP POEM
Levi’s Emotional Odyssey
Navigating Family Memories at the Vacation Cabin
Levi visited his late
parent’s vacation cabin.
He had to sort
out the future
of these memories
made here
over summer breaks
and a Christmas in ‘97.
Levi caught flashbacks
from thirty years ago
of hiding in the basement
under the pool table,
and putting his fingers
in his ears as he
hummed Sunday school
songs and closed his eyes
as though it made him invisible
when his dad and mom got into it.
The brown leather furniture
remained in place,
facing the large bay window
adjacent to the fireplace.
His dad sat on the recliner
and Levi sat on the sofa.
Cypris walls blended
with the framed pictures
with black trim and smiles
on their faces that only
time could explain.
Levi’s mom moved pots
and pans, throwing
something together for supper.
Levi went to help, but his father
told him that women worked
in kitchens.
So he returned to sit and watch
horror flicks.
God hadn’t gifted his mom
with cooking skills,
but he thanked her daily.
The place had an upstairs
and a basement.
Pictures hung evenly
spaced on the walls.
Levi, his mother,
and his father
smiled at the camera.
He’d been moping
around a week now,
debating the only
two options
that he knew he had.
The long, gravel driveway
paved the way
for bumpy choices.
A car crash took
his folks to heaven.
God needed them
more than Levi did.
He told himself so,
or he’d commit
himself to a facility,
strapped to a gurney
as the doctors
injected sedatives.
It was there beyond
the hickory tree
where the chipmunks
chipped away at the bark,
that his father taught him
how to swing a baseball bat,
and how to swig a bottle
of whisky with one hand
and smoke a death stick
in the other.
Love and hate warred
with Levi’s admiration
for his sober father.
He treated his mom
with respect.
He kept his hands to himself.
He became a churchgoing man,
and his mom tagged along.
Levi’s dad turned to counseling
instead of the bottle.
Life returned to his mom’s face.
Levi saw the light in his dad’s eyes
when he gave him the advice
that he wished his father had given him.
Levi’s life was different after
those early years.
Looking back, he’d almost
forgotten about it all.
Levi wiped the heavy, damp memories
off his eyes with his sleeve,
and turned off the TV.
He put the remote
on the mahogany
coffee table.
He set his self-help book
that he’d skimmed through
on the oak end table.
Levi moved to the front door.
He turned on the porch light,
separated the blinds,
and moved his eyes around.
He locked the door
and held the tan rail to move
up the stairs to his bedroom.
Levi lay on his bed;
his hands behind his head
as a pillow, staring
above as the ceiling fan chopped
through his undivided attention.
He ruled love out of his life
for the foreseeable future.
He wanted intimacy more than life itself,
but the floodgates of heartbreak
foiled his will to follow through.
It was more to life
than he’d wanted to know,
but he knew it, anyway.
Each morning, Levi put on coffee.
Levi turned on the TV for the news
and shut it off when wars and rumors
of wars echoed across the stations.
He poured a cup of coffee
with a splash of milk and moved
through the front door
to the outside deck
and blew steam from his dark
coffee and took quick sips on the porch.
He took in the presence of the river
flowing through itself.
The sun reflected its beaten path
to warm the day with spreading rays.
The fluffy white clouds escaped
the forecasted downpour of a scorching day.
Levi’s thoughts drifted to rubbing
sunscreen on a woman
with fair skin.
If the past bleeds into the future,
he’d meet a woman who was all about
him until she reunited with her ex.
Steps over brush, gold and red leaves startled Levi.
“Hello,” a woman said, approaching Levi with a steaming mug.
She wore tight jeans and boots with a green Hurley t-shirt.
“Mind if I join you?” She pointed over her shoulder. “I live over there.”
“Our parents went to college together.”
Levi peeled his eyes off her fair skin and straight, long, red hair.
“Umm, sure,” he said, dusting off a spare chair.
The oak floor creaked as she moved up the steps.
She looked behind her and sat in the chair. “So,” she said, crossing her legs. “What brings you out here?”
Levi cleared his throat. “I’m trying to decide whether to keep this place or sell it.”
She put her mug on the small glass table. “Why on earth would you sell this place?”
“What’s your name?” Levi arched a brow.
“Alicia.” She reached to shake his hand.
He embraced her soft grip, and his tense gaze eased into a soft glance. “I’m Levi.”
“You can let go of my hand now, nerd,” Alicia said, giggling.
Levi blushed. “You live out here alone?”
“I’m a big girl,” Alicia said.
“I wasn’t talking about your — ”
“Don’t even go there.” Alicia waved her finger.
A ripples of a romance
rolled off the river faster than
Levi’d put the plans together
within his mind, pulled between
two separate motives,
behind a neutral smile
that she pulled back the curtains
on the sparkles dancing in his eyes,
coming up empty of white lies.
The connection of clear airwaves
dotted Levi’s eyes,
Alicia and Levi smiled as their memories
need more room to grow and bedrooms
for the children to blossom.
Levi crouched, dusted off a chest, and struggled to open it. It finally popped.
He covered a cough. Levi shuffled through the papers — records, deeds, and family pictures. But a note in his father’s handwriting on a legal pad caught his attention.
He reached for his breast pocket and put on his reading glasses.
Levi, I’m ashamed of what I put you and Mom through. I don’t know when, but someday I’ll be gone. I am writing this note to leave here for your pain to heal here and now. I wish it were that easy, but the things you saw because of me. I’m sorry. As of now, Mom and I are well. We’ll celebrate forty years together tomorrow. Mom said you called to say hello. I’m sorry I missed your call. I’m proud of you, kid. I haven’t told you much, but I couldn’t ask for a better son.
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you met Alicia.
I knew it, Levi thought. He paused, reached for his neck, and moved his nails around. He cracked a smile.
I know what you’re thinking, but Alicia is the daughter of your mother’s college roommate. And they wanted you guys to cross paths.
Levi’s tears rolled down his cheeks and hit the crisp note. Even if death, his mother blessed him with good decisions.
Levi heard footsteps descend the stairs.
“Who’s there?” he said.
“It’s Alicia,” she said, holding her hands up. “Don’t shoot.”
Levi let out a sigh that only God knew existed. His stiff gaze eased into an anxious crush.
“I knocked,” Alicia said, turning her head and moving her eyes around. “They took care of the place.”
“Mostly Mom and me,” Levi said, as if to erase any effort of his father from the picture.
“Your father,” Alicia said, placing her hands into her back pockets, “you guys didn’t get along, did you?”
“What makes you think that?”
Alicia gave him a deadpan stare.
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m all ears.” Alicia plopped herself into the dusty rocking chair and crossed her legs. “Go on,” she said like a therapist.
“He was a bad man,” Levi said, pacing as he racked his hands through his wavy, dark hair. “He changed, though.”
“For the better?” Alicia said, wrapping her long hair around her neck.
Levi shrugged. “Not for the worst.” Tears threatened to spill across his cheeks, so he blinked, making them fall faster.
“I got a letter, too,” Alicia said, moving loose strands of hair from her red cheeks. “I know everything that your mother wanted me to know about you.”
Levi’s left brow arched. “Everything, as if everything?”
Alicia winked. “More than I needed to know.”
“That sounds like Mom.”
“She thought, they both thought that we’d go good together.”
“So did your mom,” Levi said.
“You read it too, huh?”
“What do you think?” Levi said.
“As imperfect as my mom has been, she’s never led me down the wrong path. It’s cliche to say that I loved you at first sight, but my parents knew me better than I did because God brought us together.”
“Who knew there’d be a blessing in a tragedy?”
“Certainly, our parents who are applauding in heaven did.” Alicia kissed him. And one year later, Levi tied their knot.
(© 2024 AC)
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