Sarah Flygare The Things We Leave Behind We're ten blocks off when we see it-an
e1ectric~pink flamingo
pulsating at a rate of eighty flashes a minute, lighting up the snow in my father-in-law's yard.
My father-in-law is a landscape architect. During the dormant winter months he and his colleagues flood each others' lives with the most flamboyant flamingos they can muster. In the Midwest, landscape architects are like farmers: every year they go a little crazy waiting for the ground to thaw. I concentrate hard on the flamingo flashing in the snow. I don't turn my head left to look down Maple Lane-the street I grew up on. Since my parents died two years ago in a jack-knife double-semi blink of an eye, I haven't been able to look down Maple Lane, let alone at the house itself. Ie's almost two a.m. in the dead of January but BO, my father~in law, is waiting on the porch. He's wrapped in a big red rug, hopping from one bare foot to the other. "That's your grandpa, Baby," I say. "I'll deal with the stuff," Tom says. "You get the little guy inside." The chill of Midwestern winter rushes into me as I carry Wyatt through the snow. He has never seen snow before. I wonder how he will react, awakening to a world gone white. BO folds us into a big red rug hug. "There you are," he says. We s£ay that way for a long time nOt saying a thing. "Oet yourself upstairs," he finally whispers. "The sheets have been rolled around on a bit but they're pretty clean." My father~in~law's house is as home as it gets for me. I know he knows this from the way he looks at me when he thinks I'm too absorbed in a book to notice, and from the things he keeps. Iff leave behind a nearly spent bottle of seaweed shampoo, it's waiting for me the next time we visit. If I leave a single blue sock, a silver~edged scarf, a dog-eared Dunning mystery, a pile of coins and gnarled grocery receipts, he gathers and stashes them in the top left drawer of the loft's dresser. He never disturbs what's already there. I'm too tired to undress. I lie on the big feather bed and concentrate on matching my breathing to Wyatt's, listening to the silence of snow falling on the corrugated roof. 1 know Tom and BO need their private time. BO has called us home because he thin~s that JoyWinter 2004·05
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