When she was seven, her father told her about the animals that use the earth’s magnetic field for navigation. He told her that he read this in a book. He told her that she should try to read as many books as she can.
(Her father also told her not to believe everything you read in books. That there are ways of knowing that aren’t in books.)
Her father refurbishes houses for a living but he also makes art, from which he has earned very little.
Her father has been wearing the same winter parka for decades. It’s roomy enough that she can snake her arms into it, even when he’s wearing it, to keep warm. She hasn’t done this for a long time.
Her father learned how to play gin rummy and euchre in prison, taught by a man from Moose Factory named Cecil.
Her father falls in love too easily.
Her father falls out of love too easily.
Her father has been mortally afraid to fly ever since the aeroplane he was on encountered severe turbulence, causing it to drop four hundred feet.
Her father smells of turpentine and cigarettes.
When she was very small, her father rested his chin on the top of her head and sang her happy birthday, and his deep voice rumbled like an engine all through her body and down into her toes.
Her father graduated high school in 1958 with a D in every subject except biology, for which he received a B+.
Her father recently mailed her a package c/o the post office containing: a Nestlé chocolate bar (disfigured, having melted and re-solidified en route), a calling card worth twenty dollars, three packs of Wrigley’s spearmint gum, forty dollars in cash, two new pairs of socks and, without explanation, a newspaper clipping about a Minnesota man who specializes in carving Elvis Presley busts out of butter.
Her father is punctual.
Her father does not believe in God.
Her father sometimes forgets to call her on her birthday.
Her father is not afraid to drive on the highway in a white-out blizzard.
Her father can crack a walnut shell without cracking the nut.
And, like her father, she falls in love too easily.
She has loved the same man since this man was a boy.
They met in the weeds behind the school gymnasium, where this boy uncurled his fist for her and in his palm hunched a frog not much bigger than a Hershey’s Kiss.
From sharing a bed with this boy she learned that, if someone is snoring in your bed, all you have to do is jig your leg against his leg and he will stop.
This boy’s fingers, fumbling and persistent as a moth.
This boy, this man, always knew when she was wrong and was claiming to be right (and he would tell her so).
This skinny boy with few friends has grown into a man with a broad smile (having still few friends, which now feels more like a choice than an affliction).
This man, whom she has let down more times than she can count, has ignored her for two years.
This man is coming today.