See'n

I wish they laid him in it. I mean, I wish they laid him in his fleece—the gray fleece jacket he always wears. Why is Papa laying with that strange tie around his neck? It makes him look stringy—like chaw. Papa don’t look stringy—don’t wear nothing around his neck neither

Papa always wears the gray fleece. The one missing threads everywhere like his bald head. Papa always says hairs have minds of their own and never sit still—just like me. But I did. I sat for hours on Papa’s lap—as still as a stone.

Papa has long white hairs sticking out of his neck at the place where he zippers the fleece to, right up under his chin. The fleece has threads sticking out just like that, in some places. The bare spots on Papa’s fleece—sometimes— sometimes, they are fields.

Martha and I plays in those fields. Martha likes horses—I don’t. But we plays in those fields anyway. Martha rides her horse all smarty-pants and smiles at me and Papa. Papa always wears the gray fleece. He was wearing it the day Martha stopped.

We were sitting on Papa. Martha was tucked under his smoking arm—I was on his knee. When Martha stopped, I walked into the field with her. Martha turned pink. She was born blue. Papa never used his smoking arm after Martha come along.

After Martha stopped, Papa used his smoking arm again. I like the smoke smell—Martha couldn’t. Papa said it was inevitable — like rain on a Saturday in April—why Martha stopped (whatever that means). When Martha stopped it was like she could smell smoke for the first time.

I wish they laid him it it—I mean, I wish they laid him in his fleece—in the gray fleece jacket he always wears. The gray fleece jacket the color of everything in Wilson’s Holler. Everything the color of the ash that sifts down from the smokestack at the stamping mill.

I wish they laid him it it. In the gray fleece jacket that smells like Prince Albert, and smoke, and Papa. The gray fleece jacket he always wears because he’s always cold, even in July. The gray fleece jacket he wears every day— even the day Martha stopped.

Reverend Blackburn talks, Mama sobs and I watches a stone slide slowly down a muddy gray pile of clay next to the hole where Papa is going to be put. I looks up at the rain and closes my eyes until I can see Martha. She is waving at Papa from way over a big green field covered with bright yellow dandelions.

Before I opens my eyes I seen Papa wearing his gray fleece—the one he always wears—the one he was wearing when he stopped.