Elohim himself laughed. He tried to anyways, but the grief gave it a certain defeat.
“I’d say, ‘I’m over here, Father.’ And he’d tilt his head in my direction, but never down, he never looked down at me in those woods, because in there, I was the son he could look up to. The dark allowed him that. I allowed him that, as I’d stay hidden as best I could as he looked up toward the stars. ‘I see you now, son,’ he’d say. But of course, he was just like my mother, and never saw me after all, not for a damn second.
“You can imagine anything you want in the dark. You can imagine your father loves you, you can imagine your mother is not disappointed, you can imagine that you are … significant. That you mean somethin’ to someone. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Fielding. To matter. That is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Later, after we climbed down from the roof, Elohim went into the house, he said to get something. While I waited in the yard, I listened to the clanking sounds of the train hauling gravel from the quarry miles away.
I leaned against a tree, my hands in my pockets, my head back on the bark, listening to the clanking until it faded and the night was back to its bullfrog and cricket song. When I turned my head off to the side toward the porch, there he stood, watching me. For how long?
“Mr. Elohim?”
“I always wanted to be a father myself.” His voice was soft like the moths chattering around the light above him. As he came down from the porch, I saw he had two jam jars in his hands. “I’d be damn lucky to have a son like you, Fielding.”
Mostly because I didn’t know what to say, I asked about the jars.
“These are bona fide firefly jars.” He offered me one. “You up for catchin’ some fireflies, son?”
It was the first time he had ever called me son, and I let him do it again in the woods as we ran between the trees, laughing and scooping the fireflies up in the jars, using our hands as the lids we would later open together, releasing that which we had caught for that one brief moment in time.
“Fielding?”
I turned to Sal’s voice. He was propped up on his elbow, looking over at me.
“We said your name a billion times.” Dresden raised up beside him. “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothin’.” I sat up.
They glanced at each other, lying back down while I stayed sitting, looking up at the sky and listening as Sal wished Dresden a happy birthday.
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen. For the first time.” She sighed.
He kissed her forehead before standing up.
“Hey, where are you going?” she called after him as he walked toward the rail fence a ways off.
He didn’t answer her, so she tried me. “Where do you think he’s going, Fielding?”
“I don’t know.”
The moon was enough to see him standing at one of the fence posts. When he stepped away we saw a small light flickering at the top of the post.
“Oh.” She gasped. “Where’d he get that fire from? Fielding?”
“I don’t know.” I moved closer to her and felt the ground until I found her hand.
“Fielding, don’t.” She quickly pulled her hand away.
I didn’t look at her, nor she at me. Our eyes merely followed his figure moving down along the fence, his back to us as he counted off thirteen consecutive posts that lit in tiny flickering flames.
As he walked back toward us, I helped Dresden stand, her grip tight on my arm as she put her weight on her good leg. She was the first to let go. I only did when I heard Sal stepping closer.
“You like your candles?” He wrapped his arms around her.
“How’d you do it?” I looked at his hands for a lighter or some matches.
“Fire comes easy to me.” He winked before kissing her cheek and asking her if she was ready to blow out her candles and make a wish.
She closed her eyes and made her wish, but on exhale the lights still flickered in the distance.
“Deeper breath,” Sal whispered in her ear, his lips brushing her cheek. “When I say.”
She waited and when he squeezed her arm, her exhale carried across the pasture to the fence, where the flames lay down into the night.
There would be no answer then as to how he’d done it. At that moment, he was the one hugging the birthday girl while I stared off into the dark night.
“This will be a happy diary day.” She nuzzled into his neck. “I think The Little Prince will be my book of choice. Yes, the Little Prince who came from the sky.”
“I’ve read that. Doesn’t the prince leave a rose behind?” He held her tighter.
“I’ll only circle the words that say he takes her with him.”
*