Page 2 of Ladybirds

Mostly, Sara remembers being happy; her family whole.

Her father sober.

Her mother there.

After, Sara would turn her mother’s flea-market reading chair, its upholstery threadbare, till it faced the living room window. For hours, she would anxiously play with the strands of her hair and watch for her mother’s red sedan on the long gravel drive. So naive and hopeful, that she could almost hear the crunch of gravel under the tires and smell the dust kicked up in its wake. She never came and her father, from the bottom of his bottle, would never hesitate to tell her why.

“She ain’t coming back. Bitch got herself a new family.” A swig, or perhaps the twist of another cap, and he would add, “Stop wasting your time waiting for her.”

Eventually, Sara did. Seasons changed, and the driveway remained empty save her father’s work truck and the occasional visit from his bar buddies. Sara learned to hate the color red with a passion born from resentment. Her Oma—her mother’s mother—is the only blessing Mama left her with.

Every day after school, the bus would drop her off at her grandmother’s house. Oma always had something baked—muffins, strudels, cookies—and Sara would run to the peeling, navy blue door, open it wide, and breathe deep. Beneath the scent of flour and sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, was something intangible but warm—the complete opposite to the smell of stale beer and mildew that assaulted her the moment she stepped into her father’s house.

It took her a few years to figure it out, but she realized on her tenth birthday when Oma baked her a three-layered cake and her father didn't show up for dinner. Sara blew out the candles, wishing he was there. When he finally arrived, it was well past dark. She overheard Oma chewing him out in the entryway for stinking of whiskey.

Sara slept over that night, and in the morning she ate chocolate chip pancakes with fatty, thick sliced bacon and homemade sausages. When her father (finally) came to pick her up that afternoon, she didn’t want to leave. Her father didn’t want to hear it.

On the ride home, cans rattling beneath her feet and a fresh twelve pack sitting in the seat between them, Sara understood. Oma’s house felt like home. Not a shell of a house with nothing but cable tv and microwaved dinners eaten alone. Oma felt close; available and easy to love. Warm. Real.

Her father felt like a stranger at best.

A ghost, at worst.

Always there—a quiet, broad-shouldered figure lurking at the edges of her memory—but never there for her. If Oma was the ship keeping her afloat, her father was the figurehead. There for looks, but nothing else. But he tries, Sara knows he tries.

On the weekends, when it’s in season, he takes her hunting. Grouse and pheasant, mostly. Never dove. She sees him then—those sober moments where he becomes more human than booze. Most of the time she even likes him, but there’s always a chasm between them; an awkwardness she can never quite cross.

Even now, with the landscape unveiling its beauty in every sense—with every sense—she can’t help but feel like she’s toeing the edge of a cliff. Lean too far forward and she’ll plummet; stand too far back and she’ll never be close. She walks several paces behind her father’s stocky frame, the weight of her camera strap on the back of her neck more comforting than the silence between them.

The sun's warm rays, spilling into the valley, reach across her favorite hill. The tall grasses, dry from the summer heat, turn to gold while the lone oak tree in the distance softens from a hard silhouette and into something three dimensional. Her father's spaniel tracks a scent, white and honey coat nearly disappearing in the high grasses. Sara stifles a laugh when the dog hops over a particularly thick patch of brush.

“You best not be laughing at my dog." Thick, graying eyebrows rise over hazel eyes—one of the few features she inherited from him. "Unless you want to take Miss Belle's place and start flushing out my birds.” The hands holding his shotgun gesture to the large expanse of field still needing to be covered.

“No thanks.” Sara lifts her camera pointedly in response. "I'm just the photographer, remember?"

He grunts, eyes flicking to her most prized possession before quickly flitting away. Sara tries to tamp down the disappointment souring her stomach. Three years in, and her choice in major still tips him into the realm of firm disappointment.

She hurries to change the conversation. “Belle looks good out there,” she says, nodding toward the rustling grass. “She’s listening a lot better than last year.”

Roy adjusts his cap before returning his grip to the firearm—ready to snap up and shoot at a moment’s notice. A shrill whistle passes his lips, and Belle comes bounding through the brush. Roy gives his daughter a pointed look over his shoulder. “Yeah. Amazing what happens when a certain someone isn’t here to spoil her.”

Sara’s lips pucker in a failing attempt to withhold a smile. Belle pads over to her, tongue lolling out of her mouth, and nudges her hand. She sneaks a scratch behind her ear. “You’re just sore because I’m her favorite.”

“Will you knock that off?” he scolds, more exasperated than angry. “How many times do I gotta tell you not to pet her while she’s working.”

“I’m giving her positive reinforcement.”

Faintly, she hears a mumbled, “Millennials,” pass his lips as he moves a few giant steps deeper into the field. Belle bounces enthusiastically at his side, pink tongue lolling out one side of her freckled mouth.

Sara’s smile falters, but she sets her irritation aside for the sake of keeping the peace. “I heard that.”

He sends a disapproving look over his shoulders. “You best not have, because then I’d know you didn’t put those earplugs in like I told you to.”

She flushes guiltily, fingers quickly find the two orange pieces of foam in her back pocket. Rolling them between her fingers, she puts one in each ear—feeling the foam puff and fill the canal snugly until her hearing becomes noticeably muffled. “Sorry.”

“No, sorry would have been you going deaf at the age of thirty,” he says flippantly, though his voice carries no sharp edge. It’s a lecture that’s as overused as telling her not to waste water on long showers. His eyes observe the dog’s movements as she weaves circled trails through the grass.

Sara shrugs her freckled shoulders, despite knowing she isn’t in his line of sight. There’s a witty retort ready to be fired from her lips, but she bites her tongue. She’s irritated by his tone, but she knows better than to pick a fight.

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