The Boots My Mother Gave Me (10 page)

“What did I get from Dad?” Kat asked.

Mom thought momentarily. “You got his dark hair and olive skin.”

“That doesn’t count. I mean like a talent, an interest or something?”

“Well, honey, I guess you’re just more like me.”

Unsatisfied with Mom’s answer, Kat wanted more, some sort of connection with him. We often felt invisible as children in our home, my parent’s co-dependence filling the majority of their time. Their dysfunction took center stage. Kat and I, like movie extras, lingered in the background, hoping one day for our big break.

“You know how Dad has the ability to do anything?” I asked. Unequivocally talented, our father picked things up at first glance, mostly self-taught.

“Yeah,” she said, hopeful.

“That’s what you got from him.”

“Ya think? You really think I can do anything, Harley?”

“No doubt, Kit-Kat, you got it in aces.” I carefully returned the records to the box.

“I always had a solid role model,” she said, smiling at me. She pulled from the box a pair of tall, brown, vintage leather boots. “What are these?”

“My old boots. I thought Harley might like them. Your dad bought those for me as a Christmas gift in 1976, back when he still did those things, bought me presents and stuff. Those boots are the best gift I ever got. Genuine leather uppers, the real deal.”

“Try them on, Harley.” Kat jumped up, tugging on my arm to do the same.

I stood, pulling my pant legs up to accommodate the height of the boot. I’ll never forget the initial contact my foot made with the sole. I felt like a tourist at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where celebrities leave footprints in cement. Mom had worn the boots so much, her exact footprint furrowed in the sole. My heel fit perfectly in line with her imprint, the high arch supporting my own. The only thing askew, my toes, long like Dad’s, pressed snugly into the tip of the boot.

People say you shouldn’t judge others until you have walked in their shoes. Here I stood, literally, in my mother’s shoes. A part of me was curious how she walked through life and found herself in the present. The other part remained frightened, should I ever find myself on the same path.

Statistics, which disregard free will, show a high probability Kat and I will find ourselves in abusive relationships. It seems prophetic to me. It’s like telling someone they’re good or bad. If you tell them enough, they may eventually believe you and self-fulfill the prophecy. Would I end up like my mother? My father?

I could feel my feet begin to sweat, suffocating under the weight of my thoughts. Should I keep these boots or were they a bad omen, like accepting an heirloom engagement ring that represented an ill-fated union? My every instinct chanted,
take the boots off, take the boots off.
I knew I did not want to walk, not even a day, in my mother’s shoes. Frantically, I bent to pull the boots from my feet, and caught a glimpse of Mom, a pleasurable and reminiscent gleam in her eyes as she looked at me, standing there in her shoes.

“Oh, you don’t like them?”

I stopped immediately upon seeing the disappointment on her face. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings because of my silly superstitions. I diverted my hands inside the bootlegs. “No, I love them. My socks fell down. Have to pull them up,” I lied.

“I used to wear those all the time. I nearly had you on the dance floor in those boots, Harley,” Mom began. “We went to the Georgia Volunteer Fire Hall to dance the night away. I had my first contraction at the stroke of midnight. And a long eighteen hours later, I held you in my arms for the first time.” I looked at Mom, then at the boots, realizing the memories they must carry for her.
Maybe they’re not that bad after all.

“What kind of dances did they have back then? Did you guys do the hustle and the twist and the mashed potato?” Kat asked, going through the motions of each dance, causing me to giggle. She was a nut.

“Well, yeah, I guess we did some of those. Mostly we just danced. The man led, the woman followed. Every now and then we would square-dance.”

“Square-dance? You mean like, grab your partner, doe-see-doe?” Kat hooked her arm in mine, turning in a circle.

“Something like that,” Mom said, shaking her head and smiling. “We jitter-bugged, some people call that swing dancing.”

“Jitter-bug? You sure had some strange names for your dance moves, Ma,” Kat added.

“No more strange than the names I hear you kids throw around. What’s that one you girls used to do, it sounded like a vegetable?”

“The cabbage patch.” I demonstrated. Kat joined me until we collapsed from laughter, onto the floor beside Mom. We lay there, the three of us, side by side, our backs against the peak of the attic, looking up at the ceiling.

“I remember you guys dancing, you and Dad,” Kat said. “You looked happy.” She lay between Mom and me. With each hand, she took one of Mom’s and one of mine, holding them in her own. We were still and quiet.

My best memories of my parents came from their dancing together. They actually looked like a couple in love. Dad’s hands held Mom tight and secure as they maneuvered around the floor. She smiled at him and he returned the gesture. She nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck and he would take her hand in his and hold it close to his chest, his heart. Sometimes I got caught up in it, forgetting those hands, the hands holding her devoutly as they danced, caused so much pain.

The abrupt closing of the front door zapped my mind back to the present. “Marilyn, you in here?” I heard my dad’s deep, carrying voice. I sprang to my feet, offering Kat and Mom a hand to pull them from the floor.

“Yes John, we’re up here.” Mom waved her hand over the attic opening in the ceiling.

“Is Harley up there?”

I began my descent, my foot searching for the ladder beneath me. “Yeah, I was just leaving.”

He walked to the ladder, propping it up with his weight. “Careful now. I’m not trying to hurry you off.” Mom handed me the box, as I climbed down the rungs.

“Ma told us about you rescuing her when she was pregnant with Harley. I like that story, Dad,” Kat called down to him, as she stepped onto the top rung of the ladder, waiting her turn.
Boy these boots are slick,
I thought as my foot slipped again on the last wooden rung.

“What have you got on your feet, Harley?” Dad asked, as I found sure footing on the living room floor.

“You gave those to Mom way back in the day, remember?” Kat asked excitedly as she joined me. Mom followed close behind, shutting the trap door on her way down.

“Harley, pull up your pant leg,” Mom said. I didn’t have to; Kat beat me to it. Standing there beneath me, she busied herself pulling up both of my pant legs, exposing the boots to Dad.

“Remember, Christmas of ‘76?” Mom steadied herself on Dad’s shoulder, stepping off the last rung of the ladder. He nodded his head in acknowledgment.

“I can leave them here,” I said. I didn’t want any issues over the boots.

“And look, we found your old albums.” Kat pointed to the records in the box. Apparently, he was in a tolerable mood, as Kat and Mom remained chatty and upbeat in his company.

“I can leave them here, too.”

“There’s some good stuff in there. I don’t listen to them anymore. You take them,” he said. “What about your tires? I noticed the tread’s getting a little bald.”

“Yeah, I’m headed back to Benny’s. I’ve got a spare set ready to go.”

“Do you believe she graduates tomorrow, John? Tomorrow night at seven,” Mom reminded him. “Seems like only yesterday we carried you home from the hospital.”

“Okay, that’s my cue to leave,” I said, pulling Kat into me, hugging her. “Want to go help me change my tires?”

She held her perfectly self-manicured hands in the air. “Honestly, do these look like the hands of a girl who would change a tire?”

F
riday, June 6, 1997, graduation day. My time had come. A perfect Pennsylvania morning, fresh dew sparkling off the grass, the smell of summer in the air, a cool fifty degrees and rising, as the sun showed its beautiful face over Benny’s Automotive.

Three cars waited in the parking lot, mechanically sound and ready for their owners to pick them up. I pulled number four into the bay and hurried down under into the pit, removing the seal from the oil pan. A quick oil change and lube, finished in no time. My hair in low pigtails, a few dirt smudges marked my coveralls, matching the ones on my face. I moved in time to the rhythm of
Long Cool Woman
by The Hollies as it blasted out of the garage radio, tuned to the classic rock station. The music stopped abruptly. I heard Benny call to me, his tone filled with urgency.

“Harley?”

I fled up the stairs leading to the bay, taking them two at a time. “What is it Benny?” My thoughts immediately went to Kat and Mom.

“It’s the Johnson boy,” he said. “They took his dad to the hospital. The missus just heard it on the scanner.”

“What happened?”

“He had a heart attack. You better get over there. The boy’s going to need someone.”

“I only have one more order to fill. I’ll come back and finish it up.” I made my way to Charlene.

Benny followed, shoving a fifty-dollar bill in my hand. “Get some fuel and buy the kid some lunch or something. No need for you to come back, you stay with him. I’ll finish up here.”

I hugged him tightly, kissing him on the cheek before closing myself in Charlene, fully testing the prowess of her 454-cubic inches as I hastily made my way to St. Mary’s emergency room, an hour away, the closest hospital to Georgia.

Upon my entry, and a strange look from a passerby, I realized I still wore my coveralls. Self-conscious only for a moment, my mind returned to my mission at hand, Jeremiah. I visually searched the emergency room as I neared the reception desk. Maybe I had the wrong hospital. Trust me, no one overlooked Jeremiah. He stood out in a crowd.

“Can I help you?” I heard a friendly voice inquire from the desk.

“I don’t know if I’m at the right place.”

“Where are you supposed to be, honey?”

“St. Mary’s ER.”

“Last time I checked, we were St. Mary’s ER,” she said with a smile. “Who are you looking for?”

“Jeremiah Johnson. His dad, Doug Johnson, EMS brought him in.” Her facial expression quickly altered, her smile disappearing. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

With reservation, she continued, “Are you family?”

“You could say that. What’s going on? Is he here? Can’t you just take me to him?”

The receptionist looked over her shoulder to a nurse standing behind her who overheard our conversation. The nurse reluctantly gave her a nod and motioned toward a room in the back.

“He’s not talking to anyone,” she said, leading the way, her arm around my shoulder.

She opened the door to the small, sterile, white-walled room with harsh fluorescent lighting, and there he was, my Miah. He sat on the floor, long muscular frame and back to the wall, his wavy black hair peeking out from under his crossed arms, hiding his head hanging between his knees. Without intending to, his name escaped my lips in a whisper, “Miah.”

He raised his head, the anguish showing in his face. I thought I would die seeing him like this. I stepped into the room, my knees buckling beneath me. My legs crossed one into the other until I sat in front of him. I wanted to take his pain. I heard the door close behind me. We were alone, Jeremiah Johnson and me, as we had found ourselves so many times in our young lives.

“He’s gone, Harley-girl. My dad’s gone. He left me,” he said, his eyes overflowing with tears. He hid his face from me, burying it against his knees. What a surreal feeling for him. I had experienced a few deaths to this point in my life, but they always seemed some kind of dream. You never want to believe someone is gone from you, forever. I heard a muffled sob escape his throat as his lungs forcefully filled with air, causing my own tears to fall heavily, uninhibited, with blatant disregard for my
almond.
I gently stroked his hair, wishing for some light bulb moment, an answer.

“I’m so sorry,” the words came.
Couldn’t I come up with something more comforting than, I’m sorry? That’s not going to bring his father back.
But I was sorry. Isn’t that what we say when someone loses a loved one? What do you say when a boy loses his father? “I don’t know what to do. I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do, love.”

He raised his head slowly, purposefully, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. I reached for his face, wiping his tears away. He let his legs slide out to the length of the floor, removing the wall between us, as he pulled at the waistline of my coveralls, inching me closer to him.

“Give me a minute to get myself together and you can take me home.” With that statement came the realization
home
would never be the same. He bit his bottom lip and sucked in air, quickly hiding his face in my chest. I held him to me. I wanted to tell him everything would be okay, but I didn’t want to lie to him. How do you recover from the death of a parent? He already lost his mother, years ago. She walked out on him and his dad. I wondered if she knew. Did he want her to know? Did he need her?

“Do you need me to get ahold of anyone for you?”

He wiped his face harshly with his hands, fully reading my insinuation. “No,” he said adamantly.

His otherwise supple lips looked raw, chapped. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cherry lip balm, and traced his lips in their entirety. He smiled faintly, putting his hand around the back of my neck, gently pulling me to him. He rested his forehead against mine. “Stay with me, Harley-girl. I don’t want to be alone.”

We left the hospital, making a short pass by his house to retrieve his cap and gown for graduation, along with an overnight bag. Without his father in the house, he had no desire to stay. Every room, every picture hanging on the wall, every ambient sound the house made, only reminded him his dad was gone.

He never said, “I can’t believe it,” or asked, “Why is this happening to me?” He took everything straight on. Jeremiah never ran from anything. He wanted to go to graduation. He said his dad would want him to go, to make him proud. He carried on. God, I admired him.