Buried Roots

Wellsboro, Pennsylvania 

June, 1987

The day was mild. The sunshine was warm, with a soft breeze. Everything took on that golden glow of evening. Carly took a sip of her creamy vanilla milkshake and tasted the salt on her lips from the fries. Her mom and dad leaned back against the picnic tables. They had the park to themselves. Samantha, Carly’s older sister, lay sprawled on the merry go round. Carly loved Friday nights in summer. This was the night her family would pick up cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes and head to the town park to eat. Friday nights felt slow and unhurried, the weekend spread out expansively before them. Some Friday nights, anyway.

Driving home from the park, Carly closed her eyes to the wind and sunlight coming in through the open car windows. She liked to guess which house they would pass just before she opened her eyes. This was a familiar brick road they rumbled over in her small town and she had the streets memorized. Next came the two-story gingerbread looking house, with its pillars and ornate window shutters. Then the sprawling green and burgundy Queen Anne, with its wrap around porch and cast iron fence. 

“In my life, I’ve known heartache and pain. I don’t know if I can face it again. I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me.” A popular song came on the radio. Carly looked up to see her dad reach for her mom and rub her shoulder. They looked at each other, smiling, and her mother slid a little closer. Carly blushed at witnessing this intimate moment, but she savored it too. She leaned into the back seat contentedly. 

November, 1987

“We are going to go get your mother Girls, get your coats.” Carly’s father grabbed his keys. It was a Friday night, about 11:00, and their mother still hadn’t arrived home from work. The girls knew this game. Their father pretended they were detectives, working their way down the clue list until they found the treasure of Mom’s car. X marks the spot. 

This was another familiar path Carly had memorized. First thing we try the bars downtown. There were only four, all on the couple blocks long Main Street. Then we cruise by her friends Molly’s or Bev’s house. After that, we look at a few recurring male “friends” homes-Tim’s, Robert’s, or Michael’s. If a search of these turned up no results, then came some up and down driving through some side streets as a random new guy had sometimes been introduced to the rotation, whose home location would now be discovered . They had gotten near Robert’s house when Carly’s sister yelled, “There it is!” Parked in front of his unkempt house was her mother’s Oldsmobile, as empty and useless as her mother would feel tomorrow morning.

The girls watched as their dad walked up to the door. “This is so stupid,” Samantha hissed. Carly was quiet, preoccupied with the idea of a possible fight. The door opened and her dad disappeared into the darkness. 

Several minutes had passed and Carly was sure her dad was knocking Robert out. While she waited, she considered her options. If they came out fighting, she would run away down the road. If her dad was arrested for beating up Robert, she would wait in the car until a policeman came over. She wondered if her mother would come home this time. Sometimes, nothing her Dad said or did would get their mother to leave. When that happened, she wouldn't return home until Sunday night and would go straight to bed. Carly had a bike-a- thon school event early the next morning and hoped this wasn’t one of those times. 

Finally, her dad appeared. Then, thankfully, she saw her mothers silhouette in the doorway. They would have to come back for the car tomorrow. She knew this routine too. She could already hear the slurred and mumbled speech as her mother stumbled to the car. 

“I am not drunk. I only had a few after work. Robert and I were just talking. You never talk to me, what am I supposed to do, Dennis?” 

Her father was silent as he opened the car door. He maneuvered their mother into the front seat. 

“Why do you bring the kids with you to look for me, Dennis? Do you want them to know how great you are and how bad I am? Where are you the rest of the time? What are you doing while I’m doing everything else?” 

Samantha whisper cursed while Carly slunk back into the seat, trying to hide into it. 

Their father was silent as he drove home, except for one defeated, “Goddammit, Caroline.”

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

2004 

Carly called her dad from the hospital. He hadn’t talked to her mother in 10 years, but she needs to talk to her father right now. 

“Mom is sick. They aren’t sure she will make it.” 

She wondered if he still cared, if some small part of their roots remained, deeply buried, but still entwined under the marriage burnt to the ground, the fire clearing out everything that had ever tried to grow there. He was remarried now, and he had found some happiness in this second marriage. 

“I’m sorry, Carly. You know this will come for all of us eventually.” 

She listened for any hint of his own pain in this. She wasn’t sure if she heard it. She wanted to yell at him, like a child again, “Don’t you still care? Can you still love her? Does it matter to you anymore?” But she knew this wasn’t fair, and she didn’t. 

Utica, New York 

2021

The kids are fighting in the backseat as Carly rushes to the playdate she is late for. Her coffee spills as she turns a corner. The unnoticed radio suddenly cuts through her distracted grabbing for the coffee mug. “I wanna know what love is. I know you can show me.” She remembers. It hits her hard and fast, the tears fall before she feels them. 

I’m sorry, she thinks. I’m sorry that you weren’t able to show each other what love was. I know that you both hoped once that you could. 

She wipes her tears, puts on some lipstick, and pulls into the drive. She opens the van door and puts on her best playdate smile as she grabs her diaper bag from the van and tosses it over her shoulder.