Summer Sounds

Don't get into a fight with a pig.
You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

My daddy and I were walking the back pasture on the farm just as the sun was going down.  We were headed toward the tree line, where on quiet afternoons, you could hear the river running on the other side and sometimes when it came dark, the loons would call to each other.  It was a sweet, melancholy sound and it carried softly yet clearly on the evening air.  There were other sounds - the cows were coming in, almost aimless in their wanderings and I could hear the slow ringing of their bells.  There was the sound of an axe hitting with steady regularity as my uncle chopped wood and my grandmother's voice as she called the chickens.  And beneath it all, almost but not entirely drowned out, there was the sound of crying.  My mother had said something cruel and thoughtless to one of her sister in laws and the family had closed ranks against her.  She'd turned to my daddy, expecting him to defend her, but along with the rest of them, he'd simply gotten up and sadly, silently left the table.  Not even the gentlest of my aunts and uncles had remained.

It was nearly dark when we got back, the loons seemed louder then, their cries more lonely, and the crying had stopped.  My mother was alone on the veranda - she didn't acknowledge us - and the rest of the family was inside, gathered around the dining room table as if nothing had happened.  As the evening wore on, one by one they said their goodnights but no one spoke to my mother and early the next morning, she quietly packed a bag and drove away, back to the island.

It wasn't the first divide in the family and it certainly wouldn't be the last.  No one ever expected that the only child of relatively well off parents would ever grasp the reality of a farm family of eleven struggling to make a living off the land.  One took refuge in drink, one in in religion and hard work and the breach was reinforced with every passing summer.   Coming from two such diametrically opposed backgrounds made me unsure where I belonged and even though the actual words were never said outloud, I was acutely aware that to please one side would mean displeasing the other.  There was no neutral space, no comfortable compromise, no best of both.  Other than deny them, we were not families who knew what to do with our emotions.

They're all in their graves now, of course, resting peacefully, I hope.

But in my memory, the loons still call to each other through the trees and across the quiet water.  I still hear them in my dreams.   The back and forth of their muted voices fill the silent spaces where words were meant to be.