Dance the Rocks Ashore

  “I know,” my mother said. “But there were a few worth saving. They’re in the house.”

  It was then that my father knew she was truly serious. That look came over him, the look of someone staring into a dark horizon, in exactly the right spot, waiting for the sun to come up. It came up slowly at first and then burst clear of the hilltop and scattered bright morning colours all around the world.

  Up until that moment, I think my father had lived his life in two dimensions. For me, he had been like a powerful but untouchable character out of a book. But now it was different.

  That night, my father cut branches from the alders in the back yard and whittled points on the ends of them. My mother took some hot dogs out of the refrigerator and impaled one on each stick. And then we took them out to a corner of what was once the garage and lit up the remains of the biography section that had miraculously not been fully consumed in the earlier flames. The books were a little damp and yet provided a low but serviceable heat.

  I told my father about smoking in the garage and how I thought I had been the one who had caused the fire.

  “I smoked when I was your age, too,” he said, nothing more, nothing less, as my mother twirled a lock of his thinning hair with her finger, and he handed Eileen an immaculately cooked hot dog, which he folded perfectly into a whole wheat bun as if he were closing a book.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “Muriel and the Baptist” and “Losing Ground” are reprinted from The Second Season of Jonas MacPherson, © Lesley Choyce, 1989, by permission of Thistledown Press.

  “It All Comes Back Now,” “The Reconciliation of Calan McGinty,” and “The Cure” are reprinted from Eastern Sure, © Lesley Choyce, 1980, published by Nimbus Publishing Limited, by permission of the author. “Breakage,” “Dancing the Night Away,” and “Prying Loose” are reprinted from Billy Botzweiler’s Last Dance, © Lesley Choyce, 1984, published by blewointmentpress, by permission of the author. “An Easy Winter” and “Conventional Emotions” are reprinted from Conventional Emotions, © Lesley Choyce, 1985, published by Creative Publishers, by permission of the author. “The Dream Auditor” is reprinted from The Dream Auditor, © Lesley Choyce, 1986, published by Ragweed Press, by permission of the author. “Coming Up for Air” and “Rose and Rhododendron” are reprinted from Coming Up for Air, © Lesley Choyce, 1988, published by Creative Publishers, by permission of the author.

  “The Reconciliation of Calan McGinty” first appeared in University of Windsor Review (1979-1980); “The Cure” in Puckerbrush Review (1982); “Dancing the Night Away” in Fiddlehead (1983); and “Losing Ground” in Event (1985).

  “Hurricane” and “Dragon’s Breath” are reprinted from The Republic of Nothing, © Lesley Choyce, 1994, published by Goose Lane Editions.