Leaves of Departure
By 
Tony Acree
SMASHWORDS EDITION
*****
Copyright © 2012 by Tony Acree

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Leaves of Departure
The smooth worn wood of the yard rake was a stark contrast to the weathered and callused hand that held it. He paused, wiping the beading sweat from his wrinkled forehead with a washed out handkerchief that used to be part of one of his Sunday best. The suit had long since been given to the Salvation Army, but he refused to part with the faded blue handkerchief, keeping it in his back pocket.
While he rested, he stared down at the growing collection of multicolored leaves gathering at his feet. He wondered how many times in his 84 years he had performed this fall ritual. His earliest memory as a child was of playing with his brothers in the piles of fallen leaves his Daddy made while raking the large backyard of the place he would always remember as home. He loved the smell of the leaves as he would dive under a particularly large pile pretending it was a fort for him to hide in. He also remembered the scratchy feeling the dry brown leaves had when his older brother would stuff handfuls down the back of his shirt. He thought it funny he could remember playing in the leaves when he was all of five years old, but couldn't for the life of him remember the first time he had taken rake to hand.
After the briefest of pauses, he returned to his late afternoon chore. The work helped keep his mind occupied. With slow deliberate strokes he worked his way across the small, but well-kept lawn. He always raked towards his cabin. At least that's what he called the ramshackle two-room building he lived in. The insurance man who came to look at the damage a hailstorm caused back in the summer had called it a shack. Not 20 seconds after that comment, an old man wielding a rusty yard rake chased off that same insurance man.
The cabin, located on a hill overlooking the Kentucky River, had only been used for hunting trips, until last year, when he had moved in permanently. There was no TV or radio. The outside world was not invited to visit. He even did most of his cooking on an old wood stove. He awakened early and went to bed late: sleep was something he needed less and less of these days.
He heard the car coming cautiously up his steep rutted excuse of a driveway long before he ever saw it. He didn't bother to stop his raking or even to turn around to watch the car make it up the last ridge and stop in front of his cabin. He knew who it would be. The car door opened, and then shut.
Still, he did not turn around. Even when the person had walked up behind him, he never stopped raking, pouring all his energy into every stroke. He ignored his visitor, knowing he was only putting off for a few moments what was to come.
"Father," a voice said softly, hesitantly. The only reaction from the old man that he heard was a tightening of his hands on the handle and a stiffer motion with his rake.
"Father," the voice said a second time, more strongly, and a hand touched him on the shoulder. The old man straightened at the soft touch.
"I hear you Anna," the old man replied. While he had stopped his raking, he still refused to face the woman standing behind him.
"Then turn around and look at me."
He could hear the irritation in her voice. He steeled himself and turned around, careful to keep the rake between him and his daughter, as if it could work as a talisman to protect him. She looked so much like her mother that he couldn't help but feel a pain deep inside. She was tall, almost as tall as he was, with long auburn hair that hung loosely about her shoulders. Her eyes were a bright shade of jade, and her face was smooth despite her forty plus years. He stuck his chin out and waited for her to say what he knew she would.
"We have to go father," she said.
"I don't. If you want to, that's fine, but I will not and that's the end of it." He knew there was anger in his voice, and he didn't care. He threw the rake down beside the pile of now forgotten leaves and headed for the cabin seeking refuge from her words. He pulled the old battered screen door back and let it slam shut behind him.
The screen had been torn down the middle some months before, letting in the flies and other creatures it was meant to keep out. He knew it wouldn't keep his daughter out either. He moved to the far side of the room, turned and planted himself, arms crossed, ready for her. It was no surprise that Anna had followed him inside. She looked around, the distaste clearly on her face. This made him even angrier.
"You don't have to stay, you know."
She looked at him then. He had seen her only a handful of times since the funeral. Occasionally she would come to visit, but would never stay long. He figured it was more just to make sure he hadn't hurt himself than for any father-daughter bonding. Most of that time would be spent in one of the folding lawn chairs out on the front porch.
Sometimes her husband Bryan would come with her. The old man would always be polite and make passable conversation with the young man. But they had so little in common that most of the time they spent together was simply "weather's been nice" kind of talk. They wouldn't stay long at any rate. The distance between them would always be there, especially now.
His daughter pulled a chair up in front of him and sat down. It was clear she wasn't going anywhere. "Father, you and I have never been close, or seen eye to eye on much in our lives." His face flushed as she put words to his thoughts. "But momma would want us to be there today, and you know it."
"You don't know anything." he snapped. "She wouldn't want me there."
"How can you say such a thing about Momma?"
He could tell she was angry from more than just her words. The way her hands gripped the arms of the chair turning the knuckles white told him as much as the tone of her voice.
"Because," he responded, "when your mother died, I hated her for it."
He could see the shock his words caused her as she sat back in her chair, stunned. "That's right," he continued, "I hated her because she died before I did and left me alone. All I could think of was how could she do this to me. Then as the days passed I realized it wasn't her fault and what I fool I was. But it was too late, she would know how I had felt. I was ashamed. She's in heaven. She will know everything I've been thinking. How could I face her again knowing that she knows?"
He shuffled backwards unsteadily, all of the anger suddenly gone, until he found his old rocking chair. He sat with a heart heavy with grief and closed his eyes, thinking about his wife. He was 19 years old when they met at a church picnic. It was a hot, steamy July day and she was handing out the lemonade. He was so taken back by her beauty she asked him twice if he wanted a glass before he found the means to squeak out a yes.
She just smiled and from that day on, he knew he would never want or look at another woman again. It took him nearly 3 months to get her to agree to their first date. As time went on, it took less and less persuading to get her to go on their dates and they soon became inseparable. He worked his daddy's farm until he had enough money to buy his own. Then, in the summer of 1934, they married and moved to their new farm, 50 acres of hay and tobacco in rural Henry County. Katherine, the daughter of a preacher man, had never worked a farm before, but she learned fast and Kate seemed to dearly love living in the country.
The Depression made it rough on everyone in the thirties, but they found ways to survive. Sometimes he would have to take odd jobs just to keep a roof over their heads, but they always seemed to manage. They tried for years to have children. If God willed it, it would happen.
Then, just before her fortieth birthday, Katherine gave birth to little Anna. They both rejoiced at the miracle of her birth and he no sooner had his daughter in his arms than he told his wife it was time to work on a boy. But the doctors said that Kate had suffered some problems during childbirth and they would only be able to have the one child. He had tried to keep the disappointment from showing, but Kate knew. She always knew. He never had any secrets from her.
Kate had to take a job for a time during the fifties and early sixties as they both worked to send Anna to college. Because of the long hours he kept on the farm and at his odd jobs, he never seemed to have the time he would have liked to spend with Anna. They had decided Anna would attend school and earn a degree but tuition wasn't cheap. Farming, while satisfying, was becoming an increasingly difficult way to make a living. They wanted their daughter to be successful in ways they could only dream of.
It seemed before long she was off to the university in Lexington, then married. He and Kate enjoyed their time alone together as they approached 65 and Anna was out on her own. They sold the farm and bought a newly built ranch house just outside of New Castle. The house was a little on the small side, but they didn't mind. It was enough for them.
Anna and Bryan had a little boy and they would bring him around from time to time. They didn't mind baby-sitting for them. The old man always spoiled young Christopher something terrible. The boy even seemed to really look forward to the visits. Even when Christopher was sometimes quite a handful, Kate would just say folks in their seventies had to get exercise somehow.
He felt a tear make its way down the long creases of his face as he thought of his wife's passing in October of the year before. She had complained of shortness of breath and then fainted. He would never forget the frantic ambulance ride to the hospital. She never regained consciousness and passed away early the next morning. He had been so angry with her that he hardly said a word to anyone.
In the days leading up to her burial, his anger and hurt grew. But during the memorial service he had come to realize his anger was not at his wife but at God for taking her away from him. Yet he also knew his wife would know what he had felt. After leaving the gravesite following the burial, he knew he would never be able to come there again, to face her. He hadn't deserved a woman like her that had stood by him his whole life. Sitting there in his rocking chair, his shame washed over him like a river flood threatening to drown him in grief. His hands began to tremble and to shake uncontrollably.
He felt a touch on his hand and opened his eyes. He had not heard his daughter move to kneel before him. She took both of his hands in hers and he could feel her hands were trembling as well. After a moment, he looked up and into her eyes. As he did so, he didn't see anger or condemnation, but something else all together.
"Daddy, momma forgives you. Lord knows that if anyone had a key to your soul and how you really felt, it was momma."
She squeezed his hands now, almost as hard as she had the arms of her chair moments before. He also noticed she had called him Daddy. She hadn't done that since she was a little girl. As she grew older it was always Father, formal and distant.
"She would know you didn't mean it. She loves you, Daddy. Come with me and tell her how you feel."
It was awhile before he trusted himself to respond. He nodded his head slowly. "All right Anna. I'll go."
That was all he could manage to say, so overcome with emotion that he did not trust himself to speak a word more. Anna leaned forward and embraced him, pulling him close with a hug that seemed to melt away the chill between them.
"Thank you, Daddy," she whispered.
He reached up and gently wiped away a tear that fell down her cheek. With a crooked smile, she reached out and did the same for him. They both shared an embarrassed laugh.
She took his hand, rising to her feet while he pushed himself out of the rocking chair. As they turned to leave, he stopped for a moment and opened a drawer in a small oaken desk next to his chair. From the drawer he took out a well-worn bible. He ran his hand across the textured black cover. The formerly red tasseled bookmark that was now faded to a lighter shade of pink still marked the passages he and his wife had repeated during their wedding ceremony.
Katherine had given him the bible as a birthday present shortly after they met. Opening the bible to the inner cover, he read again the words she had inscribed. "Forever seems such a small time with God and you to guide me. Love Kate."
Closing his eyes for a brief moment more and holding the bible to his chest, he realized he would have to ask more than his wife's forgiveness. Would God forgive him as well?
He put his arm around his daughter as they made their way out of the tiny cabin and to her car. Her arm encircled his waist, gripping him tightly, not wanting to lose the contact they had established. For more years than he cared to count, there had been a gulf between them, leaving them almost strangers. Now, he could feel that gap closing.
She opened the door for him and he folded himself into her car. As she shut the door and walked around to her side, he looked out the window and a long sigh escaped his lips. The pile of leaves he was raking before her arrival spread again throughout the yard in the cool October breeze. He watched each leaf dance like an acrobat on the wind's spiral, falling and rising in an intricate dance before falling again to the earth.
Just the other night he awoke from a dream with the smell of crumpled dry leaves heavy in the air. He had a scratchy feeling in his back so real that he rolled over looking for the leaves that he knew had to be there. But they weren't. It had felt so real. As the car moved down the driveway and away from his cabin, he closed his eyes and felt his grief floating away with the leaves on the winds behind him, spiraling and dancing above the ground.
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About the author:
Tony Acree, author of The Hand of God, from Otherworld Publications, coming November 2012.
Tony Acree was born in La Grange, Kentucky in January 1963. His short story fiction has appeared in Kentucky Monthly Magazine. He has written articles about his time as a stay at home dad for a women's magazine as well as sports and information articles. His work has also appeared in The Cumberland, the state wide newspaper outlet of the Sierra Club. He is a member of The Green River Writers and the Bluegrass Writers Edge, a creative writers group in Goshen, Kentucky, where he lives with his wife and twin daughters. 

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