The Things We Leave Out
On Writing: Published in the Spring 2022 issue of the Good River Review
I’m thrilled to share “The Things We Leave Out” — published in the Spring 2022 issue of the Good River Review.
I wrote this piece when I was visiting Dad up in Michigan. I was seven months pregnant and I remember how alive the story was, how vivid the memories were, and how my emotions undulated like rushing waves.
When I finished the piece, I read it to my husband. We sat on the bed in the dark guestroom of Dad’s little house and I rested my hands on my growing belly as I read. I remember how my throat caught and how my voice shook through the end of the story, and how when I looked up, Perry’s eyes were shining and his eyelashes were wet. Not because it’s a sad story, but because of the love and the longing and the unknowing that the whole piece is steeped in.
I wanted to read it to Dad, but I was afraid of where it would take him. Now that it’s published I want to share it with him as proof that our story matters — that he matters — but I haven’t found the courage.
The Things We Leave Out
Goodbyes have never come easy for me. It doesn’t help that I only see Dad once, maybe twice a year if I’m lucky, and each time he feels more distant than the last. On the night before he left my home to make the seven-hundred-mile drive back to his own, we were well into a pandemic with no end in sight, and I worried about losing the whole of him, the whole of us. He’s always had masochistic tendencies, punishing himself for what he sees as a failed parenthood — a life wasted.
As we sat across from each other at my wobbly kitchen table, I tried to bring up the past but talked circles around all the things I needed to say. How he spent my childhood leaving things out to protect me. And how I spent — and am still spending — my adulthood leaving things out of the past to protect him.
THE THINGS WE LEAVE OUT, published with the Good River Review, read the full piece here.
Want to read more stories like this?
Beautiful :) I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family. Wishing you all the blessings as we enter this new year <3