When I Think of My Father - Morgan Sherlock

I think of the wooden shack behind the blueberry patch. How he built that ten-by-ten-foot palace one weekend in June, before the summer heat became unbearable. He got tired of asking his brothers to help him, and somehow got the roof up on his own. The overweight Golden Retriever sat on the edge of the freshly poured concrete slat watching him work. My father would baby talk to him, sometimes.

My father’s skin has always been three shades darker than mine; he works outside for a living. I struggle to feel connected to him, in a way that’s deeper than small talk and genetics. When out for the occasional breakfast, he sits at the bar stools and looks back into the kitchen as the girls cook his scrambled eggs and corned beef hash. At the ice cream place on the corner, it’s always a double scoop of Rocky Road in a waffle cone. He orders me the same, it’s my favorite too.

I memorized the hum of his older Chevy Silverado as it pulls into the driveway after work. When I visit home, we smoke marijuana together in the shack as he boils tree sap into thick syrup during the winter months. The sour smoke mixes into the evaporation from the pans. For Christmas one year, I got him a sign to hang above the door. “Bob’s Shack” it reads in engraved lettering. He smiled with his teeth when I gave it to him, awkwardly side hugging me.

I think of the push mower, one singular pair of cut off jean shorts, Marlboro Lights, a mole the size of a quarter on his left shoulder, and scalding dishwater as he swayed to the silence.