Two Gold Lines
by Tiffany Vakilian
Mama would say, “Forgiveness is an amputation with phantom limbs, baby. You’ve got some cutting to do.” She was right, but I can’t yet. Too many decisions to make first.
I looked at our packed china, so rarely used. We wouldn’t let the kids touch them. Kimber figured our Hungry-Hungry Hippos would eat the dishes themselves.
At least they’re getting to spend time with Gramma here in Oceanside. Kimber would never allow us to visit once we moved to Newport Coast.
As if our circle wouldn’t background check his pedigree, hmph.
Fireside Park looks nothing like it did when Kimber would walk me home from the bus stop. He was so much more kind and hopeful then too. Every now and then I would see that twinkle still in him, and it would break my heart all over again.
Brook, short for Brooklyn (where she was conceived on the first night of our honeymoon), looks just like him, but with my feminine curves. She runs around strong, sassy, and wild – just like NYC. Were she not so pretty, I’d have torn her tail up one side and down the other. But Kimber would shake his kente oil scented locks and say, “C’mon, ‘Chele, beautiful people get special allowances.”
My silly behind believed him.
Now Ben is wetting the bed and stealing candy. He denies it, but his stomach upset, rotting teeth, and the loosening range hood smack that lie out of the park like Babe Ruth. I was allowed to spank him. And Kimber surely did, but never for the incident in question; only for his looks. As if something merely average could come from his seed.
Now I get to play ‘catch up, clean up’ with my kids’ self-esteem.
How did I allow this? Kimber wasn’t that damn beautiful.
I picked up our decadent china dinnerware with its two gold lines, and set them at Mom’s dining room table; the perfect place setting for our fast food dinner, and any other meal we wanted.
My kids are worth the china.
Both of them.
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art@timobe.com / 619-292-8772 / https://awordwithyoupress.com/author/tiffany/
My impressions from my unusually sick and dizzy state today is blurred impressions of family set against the subtext of memories which swirl around me in flying dishes. Perhaps I should be in the ER, but here I write. So please forgive my inarticulate critique on this tightly woven set of threads as to what life has been and will become.
The line which stopped me in my dizzy spin, because it was far too close to my “what if it came back” nightmares as opposed to my wakened, assured hours of the last 27 years, was, “Forgivance is an amputation with phantom limbs, baby. You’ve got some cutting to do.” I understand that this phrase is more spirtual than physical, but are such drastic changes in life actually both?
Forgiving someone who has hurt you is saying goodbye to your own pride and being kinder to the one that had to be severed. The difficulty which is well expressed here is that children are a reflection of both parents, so the severing is never allowed to be out of mind.
I will read your story again when I am more level headed Tiffany, but beautifully written in symbols, subtext and real life vulnerabilites and honest visions of your life and your childrens’. Thank you.
Thank you Parisianne.
Wow, this is very sharp, beautiful writing. I enjoyed this very much. Wonderful.
Sharp? Hmmmm… maybe if the dishes got broken… thank you!
TifMo does it again. Sooo good, I read it three times. Pain, loss, regret, and other emotions do come out with your words. Good one Tiffany.
Awwww… thanks Diane! Wonder what else you saw… I was trying for exhaustion and untetheredness trying to hold…
A story well told. The voice has a home town feel that makes you part of the family. Just whips you right in to every delicate moment in– between life. The language, intimate and campy. You create exploratory visuals that stay with the reader with the wonderment of…and then what happened?
I wanted the reader to feel hampered in by years of details… do you think I could have done it better in 350 words (using the framework I did)?
Forgiveness so often begins with understanding the limits of self. Sacrificing the good china is not a beginning but an avoidance. I found the dizzying references to places in this story disorienting. Perhaps if I knew them. As for Ben, he will blame himself forever for his father’s leaving, and this mother is disconnected from his pain, as disconnected as she seems to have been from her husband’s. As a shrink I feel for these people, but I fear the story is not near a denouement.
But a beginning of her making the two children equal in her eyes. That you defended Ben makes me think his character stood, even on the side. She unpacked and used the china. That is the story. Why she did, shows she was looking for that very limit you allude to in the beginning. How could I have made this better? I am not asking as a smart alec (Thorn, hush). I’m asking to improve.
My behind (oh how silly that is) believes in you, Tiffany. This is classic prose the way you eye life and squeeze it out from your talented pen. I am so impressed.
Can’t wait to get the book.
Mike, you blow the most exquisite smoke… and I am looking forward to kissing the copy that you get signed, so you can carry it with you, as it is in part… your fault that I wrote it.
Hey guys… I love that opening phrase so much that I used it (again) for today’s Saturday Post on my blog… if you would like to read it here’s the link – http://www.tiffanyvakilian.com/2015/07/forgiveness-is-amputation.html