Recovery

Things My Parents Taught Me By Accident

My mother always picks berries too late in the season, so the birds can have their share. She says they have it worse than us - they can't eat chocolate cake - what a terrible thing to miss out on, I agree. We let them eat first. One berry for the bucket and one berry for the girl; two buckets, but we only fill one.

In the early weeks of autumn, the trails to the neighbors' houses ripen with nuts and berries, and the mother bears eat, and the cubs follow. My mother bakes gingersnaps for a friend and walks the trails at dusk singing lullabies in a low, quiet tone. She says the mother bears will know she's a mother too - she says mothers just know these things.

My father holds a fox snake to the tip of our pup's snout. It's several feet long and doesn't like being held, but it's harmless nonetheless. Pup sniffs the wriggling beast and it sinks its teeth right into his small button nose. I cry and scream at my father but he smiles; he says we have to teach pup that snakes are bad, he says it's the only way you learn.

I'm sixteen and a boy breaks my heart, I won't leave the house, so my father brings a big map into my room and spreads it out on the floor. Pick a place, he says. I spin my hand around, hovering over the map; I land on Alaska. Two weeks later, we're sitting on a plane bound for two weeks in the Alaskan wilderness. He says travel heals all wounds - even broken hearts. I say "What broken heart?" and look out over the hundreds of miles of mountains.

I'm twenty now, and every day I am becoming more and more like my parents. I have friends over for dinner and I don't eat until every plate is full and every guest is chewing. We let them eat first. I'm living with a boy I've loved for five years and suddenly the love is gone and I'm stuck. It's the only way you learn. When I've finally had enough, I leave for three days and tell no one where I'm going. I wake up in the Adirondacks to the sound of a loon calling across the lake. I say "What broken heart?"