Priestdaddy

by Patricia Lockwood

The afterimage of the rectory flashes behind my eyes, the white door open and beckoning me inside, the steps leading to that eternal upstairs where I could stay as long as I needed. It was an idyll, of course it was an idyll. A family never recognizes its own idylls while it’s living them, while it’s all spread out on the red-and-white checked cloth, while the picnic basket is still open and before the ants have found the sugar, when everyone is still lying in the light with their hearts peeled and in loose sweet segments, doing one long Sunday’s worth of nothing. It recognizes them later, when people are gone, or moved away, or colder toward each other. This is about that idyll, and I began it in that grass-green clearing of time, and I am giving it no chance to grow cold. This is about the moment when I walked into the house, and they were there, as they had always been there, as they would not always be. This is about how happy they were when they saw me, how the sun rose in their faces, how it was another day.