As Good as True

by Cheryl Reid

She pointed to the trees, the tulip poplars and grand old oaks, one hundred feet tall, growing near the trail, and I could see perspective, how something so large looked smaller the farther away you got from it.

“That feeling you have, how sad you are about your mama, won’t ever go away,” she said. “It’s not supposed to. But one day it’ll be like those trees over there, not like these here.”

Eli rolled his eyes. “She has thought of everything,” he said, “except what it means to be Christian or human.”

My father knew me. He had known me before I had known myself.