B odega B ay, C A When the floods came my father refused to sacrifice much. He took the silverware, the coats, the pictures of my mother surrounded by hunting dogs long since dead. He gathered everything he could. In between each netted armful he sang: We are a people who spend their lives holding onto things. He kept repeating this to me as he fell from one fishing boat to another, and under each boat a whirlpool, and in each whirlpool the old man continued to lose pieces. Now he is all but gone. Today I admit I want to hear him calling at the door one last time, but there is no house to speak of. There could have been peace between us had we fished it from the waters.
26
