Heritage by Joe Buckler illustration by Sadie Hutchings
“A little further,” your mother says, reaching for your hand. “We’re almost there.” Her grasp is firm in yours, still slick from the uphill hike. The waning summer sun ignites her dress, turning the yellow fabric into gold and the carefully stitched orange flowers into wildfire. She moves like oil over water, fluid, unburdened by her surroundings, narrowly avoiding the same hidden burs and reaching thistles that cling to the cuffs of your pants with desperation, sticking even to your fingertips as you try to pull them out. She laughs because she knows you were made for the city, that you feel more at home among sharp angles and rising towers. You try to find the beauty in the empty, sprawling field, looking through her eyes like you promised to, but the rolling hills remind you of the cold, endless oceans you read about in school, and the sky looks like it has been pulled too thin, stretched from horizon to horizon until it is ready to tear. You feel small beneath it, even as the sun falls behind the trees and throws the world into twilight. “Here,” she says, finding a spot for both of you to sit. 39
