Dirt

CW 221 NMC Gilda Povolo Nancy Griesinger

RED DIRT, WHITE DIRT, GREEN DIRT, BLACK DIRT
There's a picture Mother took of me when I was four. Today I'm eight and Mother says, "pretty as can be". In the picture I'm standing on the side of the road a little ways off the gravel part. My mother is standing in the middle of the road telling me to smile and to stop wiggling!
I am freezing cold. I hunch my shoulders up to my ears. She is standing in Ohio, and I am standing in Indiana! Mother says, "it's an important thing!" She is so excited! I like that. It makes me smile.
The wind puffs the hood of my red sweatshirt out around my face. "Is this really okay, really?" I yell. Mother laughs and says, "Yes, Silly!" Then she snaps the picture.
I don't understand the difference between Ohio dirt and Indiana dirt. Mother says I will when I am older. My feet in the picture are touching the same dirt her feet are touching. I know they are! Red dirt, white dirt, green dirt, black dirt! That's the color of dirt on the map.
Dirt is dirt, right? She said when I was older I'd understand. But I don't understand, not even now. Not even now when I'm eight.
I told him I take my own baths! I wash all by myself. I'm as clean as clean can be. "Stop wiggling. Stand still". She works late some nights, but she never leaves me in the house alone. She leaves Johnny in the house. To protect me.
We are living in the same house, but it's like she is a million miles away from me. I scrunch my shoulders up to my ears and lie still like he tells me.
Mother and Father said they loved me more than anything, but they didn't love each other. I don't understand. Mother said I would, when I was older.
Johnny whispers when he talks. "Sit still. Stop wiggling. You understand secrets, don't you?"

Johnny says Mother loves secrets. I love secrets too. The kind we have at Christmas when Mother wraps presents for me, and we wrap presents for Daddy and we never tell a soul what they are. I know about secrets. I understand secrets.
When I was five we went on a bridge to a place called Canada. "You're in another country now!" my mother said. We came home through a long, long tunnel under the river. I thought we had left the earth. The whole earth! We had been in another whole country! I saw cracks in the walls of the tunnel and I shivered inside myself, like I was cold. I thought we had gone into outer space.
I was ashamed when I found out the truth. I never told another soul when I found out the truth. Mother was happy. It seemed so important to her. I wouldn't want to spoil things by telling her the truth.
I look through the keyhole at Mother and Johnny. I look at both of them. It seems like she is a million miles away. I look at the dirt in the picture. She thought it was special. That dirt.
I could never tell her the truth. I could never tell her I'm standing on the very same dirt she is. She seems so happy. I don't think she'd understand.