Memories stack like a cord of crooked wood, shifty and full of spiders. There was shouting and slamming of doors, which your older brother Jay turned into games of hide and seek, tucking you into small, dark spaces in the woods, or lifting you up onto that saggy spot on the roof of the cabin, telling you not to move a muscle until he came for you. Daddy would tire out too quick to hunt for you in the underbrush or fetch the ladder, especially after trying (usually failing) to catch up with Jay, so at least one of you would be safe for another day.
Daddy would reset after he slept, not remember (or not admit) why he’d been out to get the two of you. He was nice in between, would fry up extra bacon for breakfast, make pancakes in the shapes of hearts and your initials, almost like he was trying to apologize without confessing he’d done anything wrong. Almost like he was trying to lure Mama back down from heaven.
Your brother would stab the heart pancakes, and wouldn’t touch his “J,” silent resistance against Daddy’s silent bribe. The bacon, though, Jay would eat.
“We gotta stay strong,” he would say. “Be ready to seize the moment when it comes.”
The money jar is what he meant, where he was putting his odd-job money, pay from helping the neighbor clear their field or muck out their barn, painting the old lady’s fence down the way, picking apples in late summer. You wanted to help, but you weren’t old enough to babysit, so you sometimes baked cookies and sold them. The neighbors thought it was cute, but really it was your escape fund. Dollar bills stacking tidy like a cord of solid wood, safe and secure. Enough to get eventually get you out.
You haven’t stopped stacking since. It’s all numbers on screens, now you’re grown, but you still keep your own–no other names on them, no blending of piles–just your own, stacked tight and dry, in case you ever need to light a match and move on.
