The Scent of Vanilla

Ah… Father’s Day.  Like a normal holiday except what you do doesn’t matter.

A little after I moved here, I started looking for vanilla.  I wanted some good vanilla.  Maybe white vanilla.  I had had enough of artificial vanilla extract, and looked everywhere, willing to pay any price.

Later, I was sitting at a picnic table at the kids’ school BBQ and a lady next to me was chatting on the phone.  When she got off the phone she explained that she was speaking to her father.  I said what I always say, which is that she’s awfully lucky to have a father, leaving out that my father has been dead since before any of my children were born.  She told me her dad was hilarious because he was always going down to Mexico and bringing her huge bottles of vanilla.

Long story short, I haven’t really seen or talked to that woman since, but she left an enormous bottle of real vanilla at the school office for me.

I like to pretend that it was a present from my father… even though, yeah, he’s been dead for almost 15 years.

My mom used to give me vanilla too.  White vanilla.  That was actually the last present she gave me.  From now on, there will be no more presents.

I think of my father the most often when I look at my hands.  My father had beautiful hands, probably the most beautiful I have ever seen, and I got them.  Slender bones, mildly protruding tendons, very little hair, browns easily, pretty shaped, strong nails.  And now his hands are gone, like all my other ancestors on that side.  All gone.  Just me standing with my fingers rustling the tall grass, and it’s fine.

And I feel alone.

It’s a lie.  There’s my one son running by with his perfect eyebrows and his unusual twisting conversation.  Another one is glaring at me with green eyes that say he hates me, but his eyes are not green because my eyes are green.  Another boy is blond, hair so light people don’t think he’s my kid.

And my daughter asked me what she could do to celebrate Father’s Day.  She made brownies.  The vanilla is in them.

And he is in all of them.