By the Light of My Father's Smile Read Online Free Page B

Haven’t you noticed? asked my wife.
    In an attempt to show affection I would sometimes heap more food on her plate.
    I monitored her wardrobe. Her dresses were long. Her necklines high.
    Soon you will be sixteen, I said. And a woman. At that time you may choose a new name. I glanced sidelong at her. Where we walked, because it was spring, coming into summer, our path was carpeted with tiny blue flowers that popped open after each rain. Before us the mountains rose in a hazy mauve and shaggy bluegray splendor. I remarked to myself that she had lived in this gorgeousness practically her entire life. The impact of such beauty on her soul would have to be tremendous, I mused, and was likely to be a ballast for her throughout the wild storms of life.
    I know we are going home soon, she said. Is that why I get to choose a new name?
    It was, really. And I said so. On Long Island, in Sag Harbor, you will need a name others can relate to. Your cousins, for instance. She frowned. She disliked her cousins, who were dressed exactly like dolls, and sat and stared out unblinking, also like dolls. She had always longed to put dirt on their dresses. And probably had.
    I shall be called June, she said.
    I was surprised. It wasn’t the name of a person but of a month. Still it was feminine, soft. She might have done worse.
    And if you object, she continued, I shall be called July.
    Oh no, I said, laughing, attempting to squeeze her shoulders as she swerved away from me. It is perfect. And that is the month we are in!
    Yes, she said drily, without returning my gaze.

    I don’t think we know we have lost our daughters until they are gone. But perhaps I should, in modesty, speak only for myself. When we came down from the walk in the mountains it is true that I felt I missed, was missing, something. I felt a vacancy around my heart, an emptiness. The conquest had been easy. Too easy. I knew she must have planned and plotted to escape the corral of a new name but in the end, without struggle, she had given in. What did it mean? And why didn’t I care?
    We all began to call her June. It is without question a beautiful name. Elegant. Evocative of mystery. Warmth. It is promise itself. It says many things—all about the moisture, readiness, richness of summer. June is always the new beginning of whatever is bountiful. I said some of this to her. I mentioned the illustrious people, poets and musicians, painters, who carried the name. By now my daughter only smiled when I spoke, never showing her sharp white teeth. I felt she tolerated rather than engaged me. As we packed to leave the mountains for good she hummed a pagan song. Something about the oneness of the unclothed human body and the nakedness of the sky.
Por la luz, por la luz … by the light, by the light
, seemed a melancholy refrain.
    It was a song not permitted in our church. The small white chapel, the inside of which startled visitors with its vivid blue and green and yellow murals. Its starry sky overhead. Its fields of corn with rows marching into each window. Its big green watermelons painted, with red insides dripping and black seeds painted likeeyes, just above the pulpit. No one ever took credit or responsibility for painting the inside of the church, which was as different from the outside as night from day. Yet the paintings were never permitted to fade. When my superiors from Long Island came to see the state of my mission they were dismayed by it. Heathens, they sniffed. I was not disturbed. It reminded me of the summers I had spent in North Carolina with my grandparents who farmed. The lushness of corn fields there, the dark, starry sky at night, the immense transcendent beauty and taste of my grandfather’s watermelons. The murals inside the church made me less lonesome, as I fought the blasphemous, unbidden thought that the appreciation of corn and melon is more universal than the appreciation of Christ.
    Some of their songs were permitted in