Jane Sadusky

His mother has been stepping in and out of his days lately. Passing the garden, he smells the lotion she smoothed on her hands each night. Funny, how you could be a grown old man and still be missing your mother.

Now his wife, Maria, she makes mothers look easy. But what did he know? They never talked much about what it was like. They talked about the weather and the ranch and cattle prices and how the kids were doing, but not about what it was like for her as a mother, or for him as a father, for that matter.

He could still see Maria walking into the room and sitting two seats away on the first day, first class at the ag college where he’d drifted to on the GI Bill. She was smart and funny and she’d chosen him when there were a dozen other guys with more going for them, jostling for attention from the only girl in class. It still amazed him that he woke with her every morning and sat with every evening, sipping whiskey and reviewing the day. His mother had liked Maria, liked her a lot.