Creative nonfiction by Linda M. Bayley

ONE MISSISSIPPI

I loved my father most during thunderstorms. We’d stand in the doorway of his bachelor pad on Drinkwater Street, wrapped in a blanket, his arm around me, and we’d count the number of Mississippis between the lightning and thunder, so we’d know just how close the storm was. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Bang! Sometimes we’d count alligators instead, but I loved the rhythm of Mississippi, the way it rolled off my tongue and bounced against my lips. Mis-sis-sip-pi. Sometimes I only counted as far as one Miss– and then the thunder would roll through the air around us, and I’d jump. But I knew I was safe, because Dad was there to protect me.

Daytime rains were even better, because they meant popsicles, chocolate or grape or orange. We’d drive to the Pinto Store to buy them if Dad didn’t have any in the house, then dress up in black garbage bags with holes cut out for our heads and arms. We’d take off our shoes and run out to the sidewalk to race our popsicle sticks down the overflowing gutters, catching them just before they went down the sewer grates, then running back to the top of the block to race them all over again. 

By the winter I was seventeen I’d forgotten how much I loved storms, or even that I loved my dad; depression tore through me like a tornado, leaving in its wake closed curtains, sudden tears, clandestine scars, and downcast eyes. I never knew when or where it would touch down next.

But one snowy night I woke up to the crack of thunder, and a few moments later my window lit up with lightning.

I’d never heard of thunder and lightning in a snowstorm.

Dad was snoring in the next room so I got out of bed and shouted for him through his door.

“What?” he called, before falling back into another snore.

“There’s a storm going on!”

“So?” His mattress groaned and squeaked like he was turning over, trying to get comfortable again.

“So let’s go watch it!”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s thunder and lightning!”

I kept pounding on his bedroom door, a little kid again, the electricity in the air shifting my neurons into something like happiness.

We threw on our coats and walked out into an apocalypse of blinding snow and biting wind. Lightning arced across the sky.

“We need popsicle sticks,” I shouted over the wind.

“Stay here,” he hollered, and disappeared inside. When he came back out he was carrying two giant garbage bags. He held one out to me. “We can race these.”

Imagine holding open a garbage bag to fill with wind in a storm. Now imagine letting it go, watching it tumble down the snowy street under the glow of the streetlamps. I whooped, not caring that it was the middle of the night and I might be waking up the neighbours.

At the bottom of the hill, as I balled up my garbage bag before trudging back to the house, a pickup truck slid around the corner and skidded to a stop beside me. The driver rolled down his window and said, “Are you okay?”

How did I look to this man as I stood in the middle of the street in a snowstorm, a teenager wearing her pyjamas and a coat, holding an empty black garbage bag?

I laughed, marvelling at the unfamiliar way my smile stretched my skin, then pointed up the hill. “It’s okay,” I told him. “I’m with my dad.”