John Anise
We made this board ourselves, last Tuesday. We took the wood from our mother’s old butcher block, the one tucked behind the curved metal kitchen sink faucet. We carved letters and scrawled his name, J-O-H-N-A-N-I-S-E, on all the sides in black oil paint. We stuck tarot cards to the bottom, extra aid in calling forth the spirit.
John Anise died fourteen months ago, long enough for his soul to glide around the world twice and settle into a resting place. He was our father, who drank whiskey and drove through the center of town, into a grocery store. Glass broken into diamonds, broken into skin. We think about cutting our palms for blood, too, but we can’t be sure his soul would accept that kind of offering, not after what it has gone through.
We clasp our hands over the planchette, moving it in circles. We made a list of questions like, where did you go and was it on purpose and what do you want us to do now? We are supposed to ask in that order, but sometimes we can’t reach each other’s signals. Something about trust. Something about what we meant to build between us and did not.
John Anise spells out: away. We know it is him, not an involuntary tremor from one of our legs. This is how he was in life, curt, convinced we could read his full thoughts from one gesture. And then, he comes. His coffee breath on our cheeks. His body tumbling into us, as if we are a recliner that has grown used to his form. His hands pressed into our skin, as if we are the flowered wallpaper he clung to as he tried to make it up the stairs and into his bed. We feel this father around us and we watch each other, trying to distribute his weight.
We think we want answers, more answers, there are always so many more questions that we can ask this father, but we find the herbs instead. The ones that are meant to banish. We light a match and burn lavender from our mother’s potpourri to deter John Anise. We meant to frighten the other spirits, evil ones that might come out of the trees or the cemetery that is a half-mile away. Not him, but he must go anyway. Despite all the questions, for all the turbulent desire to hear an apology or an I love you or nothing was your fault, we must understand that John Anise is just another angry spirit, and perhaps always has been.
There is betrayal in this, but we are not betraying John Anise. We can see our futures: the sadness of Christmas ornaments left in boxes while we drink gin and feed our mother’s dog ham from the table. Recurring cycles. Some say you have to have a father to have a family and maybe we want to believe that because it is easier to have an excuse for failure. Our braids are close to the fire and we reach for them, moving them safely into the lines of our spine. Away, he spelled out and we obeyed, for what else would we do? In truth, grief is the only unifier any of us will know.