Among Men: Genesis, Book 1

Chapter 2

“Mom, I think that’s too much glue.” Liam said inspecting the small wooden birdhouse his mother had made as a “reference” for their afternoon together. He noticed her continuing to paint, and he trudged over so she’d hear him better. Across the lawn, she sat criss-cross on the back porch instead of the workbench he had spent all night putting together for them. 

“Mom..” He said as he looked at the house pitifully, “I think you did a great job, but this much glue will never hold together.” 

Her eyes narrowed under her glasses, and she hurried them back onto her head. “Well.” She said, “I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t fall apart on top of a bird family. Do I need to start over?” 

He shook his head and chuckled at the devastation in her voice. Her headscarf tossed in the breeze gently and she reached up to catch it in worry that the wind would unravel her work. He walked over to fetch the hammer and some nails from his father’s toolbox in the garage just steps away. 

“I’ll put some nails in it just in case.” He said, prepping a small finishing nail against the small roof, holding the house steady on top of the workbench. 

She shook her head and winced to find that upon further judgment; it was a little more shabby than she intended.  

“I got that glue at the hardware store.” She mentioned, “I figured it’d be helpful so we wouldn’t need all those tools.” He looked up to place another nail in between his teeth to hold before he readied the other side. She continued painting carefully with all her focus going into the pink petals she imagined on the roof. She dipped her small paintbrush into the jar of ‘primrose pink’. Although he couldn’t stop watching her hands tremble in her grasp against the small brush. He winced inside knowing arthritis was becoming more and more severe. 

He finished the last nail in two hits instead of several this time and held it up to show, 

“That should do her.” 

“Look at that. Not too bad of craftsmanship for someone who never cared for shop class.” She said happily, taking it into her hands carefully. Treating it like porcelain still to Liam’s amusement. 

He smiled after that backhanded comment and sat beside her on the wooden deck. He squinted his eyes facing the April sun, “Well, birdhouse construction really isn’t that complex.” 

She swatted his arm after that “alleck-y” remark, as she called it in his youth. Like in that youth, his mother’s cancer had returned. Putting a halt in their faith in her beating it again. Her chances of overcoming a second battle were on a decline, tumbling down a staircase more like. He was only 14 when that baldheaded oncologist kept a smile on their face explaining to a boy that could hardly keep arithmetic, how likely it was that she would survive and how unlikely this type of cancer could metastasize. He seethed quietly in his mind, sitting next to his father those nights in quiet specialist offices, loathing probability. Especially how the word “unlikely” was not synonymous with “impossible”. 

He still remembered helping her wrap her head in those satin scarves the first time. He brought home magazines from the store that diagrammed how the models in Berlin wrapped their hair for their pictures. They both stood in the kitchen, glancing back and forth to the pages like a poorly written recipe. She always found herself giggling at how focused his face turned when he was trying not to prick her with the small pins. But she made the look a statement. Cordella Amare, professor of European Medieval Histories, looked like she was ready to sing for Sonny and Cher, but was bound to drop Anyday. At least, that’s what his father would say. Her students at the university could never guess someone so plain could have something so serious.