***

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.

I like bread. I´ve always liked bread.

Out there, in the wilderness or on the trails you can’t bake bread. You need an oven for that, an oven in a house, a home.
Freshly baked bread means security and home for me. The little bakery in Boston has good bread, as if made at home….

But this bread here tastes stale. Stale and old. No one has baked today or yesterday. The only good thing is that I can chew on it longer and with that avoid answer a question that hasn’t been asked yet, but has been lingering in this room since my arrival.

“Adam, how long are you going to stay?”

There. It’s out. But I´m chewing; I can not speak.

But I can look, I have to look, and so I focus my eyes back on the people sitting at the table with me: my father, my two nephews, and my sister-in-law. My brother’s…widow.

A widow for four years now. I’m here for the anniversary of his death. I’ve always made sure to be here on this date.We visited his grave this morning, and met Joe and his family there. Even after so many years I don’t understand why he had to die so early. That big, strong man.

Eventually I swallow the bread.

“I don’t know, Pa. Maybe for two weeks. I have work to do in Boston. We are building….” I try to smile. Not that I ‘m doing a good job at that.

“Sure, Adam. Sure….” Pa says, his eyes averting mine.“I just thought maybe you….”

He doesn’t have to say more; I know what he is thinking, and he knows that I know.

But I have an architecture office in Boston.I have a lot of dear friends with whom I can talk about literature, theatre, opera. That is my dream of a life. An independent life.
I’ve cut the strings of dependence late, but I had to. I can’t live someone else’s dream.

Pa looks fragile, and so sad. I love him, more than he might know, but ….

“Come let’s move in the great room, I’m cold. Let’s sit closer to the fire,” Pa says into the growing silence.

I lend him an arm, he leans on me heavily. He looks so weak. Frail.

We sit at the fireplace. For a while there’s absolute silence.

Then a young voice startles me. “Uncle Adam, please, can you tell us a story about father when he was a boy? Uncle Joe says you can tell much more stories than he because you knew him from when he was a baby.”

Two pairs of intense blue eyes are looking at me with such confidence.

Hoss’s eyes. They have my younger brother’s eyes. Why have I never realized that before?

Mama, they have…your eyes!

“Pa, maybe I could….”

I don’t have to say more, Pa already knows.

I smell the scent of freshly baked bread out of the kitchen.

I’m at home.