Rachel Seitz

The sun hadn’t risen by the time my father was ready to leave for work. He sat on the piano bench in the foyer, thermos and lunchbox to his left, and me sitting on the floor to his right. His rough hands grabbed the work boots from underneath the bench and began to lace up one foot. Once maroon, his boots had faded to a powdered mahogany, caked with mud and drywall dust.  

My mother placed a kiss on his cheek and told him she loved him, and he parted into the mid-December morning, prepared to arrive at work by the time the sun was up.  

He would return after the sun had gone down, hands only protected by the dusty gloves my mother made him leave in his pickup truck. The boots would unlace and go back under the bench for the next day. Off would come the coveralls, brown with a quilted red lining, sending a plume of dust into the air. He stepped out of these, unzipped two jackets, and went to take a shower.  

Repeat this cycle for the next 18 years of my life.  

Things changed. I didn’t wake up at 5am anymore. The layers shed and grew for each season. The dust was replaced by metal, glass, occasional burnt jeans. Sometimes he would come home smelling like strawberries and crème, and others like Marlboro Golds. But always like sweat, with grime deepening the wrinkles.  

And then one day that stopped. He stopped carrying the lunchbox and thermos, the coveralls didn’t dirty our foyer floor. The work boots stayed maroon.