The Missouri Review

LOOKING BACK / Bruce Guernsey through the kitchen window, lit as always every night, I see her by the sink, looking out, so I wave and point the way he might at the steak I bought on the grill, their ritual meal those Saturday nights if my father made a sale— she'd feed us first, insist on prayers, then off to bed while downstairs my father poured two High Lifes in tall glasses he'd hid all week for now, then go outside to light the charcoal— I turn the gas down low, look toward the light and point again to say the meat is almost done but in the window she can't see out, nor could she then when she'd come down to set the table and he'd be busy where I am, invisible, but there in the dark, beer in hand, and from that light she'd wave to him. 278 · The Missouri Review ...