Mushy Peas

By Eliza Rudalevige

The worst part of the chippy meal, but my dad loved them. Well, he liked them just fine and once it became a joke he had to keep eating his (and ours) to claim virtue, being the only one to eat a vegetable. Or the semblance of one.

On weekend nights when Owen and I raced our bikes on the pavement (me still needing a push to get started) through the gravel alley that made us go BUMP and our teeth chatter like it was late October and we forgot our coats on the back of the chair– maybe it was drizzling, maybe not. It was probably drizzling.

We knew we were halfway to the park when we passed the granite horses’ heads and a certain road sign squatting low to the ground like a fat fox. We had those in the garden one fall, but they were thin and scowling. (This was before I became thin and scowling.)

Once we reached the park gates, oh, once we reached the big gates, I could pedal faster, faster, knowing the grassy hills sloping down into the football pitches would catch me, kinder than the pavement, would catch me soft and green like mushy peas.