Both
By Marilyn Abildskov
You grew up on the East Bench. Your father a doctor. Also a drinker. Also an atheist. Your mother a Mormon. Also a Democrat. She rarely mentioned God. She believed in children and cats. “Don’t kiss cats,” your father said, naming potential diseases. Your mother saved, your father threw away. Later you learned common divisions: heart versus head; body versus soul; minimalist versus maximalist. Could everything be traced to oranges versus apples? Mother versus father? Religion versus science? Talking versus stone-silent. Or maybe it goes back to Halloween — those full-sized candy bars the Cutlers handed out versus what the neighbors across the street dropped into pillowcase candy bags: dusky pomegranates, seeds spilling, red juice staining, the taste an impossible mix, both sharp and sweet.
Marilyn Abildskov is the author of “The Men in My Country.” She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and honors from the Corporation of Yaddo, the Djerassi Writing Residency and Utah Arts & Museums. Her short stories have been published most recently in Ploughshares, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and Best American Essays 2018. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and teaches in the M.F.A. Program at Saint Mary’s College of California.