N..... in the woodpile

What is it that Anna, his daughter, sees in old photos of her father as a toddler? "He's so cute," she says.

Does he, as a young boy, remind her of her own innocence and vulnerability? His mother used to call him her “nigger in the woodpile", alluding to his dark hair, swarthiness and charm. "He's so much like his father," she used to say. Or is it that his appearance as a young boy is void of anything as devastating as the poverty and insecurity of slavery or war, the realities of the Great Depression or World War II, much less the grief over a parent's sudden death, or the burdens and responsibilities of parenthood, which generations before him had suffered? He had never really thought about it before. Is that why he cried when as he looked at them for the first time as an adult?

Perhaps the mien in these photos suddenly alerted Anna to the fact that she owed her very existence to his innocence, and naivté. Perhaps she and her father both sensed suddenly how her sustenance was dependent upon his survival, generosity and fidelity. But fidelity to what, to whom? Was it possible that his loyalties had been focused on first alleviating his mother's and then his wife's suffering? Was it possible that in order to cater to their needs he had to deny his own grief? Was it possible that this denial was a prerequisite for his self-esteem? Was it possible that what he had always thought was wisely circumspect had actually served to stump rather than stimulate his growth all these years? Was it possible that innocent people - including his own children - had suffered from his gullibility? Was it possible that he was a sucker? So many questions. So few answers.

Anna recalled the image of the orphaned fawn that her mother had once seen in the forest and was so determined to possess, as her buck. Could this cute little “nigger in the woodpile” be a plausible good ‘catch’ in her story? Why else would the vulnerabilty and innocence of this animal have to be concealed all these years, under a pile of firewood, in old photos? Anna wondered too if this pet name, "nigger in a woodpile", was an expression that everyone but she understood, like some internal joke to which she had not been privy?

"Your father would have been so proud of you" is something Anna's grandmother is purported to have said to one of her children. Suddenly Anna wondered what her grandfather would have thought of her father and her mother, or of her or her brother, had he lived to know them. "Some things are better left unsaid," was another thing her grandmother often said. What did she mean, why did she say that? Who was she trying to protect?