Photo by Carlos Derecichei on UnsplashPack the pills first. Blood pressure. Anti-depressants. Statins. Then Pepto, Preparation H, Tylenol. Underwear, undershirts, compression socks.
The silk ties will stay. The Ferragamo wingtips and loafers as well. The Armani suits can remain in the guest room closet, as they have for the last month, headless scarecrows spilling secrets; matches, mints, a receipt from The Pink Patio, where he took me for tea on my 5th birthday. There is a phone number scribbled in purple ink on the back. Toni dotted her i with a heart.
Pack the electric razor, a drugstore toothbrush, for the few teeth left, gray tombstones in his gummy mouth. I’ll keep the Tom Ford cologne.
He looks at me with the eyes of a kennel dog, wet and pleading. He opens his left hand, then closes it quickly. Clutch, open. Clutch, open. I see 6-year-old non-verbal me, standing on a porch, flexing, and closing my small hand as my father drives away.
I brush imaginary dust off my shoulder. He runs a puce tongue over dry lips. I remember my small hand over his mouth as he whistled along with the seven dwarves in Snow White. He grimaces now and I notice the small fissures, the dried blood collecting in the corners of his mouth. I find lip balm in the guest bathroom and toss it into the toiletries box.
“Well then, this is it,” says Strapping John, an orderly, an attendant, an Anything Man for the amount of money I am paying to Harmony Hills. He picks up the box. “There’s plenty of room in the van; should we wheel his chair in or will you be taking him?”
From the corner of my eye, I see my father’s hand wildly squeezing and releasing. He hasn’t been able to speak since the last stroke, the one his newest wife couldn’t abide, which is why 30 years after he abandoned me and my mother, after years of dodging alimony and child support, my father was dropped on my doorstep, like some flaming paper bag of dog shit.
I survey the sum of his wastrel years, the boxes and bags shuffled from his once grand life to my modest but tidy home. At first, I had carefully sorted his things; retrieving a cashmere scarf if he shivered, fetching the fleece-lined slippers for his gnarled feet. As I sifted through his finery though, I began to search, tentatively then frantically, for something, anything, some small thread that might connect us. His billfold contained a single photo, a smiling younger man, himself, and a handsome German Shepherd.
“Thank you, John. Can you please take him with his things? I’m sure he will be happy at Harmony Hills.”
I do not watch as they load the baggage in the van, only feel something within my heart opening and clutching, opening, and clutching.
