Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Melinda brought another biscuit to her lips, nibbling on its edges demurely. “May I ask…um, why you chose cremation?”
“He was an atheist. He didn’t believe in God, religious rituals, or the afterlife.” A sharp stab of emptiness impaled my stomach when I spoke about him. “He told us cremation was less burdensome on the ecosystem.” I could tell my words flew right over Melinda’s hair-sprayed do. I had lost her at ecosystem. She probably thought it was our AC brand.
My dad had stood out in the quaint, small town of Staindrop, Maine, like a dildo in a church. He had taught physics at the local high school until the last month of his life and enjoyed chess, mental math, and volunteering twice a week at the local reservoir, collecting litter. He was ruthlessly pragmatic yet an oddly optimistic creature. His stage four cancer had bitten at his existence a chunk at a time but hadn’t stopped him from making every moment count.
Dad had been alive—not just living—until his very last breath in hospice. Only three days ago, we were still hunched over a game of chess, bickering over which hospice food was the most depressing (the porridge, hands down, no matter how much he loathed the Jell-O).
Now my living room was full of people I once knew, offering their condolences. Everybody had brought a beet-based dish, Dad’s favorite root vegetable (and yes, he ranked them). Casseroles, cakes, au gratin beets, all in different shades of purple.
I went through the motions. Hugging people, answering mind-numbing questions. “How is New York?” Cold and pricey. “What are you doing there?” Waiting tables and mustering the courage to launch my own true crime podcast. “When are you planning on moving back?” Never seems like a good timeframe.
What shocked me the most was how easily I slipped back into the familiarity of this house I hadn’t set foot in for years. How it wrapped around me like an old dress. How drenched these walls were with timeless memories.
The only difference was that now, Dad wouldn’t materialize from the kitchen, a newspaper tucked under his armpit and a cup of honeyed tea in his hand, saying, “Tell me something good, Callichka.”
Spotting Mom on the other side of the living room, I cut through the mass of black-sheathed shoulders and rested a hand over her arm. She was squinting at a dessert tray, pretending to give it great thought.
“Hanging in there, Mom?” I brushed a wayward lock of hair from her eye. She nodded, pressing her lips together. I was her mini-me. Same almond-brown hair piled up in tight curls atop our heads, giant azure eyes, and petite frames.
“It’s just…” She shook her head, waving a frantic hand at her face to keep her tears at bay.
“What?” I rubbed her shoulder. “Tell me.”
She sliced a piece of sponge cake with her fork. “I feel…lighter. Like I can breathe again. Is that terrible?”
“Mom, no. Dad was sick for sixteen months, and he suffered every second of it. His relief is your relief. It’s hard watching someone you love hating their own existence.”
Dad had been sick of being sick. I had been in the room when he passed away. I had held his hand, stroked the thick, blue veins running up and down the back of his palm. I’d sung his favorite song, “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas.
I had sung it, fighting the tears and the lump in my throat. I’d envisioned him as a small boy, tucked in his cot in Leningrad, dreaming about golden beaches and tall palm trees. He must have imagined it too, because he’d smiled. Smiled as his systems began shutting down. Smiled as a lifetime of educating kids, uncoiling my mother’s yarn in precise increments when she knitted mittens, and stealing tea cakes from the cookie jar above the fridge when no one was looking had flashed before his eyes. Dad had smiled through it all. Because he knew that his happiness was my favorite view.
His hand had still been warm when he’d flatlined. The nurse had come in and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she’d said. But I had gained so much over the years. Love, resilience, and endless memories.
Mom rubbed her forehead, frowning. “Maybe I’m just in denial. It’s all going to dawn on me once you go back to New York and I stay here by myself. That’s when reality always kicks in, isn’t it?” She pressed a fist to her lips. “When everyone leaves and grief is your only companion.”
I clutched her in a hug, desperate to comfort her but not really sure how.
“You know, it’s going to be weird, the first time I’ll sleep here by myself.” She glanced around the room, her throat bobbing with a swallow. “Even when Dad was at the hospice, I always had a friend stay over. I married him when I was twenty-one. I’m not even sure I know how to be alone.”