we had the grand finale. You did what you’re best at,” he says, smiling grimly. “You shut down.”
“You walked away,” I retort.
He laughs harshly, shaking his head and echoing in a murmur, “I walked away.”
Softening, I say, “Tomorrow . . . I’ll come by.”
Elliot lifts the glass, swallowing four gulps and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sure thing, Macy.”
At one in the morning, the sky feels haunted in its darkness. I climb the porch to my old summer home, skipping over the predictably broken step. Using the long-ignored key on my ring, I let myself inside, where it’s even colder than it is in the woods; the insulation keeps the chill stored within the dark plaster walls. I turn on lights as I go, and kneel to set a small fire in the wood-burning stove.
Obviously, if I’ve been here only once in the past ten years, I should remember the exact dates, but I don’t. I only know it was a week, maybe two, before I left for my sophomore year at Tufts, and we drove up at night to sift through our possessions and move all the cherished things into closets we could lock, to keep curious vacation renters from taking anything. The memory of that night feels like a blur of watery color streaking through fog.
Upstairs, I sift through the other keys on my ring, finding the smaller one, and slide it into the lock on Dad’s closet door. It enters in jagged steps, sticking halfway through, requiring a tiny wiggle before it clicks and turns with a rusty protest.
His closet opens with a whiff of musty air, and my stomach drops when the scent and realization merge: I’ll need to throw most of this out. He kept some shirts and pants up here. Hiking boots, a fly-fishing vest. There are photo albums on the shelf up top, a nativity diorama I made in fourth grade. Letters from Mom. And, at the back, the stack of questionable magazines.
My butt lands on the floor before I realize I’ve been sliding down the door frame. Beneath the smell of mildew, there is the unmistakable smell of him: the Danish cigarettes, his aftershave, the bright linen scent of laundry. I pull a shirt from a hanger—messily; the wire flies up off the rod and hits the door on the way down. Pressing the flannel to my face, I inhale, choking through a sob.
I haven’t felt this way in so long. Or maybe I never felt this particular emotion: I want to cry. I want to positively sob. I give it full access, letting it tear through me into these awful howls that echo off the high ceilings and shake my torso, curling me forward. Snot, spit: I am a mess. I feel him right there behind me but I know he isn’t. I want to call out to him, to ask him what’s for breakfast. I want to hear the even cadence of his footsteps, the intermittent snap of the newspaper as he reads. All these instincts seem to live so close to the surface that they warp and weave through the fabric of possibility. Maybe he is downstairs, reading. Maybe he is just getting out of the shower.
It’s these tiny reminders that hurt, the tiny moments where you think—let me just call out to him. Ah, right. He’s dead. And you wonder how it happened, did it hurt, does he see me here in a sodden, sobbing puddle on his floor?
This is the only thing that interrupts the torrent, pulling a thick laugh from my throat. If Dad ever found me crying like this inside his closet, he would stare down—befuddled—before slowly lowering himself to a crouch, and reaching out, gently running his hand down my arm.
“What is it, Mace?”
“I miss you,” I tell him. “I wasn’t ready. I still needed you.”
He would get it, now. “I miss you, too. I needed you, too.”
“Are you hurt? Are you lonely?” I swipe an arm across my nose. “Are you with Mom?”
“Macy.”
I close my eyes, feeling more tears slide across my temples and into my hair. “Does she remember me?”
“Macy.”
“Do either of you remember you had a daughter?”
I’m not myself, I know I’m not, but I’m not embarrassed to be found like this, either, especially not by Dad. At least this way he’ll see how loved he was.
Strong arms come beneath my legs, around my back, and I’m lifted from the fog of mildew and Dad, and carried