Muristek
Yesterday, as dad shaved at the bathroom sink, precisely as he’s done for decades, the smooth dream of electric razor buzzing his cheeks—preparing to visit funeral homes and sell caskets for families he never meets— his wife of forty years stepped quietly behind him, startled and said, I don’t know you. Then paused to fold herself into the blue sky of the robe she doesn’t recall opening as a gift, two Christmases ago. Where am I? she added, her face in the mirror clouded by scriptures she once taped there for comfort. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. What dad did next, or what he said, I’m not sure I could bear to know. So later, when he texted, I just had the fright of my life, I thought instead of what was eclipsed. Like hearing his draft number called in ’69, falling into jungles of bullets and snakes. He woke years later in a grim motel to the unlit cave of a pistol— a broad man looming to steal rings and wallet. Or the night in Ohio a white-tailed deer shattered his windshield. Dad sat alone on the dark highway, his face bleeding, glass gleaming like stars across the asphalt. But I’m avoiding mom, who couldn’t remember three words the doctor uttered, or count backward by sevens, during her last exam. Who, when asked to sketch the time, could conjure only a wobbly clock that had lost its touch for minutes. So maybe we knew this was coming. Or should have. My parents will visit this weekend. I ask my daughter to be patient with grandma, but really I’m talking to myself. On the phone this morning, Mom tells me, I’ll bring her a present. A box of family recipes. I think heaven is warm bread with butter and honey. Don’t you? That’s what I most want to give her.
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