John, the Father

This piece follows Mishka, the Twenty-Year-Old Maltese Mix, and the Blessing of the Animals, submitted for Contest #339 (Grief Carried): https://reedsy.com/short-story/st0tuf/

and Rose, the Mother, and the Leaf That Fell at the Blessing of the Animals, submitted for Contest #340 (Grief Witnessed): https://reedsy.com/short-story/njrb59/

***

“…If you would be my bodyguard, I can be your long-lost pal…”

I sang along with Paul Simon, louder on the chorus than the verses, tapping two fingers against the leather steering wheel.

“I can call you Betty…”

The horns kicked in.

“And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.”

I gave the wheel two quick taps and smiled to myself. Good song. 

“In five hundred feet, turn right.” I glanced at the screen mounted beside the dash.

I knew the address. I just had never driven there from my house.

At the next red light, I looked into the rearview mirror and caught something beneath my jaw.

Gray.

I leaned closer.

“Son of a bitch.”

I had done the Just For Men that morning and somehow missed a narrow patch along the left side of my beard. Straight on, I looked fine. Turn my head three inches and there it was, silver against the brown.

I rubbed at it with my thumb.

I angled my chin toward the mirror again.

A horn sounded behind me. The light had changed.

“All right.” I stepped on the gas.

The neighborhood began to look familiar. Recognizable beneath twenty years of change. 

My dry cleaners was gone. The little Italian bakery where Rose used to order struffoli at Easter was now a vape and smoke shop. A four-story condominium stood where I remembered a gas station. 

“Your destination is ahead on the left.” The empty cardboard box on the passenger seat shifted when I took the corner. I caught it with one hand and pushed it upright again.

I lowered the music.

The apartment complex appeared behind a row of maples.

For a moment, I didn't recognize it. 

The brick looked paler than I remembered. One of the shutters on the second floor hung crooked. The bushes along the front had grown high enough to cover the bottoms of the windows.

I turned in slowly.

I pulled into a space near the entrance and shifted into park.

When the song ended, I shut off the engine.

I reached across for the cardboard box and got out.

There were six doorbells beside the entrance, each with a narrow plastic slot for a name. I found hers.

JOHN AND ROSE MITCHELL

The ink had faded to a dull blue, but I recognized the handwriting immediately.

Mine. 

I let out a breath and shook my head. 

The key had been sitting for years in the back of my dresser drawer beneath cuff links, loose change, and things I never quite got around to throwing away. 

I slipped it into the front door.

It turned.

The stairwell smelled faintly of old carpet and beef stew. I climbed to the second floor and walked to the apartment at the end of the hall.

I put the same key into that lock.

For a second, it stuck.

Then it turned.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside. 

Sneakers and rain-boots crowded the narrow entryway beside two old dog leashes. I stepped around them and moved down the short hall.

The walls were mostly bare.

A crooked HOME SWEET HOME print still hung near the kitchen entrance. I remembered Rose buying it at HomeGoods years ago. 

The wedding pictures were gone. So were the family photographs.

The nails were still there. So were the plastic wall anchors.

The kitchen was exactly where I remembered it.

Rose’s purse sat on the table, slumped against the back of a chair. I set the box down and opened it.

Wallet. Keys. Reading glasses. Three crumpled tissues.

There was a little over three hundred dollars in cash.

I took the bills, her driver’s license, insurance cards, and checkbook and put them in the box.

Rose’s brother Tommy would be here eventually. I had no intention of leaving anything around for him to pick through like he’d won a raffle.

The money I’d give to charity.

I closed the purse and looked around.

On one side of the sink sat Mishka’s things.

Two plastic pill organizers, each divided into morning and evening compartments, had been labeled in Rose’s handwriting:

MISHKA — AM

MISHKA — PM

Beside them was a small bottle of eye drops, disposable syringes still sealed in plastic, and

alcohol wipes. 

Then I looked to the other side of the counter.

Rose’s prescriptions were lined against the backsplash.

Lisinopril.

Sertraline.

Bupropion.

Quetiapine.

Another bottle of sertraline from an earlier dosage. Something for sleep. Another antidepressant I didn’t recognize.

Most were full.

Some had never been opened.

I picked one up.

Discard after March 2024.

Another still had the pharmacy seal across the cap.

There were more in a drawer.

On the table was a folded church bulletin.

ST. ANTHONY’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS — OCTOBER 3, 2027

Yesterday.

I opened it.

Someone had written across the bottom in blue ink.

Rose — please call me this week.  We’ll figure it out together. God bless you. — Fr. Tomasz

A phone number was underneath.

Near the bulletin was a card for a bereavement group and another for a grief counselor in town.

The mail beside them was less encouraging.

Past-due electric bill.

Second notice from the water company.

A credit-card statement still sealed.

I stacked those separately.

Then I looked at the refrigerator.

Pictures covered almost the entire upper half.

Lanie at preschool.

Lanie in a pink bathing suit.

Lanie sitting cross-legged on the floor with Mishka in her lap.

There was one photograph near the center that stopped me.

The pumpkin patch.

Rose was kneeling beside Lanie, both of them squinting into the sun. I was standing behind them with one hand on Rose’s shoulder and the other holding a pumpkin Lanie had insisted was hers even though it weighed more than she did.

Three of us. A few weeks before Thanksgiving.

My eyes filled.

I blinked hard and pulled the photograph free.

Then another.

Then another.

I put them into the box.

Something purple sat on top of the refrigerator.

I reached up.

Her unicorn. 

Its fur had gone gray around the edges. One plastic eye was scratched. The purple mane had flattened along one side.

I held it for a moment, then placed it carefully on top of the photographs.

I opened two drawers beneath the counter.

Silverware. Coupons. Birthday candles.

At the back of one drawer was a folded piece of paper.

 I saw the handwriting and unfolded it.

Took Lanie to the park. Back by five. Love you.

I read it twice. My handwriting. 

There was nothing else on the page.

I folded the note along the crease and placed it in the box.

Then I stood there for a moment.

I breathed in slowly through my nose and let it out through my mouth.

“That’s enough for tonight.”

The box was heavier than I expected. 

Rose’s family could deal with the furniture and the rest of the apartment when the time came. I had a long drive home.

I picked up the box and started toward the front door.

Then I noticed the light.

It came from farther down the hallway, a narrow strip spilling across the floor from the second bedroom on the right.

I stopped.

Every other room was dark.

I set the box down.

The hallway seemed longer than I remembered.

I followed the light.

I passed Rose’s room on the left. The blankets had been pulled from the bed, leaving the bare mattress exposed, and clothes lay scattered across the floor.

The door to the bedroom on the right was left open. 

I stopped at the threshold.

Pink.

That was the first thing that hit me.

A bright pink rug covered most of the floor. The walls were pale lavender. Above me, a purple ceiling fan turned slowly, wobbling slightly with each rotation, one of its pull chains tapping against the glass globe.

The room was almost exactly as I remembered it.

A Dora the Explorer pillowcase was still tucked beneath the comforter. Stuffed animals crowded the bed, some upright against the wall, others collapsed into one another. A pair of tiny pink slippers sat underneath.

There were stickers on the dresser.

A plastic jewelry box.

Hair ties looped around the lamp.

A dried-out marker without a cap.

I stepped inside.

The bookshelf was still there.

I ran my finger across the spines.

*Goodnight Moon.*

*If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.*

*The Very Hungry Caterpillar.*

*The Rainbow Fish.*

“Guess How Much I Love You.”

I pulled it halfway from the shelf.

And she was there.

Lanie at five.

She was tucked beneath the pink comforter Rose had bought for her at Target, the one with the little white flowers. Her hair was still wet from the bath, darker at the ends and curling against her neck. She had Rose’s cheeks and my eyebrows. Her front teeth were just beginning to separate. There was a tiny freckle beneath her left eye that you could only see when you were close.

I had forgotten the freckle.

Standing there, with that book in my hand, I could see every inch of her.

She smelled like strawberry shampoo and whatever bubble bath Rose used to buy in the enormous pink bottle.

I was sitting beside her on the bed.

My back against the headboard. One leg stretched out. The book open across my lap.

Lanie pressed against my side. 

She never let me simply read.

Every page required negotiations.

Questions. Corrections.

An entirely separate story she had decided belonged somewhere in the middle of the one already being told.

I had gotten to the part where Little Nutbrown Hare stretched his arms as wide as he could.

Lanie pushed the book down.

“Daddy.”

“What?”

“How much do you love me?”

I looked at her.

“You know how much.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Show me.”

So I stretched my arms out.

“This much.”

She stared at them.

Then she stretched hers farther, although they barely reached past her pillow.

Then she kissed me on the nose.

I could feel it.

Her hands.

Her breath against my face.

I shoved the book back onto the shelf.

My chest seized.

I tried to breathe in.

The breath stopped halfway.

I tried again.

Nothing.

I opened my mouth.

A little air came, sharp and thin.

Then another breath came before I was ready for it.

And another.

I put my hand against the bookshelf.

My fingers were shaking.

I tried to slow down.

In.

Out.

My heart was pounding now, hard and uneven, and the room seemed to pull inward at the edges.

I bent over.

I stood too quickly and the floor shifted beneath me.

I reached for the dresser and missed it.

My knees buckled before I could catch myself. I hit the pink rug hard, one shoulder first, then my face.

For a second, the room narrowed to the sound of the fan above me.

Then everything went black.

***

I woke up to something tugging at my pant leg.

I opened my eyes.

My cheek was pressed into the pink rug. For a few seconds I didn’t know where I was. The purple fan still turned above me, wobbling through the same slow circle.

Something tugged again.

I lifted my head.

A tiny white dog stood near my ankle, pulling weakly at the cuff of my pants with what few teeth she had left.

I stared at her.

“Mishka?”

She released my pants and looked in my general direction, cloudy eyes not quite finding mine.

I pushed myself upright.

“Jesus Christ.”

She trembled where she stood, one ear folded over. She took two uncertain steps toward me.

I reached for her.

She weighed almost nothing.

I lifted her against my chest and buried my face in the fur on top of her head.

“Mishka-girl.”

My voice broke.

I kissed her once, then again.

“It’s been so long.”

She licked my chin.

I laughed through whatever was still running down my face and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Look at you.”

For a moment I held her like a newborn baby.

Then warmth spread across the front of my shirt.

I looked down.

Mishka blinked.

“You pissed on me.”

A laugh came out of me before I could stop it.

I wiped my face again and got carefully to my feet, still holding her.

“Come on, Mishka-girl.”

I looked around the room once more.

“Let’s go home.”

She rested her head against my chest.

I carried her back to the kitchen.

I packed both pill organizers. Eye drops. Syringes. Her treats. The handwritten medication schedule and placed it all into the box with the rest. 

There was a small fleece blanket folded beside her food. I spread it over the things already inside and cleared a place at one end.

Then I lowered Mishka into the box.

She circled once, slowly, and sat down.

“All right?”

She stared past me.

“Good enough.”

I picked up the box.

At the door I stopped and looked back.

I switched off the kitchen light.

Then the hallway.

The apartment fell dark behind me except for the strip of light coming from the second bedroom on the right.  

I left the light on.

Then I carried Mishka out, pulled the door shut behind us, and locked it.

***

The next morning, Lauren was at the kitchen table with coffee when I came downstairs.

Mishka slept in the laundry room, curled into the blanket from Rose’s apartment.

I sat across from her.

“It’s time,” I said.

Lauren lowered her mug.

“For them to know her.”

She studied me. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

The pumpkin-patch photograph was still in the box by the stairs. I brought it to the table while Lauren called the kids.

Evan came down first, nine and barefoot. Sophie, seven, followed in pajamas, carrying the stuffed rabbit she swore she no longer slept with.

“Sit for a minute,” I said.

I poured them juice and placed the photograph between us.

Sophie picked it up.

“Is that Lanie?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

They knew about her. They knew I had another daughter once, and that she was in heaven. 

Not much more.

I pointed to Lanie.

“She had these crazy curls,” I said. “Your grandmother could brush them for an hour and five minutes later they looked exactly the same.”

“She sounds like Sophie,” Evan said.

I told them about the pink nail polish that ended up mostly on her fingers. The purple unicorn she carried everywhere. How bedtime was never one book because every page came with questions.

I stopped.

A tear landed beside the photograph.

“Daddy?” Sophie said.

I wiped my cheek.

Another came.

“I’ve never seen you cry before.”

She wrapped her arms around me. Evan came around the table and joined her.

I held them both.

After a while, I cleared my throat.

“There’s someone else you should meet,” I said.

“Who?” Evan asked.

“Mishka. Now, before you get too excited, she is very, very old.”

I went to the laundry room and came back carrying her.

Both kids stared.

“That’s a dog?”

Evan asked, grinning ear to ear.

Sophie stepped closer.

“Can I pet her?”

“Very gently,” I replied. 

She touched Mishka’s head.

“Was she Lanie’s?” she asked.

“Yes. She loved her so,” I said.

I lowered Mishka into her arms as Evan pulled his chair closer.

***

I looked down at the bulletin in my hand.

ST. ANTHONY’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS — OCTOBER 1, 2028

Mishka was tucked carefully in the crook of Evan’s right arm.

Father Tomasz dipped his fingers into the silver bowl and flicked the water gently over her head.

“May God bless this animal,” he said, his voice even and practiced, “and the family she has loved. May she be protected and kept in good health, and may she bring joy to those around her.”

Mishka sneezed.