Not because I need it.
Just because the wall is there and it seems friendly and I don’t wanna be rude.
• • •
My dad is in the movie room.
The room my mom designed.
The projector she picked out.
The blanket she bought because she said the other one wasn’t soft enough.
• • •
He’s on the couch.
A bottle of scotch on the table in front of him.
More gone than not.
He’s asleep.
Or something close to it.
The kind of sleep that arrives because the body runs out of ways to stay awake and feel things.
I know that kind.
We have a lot in common tonight, my dad and I.
I stand in the doorway for a second.
He looks so small.
My dad has never looked small.
In all my years he has been the largest presence in any room — not physically, just in the way he fills space, takes up air, makes everything better just by being in it.
• • •
He just looks like a regular person now.
A person who has lost the thing he loved most.
I cover him with the blanket.
Her blanket.
The soft one.
• • •
I press a kiss to his head and stand there for a second with my hand on his hair the way he’s done for me a thousand times.
The roles reversed.
My dad tucked in.
