What is he doing? Why is he here? I wouldn’t just hang around like that. I’d run.
I say that, but every time I discover I’ve grown older, I realize I’ve grown older in an entirely predictable way.
Maybe dad is just doing what we do when it’s time to do it. Or not do it, as it were.
We go to coffee twice a week. I hold his elbow up the stairs and keep a hand on his shoulder to steer him and to knead the meat and bone beneath his collar.
He rouses at the register, rattles off his order at the young barista who punches it in from memory and writes dad’s name on the cup.
A big wad of bills spills open and dad sorts them into twenties, tens, fives, ones and then stops.
I put my hand on the stack and peel off what I think is right, but the young man hands me back a five and takes three from dad’s pile.
Oh, the collarbone, and piling the cash on the counter. You've said so much in so few words. I love this. And now I'm remembering how my dad used to grab us kids by the collarbone as we walked down the aisle to find a pew each Sunday. I always wondered why he kind of kneaded it, too.
Nice. Is that a photo of your dad?