The room was narrow, with sterile white walls and a hard tile floor. There were two chairs along one wall, facing the gurney where my dad was resting. He was covered with a thick white sheet, and I remember thinking my big, strong, invincible dad suddenly looked really small.
The orderly went in first, and I followed him in. I noticed he was wearing thin yellow gloves, and I wondered if he’d had them on the whole time and I just didn’t notice? Or perhaps they were in his pocket, and he slipped them on when we were walking.
“I’m going to pull the sheet back a little,” he said, his voice rising like a question, so I nodded to let him know it was OK. I felt heat rush up my spine as he pinched the sheet between his gloved fingers. It was thick—more like a tablecloth than a sheet—and I wondered if they used special linens for viewing, or if all morgue sheets were this nice. As he peeled the sheet back with silent fingers, it folded in on itself like a gentle wave lapping the shore. I braced myself to see my dad’s face, but it was covered by what looked like a dinner napkin. I noticed the napkin sat almost flat, instead of rising where his nose should be, and I tried not to think about where the strong, straight feature I’d inherited might have gone. The orderly flipped up the bottom corner of the napkin, revealing a sliver of Dad’s chin, then retracted his hands and took a step back. He didn’t say anything, but I understood he would stop me if I tried to move that napkin, and to my surprise, I felt a flood of gratitude that he was standing guard.
I looked at my dad’s two swatches of exposed skin—smooth shoulder and sculpted chin. They were so white, more like the color of chalk than skin, and I realized that without blood running through it, a body was just an empty shell. Everything that made this ghoulish white vessel my dad was gone—his opinions, his thoughts, his warmth. This body was just Dad’s temporary shelter, which he made his own through workouts and haircuts and silly smiles, but now had no purpose at all. So where is my dad? Where did he go? How could a lifetime of thoughts and wisdom vanish into nothingness?
I had come here to talk to him, but standing there, I realized I had nothing to say to this matrix of bones and decomposing organs. My dad’s body was just like this room—hollow and soulless, with nothing to grab on to. I had already told him everything that needed to be said in my prayers, things I couldn’t say with that orderly standing there. I did a bad thing, I’d confessed. I betrayed everything you ever taught me about being a good person. But I know how the system works, how rich people buy cops and juries and judges. Someone was going to get bought. It might as well be us.
If he could’ve talked back, he’d have told me some things were more important than money. Like dignity, honesty, and honor. And of course he’d have been right.
To move forward with the arrangement we’d agreed to, I had to let my dad go. Not the stiffening mass on the table in front of me. I had to let go of what he’d stood for.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered to my dad’s dead body. Pain crept up my throat, but I choked it down. I took a slow, deep breath for strength, then took a step back.
“I’m done,” I announced.
My orderly nodded and pulled up the sheet.
And that’s how I said goodbye to my dad.
CHAPTER 34
He told me that he loved me.
Nobody ever said I love you to me except my mom and dad, and at first I didn’t believe him. But he just kept saying it like it was the most natural thing in the world, and after the third or fourth time, I figured he really meant it, so I said it back.
To be fair, I wanted to believe he loved me. Because I loved him. I loved the way he smelled, I loved how his laugh made me feel light as a feather, I loved the way his hand felt holding mine. I felt happy when I was with him, and anxious when we were apart. I thought Romeo and Juliet was stupid when we read it in tenth grade, but now that I knew what it felt like to want to die for someone, I totally got it. That’s how I felt about Logan. And I was pretty sure that’s how he felt about me.
Which is why I had to tell him everything. I wanted to know I was his Juliet, who he would love no matter what I did or where I came from. I needed to prove to myself what we had was real, which meant we couldn’t have secrets from each other. My parents argued sometimes about who had the car keys last, or how we would pay for my dance lessons, but they never kept secrets from each other. My dad always said love dies in dishonesty. If you can’t share your true self with someone, he once told me, you’re wasting your time. I didn’t think I was wasting my time with Logan, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to know everything about him. And I was ready for him to know everything about me.