It seemed to me then that my father was still with us - in the half-empty packet of Marlboros on the windowsill, the frayed slippers under the coffee table, the tooth marks on the pencil that stuck out from the book of crossword puzzles. Across the ottoman, the jacket of her uniform lay in a heap, the dragon appliquéd on its back a startling red. She was still in the white shirt and black gi from her karate class the night before. In the living room, my mother sat on the sofa, staring at the cordless phone in her hand as though she couldn’t remember how to use it. One of the framed photos on the hallway wall was askew. There was a copy of Reader’s Digest on the console, a set of keys on a yellow wrist coil, and a pair of sunglasses with a missing lens. But the fog lifted at dawn, and by the time I reached the Mojave, the sun was out and the sky a brazen blue.Īll I could hear when I stepped into my parents’ house were my heels on the travertine floor. Under my headlights, I could see only twenty feet ahead. These possibilities were far-fetched, I knew, and yet I clung to them as I drove. But I do remember driving home on the 5 freeway, in the foggy darkness that cloaked almond groves and orange orchards, all the while dreaming up alternate explanations: perhaps the sheriff’s department had misidentified the body, or the hospital had swapped my father’s records with someone else’s. We must have paid the bill, put on our coats, walked the five blocks back to our apartment.
I have no clear memory of what happened next.
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