At My Father’s Ceremony They Said I Could Not Do Anything Right Until I Walked In And Smiled

anything.

“Sit down,” I said.

He looked at me. For a flash I was twelve again and he was the tall certain fact of the house. Then the flash passed and he was seventy-one years old and smaller than my memory had kept him, and he pulled out a kitchen chair and sat.

I made tea. Not because either of us necessarily wanted it but because making tea in a kitchen continue reading …