michelle-leona

The Passing Gift
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“You can't give it to him. It's tasteless.”
###“But Daddy is tasteless!”
###“Daddy is dying!”
###“So what? Because he's dying, he has no sense of humor anymore?”
###“He’s not himself anymore. You haven't been here - haven't seen how he's deteriorated. Just go up and see him before you do anything stupid, ok? Promise me you'll get your head out of your -” (her sister never could swear) “and look at him before you do anything stupid like giving a man dying of cancer a cigarette branded thermos!”
###“But daddy was the quintessential Marlboro Man. He’ll -"
###"Daddy was a lawyer"
###"Love it," she finished.
###“You are crazy!”
###Her sister got out of the car and slammed the door then looked back at her through the open window.
###“If you do, I promise I will never speak to you again.”
###She looked at her sister's red blue eyes till they turned away. The angry footsteps receded and the distant indifferent door slammed. Angry and almost crying, she leaned over to roll up the passenger side window.
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The parking lot, filled with closed and quiet cars, gave no token of another living being.
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She rolled a joint, lit up, and stared down at the Marlboro Thermos lying on the seat. It was so Dad. She wanted so bad to bring it to dad and to laugh and drink with him conspiratorially but she was not sure that her sister was not right (in this one thing only): that their dad’s dying changed everything.
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She thought most people cling to the idea that there is something in them that transcends this degenerating flesh. She unscrewed the top and took a swig of Old Crow (his favorite). But she knew the body is not just a vessel for spirits but rather the essential spirit maker. It would be lovely to think of her father dying like he lived, with a smoke in his hand and a sexy squint, but this is a suburban hospital and he'd be wearing a cotton gown, sporting a plastic wristband and tubes, and (god she hated hospitals) he’d be engulfed in that terrible hospital smell. How could a person be the Marlboro man in a place like that? She thought she might get hysterical, so she put out the joint and left the passing gift on the seat.
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Her father, very tiny and humble, was so happy to see her but so weak. She kissed him on his forehead after sitting with him for a half hour and said she'd be back. She did go back of course, and to the funeral, doing all that a daughter should do in these circumstances, though not as much as her sister.
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When it was all over, she felt that old familiar tug to move on. To New York she went and brought that Marlboro thermos with. It would be her last deliberate change. She was not getting any younger either. Her body would get the cancer too someday. Then her sister would arrive to put her things into piles and arrange for their transport to relatives and friends, thrift stores and charities. There they'd remain, occupying space on shelves and in drawers, long after she'd passed away.