Bringing Back the Dead

I stood in the middle of the kitchen floor and counted my breaths. The sun through the window was warm on the side of my face but the laminate tile under my toes chilled my skin. I listened to the house creak sleepily and shift with the passage of insects in the ground beneath its foundations, as if it had an itch it couldn’t quite reach to scratch.

The air seemed empty. The scent of tobacco had long since faded and the echo of his laughter had stilled. His image had ceased to replay in my head, and I wondered when that happened. I can’t remember anymore.

But I remembered the day I heard it. The news. That he was gone. The Valentines decorations were still on the table and I could recall exactly what I had written on his birthday card. I used blue pen, because he always did.

My mother had walked in the door and I knew. Something about the way her shoulders met her neck that day told me with more certainty and sorrow than words ever brought. I had stood on this floor and listened to the tears drip from my eyelashes. Waited for the squeal of his stool by the counter as he sat down to pour himself one last drink. Smoke the one last cigarette he must have craved after giving them up to the tar that ate his lungs.

The stool never moved.

And now I stood. Slightly to the right of where my uncle dropped the screwdriver. I could hardly picture him anymore.

The mirror on the wall reflected my startled features when I heard the floor behind me creak. It was like a horror movie take. When the character on screen turns in slow motion. Multiplying the tension until your skull is ready to explode. That moving through water feeling when you don’t really want to see what’s behind you. It seemed I turned that slow.

I turned so slow that when I finally got him in my sights I was almost prepared. Almost didn’t jump, almost didn’t gasp. Almost.

“What are you afraid of sweet pea?” he said.

I was five again. My head barely brushed the underside of the kitchen table and I looked up at him through eyes glazed with hero worship.

“I’m not afraid Papa. I was waiting for you.”

“I know you were sweet pea. I’m here. Now where’s my hug?”