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

was. A coat hook bare. A pair of shoes missing from the mat. The symbolic absences of a woman who understood how to make her presence felt even through its removal.

My father stood in the kitchen for a moment, looking at the empty hook.

“She’ll be at Patricia’s,” he said finally. Patricia was her friend two streets over, the one who had always functioned continue reading …