Gone before gone

She knew suddenly that it was over. Her father was gone. Well, not gone entirely as he was in the room on the bed next to her chair. Though the four grey walls contained them, there was a certain endless emptiness lingering in the room like an infinite moan. She breathed in the hospital air, salty and pungent in her nose. It was nothing like the cool Autumn air that loitered outside just beyond the plain hospital window. The rude smell forced the obvious into the reality she had tried to deny. Her father was sleeping now, his face pallid and his hands clammy. The doctors had said there was no end to the spiral of death so slow yet certain. She looked at the time piece on her left wrist, half past eleven. She grabbed his left hand and held it in both of hers. She kissed it gently and sealed her eyes for a split second. “Time, take me back to when he knew who I was,”she begged. “Daddy, I miss you. It’s your little girl, please” she yearned, “say my name.” She opened her eyes, gently lowering his hand back down.

“I’ll be back. I love you.” She stood for one last glance and turned to leave the room.

After working a seven hour shift all she wanted to do was go home and shower the day off of her skin and down the drain. Grabbing her phone from her satchel, she saw two voicemails left. The first from the Hospital and the second from her mother. Her heart sank. The hospital almost never called. Her mind went somewhere, somewhere not dark but just blank like the abyss she felt that night in the room with her father when she realized he was gone before being gone. She played the voicemail from the hospital first. The phone screen was cold as her thumb clicked the play button. She recalled dropping the phone as it slid from her hand. Even the already gone were hard to finally lose.

Not a single expression had shown on her face the whole time the lawyer was there; not when he told her and her mother that he left the house and cars to them fully paid, or the cabin up north with the farm house, or the baseball card collection he had from the 80’s, or even when he told her that her father had left $20,000 for her to finally start that business she wanted carving the bowls he would turn for an hour in his thinning hands those last days recognizing him. She had forgotten to eat and to want, but she had not forgotten her manners, so when he had finally finished she thanked him and walked him to the door. Her mother left to go warm food. She walked from the living room down the long white hallway and as she passed the bathroom to the right she could see her reflection in the oval mirror above the sink. Her face was gaunt and blush made her cheekbones look like rose cliffs over oceans of despair. Her eyes were glassy and lips pursed as if air would ignite the cinder of sadness in her if she let too much in at once. She kept walking down the long hallway and opened the white door to the bedroom. The obnoxious orange curtains she despised so much were pulled open to reveal the white picket fence to separate their house and the neighbors. Nothing was charming today. The bed was made and the pillows were fluffed and his side of the bed was slightly sunken from 40 years of lying perfectly warm there. She sat down by the bedside table and took a breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. The room smelled like him still, but the stale truth was still the air in her nose from hospital many months ago. Looking to her left side was a small black notebook. She floated her hand over it and it fumbled to the ground laying open. The first page was crisply pressed. It was dated about five years ago around the time he had been diagnosed. The first line read, “Katie - black curly hair, hazel eyes, taller, nice smile. Your daughter. Ellie - gray straight hair, green eyes, soft hands. Your wife.” As she skimmed the rest of the page and flipped through the notebook she began to realize what it was. It was a diary of sorts filled with reminders and notes he had written to himself about things he thought were important, or even not so important like, “Socks in top left drawer. Soap in bottom cabinet beneath sink.” He had been jotting things for years to try to help him remember. The notebook was filled page to page with words everywhere on any blank space. “Your name is John. You love the smell of grass. You once caught a fly ball. Homemade wooden bowls feel smooth. Your daughter is Katie. She makes bows.” After he died she didn’t know what to feel. It was almost easier that he didn’t know who she was most of the time. Now here was pages and pages of all the things he did know about her and forgot to not forget. “Katie is your daughter. Your name is John. Ellie likes White Diamond perfume. Katie makes bowls.”

With the $20,000 he had left behind she decided to put it towards the bowls she had spent hours making while her father looked on. They were beautiful pieces of art she donated to the hospital patients to have in their rooms. In the memory care unit the patients seem to calm turning the smooth bowls and stacking them. The outside world laid in their hands heavy with grounding reality.

“Katie makes bowls. They are beautiful. You love them. Someday I will be gone. Katie is my daughter.”