Last Piece of Chocolate Cake With My Father

Our favorite diner is nearly empty as I wander in from the night, starlight and the sound of the occasional passing car on Main Street replaced by the warm glow of the pendant lights reflecting off the sparkling red and white booths inspired by the gleaming candy apple paint job of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and the sounds of That’ll Be The Day by Buddy Holly playing on the jukebox. I’m not exactly sure how I got here, but as the scent of scratch-made biscuits baking in the oven wafts toward me, I realize that I’m hungry. Christina, our waitress almost Tuesday for a year, greets me with a bright smile. “Hi! He’s already here waiting for you,” she calls out from across the restaurant as she finishes wiping down the counter.

I glance across the diner, taking in the black and white checkered tile floor, the jukebox in the corner illuminated by neon lights, and the framed posters on the wall of Elvis, Mickey Mantle, Marilyn Monroe, and Sugar Ray Robinson, among others. Other than Christina and myself, the diner’s only occupant is a man sitting in the far corner booth, his dark brown hair finally tinged with grey after all these years, reading glasses framing his dark brown eyes that look just like mine as he studies the menu. I see a lot of him in my own face every time I look in the mirror, with the exception of his dark tan, inherited from his father, my grandfather Ben, who was half Cherokee.

He glances up at me, taking off his reading glasses and setting them on the tabletop next to the menu, a genuine smile spreading across his face for the first time in years, finally replacing the angry scowl I had come to know so well over the course of the last decade. In place of his usual Jack Daniel’s on the rocks or Budweiser, a cup of coffee with just a bit of cream sits in front of him next to a slice of the diner’s famous chocolate cake, which was always one of our favorites. An identical cup of coffee and slice of cake are waiting in front of the empty seat across from him. We always got the same thing, Dad and I.

“I’ve missed you,” he says warmly, as I take a seat, the opening notes of Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill in the background. “How are you these days?”

“Good. I’m teaching online these days because of the pandemic. Life’s been pretty uneventful, except for...well…”

“It’s ok, honey. How are your brothers? And your mother?”

“They’re ok. Mom’s a bit stressed out. Justin and Caleb are out of work, but they were able to get unemployment, so they’ll make it until the theme park reopens. Eventually.”

It occurs to me all of a sudden that we shouldn’t be here, given the governor’s order that all in-person dining cease until we flatten the curve, until there’s a vaccine, until it’s safe to go out in public again. My face feels strangely bare without the mask I know I should be wearing. I feel uncomfortable as the slight breeze from the ceiling fan caresses my face, the cool air at once refreshing and ominous. I move to get up from the table, but Dad’s words stop me.

“You don’t need a mask here.”

“Dad, I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t care what Donald Trump or the talking heads on Fox News say, wearing a mask is important. You should wear one, too. And make yourself an appointment at the VA to get your vaccine.”

“It won’t help. I don’t need a mask or a vaccine.”

I start to argue with him, but then I realize he’s right. It all comes rushing back to me, all that I have been able to forget here in the safe, warm environment of the diner. The phone call from my mother that interrupted my lesson planning, her frantic voice breaking the news to me that my brother Caleb had just received a call from Officer Davis of the Spencerville Police Department, informing him that our father’s body had been found and that he appeared to have died of natural causes, of complications from COVID-19. The tears that had streamed down my face as I sat at my desk in my small study, even though I hadn’t seen my father in person for a couple of years now. The dazed, surreal feeling that replaced the sadness as I called Alexander Funeral Home to make my father’s final arrangements. My confusion as I asked Gavin, the funeral director, what people even did during the pandemic in place of traditional ceremonies, and my relief when he responded that the remains of those who died of COVID could be safely present for small family viewings once they had been embalmed. The feeling of morbid curiosity and dread as Gavin asked my mother, my brother Caleb, and I what we knew of Dad’s condition upon his death. Caleb’s immediate and frightened insistence that he didn’t want to know anything about how my father’s body looked when it had been found. My private conversation with Gavin in a quiet office across the hall, where he informed me that my father had been deceased for two days when Officer Davis had discovered him during a routine welfare check at the insistence of his landlord. The strange feeling of peace that replaced my dread as I stepped into the viewing room to see my father one last time, his face looking oddly calm and peaceful instead of angry and tormented, a bit like he had looked in life during his year of sobriety right after I started college. The shock of knowing that it was all over, that he was never coming back, that I would never get to say goodbye to him. My mother’s tears for my father, even though they had been divorced for a few years now as a result of his downward spiral back into alcoholism. The cold rain that had started as a drizzle and ended as a downpour on the day of my father’s burial, as the preacher reminded us that he was no longer in pain and that we would see him again one day. My uncontrollable sobbing as the elderly men from the local VFW, some of whom had probably served in the army at the same time as my father, presented arms for the 21-gun salute. Gavin’s Atlanta Braves face covering and the baseball that lay a few graves down from my father’s final resting place, reminding me of all the games we had watched together during my childhood. The nightmares that haunted me every time I closed my eyes.

“I wasn’t ready for it to be over. It shouldn’t have ended like this. I’m sorry I didn’t come visit,” I say quietly, tears starting to run down my cheeks.

“No one’s ever ready for it to be over. It’s not your fault. I made mistakes. I wasn’t there for you and your brothers like I should have been. If I had known it would end like this, I would never have started drinking again. We had a good time that year, remember? Right after you started college. Remember that trip we took to Asheville?”

I smile, remembering our road trip to North Carolina, where Dad grew up, and all of his stories. He had led an interesting life before the alcohol took hold of him, my father. I remember his stories about getting detention for putting glue in his eighth grade teacher’s chair, about learning to play guitar from his uncle Everett, about falling through the roof of an old couple’s rickety farmhouse after becoming a paratrooper in the army.

I pause for a moment to steady my voice, taking a sip of my coffee, as Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode starts to play. “Are you at peace?” I finally ask.

“Yes. As much as a person can be. I spent a lot of years in the bottle, but I had a lot of good times, too. And I can watch over my children from here. Your grandmother wanted me to tell you that she loves you. And even though he never got to meet you, your grandfather is so proud of you. Death isn’t so bad. Dying is the hard part. What comes after isn’t bad.”

“There was this baseball at your funeral, several graves over. And the funeral director wore an Atlanta Braves face covering through the entire service. You would have approved.” I laugh quietly.

“We never did make it out to Turner field, did we?” he smiles ruefully.

“Amanda and I are going this year. They’re playing the Nationals on my birthday.”

“You girls will have fun. You have a lot of adventures and good years ahead of you. I’m glad she was there for you through all of this. You’ve been the best of friends ever since you were teenagers.”

I take a small bite of the cake, savoring the chocolate mousse frosting. “Remember the time I tried to make this at home?”

Dad laughs. “You gave it a good effort, kid. You’ve never been the domestic type, but you’re perfect the way you are. You’ve always been a little wild like me.”

“But you can cook, at least.”

“You can make a few things. Remember when I taught you how to make meatloaf?”

I smile, a genuine smile with no hint of sadness this time. “That was fun.” Right around the time I turned twenty, I had decided to learn how to cook, ashamed of my inability to prepare anything that didn’t involve a microwave. My mother had tried to teach me how to peel potatoes. After butchering the first one, I had retreated to my room, unable to take her criticism of my clumsy efforts, as she deftly peeled potato after potato, cutting in circles with the knife facing her thumb, never missing a beat, never cutting herself. Later, Dad had convinced me to give it another go. “Try this instead,” he had said, handing me a potato peeler out of the kitchen drawer. “No sense in losing a thumb trying to do it the other way if you don’t have to.” The mashed potatoes had turned out alright, along with the meatloaf that Dad had taught me how to make.

My joy fades however, as I remember that Dad is gone. “I never got a chance to say goodbye, to tell you that I love you.”

“I knew. And besides, what do you think this is?”

“This isn’t real, though. It’s another one of the dreams, even if this one isn’t scary.”

“It still counts. Don’t let this become another one of your nightmares, like that monster you used to insist lived under your bed when you were four. I’ll see you again someday, kid. But not for a very long time.”

A familiar song comes on the jukebox, slightly out of place with the upbeat 50’s pop. I remember Dad’s affinity for Johnny Cash, and his rendition of Sunday Morning Coming Down, his favorite song to play on the guitar since the day he first mastered all of the chords on an army base in Fort Bragg. We stand up from the table, and Dad hugs me as everything fades. I wake up in my bed, smiling for the first time in weeks with Cash’s song stuck in my head and a feeling of peace in my heart.