Sad sensational crime

There is a life in which I finish the chemistry lesson without interruption. I celebrate Christmas, my 12th birthday, and I see my dad again. In another life I meet him as an adult with knowledge and perspective. Maybe we talk, maybe we don’t. He would be alive. Anger fades at the sound of a beating heart. It is enough. I tell him I missed him, he asks what for. He says he’s sorry, and I am too. We laugh or argue and in both I hear his voice, so old and new. I would know him. He knows me. Both chairs are warm, and mirrored eyes are no longer alone. He’s there and it’s real, and he’s not as tall as I remembered.

Empathy stands on a mountain of grief; childhood by the lake. He reanimates. His hair, his eyes, an unharmed body. The words are mine. And he is not him. He exists as I tell him, his life in my hands, and as memory fails his image shifts. I will never remember as much as I wish I could.

In this life I wake up and he is still dead. His eyes are unblinking, his ashes are cold. His voice is faint. I shake her brain to remember again and she is a child and she is scared. I hold her and I am me. Seven years are infinite and small. My dad scatters, fragmented and whole. And where he does not, grief remains.