Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen - 50

In the morning, when the paperwork is done and the funeral-home guys have carried my father out of the house for the last time, I finally sit down. It has been hours since I actually rested, or really even breathed. I’m not yet exhausted—that will come later—but I curl up on the couch and try to settle my nerves. I wonder where my father is now. Not his body, but the more enduring aspects of who he was, is, will continue to be. Maybe he is in a place where he can reconnect to the memories he had lost, or maybe it’s a place beyond memory, beyond thought, beyond what I can imagine with my little human brain.

“Where are you, Dad?” I ask aloud. I know he’s not here, but I also know he’s not gone.

A few hours later, I wake to the sound of tires in the driveway, and I step outside just as Nina is lifting the car seat from her rental. She sets it down and we look at each other. She knows our father is dead without my having to tell her. There are no words for this moment, no reconciling these extremes: within the span of a few hours, I am meeting my nephew for the first time and seeing my father for the last. I pull Nina into a hug that thrums with all of these layers, and then some.

“I miss you so much,” Nina cries into my shoulder. When we finally part, she asks, “When did he go?”

“Early this morning.” I peek into the car seat, where Anders is asleep. “Oh wow, he’s perfect. Nina, you did this. You made him.”

She laughs. “I sure did.”

Finally, I turn to Nils, who is rummaging around on the passenger side of the car. But when I make my way over to greet him, I stop short. Nina’s traveling companion is not Nils. It’s my mother.

“Mom?” I look at her, then at Nina. “I didn’t … Where’s Nils?”

“He had a last-minute work thing.” There is a slight edge to Nina’s voice and she doesn’t elaborate, so I don’t press the issue for now.

“So here I am!” My mother embraces me, her Chanel handbag driving a wedge between us. When she stands back, I can see how hard she is working to refrain from commenting on the state of my hair—long, unwashed, still two different colors. Instead, she says, “It’s freezing out here.”

It isn’t. It’s actually a perfect late-October day, fresh and bright; but we make our way inside.

Nina looks around and then peeks into my father’s empty room. When she comes back, she is smudged with tears. “Cricket? Thank you for doing this.”

“For doing what?”

“For being here. For taking care of Dad like this. I never could have done it.”

“What do you mean? You took care of him for years,” I say.

“Yeah, but this part. The end. I always knew I wouldn’t be able to face it.”

I start to contradict her, but then I stop. Maybe it’s true what she’s saying. Maybe my sister has limitations after all, even if I could never see them.

“Thank you for handling everything. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you lately.”

“Nina, you have a newborn,” I say. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you .”

“We’re both doing our best. There’s just a lot of life happening right now.”

“There certainly is,” says our mother, a bit unnerved by our emotion.

Anders starts to stir, and Nina retreats upstairs to change and feed him, leaving me alone with our mom.

“I would have gotten the cabin ready if I had known you were coming, Mom.”

“No need,” she says, looking around as if she’s in a cabinet of curiosities. “I’m staying at the inn.”

“What? Why? You came all this way.”

“Well, they have hot water, for one thing.” She’s joking, but I understand the real reason she doesn’t want to stay here. “I came to help Nina with the travel, and to see you, of course. But I think you two should have time to yourselves to … do what you need to do.”

This is my mom in a nutshell. She wants to be involved, and I know she wants to support us, but she prefers to stay on the fringe, clear of any real emotional intimacy. I can tell that being in this house is confronting in a way that’s not easy for her.

“Okay, well, I’m glad you’re here.” I nod, meaning it now that the shock has worn off. “I’m glad you came.”