Publicidad
“You arranged this?”
“Months ago.”
“Why?”
“The house was being cleared. I called one of the women your father grew up with. We still had her address from the Christmas cards.”
“You arranged this?”
“And she still had his chair?”
Mom nodded.
“She laughed when I asked.”
“What did she say?”
“‘We still have the silly thing.'”
“And she still had his chair?”
Publicidad
I looked down at the worn blue paint.
Mom wiped her face.
“I thought if he saw it here, maybe he’d finally understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That he hadn’t disappeared from them just because he’d stayed away.”
“Understand what?”
She had planned to put the chair at our kitchen table.
Then ask Dad one more time.
Go home.
See them.
Stop waiting for some imaginary year when returning would become easier.
Publicidad
The package had been shipped three days before the accident.
Dad never knew it was coming.
She had planned to put the chair at our kitchen table.
***
I looked at Mom.
“Then why did you tell me to throw it away?”
Her face crumpled.
“Because he was supposed to sit in it.”
Neither of us spoke.
“He was supposed to sit in it.”
