My earliest memory is of sitting on his shoulder at the county market, clutching cotton candy with one hand and tangled in his hair with the other.
My mother died when I was four years old.
This sentence has accompanied me throughout my entire life.
When Michael got sick last year, I moved back home without a second thought.
I cooked for him, took him to all his medical checkups, sat next to him when he fell silent in pain.
Not because I felt it was my duty.
But because he was my father in every sense.
After the funeral, polite expressions of condolences and the clinking of plates filled the house.
Someone was laughing too loudly in the kitchen.
A fork scratched the porcelain.
I stood in the hallway with a glass of lemonade in my hand, of which I didn’t even take a sip.
The house still smelled of her—furniture polish, facial cleanser, and the weak lavender soap she always claimed wasn’t hers.
Aunt Sammie came to me.
“You don’t have to stay here alone,” he said gently.
“Come and stay with me.”
“This is my home,” I said.
His smile remained unchanged.
“We’ll talk later.”
Then I heard my name.
“Clover?”
I turned around.
An older man stood there – perhaps in his late sixties.
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