Wednesday (Fiction) Story Tellin'

Brut

Inside the house they were nibbling on lemon bars and poppy seed muffins that friends and family had dropped off the day before. One of the daughters moved though her father's closet picking out ties and shirts. Unable to tolerate the scent of his cologne which now decayed in the fibers of cotton and polyester, she joined her sisters downstairs hoping for reprieve. Instead she was badgered by unsolicited  opinions of what colors and patterns best highlighted the skin tone of their father.

"He always looked ridiculous in Argyle," the oldest daughter commented.

"No one's putting him in Argyle right now," the youngest daughter snapped.

"It doesn't matter what his skin tone was. His face will be covered by a multitude of bronze foundation and liquid rouge," said the third daughter (the one whose hands smelled of musty cologne which interrupted her brief joy of being able to indulge in a lemon bar).

Everyone grew silent. Especially the six grandchildren who were playing in the dining room.

"Why would Poppa wear makeup?" the grandson asked. All the daughters glared at the third daughter.

"What? Like this couldn't be any worse? You have opinions about texture and colors? You go pick out a tie and shirt yourself."

The third daughter left and despite five different hand washings and an antibacterial gel, she could not remove the scent of her father from her hands. The cologne cut through lemon washes, zesty orange scented soap, and even the medical aroma of hand gel. And then she stopped. She realized the skin cells of her hand would thankfully shed and renew, sloughing away the little scented oil particles that eagerly attached to her skin so determinedly. Her hands would practically be covered in another layer of skin in the next forty eight hours- by the end of the funeral.

But brains were made of cells too and she froze with the threat of their death. She imagined all the memories of him that were at risk of slowly sloughing away: little hippocampus cells deteriorating slowly in her brain carrying away the time he first took her driving  on 41 (when it was still a country road and she was 12). Or picked her up at 2 am when she was driving home from college and landed herself in a snowbank. Or played basketball at age 72 with other lawyers and judges in their seventies. She decided to stop washing her hands that afternoon and sat with the smell contentedly. While it lasted.



*In memory of Bob. I dearly miss watching him pull basketballs out of the trunk of his convertible (at age 72).