The After Party by Anton DiSclafani

laughed.
    â€œI think I’ve seen enough.” I rose, but she shook her head. “Stay a moment.”
    I did what she asked. I did anything she asked, in those days. Always.
    â€œDays are gods to years,” she said. “Time will fly. You’ll forget this.”
    I shook my head. I would never forget.
    Back in my room, my father knocked, gently—his knock was unfamiliar, as his footsteps had been outside my door.
    â€œCome in,” I said, and he opened my door gingerly, stepped inside. It was the first time he’d been in my room in I couldn’t remember how long. Ever? No, surely he had been in there at some point. I watched him take in my room, which was still done in different shades of pink, or, as my mother called it, rose, accented with little flourishes: a collection of sterling silver card cases that my mother had been collecting since she was a little girl; five Limoges boxes; a picture of Cary Grant I’d cut from the pages of
Photoplay
and taped to the wall. My father looked relieved when he saw the picture, proof that his daughter was normal. She liked Cary Grant. She had crushes on movie stars.
    Because the truth was that my father didn’t know me at all. How could he have? He was a little softer around the middle than when I’d seen him last, and balding now. He stood at the foot of my bed, awkwardly, waiting for something. I felt an unexpected tenderness for him, which is what I’d always felt for this man who was my father, for as long as I could remember. I was never angry at him for leaving. I understood why he wanted to be somewhere else, why he could not take me with him. Children belonged to their mothers.
    â€œCecilia,” he said, “are you fine?”
    What a strange question.
I
was fine. It was my mother who was not fine.
    â€œFine,” I said, and felt a rush of anger. I looked down at my pretty manicure, which Joan had done last night. I looked up again. “I have help,” I said. “Joan. Idie.”
    â€œFrom what Idie says, your mother won’t let anyone else help.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œYour mother is going to die, Cecilia. Soon, I think.”
    I wanted him gone, out, disappeared from our lives. Of course I knew my mother would die soon. Nobody had ever told me—doctors weren’t frank, in those days, especially not with teenage girls—but I wasn’t an idiot. There had been no hope in her hospital room. No reason to think she might leave that place a well woman.
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œWell,” he said, after a long moment. “Do you need anything from me?”
    I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said.
    He stood against my doorframe, half in, half out. He did not know what to do with his hands. My father was neither short nor tall, neither handsome nor homely. He looked like any man, every man. My mother had been a catch. They had met through her older brother, who had been my father’s fraternity brother at the University of Texas.
    â€œWhat was she like when you met her?” I almost clapped my hand over my mouth. The question had come, unbidden, into my throat; it felt like it had asked itself.
    But my father didn’t seem surprised. “What was she like whenI met her?” he mused, staring onto the yard, where our gardener was weeding a bed of camellias. I cut some every afternoon, brought them into my mother’s room, and floated them in silver bowls.
    â€œShe was a sight to behold,” he said. And I sighed impatiently. I knew that she had been beautiful. I wanted more.
    My father glanced at me, but I couldn’t read his expression.
    â€œShe was smart, too. Smart as a whip. Could cut any man down to size in a second.” He laughed. “I suppose a lot like she is now.”
    I nodded. I’d never heard him speak so affectionately of my mother. Perhaps it was easy to speak well of the near-dead.
    â€œAll right,” my father said,