“Dad died,” Hannah says through tears in the doorway of my apartment. It’s been fourteen years since I’ve seen her. She’s changed. The skin around her eyes wrinkled, her hair was wisped with gray, and a cushion of fat made itself visible around what used to be the slender waist of my kid sister.

   I lean against the frame of the door. “So?”

   “So?” she repeats, the rolling of tears quickening down her rosy cheeks. “You’re his son. You have to care, at least a little bit. I know you stopped talking but– ”

   “Is that the only reason you came?” I interrupt her, my eyes darting to the deep blue urn nestled in the crook of her elbow.

   Hannah wipes her runny nose with her free hand. “I thought you would want to know. And I wanted to see you.” Her voice cracks at that, and sobs begin to pour out of her chest.

   “For God’s sake, Hannah,” I step out of the way of the door frame. We used to play this game when I was in high school and she was barely a sixth grader. She’d stand outside of my door, begging to come in. When I inevitably opened it – fully prepared to yell at her to go away – she’d burst into tears and I’d have no other choice but to let her invade my teenage bedroom.

   She takes a look around the apartment, the sadness leaving her eyes momentarily, only to be replaced by judgment. Hannah lives the life that all parents want for their children: a happy marriage with two button-nosed children, a white-picketed yard, and some sort of pot roast always warm on the family dinner table.

   I prefer something less neat.

   Gingerly, Hannah sets the blue urn down on the countertop. She briefly hesitates when she notices the unidentifiable stains that cover the faded wood, as if what was left of my father would somehow be dishonored by whatever I had spilled.

   “How can you even drink?” Hannah mutters, looking to the disarray of sheets on the sofa bed and the collection of various, empty bottles of liquor that accompanies them. “If you’re still struggling with it, you can come and stay with John and I, we have the space–”

   “Are you done?”

   Hannah stiffens, realizing that she had overstepped the boundaries that I had drawn after our mother died. She swallows and turns away from my uncombed life, instead ruffling through her purse. From the tangled mess of old receipts, various lip glosses, and snacks for the kids, Hannah produces a somewhat crinkled white envelope.

   “He wanted you to spread the ashes,” she sputters, her emotions betraying her again.

   My eyes widened and my lips pressed into a frown. “It’s a mistake,” I spit. “He must’ve forgotten to change it.”

   “I’m just trying to do what he wanted,” Hannah says.

   “Well you can forget it.”

   Hannah clenches her fists. “Would you just make peace with him? He’s giving you a chance to and I think it would do you some good if –”

   “Why can’t you people just leave me the fuck alone?” I yell, heat rising into my ears.

   My sister takes a step forwards. “Don’t take your anger out on me. I’m just here to help you get some closure.”

   “I didn’t ask for your help.”

   “That’s why you need it,” Hannah shoots back. “When Mom died –

  “When Mom was killed,” I correct, lowering my eyebrows.

   “It was an accident, Clay. When are you going to forgive him?”

   I don’t answer.

   Hannah sighs and snatches up her purse. She heads for the door, leaving the urn and envelope behind. “Um, you’re forgetting something,” I say.

   Hannah whips around and glares at me. “No, I’m not.”

   She slams the door behind her.

   I take another look at my father. The dark blue of the urn is decorated with an etching of a dragonfly. Those fucking dragonflies. They’re always fluttering around me, poking into my business, and following me into the bar. He always tried to get me to love that stupid insect when Mom died. I don’t know why. I don’t know why he worshipped those fucking dragonflies so much.

   I sigh and pick up the white envelope. Where did he want his ashes spread? And why did he ask his estranged son to do it instead of his beloved, perfect little daughter? I unfold the stapled pages and skim the beginning until my eyes find my name.

 

   I would like my son, Clay Matthew Rosen, to scatter my ashes over the cliffs of Arizona.

 

  I look at the urn and shake my head. “You know that Arizona is twenty hours away, right?”

   He doesn’t respond.

   I need a drink. Leaving the urn where Hannah set it, I grab my coat, burrow my fists in my pockets, and walk across the street to the bar. The cracked cold stings my eyes and brings blood to my face. I pull my coat tighter around myself and trudge through the snow.

   The bar across the street is nothing special. But, their bartenders are pretty cute by Montana standards and the alcohol is cheap. It is never crowded. It’s not one of those bars where people are always chatting and flirting. Usually, the only sounds are the occasional hum of the heater or the scooting of barstools. The bar is empty and quiet, so its regular patrons are empty and quiet. People who are empty and quiet like to drink alone.

   I shuffle in and hang my coat on the rack by the squeaky door. The only thing that greets me as I enter is the glowing red and blue fluorescence of the ‘open’ sign. I spot a couple out for drinks after their 9-to-5 jobs and an old man hunched in the back corner. Other than that, it’s barren. I take my seat on one of the barstools. The girl sees me sit down and brings me a whiskey with two square-shaped ice cubes.

   I sip on it slowly, and when I finish, she brings me another.

   As the whiskey settles, my body warms up.

   “Did I ever tell you that whiskey was my drink, too?” the old man in the corner asks, his voice low and groggy and filled with familiarity.

   I look up from the amber liquid and follow the sound that broke my peaceful silence. When our eyes meet, I jump out of my seat, sending what was left of my third glass spilling out

onto the bar.

   “Clay, you alright?” the bartender asks.

   I swallow and blink hard. “Was there a man sitting there, just now?” I gesture to the back corner of the bar.

   The attractive bartender cocks her head. “I don’t think so,” she says.

   I shake my head. “Sorry, I’m just, uh, seeing things.”

   She shrugs, chalks it up to me being drunk, and heads back towards the small kitchen.

   A hand claps on my back as soon as she disappears. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” My spine snaps straight and my shoulders jump up to my ears. Slowly, I turned my head to see my dead father sitting next to me. “Hi, Clay.”

   I push the glass of whiskey away from me, slam a few dollars on the table, and leave. Dad doesn’t follow me. I go home and push the urn and envelope deep into the linen closet. Out of sight, out of mind.

   For the next few days, I don’t set a foot near the bar.

   I also freeze, because I left my only coat hanging on the rack.

   I’ll just buy a new one. In the meantime, I’ll drink at home instead. It’s better to drink at home, anyways. There are no people. I don’t have to go out into the cold without a coat. My father doesn’t sit beside me when I’m just trying to mind my own business.

   Hannah got into my head. She tried to make me feel guilty about not doing something that I never even agreed to. I should just mail the urn back to her and be done with the whole thing. There’s a post office that’s not too far away. I could stop by there tomorrow. I could wrap it up so no one knows I’m mailing an urn. I could –

   My phone dings. I search through the web of sheets on the sofa bed. The rectangle of glass hits the floor with a clang. I lean over the side of the bed and pick it up. Several notifications come to life on the lock screen. Missed calls from Hannah, a half-assed text from her husband, John, a couple of news updates. Above each of these old notifications is a red warning from WeatherBug. In large block letters, it reads, ‘Blizzard Warning in your Area.’

   I scowl and slide the notification. It’s been twelve days since I’ve been to the bar, and I haven’t left my apartment since. I’ve eaten all of my groceries, drunk all of my whiskey, and used all of my toilet paper. It’s suffice to say that I’m not prepared for a blizzard.

   The projection forecasts three feet of snow, starting tomorrow. That’ll back up these dirt roads for at least a week, which will leave me trapped.

   My stomach murmurs a timely growl.

   I glance at my watch. The bar should be open now. In and out. Grab the coat and leave. Then, I’ll hit the store and stock up. Maybe after I’ll take the urn with me, stop by the post office, and send it back to Hannah.

   Wrapping myself in my warmest sweaters, I march across the street. Little flakes of snow drift onto my face, chilling my nose and lips. As I push through the foggy haze, the outline of the bar becomes clearer and clearer. When I reach the door, I peek at the open sign.

   It’s switched off. There are no lights on.

   I curse and kick the bottom of the door.

   The wetness of the snow seeps through my sweaters, and a shiver runs down my back. I can see the breath escaping my lungs. “Fucking blizzard,” I mutter. Just as I turn to go, however, the door slowly opens and beckons me inside.

   My breath catches, and suddenly I feel uneasy on my feet. Get the coat and go, I tell myself. In and out.

   Cautiously, I raise my boot and step inside of the bar. I close the door behind me to prevent the snow from blowing in. When I enter, the lights flicker on. I survey the room. It’s empty. The bartender is missing. There isn’t even a glass left out on the counter. I swallow and turn to my left.

   Not a single coat dangles on the rack.

   “Sit down, son,” my father says from the bar.

   I turn and see the fuzzy figure huddled over the counter.

   “Why are you here?” I demand, my fists clenching.

   “I want to talk.”

   “I don’t.”

   My father sighs and lifts his old bones out of the barstool. He stands in front of me. I grew to be so much taller than him. He’s wearing what he always wore: a plaid button down tucked into khaki pants with a braided brown belt. His thick tufts of white hair fall over his aged forehead. “Do you hate me?”

   “You know the answer.”

   My father considers this for a second and crosses his arms. “You know, I hated my father too.” He’s only told me this a thousand times in every voicemail he left and every letter he sent. “When you were born, I swore to myself that I would be a better dad to you. I tried to make things better, Clay, I did.”

   My mind flashes to all of the things he’s done to make things ‘better.’ How he didn’t go to my mother’s funeral because I told him not to come. How he apologized and cried at my feet after he graduated from rehab. How he warned me that alcoholism runs in the family, and that I shouldn’t use whiskey to solve my problems. All of those missed calls, unanswered letters, ignored text messages. If anything, his attempts to ‘fix’ anything only made me want to get

farther and farther away from him.

   “Are you going to hold this grudge forever?” he asks, breaking me from my stream of consciousness.

   “Why do people keep asking me that?” My jaw tightens.

   “It’s been fourteen years,” my father says.

   “It doesn’t change anything. Can I have my coat back?”

   “I thought that if I designated you to be the one to spread my ashes,” he continues, ignoring my question, “then maybe we could come to peace with one other. Do you know why I picked Arizona?”

   I don’t respond. I don’t care.

   My father notices my indifference, but resumes talking. “We went on a trip there once, you, me, and your mother. It was before Hannah was born. We hiked and we struggled to keep up with you,” he chuckles. His eyes are lost in nostalgia as he laughs. Suddenly, he turns back to me. “Do you remember that?”

   I must’ve been six or seven then, so yes. I remember the way he lifted me over the rocks and explained how the Grand Canyon was formed. The Colorado river. He told me that one day when I got older, we could go white water rafting on it together. Mom had laughed, and said she would pay to see her husband triumphantly hold a plastic paddle above his head in the category five rapids.

   “No,” I lie.

   “Yes, well, you were young,” he says. The old man hobbles back to the barstools and sits down again. I remain in the doorway, my legs wedged in place. “How is Hannah doing? Was she upset?”

   “Why don’t you go ask her yourself if you’re so concerned?”

   “I can’t. Hannah and I don’t have unfinished business.”

   “And we do?”

   “Did they put a dragonfly on the urn? I requested that they did.”

   I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”

   He smiles at this and nods. “Good.”

   Slowly, I take a couple steps forward and sit by the bar. I want to turn around, but for some reason I’m drawn to him and I can’t look away. I had it in my mind that I was never going to see him again. But, here he is, in front of me, talking to me like everything was fine. Like when Mom was still alive.

   “Did Hannah tell you I got dementia?”

   I shift in my seat. “We didn’t talk for too long.”

   “I forgot the name of my grandchildren,” he sighs. “The only person I wanted to see was you. That’s all I remember about those last few months. I just asked for Clay.” He shakes his head. “Those kooks at the nursing home kept giving me Play-Doh.”

   “They put you in a home?”

   “John did,” he scowls. I frown too. Neither of us like John, with his whitened teeth, greased hair, and golden tie clips. John was a venture capitalist, or a hedge fund manager. I don’t exactly remember. I just know it’s some Wall Street job that his fraternity lined up for him. He calls me ‘sport,’ even though I’m eight years older than him. As annoying as Hannah could be, she’s too good for an asshole like John. My father and I both know it. Before we stopped speaking, we used to make fun of him whenever Hannah’s back was turned.

   “Hannah told me I could come live with them.”

   “Probably so they could put you in a home too,” he jokes.

   I crack a smile. “Probably.”

   “Is this your bar?” Dad asks after a beat. “Where you come often?”

   I grimace. “Dad, I thought I made it clear that I don’t want to have this conversation –”

  He places a weathered hand on my shoulder. “Can’t a father have a drink with his son?”

   “Wait, you want a drink?”

   “Is that so wrong that I want my first drink in fourteen years to be with my son?”

   I look down for a moment. “Can you even drink?” I ask. “I mean, in your, uh, state.”

   He shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out.”

   Moments later, we are both sitting with glasses of whiskey in our hands and silence between us. I push the alcohol down my throat in large gulps.

   The whiskey loosens my tongue. “Do you expect me to forgive you?” I ask abruptly.

   My father looks over his slouched shoulder at me. “I don’t know what I expect,” he admits. Looking at him now, I realize that he’s completely unrecognizable. Guilt deepened his wrinkles and robbed him of his smile. He isn’t the joyful man that I had known fourteen years ago. This is a man who died full of regret. Full of what ifs.

   He’s been dead for a long time.

   I know that night probably replayed in his head every second that he was alive. That pitch black night, when a bad hurricane took off the doors of their Florida retirement home and made the power go out. The night when people were looting homes and creating chaos, just because they could. The night when my father took out his gun to protect the house because him and Mom were elderly and vulnerable. The night where he turned to his mistress – alcohol – for comfort when their future was uncertain. 

   The night when Mom went out to check on the neighbors, but forgot to tell her drunk of a husband where she was going. The night when, to him, she looked like a shadow. The night when the alcohol convinced him that she was an intruder. The night when fear took over. The night when he acted on impulse. 

   The night when he accidentally killed his wife. 

   Because he was drunk when he supposed to be protecting her.

   How am I supposed to let that go?

   I can’t. But, I can stop speaking to him. The day that I lost one parent, I lost both. It didn’t matter how close we were before.

   “Do you know why I started to love dragonflies?” my father asks. He turns his wearied head to face mine. His eyes are cloudy. I don’t say anything. “They don’t bite or sting. They don’t hurt people.” My 79-year old father begins to weep.

   He wipes his eyes and looks back at me. “I don’t blame you for hating me, Clay. I would hate me too, if I was you. But, I shouldn’t have let you go so easily. I should’ve tried harder to make things better. We were so close. It’s my fault that you’re unhappy. I don’t know what else

to say. I’ve been a terrible father.”

   I swallow. “Dad, I couldn’t even look at you.”

   “I know.”

   “I didn’t know how to talk to you after it happened. I know it was an accident. But it was–”

   “You don’t have to justify it.”

   “Let me finish,” I say. A lump grows so large in my throat that it felt like I was trying to swallow a chunk of asphalt. “It was easier to be angry.”

   My father nods. “You don’t have to forgive me.”

   I down the last sip of the whiskey. “I know.”

​

***

 

   Dad follows me out of the bar this time. He returns my coat. We plod across the street together, up the stairs, and into my apartment. I unlock the door and he comes inside. Just as Hannah did, he surveys my studio with the same judgmental look, but doesn’t say a word. “Can I see the urn?” he asks.

   I nod slightly and lead him to the closet where I had hidden it. Behind the spare sheets and towels, I remove the blue urn and place it on the counter. My father strokes it with a steady hand, his eyes forlorn and dejected. “You put it in a closet?”

   I shrug. “I was going to send it back to Hannah.”

   Quickly, I throw some spare clothes and toiletries into a duffel back. Tossing it over my shoulder, I turn to my father and gesture towards the door. He hands the urn to me, and I tuck it under my arm.

   We descend the stairs and get into my car. I buckle the urn in the backseat.

   As we pull out of the parking garage, the snow of the blizzard begins to fall heavily. “Can you drive in this weather?” my father asks, concern lacing his tone.

   “Should be fine,” I say. “The blizzard hasn’t fully hit us yet.”

   We drive south.

   Every time that I glance over at my father, he’s smiling.

   “Why are you smiling?” I ask after a few hours. My eyes are tired from driving, but I keep them pried open.

   “Oh,” my father says, not even realizing that he had been grinning. He used to do that a lot. He used to look at Mom the same way. She’d ask him why he was smiling, and he’d just laugh. He laughs this time too. “I was thinking about that time when I was teaching you how to drive, and you accidentally left the lights on overnight and killed the battery.”

   I snicker. “And you couldn’t figure out what happened, and we had to wait two hours for a tow truck.”

   “But look at you now,” he says. “I bet you never made that mistake again.”

   “Never.”

   He laughs as fathers laugh and gently pats my arm. All of the sudden, it feels like I’m fifteen again, and I’ve just successfully completed my first three-point turn without a scratch. Dad made steaks on the grill that night to celebrate, and we spent all of dinner trying to explain to nine-year old Hannah what it meant to do a three-point turn.

   And after fourteen years, I start to miss my father.

 

***

 

   Two stops and 37-hours later, we pull into the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. I park the car and look over at Dad. “We never did get to go rafting here, did we?” he asks.

   “No, we didn’t.”

   We both unbuckle our seatbelts and climb out of the car. I take the urn out of the backseat and carry it with me out to the deserted railing. The sandy red rocks looked strange with brushes of snow dusted atop their plateaus. Cacti and torrid shrubs litter the landscape below us. The

warmth of the sun is just beginning to stretch its arms.

   I sit down on the edge of the rock and my father joins me. “Thank you for doing this, Clay. I mean it. I know that –”

   Tears begin to flow out of my eyes uncontrollably. I lean my head onto my father’s shoulder and cry, my shoulders rising and falling heavily. His familiar hand wraps around me and pulls me closer to him. “Why didn’t I forgive you?” I ask. “I missed you so much, and I couldn’t move on, I couldn’t.” The hotness of the tears soaks my cold cheeks. I’m clutching the urn so hard that my knuckles are white. “We could’ve had so much more time. But, it’s too late.”

   “I know,” he says. “I know.” I look up to him and he wipes the tears from under my eyes.

   “But, we’re here now, aren’t we?”

   I nod.

   He holds up one of his hands, and an incandescent dragonfly flutters and lands on his finger. “See? Look how gentle they are.” He smiles at this. I stop crying and look at the dragonfly with him. The twinkle in his eye has returned.

   “I forgive you,” I find myself saying finally. And it’s like a bag of sand has been pulled off my shoulders. I sit straighter. The sky seems clearer.

   “Thank you, Clay.” The dragonfly glides away from his finger, and, slowly he follows it.

   And suddenly, I’m sitting alone.

   I look down where the urn was and find that it has disappeared from my lap. I look out over the Canyon.

   A cloud of dragonflies disappears into the wind.