Newspapers pile up for a week before any of us think to cancel Pop's subscription. Steaming inside bags of smiley-face yellow, the double-rolled papers fester on the bluestone walk. A wasp harvests dew from the mouth of May 23, the day the story broke about the mayor fucking the planning board secretary, a full-bodied scandal fermenting in the morning sun. I wave to Mrs. Bigelow watering her azaleas across the street. Pop would've pulled that re-election sign out of her yard two days ago.

...

I shake the warm papers from their plastic cocoons and headlines unfurl their black wings of civic prattle. May 25 lands with a thud at my feet, the last paper chucked by the Friedman kid. Public Works finally fixed that pothole over on Doonan Drive. Pop would've said, It's about goddamn time.

...

I cradle the papers close to my chest, their warmth already a memory. Two steps toward the kitchen before I remember to remove May 21 from the stack. Pop's grainy two-inch headshot is on Page B16, his life just three inches about who he was where he lived what he did when he did it how we are left behind. I set it on the hall table. Pop would've been pissed we forgot to mention the Rotary Club and Aunt Sue.

...

The kitchen is the only place all four of us can fit together. Coffee's gone cold, the strudel is half-eaten. The countertop TV is tuned to Cheers but no one's paying attention. None of us ever liked that sleazy Sam Malone.

Claudia pulls the gold-rimmed dishes from the built-in and stacks them next to the sink.

Sissy washes.

Jo dries with her hip pressed against the peeling Formica.

One of them is humming Elton John.

I read the advice columns to pass the time. Something about ignoring your co-workers' affair doesn't feel quite right for May 20, Eliza Doolittle Day. Pop would've called it just a harmless fling.

...

I open and flatten the papers so the job goes quicker. On May 22 ground chuck was three bucks a pound and the premium orange juice was two for one. I wrap it around the cracked plate—the one Ma dropped after the stroke—and put it in the trash. Pop would've fished it out later and hidden it back at the bottom of the stack.

...

I lick my finger and swipe three corners from Pop's last day. The last day he farted after his breakfast of puffed rice and a spotted banana. The last day he snored during his afternoon nap. The last day blood trickled past his mitral valve. After eleven dinner plates and twelve saucers, my blackened fingers smell like a sad story.

I ease the dishes into the box going to Claudia's house and tape the lid shut. She stops whistling "Yellow Brick Road," promises us she'll use them when we come for Christmas. Pop would've said, Stop crying.

Kristen M. Ploetz lives in Massachusetts. She has fiction in or coming from Gravel, Five:2:One, Lost Balloon and others.

Read her postcard.

Detail of painting on main page by Catherine Mommsen Scott.





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