by Richard Stimac
Susan heard her father come up the stairs to the bedrooms like he did every night. The wooden steps in the hundred-year-old house creaked as the dry boards rubbed against each other. The scrape had a sing-sing quality, almost like a lullaby. Her mother complained for years about the noise. Only now did her father buy the tools and supplies to fix them. They sat on the kitchen counter for the past week.
A sliver of light from the bathroom sneaked through the gap between the bottom of the bedroom door and the threshold. Her father peed, flushed the toilet, and washed his hands. He blew his nose. The light went out. His steps grew closer then stopped outside her room. He softly knocked.
“Are you asleep, sweetie?” He waited. Susan held her body as still as possible. She held her breath. Her father sighed. His footsteps faded. When the door to Susan’s parents’ bedroom clicked shut, her room went dark except for the LED clock and the phosphorescent stars scattered across the ceiling and down the wall beside the bed. She heard her father talking to her mother. She died three months ago.
When Susan went downstairs for breakfast, the tools and supplies were disarranged on the steps. Susan had to maze her way around them. A full cup of black coffee sat where the tools had been on the counter. Susan poured herself a bowl of cereal and used the last of the milk. She set the empty jug next to the full cup of black coffee. The car pulled up in the driveway.
“I read online that I needed something called dry lubricant to fix the steps.” Her father was happy. “When I asked the guy at the hardware store, he told me to use talcum powder or something similar. I wasn’t sure that your mom had any, so I bought powdered graphite. Your mom keeps telling me that I have to finally finish this project.”
He held up the small tube of graphite as if it were evidence of the conversation.
“You didn’t drink your coffee. Or eat breakfast.”
Her father took the full mug of black coffee and sat at the table.
“For the first time in months, I feel good. Normal. I think I’m finally moving on.”
Susan rinsed her bowl and left it in the bottom of the sink.
“I’m going to clean up your mom’s flower garden. No one’s weeded it for I don’t know how long. That’s the sort of thing your mom would appreciate. Want to help me?”
Her father turned towards his daughter and smiled. She smiled back.
“When?”
“This morning? Your mom really likes to have it done by the end of spring.”
“Can it be later this morning? After you work on the steps? I have a meeting at school.”
“On Saturday?”
“It’s the science club. We’re picking up trash around the high school.”
“What time will you be back?”
“Tenish,”
He nodded. Susan went up the stairs.
In her bedroom, Susan opened the center drawer of her desk. An envelope with her name in her mom’s handwriting lay inside. Susan felt like she was opening a tomb to find an incorrupt body. The bangs and knocks from her father’s work drew her attention away from the envelope. Something, probably a hammer, thudded down the steps to the foyer floor. Her father cussed. When Susan twisted herself towards the crash, her hand reached into the open drawer and touched the envelope. The sensation startled her.
The letter inside began with, “Dear Susan, I know that reading this letter is difficult for you. Writing a letter like this has been difficult, but good, for me. I want to say goodbye to you as thoughtfully as I can. A letter seemed like the best way to do that.”
Susan heard her mother’s voice, just as if the woman stood behind her and whispered into her ear.
“I’m afraid of what will happen to your father. He is not a strong man. I know that it seems unfair, and in a way, it is, that I’m asking you to take care of him. Otherwise, the family will fall apart. You two will grow distant. You’ll graduate then move out or go to college. He won’t remarry, even though in my letter to him I’ve told him that I not only approve but I encourage him to find another woman who will love him the way that he needs to be loved. If you don’t take my place, then your father will slowly fade away and become one of those men who is simply there. This is the only thing that I’m asking of you.”
The letter went on about memories, confidence, expectations, all the encouragement that a mother is meant to give her daughter. Susan folded the letter back into the envelope. Her father hammered nails through the treads into the stringer. The young woman at her desk in her bedroom listened to the older man strain at his work.
“I can stay and help.” Susan stood at the top of the stairs. Her father knelt before her. “I got a message. They don’t need me. I can stay.”
“Thank God.” Susan’s father leaned forward on his hands. “I don’t think that I can make the garden look the way your mom liked it, at least not on my own.”
Susan sat on the top step and watched her father work. So many ways, she thought, there are so many ways to be haunted by those we love.
© 2025 Richard Stimac All rights reserved.
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