Sara came by to have coffee and brought him doughnuts, but when the door was locked, she knew something was wrong. He never locked it. And he never missed a chance for doughnuts, either. She balanced the pastries clumsily as she unlocked the door.
“Dad!” she called to her father as she opened the door. Nothing. Sara put the box on the kitchen table and walked to the hall.
“Dad?” Still no response. She walked down the hall and stopped at the doorway of her father’s bedroom. She flipped the switch and there was her father, on the bed, apparently napping. She nudged her father, but it was useless. He was gone.
Sara sat beside him, tears running down her cheek. She looked around the room where both of her parents had now died. Her watery eyes fell upon the mirror in the corner. It was covered with a sheet. The dresser mirror also had a sheet. She stood and stepped to the bathroom for some tissue and, sure enough, there was a white towel covering the mirror in there. She pondered the veiled mirrors as she called the ambulance on her cell phone. Then she noticed the pictures.
On the dresser were three photos, all in silver metal frames. They were the ones her father had taken on Sloane’s wedding day. He’d given copies to both her and her son, after explaining how he’d photo-shopped Grace into them. One of the couple with both grandparents, bracketing Gloria and Sloane, one of Grace standing between the newlyweds with her arms around both of them, and one of Grace hugging Sloane from behind. Grace’s smile sparkled, and she was fully alive in her beautiful pink and white dress. But there was one picture missing. There had been one more. As Sara gave the operator the address, she realized that her father had it hugged tightly to his chest. She tugged it from his hands and took a breath as she looked at it. It was her parents standing before the mirror, in loving embrace, eyes locked onto each other. They smiled like young lovers, oblivious to the rest of the world. Deeply in love, in death as in life.
As she put her phone away, she saw their feet. Her brow furrowed on her forehead and she held the picture closer. Then she went to the dresser and examined the other photos. Each one had the same odd feature. Somehow, her father had photo-shopped Grace into each shot with her standing inside the mirror. Her feet could be seen, at the bottom of each frame, inside the mirror. Everyone else’s feet were outside of the glass, as they should be. Except in the photo that her father had held in his dying hands. In that picture, both his and Grace’s feet were inside the frame of the mirror. Sara wiped her tears and went to the mirror, reaching for the corner of the sheet. Her heart beat faster as her fingers touched the cotton. She stopped. She wasn’t sure why her father had covered all of the mirrors. She let her hand fall away to the side as she turned to look at her father one more time. He did it for a reason. That should be enough. She went back down the hall and into the kitchen to wait on the ambulance. She ate a doughnut, in memory of her dad, while she stared at the image of kindred spirits, in death as much as in life. She really never thought her dad could figure out how to photo-shop anything.
It was a good doughnut. She hoped they had doughnuts wherever her mom and dad were.
God bless Y’all.
Rolling Stones 