Late Stage Dadness
“Luckily, I had a pair of blue jeans in the trunk,” he says to the cashier scanning the last of his items. He snags peanut M&Ms from the rack and drops them on the conveyor. His wife would not be happy about the impulse buy. “Know what, ixnay the munchies.” Without missing a beat, the cashier pulls the candies aside. “After thirty-five years of wedded bliss, you’d think she would’ve known me well enough to know it was an accident.”
“That’s life,” the cashier says, bagging the items with professional indifference. He tries to help, but slows her down, which she pretends not to notice, finishing three bags before he manages even one. His bags packed, he nods to Chloe already scanning the next stream of items. “Until next time, Chloe,” he says and sets off on his way, whistling a hollow tune, unable to muster the tight whistles he had perfected as a young dad. He would always impress his kids each night calling them in from atop the porch steps. How’d he even manage to whistle so loud, he wonders.
It takes him nearly five minutes to find his car in the well-lit, familiar lot. He walks right past the sedan—all the cars nowadays look like all the others, he is convinced. In a daze, he ponders his lapse, in his running car, in the parking lot, in the spot where he always parks at the end of the property under a shade tree he particularly enjoys. The radio streams the same station. The hosts annoy him to no end, yet he rarely calls in to let them know anymore. He flips on the Yankees game and doesn’t listen; the suspense just isn’t as suspenseful as it used to be. He’ll check the scores on his phone when he gets home.
As he drives down Route 27, heavy raindrops pelt his SUV, but only once he arrives at a red light and sees the sheets of rain sliding down his windshield does he flip on the wipers. He considers how far he has driven like this, whether he even stopped at any lights. At the green flash, he drives on, arriving home quicker than usual because the roads are empty, which strikes him as peculiar until he remembers why. He hangs his N95 around the rearview mirror before exiting his car—the previous week a shopper had scolded him for flouting the rules. Truth is his wife never lets him leave home without a mask around his neck. Remembering to pull it up is a whole ’nother story, he thinks.
He laughs to himself. He wishes someone were here to hear that one. His kids would have loved the joke, wherever they are. He remembers he was supposed to call his daughter back and tells himself not to forget, while he fumbles around for his housekeys. He sets the grocery bags down on the welcome mat to search his pockets. The porch light turns on and his eyes light up as the front door opens for him.