The Box

Daniel Johnson passed away on Thursday, November 13th, 2021. He was known by all of the community as a hard worker, loving father, and attentive husband.

“More like hard-hitting father and husband.” June tossed the newspaper onto the kitchen table. The front strands of her hair had been torn away by stress, badly concealed by the bangs she had cut herself. She had driven over in a rush, now wearing May’s too-big sweatshirt and sleep shorts rolled at the waist. “Who even wrote that stupid obituary anyway?”

May flipped another pancake with a shrug. She prided herself on her pancakes. They were perfect circles, golden-brown, blueberries, and chocolate chips always exactly in the center. She spent her childhood perfecting them, making breakfast for June when their dad was passed out drunk and their mom was too bruised to get out of bed. “I think they paid someone to do it.” May paused. “Wasn’t the thirteenth a Saturday?”

“I don’t fucking know. Who cares what day of the week it was? He’s dead, the end.”

“You don’t think it’s a problem that his obituary has the wrong day?” Air bubbles popped, and May flipped more pancakes. There was a plate piled high to her left, enough to freeze and send home to her niece and nephews. May and June had taken different approaches when it came to having kids. June seemed to be proving to everyone that she could raise kids without fucking them up. She was succeeding, Tommy and George were top of their class and Isabella was the lead in a production of ‘The Little Mermaid’. May had done the opposite. She was a good aunt, maybe even a great one, but she wouldn’t touch motherhood with a ten-foot pole. “June?” She called when June didn’t respond.

“Unfuckingbelievable.” June stormed into the kitchen. “Listen to this shit. ‘Johnson’s last wish was to reunite with his estranged daughters, who will scatter his ashes in the Atlantic.’ Estranged? Are you kidding me? And what’s this bullshit about scattering his ashes, because I’m sure as hell not doing that.”

“We did technically run away.”

“Because dad came at me with a hockey stick. Are you actually defending him?”

“Of course not.” More batter. Chocolate chips for Tommy. “I have his ashes.”

“You what?” June’s voice was doing the high-pitched thing it did when she was upset.

“They got my address from somewhere; he’s in a box in my closet.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought you’d throw him in the trash.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Bubbles. Flip. “I think, maybe, we should scatter them.”

“You’re kidding.”

May didn’t think she was. It wasn’t that she genuinely wanted to honor her father’s wishes. She honestly tried not to think about him most of the time. It was hard to blend the man who gave her concussions every other week with the one who loved telling the story of their names. May was born at 11:53 p.m. on May 31st, while June was born at 12:04 a.m on June 1st. It was a hectic labor for their mother, thirty hours, her body not responding to all of the induction methods. Her father would lovingly joke that it was because they were meant to be born on two different days in two different months. He would proudly praise their mother for laboring for so long, talking about how he had the strongest wife in the world. May wondered where that man went when her dad got drunk, if he was trapped inside yelling for him to stop. That was the man May wanted to honor. God, this was why she never had kids. “We could do it this summer. The kids are out of school, we could make a road trip out of it. Take them to the Grand Canyon and the Georgia Aquarium, maybe even Disney World.”

“I don’t have the money for Disney World.”

“I do.” Pour more batter. “We can split the rest of the expenses down the middle, but Disney can be on me.”

“You really want to do this?” June’s voice softened, her hand coming to rest on May’s back.

“I do.” May didn’t realize she was crying until June grabbed a paper towel to wipe her face.

“Then we’ll do it.” June reached out and cut off the stove. “And please, no more pancakes.”