“Damn it, Tod!" He glared in the reaper's general direction. "Do not sneak up on me in my own house--I don't care how dead you are! Show yourself or get out."Harmony and I shared a small smile, but my father didn't notice.The reaper shrugged and grinned at me, then blinked out of the chair and onto the carpet at my father's back, now fully corporeal. "Fine," he said, inches from my dad's ear, and my father nearly jumped out of his shirt. "Your house, your rules."My dad spun around, his flush deepening until I thought his face would explode. "I changed my mind. Get out!”

“Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was.My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.”“So what happened?” I asked.“I punched him.”For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink.“Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.”

“How did you do it?" I brought the teacup to my mouth for another sip. "How did you guide Sophie's soul? I thought you were a reaper.""He's both," Nash said from behind me, and I turned just as he followed my father through the front door, pulling his long sleeves down one at a time. He and my dad had just loaded Aunt Val's white silk couch into the back of my uncle's truck, so he wouldn't have to deal with the bloodstains when he and Sohie got back from the hospital. "Tod is very talented."Tod brushed the curl back from his face and scowled.Harmony spoke up from the kitchen as the oven door squealed open. "Both my boys are talented.""Both?" I repeated, sure I'd heard her wrong.Nash sighed and slid onto the chair his mother had vacated, then gestured toward the reaper with one hand. "Kaylee, meet my brother, Tod.”

“Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him.Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand.My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked.I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red.Why can't I use them?' he asked.It landed in my father's back like a fist.Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?'My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?'You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said.Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest.I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death.I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?'Is Keesha a girl at school?'Yes!'My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility.I'm sorry. When did this happen?'That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot.Buck, stop!' my father cried.My brother turned.You don't get it, Dad,' he said.I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.'...You act like she was yours only!'Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?'Put the clothes down.'My father laid them gently on the ground.It isn't about Keesha's dad.'Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.'She's dead.'It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.'But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.'She will,' my father said.But what about us?'Who?'Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.'Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said.I didn't say anything.'Let go. Let go. Let go.I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go.My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him. Dad?'Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother.I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran.My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you.”

“Finally coming to terms with Fathers Day. I blow as a Dad. I get it. No, I'm not an evil, abusive Father, it's just that while all my intentions and thoughts have been out of love for my kids, my actions and behaviour never measured up.”

“He ran his hand from my wrist up to the crook of my elbow and then to my shoulder. “When I was a little kid, my dad would come to my room at night to say a prayer with me. He used to say, ‘Lord, We know there’s a little girl out there who’s meant for Henry. Please protect her and raise her up right.’” His voice changed to something slower and more country when he mimicked his dad. He smiled at the memory, and then he put his mouth near my ear and whispered. “You were that little girl.”