15 Things You Find When You Clean Out Your Dad’s Apartment – Holly Smith
- A box of Lincoln Logs that he played with as a child and that you can remember the exact shape and feel of without seeing them.
- A bag and a half of Chocolate Orange Milanos that you never remember him eating.
- Two paintings that your dad told you would be worth something when he died and you will wonder if you like either of them enough to keep them.
- Lime green Post-it notes strewn about with the same phone numbers written down again and again and again.
- Color-coded folders filled with faded magazine and newspaper clippings of recipes he meant to try.
- A pink and white fleshlight stuffed at the back of a filing cabinet under an envelope full of magnets—you won’t know what to do with either.
- A toy gun and two very real bullets.
- A photo ID for his first job showing his younger and happier face that you now can’t remember him ever having.
- An old scrapbook that will make your mom tear up even though she hasn’t been with your father since you were three months old.
- A folder from that rehab he was thrown out of, highlighting the schedule showing a family day he never invited you to.
- Drawings you don’t remember making, crumpled in the way a little kid crumples something when they love it, shoved into a plastic tub with bank statements a decade old.
- At least three versions of his will showing how often he thought about life after his death.
- Love letters from a college sweetheart he never told you the name of.
- A half-written draft of a breakup letter written about your dad, unsigned.
- The last book your dad will ever give you, unwrapped and without a note.
