Still Warm

I hit the funeral home doors running, and by the time anyone got a hand on me I was already halfway down the aisle screaming my father's name.

"Desmond, please—" my mother's voice, wrecked, somewhere behind me. Mr. Corcoran, the funeral director, got an arm across my chest, gentle at first, then not. "Son, I understand, but the casket needs to stay closed for the service, this isn't the time—"

"I need to see him. One more time. You don't get to decide that isn't the time."

Three people were on me by then, my uncle, Corcoran, my mother's hand fisted in the back of my jacket, all of them saying some version of let him rest, remember him how he was, don't do this to yourself, and none of them understanding that I wasn't asking permission anymore.

My cousin Petra had her phone up the whole time, livestreaming for the relatives who couldn't fly in, and when I finally wrenched the casket lid open the camera swung with me, half by instinct, half because everyone in that room had gone completely silent at once.

My father's face wasn't gray anymore. It had color in it, high in the cheeks, the way it looked after he'd been out in the cold.

And his lips were moving.

Not much. Barely at all. But moving, and somewhere in the front row my mother made a sound I had never heard a person make before, and Petra's phone was still pointed straight at his mouth when his eyes came open.