The Last Conversation

My father and I had a complicated relationship. Decades of distance and a few bad years that neither of us knew how to move past. Last spring I felt a persistent, specific nudge to drive to his house — four hours away — on a Saturday with no particular occasion. I almost talked myself out of it twice. I went. We sat on his porch for six hours and said everything that needed saying. We laughed. We apologized. We were, for the first time in many years, just a father and a daughter. He passed away peacefully in his sleep eleven days later. I do not believe I made that drive on my own initiative. Something sent me.