The Promise

A posthumous gift

It was a year today since her father died. She jumped at every knock on the door, but when the parcel arrived, the shock paralysed her. She froze as the postman asked her to ‘sign here please madam’. He then shifted awkwardly as she looked up at him, expressionless. It was the sudden bark of her dog that pulled her back to the present. There she stood, still on the doorstep, holding a brown parcel with her father’s handwriting on it.

She recalled her childhood and the happier times when he would playfully tease her but then allow her to get the better of him. She recalled how once when he had stomach pain, she’d asked, ‘are you going to die Daddy?’ and he’d replied laughing, ‘of course not, it’s only indigestion’. That was when he’d made the promise…

As she sat on his knee on the park bench, playfully pulling at the patterned woolen scarf that they’d chosen together for his last birthday, he told her that he promised not to die before he was very old. He promised that if he did, he would send her a present a year after, to prove that he was still looking out for her.

Now, she stared in disbelief at this alien object in front of her. Numb and stupefied, she had carried the parcel to the kitchen and placed it on the table, carefully, as if it were a ticking time bomb. Surely this was some strange coincidence? As a torrent of possibilities, contradictions and improbabilities made a beeline for her sanity, she began to tear at the brown packaging, purposefully avoiding tearing through the address.

Looking out of her window, she registered that it was precisely the same kind of autumn day as the one when her father had made his promise in the park. The sun penetrated the amber leaves on the branches, illuminating them with its Midas touch. It tempered the growing chill in the air, and while it did not prevent people from wrapping their scarves around their necks, it did not stop them from smiling either. It was her father’s perfect day: a chilly, crisp, sunny autumn day that invigorated you and tickled your thoughts. A tear fell onto the address, smudging the ink. Her postcode was now a blur. Hands trembling, heart beating, she lifted the lid and stumbled backward, incredulous.

Inside the parcel was a shoebox; inside the shoebox was … the gift they had chosen for his birthday many years ago.

Holding it to her cheek and inhaling its familiar scent, she exclaimed out loud with joy and sobs and heartbreak all mixed and mashed into one undecipherable code of emotion,

‘Thank you Dad … thank you … for everything … I miss you so much!’

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