I saw him sitting in the front pew of All Saints Church. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Thinning silver-gray hair, slight slump, old-man cardigan sweater. Of course he was an old man, and had always dressed like one. I tugged on my husband’s sleeve. “Look,” I said, astonished. “Look.” It was a concert of sacred music, not a mass. Evening, not morning. The light was dim. I hadn’t been to church for a long time and wasn’t surprised to see him there. For five minutes he was my father, five years dead. Then he turned. And he wasn’t.
Jacqueline Doyle is the author of the flash collection The Missing Girl (Black Lawrence Press). Find Jacqueline at www.jacquelinedoyle.com and on Twitter @doylejacq.