The White Suit

My father dreamed of wearing a white suit on his last day of work at Medallion Kitchen Cabinet Factory. "So if you ever see one at a thrift store, Annie," he said, "buy it for me, okay?" I said I would. "Boy, wouldn't everybody look." He smiled at the floor and shook his head. It was his grand vision of greatness, a showy play at humor he'd been preparing for all his life.

My mother went in for a routine surgery shortly thereafter: nothing went right. We watched for a month to see if her brain would flicker back to life. At her funeral, my father wore a dark suit.

Weeks later, my father went crazy. He ran to a neighbor lady's house in the middle of the night. "There are men in white suits sitting on my windowsills!" he screamed. The cops came, the ambulance. I flew home, sat with him in the lockdown psych ward, where he was considered an "elopement risk." They removed the string from his hooded sweatshirt and took his shoelaces. I bought him Dollar Store soccer sandals that kept flapping off his feet.

At night, I held his nervous hands. My father kept asking: "Why are we in a play? How did we become actors in a play?"

He planted a flower in a Styrofoam cup at occupational therapy. His roommate, Dave, was a catatonic who lay flat on his back and told us he'd been committed after attacking his brother with a hammer. It was hard to leave my father there each night.

One day my father got a two-hour pass; I took him to McDonald's for a shake. He wore orange institutional scrubs—the pants highwaters, the words MENTAL HEALTH stenciled across his chest.

We sat outside on a metal bench and sucked on straws. The sun shone harsh and hot upon us. "This shake is so delicious," my father said, "it could almost bring a tear to one's eye."

I laughed, almost, and so did he. Almost.