Sacrament

And it came to pass, in a small kingdom of walker and cane and bedside commode, that a certain daughter found herself kneeling before her father. She had arrived from her home in a distant land, to find disarray where order once had reigned. For her father was a proud and fearless man who had sent tidings to his children that all was well. But the daughter now saw that all was not well.

The father sat on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, feet shod in soft leather secured with black laces. The mother perched precariously on a chair, leaning toward the father as if wishing to be part of the tableau. At his feet was a basin the mother had once used for washing. For months the mother had busied herself with tasks, her errant mind watching in surprise at what her hands remembered—folding, pleating, scrubbing, sorting.

And when the father could no longer bend to his labor, his wife had attended to his feet with basin and cloth. This news the mother had sent in her own glad tidings, and her daughter had delighted to hear these words. For who but the mother could accomplish this? The feet inside the shoes were tender of touch. Shy of gaze, too, these feet, which since childhood had hidden, first inside hand-me-down brogans that trudged behind his father's plow, then in wartime regulation boots, then in dress shoes polished to perfection, never baring their toes in sandals or beside pools where his children splashed, or even along the beach, where other fathers strolled barefoot or dug their sun-browned toes into wet sand.

Thus did the father's feet remain hidden, revealed only to the eyes of his wife. Only once had the daughter glimpsed them bare, one early morning as he stepped lightly across their newly green lawn to adjust a sprinkler. And surprise had filled her child's eyes, for the feet were slim and white and elegantly formed, framed by the rainbow of arcing water.

Now, threescore years past, the daughter kneels, gazing up at her father. He bows his head and clasps his hands as if in prayer. What is he asking, and of whom? The daughter watches the days scroll out before them: the last breaking of bread, the wafer on the silent tongue, the final white door. He lifts his head. His blue eyes cloud briefly with sorrow, then clear. His mouth opens on words that wake something in the daughter. She sees what she must now rise to: unknotting the laces, peeling free the shoes, the stockings, filling the basin with warm water tested with her hand, for she will not wish to cause her father pain. She sees herself months or years from now, worn down, weary unto falling. But not falling. Because he is reaching out now to touch the top of her head.