Chapter Seventeen
The Death of my Father
I got so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed and took the next three days in a row off from work. When I returned after being away, my last paycheck was pinned to a bulletin board by the time clock along with a small note attached to it. It said my brother had called last week and left a message for me to call home immediately, which was odd because we hardly ever spoke. I didn’t even know my brother knew where I worked. I called my mother on the work phone and she told me the news that my father had died last week in the middle of the night of a stroke. The funeral was on Sunday and I had missed it.
“I had missed my own father’s funeral,” I confessed to Mr. Bergman.
Mr. Bergman, still listening attentively, patted my arm in sympathy.
I was so
