What Daughters Do

My father called before dawn. I need you he said. Ice had built up on the roads that night, a true New England Nor’easter but I drove the four slippery hours in three then stayed on because, well, need. That’s what daughters do. My stepmother’s anger was as difficult as his dying; at me, at his resignation, death. I cried in dark musty closets. Need was mediation, morphine, time to contemplate the slow-pulsing vein on his temple assuring me his heart. He held my hand until the beat went still. With the soft edges of my fingertips I pressed his eyelids closed, needs met.