SURVIVING DAD
I met her at my ex’s wedding. We toasted the bride and groom with cava and ended up throwing up behind the photo booth. She was pretty. She didn’t look like the others.
“Do you have a place?” he asked, wiping his lips with my handkerchief.
—And Dad, we’re in luck.
We went to my dad’s apartment; he was still in the hospital.
“I collect empty bottles,” he exclaimed, upon seeing the bar cabinet.
“I prefer them unopened,” I managed to say.
She chose the drink well, and we went up to the rooftop. There I discovered that brandy from Jerez tastes better when the glass is a perfect belly button. She tried it too. We made love with just enough shamelessness to be able to look each other in the face at breakfast. It wasn’t necessary: I drank my coffee black. She wasn’t there; neither was the brandy.
My father showed up a week later. The first thing he asked was if I had opened his bottle.
—No, Dad. He didn’t survive either.
Pedro Pablo López Pertíñez
