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midwinter morning and undressed before this very mirror, baptizing myself in talc and blue water, lusting to be someone other than who I was. One who had the privilege of entering that closet and climbing into a suit that made him a man, or slipping into a shirtwaist dress that would magically transform him into a woman. Alone, lusting after an identity. For I felt like a child was locked up inside mine. *** Another glance in the mirror, and I saw my father’s hearty face. That he really wasn’t dead at all but stood there behind me in the bedroom’s doorway, smiling broadly. “Go ahead, Chris, put it on,” he said. “There’s a pair of black bluchers underneath that go with it. Black silk hose in the vanity’s drawer. And be sure to talc your privates.” He laughed uproariously as I shed my smoking talc garments and climbed into the blue pinstripe. First, the trousers. “Oh, you’ll need a shirt and tie. In the second drawer is one that your sweet mother starched and ironed before she passed. How times have changed, huh? What we did to our women, we should be ashamed of. “The tie—any one from the rack will do. Four-in-hand, Son. Now the jacket.” Staring at myself in the glass, I could only see the suit, not my face but his…as if he were the one who had just put it on. “Where are we headed tonight, Dad?” I asked. “I can’t say,” he said. “Why? Nobody else will hear.” “Can’t say.” “Who is it, Dad?” “Not who you might imagine,” he said. Then turned facing me in the mirror. “Please don’t ask me, Son.” *** I sat on his unmade bed. The suit was much too small: its trouser legs barely covered my shins. I couldn’t button the pants. Or the jacket that threatened to rip at the seams if I squinched my shoulders. The paisley tie bore a mustard stain. The room, still deathly cold, now reeked as if someone was attempting to blot out the aroma of death. Or recall. THE END