“Daddy, what is your favorite kind of flower?”
“Hmmm, daddy likes yellow flowers.”

“Why yellow flowers?”
“Because you remind me of a little yellow flower.”
“Silly daddy, how can flowers remind you of me?”
-
“Dad?” I whisper, tiptoeing into his room. Like the other 500 rooms in Yellowflower Home for the Old, room 433 is fitted with overstuffed yellow furniture faded from the occasional rays of sunlight that dare creep beyond the heavy curtains. The whitewashed walls are thin and bare, speckled with hundreds of tiny flowers drawn in uniform fashion. Madame Lindenburg, a jolly woman in her late 40s, runs the place, and seemed to have taken the name of the retirement center very seriously.

“Dad.” I repeat, a little louder this time. The interior of his bedroom is cool and dry, like an attic. It smells of oak and memories. The light seeping into the room splashes on the paneled ground, warming my feet. My father is hunched on the edge of the bed, gazing out the window pensively. I join him, facing the same direction. Dad’s window overlooks the retirement home’s garden, where the elderly are free to meander “amongst fields of beauty” as the brochure says. In essence, it is a short gravel walkway surrounded by plots of dirt planted with, unsurprisingly, yellow flowers.

Finally, my father notices me, and turns to give a grunt that means both “Hi” and “What are you doing on my bed”. I turn to look at my dad. The weight of the ages have crumpled creases into his forehead, drooped his eye bags, like a beagle, I thought. I hug him. His body, once warm and firm, is now quaky and frail. I feel like I am hugging a porcelain vase, one brash move and it will shatter into a thousand pieces that I can never, ever put back together again.

“Hi dad,” I chirp in false optimism, “remember me?”

I think of my childhood memories, sculpted by the joys of riding on my father’s back like he was a pony, twirling with him on the icing rink, and hiking up sizable mountains. Those memories, they were real. I gorge on the jubilation of past times, lost times, bloated with confidence that the sight of me will prod my father into recalling these events too.

But my father, he freezes, mid-smile, eyes clouding like the sky before a thunderstorm. I can see him paging through his mental album of memories, each page scribbled with thousands of details. “Beth.” He announces finally, beads of sweat breaking across his forehead, hands trembling with the fear of fault. The single syllable name bounces off the bare walls, a little too loud. With this exclamation, he offers me an apologetic smile that I know too well.

My eyes fill with tears, crystallizing my sight. I mumble that I need to use the bathroom, but why bother? My father had taken to gazing out the window yet again.

Like a scolded dog, I slink out of the room with my tail between my legs.

In the hallway, I bump into Eliza, a peppy seventeen year old who is my father’s caretaker. “Hey!” She trills, and I feel the painted flowers on the walls beam in approval to her voice.

“Kun’s daughter, right?”

I nod.

“Did he figure out who you are-”

“No!” I snap, and watch her coil in shock. “Sorry,” I clear my throat and soften my voice, “sorry, no, he thought I was Beth.”

I walk out into the retirement garden. Someone should water the flowers; up close, they don’t look as perky as they do from my father’s window. Most of them are bent and shriveling, like my father, I cannot help but think.

When my father awakes from his deep sleep, he will notice the overstuffed yellow furniture faded from the occasional rays of sunlight, he will recognize the thin, whitewashed walls decorated with pastel blooms, and on his beside table, he will spot a tiny withered flower.

I wonder how many more I will need to uproot until he remembers me again.