When Dad went back to rehab at the end of 2020, I took over things. Temporarily.
It was a balancing act: my job, my life, and the version of myself I had to be for him. I had an understanding boss who made it possible. (My mom, duh.)
I tracked every little thing. To the penny. Every receipt, every charge. Moving expenses, storage fees, the endless logistics of keeping his life intact while he tried to get sober. Not because anyone would ask for it, but because I needed him to know I wasn’t like her…or her.
That I could be trusted. That daughters don’t take. That he could count on me, even if he never said thank you; even when he snapped at me for not handling something quickly enough.
There were days the pressure got to me. Once I hung up on his realtor. Another time, I cursed at his religious friend who’d said something I misunderstood. I apologized to both, and his realtor was very understanding and accommodating.
His friend blocked my number, so I don’t know if he ever accepted my apology. I even reached out to him on Facebook. I checked my messages constantly, hoping I could fix it before Dad came home. Even weeks later, my stomach tightened every time I hit “refresh,” just to see my lonely message amid a sea of white.
But I didn’t know who in his world I could trust, and back then I didn’t even know the worst of it yet. That whole month, it felt like static electricity lived just beneath my skin.
After Dad died, I went back through the numbers.
Not the ones I’d tracked, but the ones he tried to hide. His old bank records. His PayPal transfers. His Venmo history.
It started as accounting, but grief has a way of turning everything into evidence. I thought I was keeping track of money. Really, I was keeping track of meaning.
Trying to understand him by what he gave, to who, and by what he left behind. I kept clicking through the tabs, long after I’d found what I could.
Still staring at the cursor, still trying to earn trust from a dead man.
This poem came out of that place:
At first, it’s just logistics:
Lit Ledger
Bills. Moving expenses.
I log each charge—
every single mouse click,
so nothing goes (a)miss
-ing.
After he dies, I start to wonder
if the ledger was really for him.
Maybe it was for me—
to prove I wasn’t like them.
Not just to help,
but to be seen.
To show I wasn’t using him.
That daughters don’t take.
That goodness could be shown
in small, exacting ways.
Now I track his spending,
like numbers could talk back.
Every withdrawal, every payment,
just trying to understand him with
the gaps in the math he left behind.
Names loop like punishments;
glowing on the screen, endless.
I scroll until my eyes burn.
Half detective. Half daughter.
Some people find closure.
I can’t even fake it.
Closure would mean not caring—
and I’m not that.
Outside, Florida hums.
Same heat. Same bugs.
Same brackish world
unbothered by what’s gone.
I keep his ledger lit onscreen.
Nothing stirs but my cursor.
Kinsey Keys
inspo: mostly, the past week I spent in Dad’s bank account // Oct 7’s “sticky note” turned mini-revelation // finally finishing x6098 Acct Re-Issue Log.xlsx // 2020 memoir musings // the futility of closure—always recalculating, always unbalanced // the ways we try (and fail) to demonstrate loyalty after the fact // mourning by screenlight
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