ADVICE
- Aug 15
- 1 min read
By Sister Chain
Standing at the duty-free shop
with a dad who didn’t care
on our final holiday together
I ask him to recommend a bottle of whisky,
“for who?”
“a friend”
“If it’s a good friend, then this one’s best,”
he regally points to a smoky 12-year-old single malt
that’s way above the budget of an English major,
and does not offer to add it to his cart.
Nor do I ask.
I bring the fancy bottle in a cab
tracing the embossment to avoid the driver
and try not to make a big deal of it,
but place it nonchalant by the CD rack
of a man who didn’t care
and he drinks half of it that night,
the other half with someone else a weekend later.
& the smoke washes off in the laundry
the taste of malted disappointment lingers…fades…
& 12 years on
I’m wonderfully matured
and single.