Soon after the death of his father, his mother called him on the phone. Your poor father's dead, she said. How do you know? Well, it wouldn't surprise me, she said.

The day after his blind father died, he didn't open the store. He took the day off. He didn't make a tearful speech in his mind. He didn't say he would have wanted it this way.

His father went to heaven, I guess. That's the thing about blind people: they all go to heaven. They're good just living, what with no seeing and all. They're good just putting up with it.

When his blind father died, he thought of marbles and stones. What would his father wear? He always wore sunglasses and no glass eyes, ever. Just empty sockets, looking rubbed and raw behind his shades.

The day after his father died, his mother came up from Georgia. Why was she there? Just to come up from Georgia, he thought. Just to come north to the small town from somewhere down south. She brought her new husband and he wasn't nearly as southern as she despite having grown up there. She was from Perdue, Saskatchewan.

With his father's death, the end began. He didn't want the store. He had no interest in braille books. The market didn't grow. It was the only store in town and the blind people all knew of it. What else was there to do but go on the way it was? He explained it to his son, who was seven. Grampa's dead, he said. Oh, said the boy, is he gone? Yes, he's gone forever. Oh, said the boy.

When his blind father died, he went through the closet looking for clothes. They'd been the same size since he was twenty-one. He found a soft brown suit of his father's and wore it to the store the next day.

The morning his father died, he looked in the mirror. You're an ugly bastard, he said, just like your father.

When his father died, there were no more tricks, no more jokes. How did his father ever know the length of the cigar he was lighting? He used to label his father's CDs wrongly on purpose. What good would that do now?

The day after his father died, he asked his mother to stay at his home while she was there for the funeral. She wanted to stay at his father's house. His father being dead, he said no. It was never your house.

When his blind father died, he went to Graceland. His father had gone right after the divorce. I should have gone there to be married, he said. What they say about blind people hearing and smelling more, he said, it might be true. I smell pretty good. But I wanted to see Graceland. That's the only time I really wanted to see, he said, when your mother left and I went to Graceland. He went to Elvis' house when his father died and looked carefully, wondering what it was his father had wanted to see.

Weeks after his father died, he began to get insurance money. His father had spent most of his money in life on insurance. Someday I'll die, he said. It only makes sense - I'm blind.

Soon after his father died, he saw his mother cry. She was beautiful and his father had been ugly. She had loved him because he could not love her face. He never worried she would leave him because he was ugly. He didn't know how ugly he was. In the end she couldn't believe someone could love her without using his eyes.

When his blind father died, there was little to say: a man dead, his son wondering the sorts of things a man should know.

He crossed the street to buy flowers on the average overcast day. He waited in the doorway of the shop for a bus to pull away so he could cross back. The cheap bouquet in his hand would last and last, the woman had told him. The pale flowers shamed him.

What kind of flowers are you looking for? she had asked.

I don't know, he said.

She ushered him into the cool display area and left him behind the glass with all the flowers while she took another customer. He looked in bewilderment at the shapes and colours around him, knowing at their ends all the stems were wet and cold. He tried to see all the flowers.

She came back and saw that he was helpless.

These will last a very long time, she said, handing him a bunch of soft-coloured flowers.

He nodded and smiled.

That's a beautiful suit, she said, her hand on his shoulder, gently guiding him to the door, back to where it was warm.