I have no idea what I said on the podium at my dad’s funeral. Something to do with me wishing I could have helped him, that I know. And I said it confidently, like I projected it, like some sort of theater student. How self involved is that. Like I could have been the one to help him. Who am I but a daughter. What limb would I have lifted, what ear would I have screamed into. While his head was in the toilet vomiting out his latest whatever it was that he was filling his body with. My grandmother said, pills, but what kind I’m not sure, and even if I knew, would I know what they do to the body. Sure, you say, Google it. But who can really trust anything anymore, with the first section of a Google search being formulated by that AI. A friend sent me an article recently it said AI is the future reader. Like the reader of stuff that humans write. Great, so maybe if I’d written down what I said on the podium that day then AI could read it and let me know if it was in fact self involved. Anyway all I remember is looking my dad’s two college buddies in the eyes as I spoke because for some reason they were standing while everyone else was sitting. I was just flipping my eye contact back and forth back and forth between the two of them standing there close together nearly holding hands. Maybe they were preparing themselves. To escort me off the stage like, this way Miss Makenhaven, your father wasn’t worth saving, let’s just go eat the free cheese, sweating in the room next door. Larry was one of them, of the college buddies. Best buddy he’d ever had, dad had said that one time. Larry would call me to tell me not to listen to dad’s voicemails, you know like when dad was alive. Larry, he’d call me up and he’d be like, Hillary don’t listen to that voicemail and I’d be like Larry, Buddy, I already have and I think it made more sense to me than anything else in this world we’re here in. Dad would leave these voicemails where he’d ramble on about how the blankets scratched his knees or how Walmart was too bright in the grocery section or how the drink he had was too blue for his morning meal and he’d clear his throat between each idea which is what helped me keep up with the rhythm. When I was a girl he’d leave his throat clearing voice messages on my mom’s answering machine, you know like the landline. Anyway I’d sit in my step dad’s big office chair, the leather sticking to the back of my girl thighs, and I’d count how many times dad cleared his throat and I’d try to keep up with the different topics. That’s when I learned that the throat clearing was an indicator and I started to nod right along. I learned a lot from my dad. How to open a jar of pickles by hitting the lid with a butter knife first and that whole righty-tighty lefty-loosey philosophy; helpful stuff. One time I told him I had a stomach ache and so he taught me that 7up actually helps with that. I took one sip and vomited all over my Jelly sandals. I was twenty-seven when they found dad dead in the bathroom, head in the toilet like I said he was always doing. I guess it was Barry, dad’s other college buddy, who found dad with his head like that there in the toilet, dad dead like that. Barry called Larry and Larry called me. Middle of the night, sirens in the background, hysterical cries from my grandmother wailing-wailing, she was. My grandmother, well, she’s another story but I don’t want to tell that one. Anyway when Larry and I were in the room with the sweating cheese at my dad’s funeral, he said something, he said, you know Hillary your dad didn’t want to die like that and I said, now Larry, Buddy, I don’t think you heard his messages quite right.