The Order of Affection
My father loved his fish. It was then, not unusual most evenings to observe him illuminated by the rectangular aquarium, the translucent coffin, massive and out of scale in the corner of our small living room.
My father’s history of service to the animal kingdom was impressive. He kept a canary named Pete for years.
Still, his devotion seemed inconsistent when considering the occasional shock of oily blues and bagged feathers splayed out on the refrigerator shelf. I used to fabricate stories about the feathers and the two shotguns shoved under the sofa, like a detective reconstructing a murder. And though I was frightened by the idea of hunting and horrified by the rigid game, I was fairly comfortable with the guns. My father never spoke to me about either but found my startled reaction amusing.
I explained away his affection towards fish and birds (when he wasn't preying upon them) cats and later small dogs, for the most part, as a significant alternative to humans. These were the relationships that could bring the occasional smile to his face.
In the hours after work, when he wasn't tending the living room reservoir, my father would descend into the basement to oversee his smaller tanks, the surplus he needed to stock his titanic universe upstairs. Beneath a canopy of asbestos, the basement was where he communed with bubbling guppies and mollies. The tool closet however, was where he ate the walnuts.
Because of my life-threatening allergy to tree nuts, my father indulged his craving by customarily retreating into the shallow closet at the top of the basement stairs, over by the entrance to our kitchen. If I kept silent, I could hear him working the silver nutcracker from inside the closed door. The fact that even the tiniest trace of shell or oil was enough to suck the life out of me only partially reinforced our distance. That my father and I hardly spoke, took care of the rest. But still, seeing my father willingly sequestered by my allergy was to witness one of the rare occasions when he would agree to be inconvenienced with regard to something so well within his right.
He was being careful with my life. No one could argue this intentional act of goodwill. Besides, I knew the guns weren't loaded.
When he’d cracked the last nut into a bag, my father re-emerged to turn the key, carry the spent shells out to the trash and walk back into the kitchen to flush out what was hiding under his fingernails. Afterwards, he’d wipe down the doorknobs with a towel that would later have to be laundered.
When I was sixteen, my parents decided to move me into my own room. We were out of bedrooms, so I was relocated to the narrow alcove you entered when opening the front door. The space was just wide enough to accommodate a single bed frame, a wardrobe, and the radiator.
This meant that the only thing standing between my bed and the wide-open world was a glass-paneled door with a working mail slot. Eventually my father replaced the glass with plywood to keep the world from streaming in. But he forgot about the mail slot.
I viewed my quarters with a mixture of excitement and fear. Being packed up from the inner reaches of the apartment to sleep in the outer vestibule was a bold move. There were nights when I felt less certain, tucked under and tuned in to the sounds of the street on the other side of the front door.
From where I lay, the mail slot was the first and last thing to greet me every day. So, I worked out ways to frame it in my mind, to normalize the mail slot like a window. But the visibility it encouraged unnerved me until over time, I began to reimagine its power as my third eye, a pathway to my emotions, the vehicle to exchange my dreams with the world and feel them carried on the back of the cool, evening air. The mail slot and the access it implied would eventually beg me to finally open the door and venture out at will.
Night arrived- releasing a cluster of hours. I sat up and turned my attention to the other side of the door-while from somewhere across the apartment, my father’s rhythmic snores reverberated like the rasp of a bear.
My awareness then shifted to the dead bolt that I suddenly discovered was inside of my right palm. I felt the mechanism release. I turned the doorknob and pulled. The splendor of the front porch beckoned me under streetlights filling in for stars. Then I took my first walk into the darkness that seemed to go on forever.
To friends, peering through the mail slot had now become irresistible.
The following night, he was delivered to my door like a package. After the knock, I listened for the little slot to swing open. But not wanting to be seen, I dropped to all fours and crawled into the adjacent living room. From my post behind an armchair, I peeked through the one window facing the porch and traced the outline of his famous leather jacket. Inside my heart, fell the rush of August rain. And although I can’t quite recall how I got outside, I do remember the kiss, which felt spectacular and sincere and which I am certain is what he came for.
© 2026 Marietta Morelli