Hospitality – by Nicole Melanson

SHORTLISTED, ISLAND NONFICTION PRIZE 2021

… My father’s death took fifteen days, during which time I left a breadcrumb trail of tears from one end of my house to the other. Brush my teeth, weep. Skim an email, weep. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Flightless, cocooned with my husband and children in lockdown, I had no sharp edges to grate myself against. I needed the kind of cathartic cry that comes from overstimulation, a total sensory meltdown. In the absence of sufficient triggers, I lived vicariously through Gordon Ramsay’s temper …