Ficus: Three Vignettes (4, 5 & 8)

by: kate brooks published: 08/28/2026 4. 

I send a sext in the guest bedroom, the office with a mattress and big ficus tree that was once my grandfather’s, a weeping fig, while my dad watches football in the living room. He’s sick from his chemo a few days ago, he’s feeling sorry and ill, he doesn’t want the dinner I cooked for him earlier. I ate my portion and his and now I need someone to rub my belly. I want to sext you about belly rubs. 5. 

My dad sits with his feet in an electric foot massager that a friend gave to him years ago. The friend is dying now, my dad just found out. An email from the friend’s ex-wife. She says their daughter is sad but fine, whatever that might mean. 

He keeps watching football. The quarterback does something that excites him, he yells and claps. He coughs. Settles back into the blanket that used to be my grandfather’s. 

How connected it all is. How like holding hands. This man dying then the next and the next. That one too. How we manage it all. How we water the ficus. Watch as the blanket pills. Call it what we do—grief, loss, circle—as it fills us and empties us as it will. 

Leaves us. Returns. 8. 

The next morning my dad’s still excited by the game from the previous night. He acts out a football play he saw his favourite quarterback do last week, he says he has a little crush on him and his green eyes. He says these things are good to watch, these careers of sports superstars, because they could end at any moment—one wrong tackle, a hurt back or ankle. He returns to the couch to text his friend who also may have watched. He likes to speak of it, to share excitement. How connected it all is. How like boys and sports.