I have my father's heart. Literally. I keep it in a jar on the third shelf of my bookcase next to my science fair trophy. The formaldehyde it bathes in has a bit of a foul odor, so I clipped one of those car air fresheners around the lid. It's lemon scented and adds a pleasant fragrance to the air.

Having my dad's heart has changed my life. It's clarified things for me better than ten years of therapy. Which is the reason I can't understand why my friends are not on board with it. When they saw my new acquisition, they cried, "Maddie, what's wrong with you? You've become unhinged."

Honestly, I don't understand why it's okay for people to hang deer heads in their living rooms, or eat chopped liver sandwiches, but it's not okay for me to display a little thing like my dad's heart. People can be such hypocrites.

At any rate, it's not like I planned this. When I received the call to come to the hospital to identify my father's body, I was dumbfounded. The person on the phone told me he died in a drowning accident, and I was listed as his next of kin. I could hardly believe his arrogance. I hadn't seen nor heard from that man in twenty years, and now I was expected to make all his funeral arrangements as if we had a relationship. When the call ended, I turned off my phone and threw my coffee cup against the wall with such ferocity, I'm still finding glass shards all over the apartment.

Later that afternoon, after a lunch which included two glasses of wine, I felt calm enough to go to the hospital. As I rode the elevator down to the basement, my stomach began to clench. It took everything I had not to run.

I lumbered into the morgue slow as a sloth and was met by a man in a white coat. He introduced himself as the medical examiner and took a few minutes to prepare me for what I was about to see. When I said I was ready, he escorted me to a wall of metal drawers and pulled out the one containing my dad. As he uncovered the body a chill ran down my spine. There was my father, bloated, blue and really gross. A golf ball sized lump formed in my throat, choking off my ability to speak, so I shook my head to affirm it was him.

For the next couple of minutes, I just stood there, my eyes locked onto the body as I felt a wave up emotions building up inside of me. When they reached their peak, they burst out like a tsunami and I slunk to the floor sobbing.

The doctor gently put his hands around me and helped me up. "I'm so sorry for your loss," he murmured. "You must have really loved him."

Loved him? Ha! I wasn't crying because I loved him, I was crying because now I'd never be able to tell that jackass what a horrible father he was. I lost my chance to shove my accomplishments in his face and force him to acknowledge that he was less meaningful to me than dirt.

I asked the doctor for a few minutes to be alone with the body, and as I stared at my father, an idea formulated in my head. When the doctor returned, I asked him if I could have my dad's heart after the autopsy.

He looked at me as if I were crazy. "No," he said. "First of all, it's a biohazard, second of all, I could get in trouble."

We worked out a plan. I was always good at negotiating a deal; the one thing I inherited from my father.

He mailed the heart to me in a styrofoam box packed in ice. The shipping was quite expensive, and I had to compensate the doctor for his discretion, but it was worth it.

Now every night before bed, I sit in the rocking chair opposite the shelf and tell my father all about my day and I feel happy. I have my father's heart. I never had it in life, but I have it now.

-