Where You Are Page 3

  And sometimes I feel like the bastard son. I set the chair in a corner, out of the way. I can tell from the pinched look on his face that his head is really hurting.

  “I had to make up a test and then I had my group.”

  He scoffs. And the implication of that small exhalation is like a knife in my gut. I wrap my arms around him in a bear hug and heave him to his feet. He’s nearly two hundred pounds of dead weight. He’s weak, but once I get him upright, he manages to support himself just a little on his one good leg. Aunt Whitney takes one side and I take the other, and together we half drag him back to the bedroom.

  I’m keenly aware that his towel is not traveling with us, and I’m angry all over again—this time at Aunt Whitney for not protecting his privacy, at Aunt Olivia for dumping her four kids here and disappearing, and at Dad for not dying with more dignity.

  I’m not being fair. I know that.

  “Where’s Aunt Olivia?” I ask as we settle Dad down on the bed. Aunt Whitney lifts his legs onto the mattress.

  “She’s on call. She had to run to the hospital. One of her tonsillectomy patients blew out his scabs and had to go back into surgery.”

  “If she’s on call, why didn’t she just leave her kids home with Uncle Thomas?”

  “You know what,” she says, snapping her head up. “Your aunt Olivia and I are giving up our evenings to take care of your dad because you and your mom are just too busy with your own lives to do what’s right. So I don’t want to hear about it. Okay?”

  I’m speechless.

  The four-year-olds have jumped up on the other side of the bed and are giggling, while Franny leans against the footboard, intently studying anatomy.

  Dad groans and shifts.

  Aunt Whitney finally shoos the kids away and pulls the sheet up. “Hand me that oxygen tube,” she says.

  I want to defend myself and my mom, I want to walk away, I want to pretend like this isn’t my life. But I don’t do any of those things. I hand her the tubing and she gently slips it over Dad’s ears and positions the prongs in his nostrils.

  Dad squeezes his forehead with his one good hand. His hair has grown back only sparsely since his last chemo treatment, and he no longer wears a beanie to cover the scars and indentations on his scalp. His face is bloated from the steroids, and the oxygen tube presses into his flesh. He used to be handsome, I guess—six-two, solidly built, sandy blond hair a shade darker than my own, a wide mouth that showed beautifully straightened teeth that I rarely got to see unless he was laughing with one of his sisters.

  I find it hard to look at him now.

  Aunt Whitney gropes around under the mattress for a key that she uses to open the gray metal box on the bedside table—Dad’s home pharmacy. She shakes out a couple of morphine tablets, then helps Dad sit up. He takes the pills with a shaky hand and tosses them both in his mouth. She hands him a glass of water. When he’s settled again, she locks the box and picks up a small spiral notebook on the table.

  “I brought your dad something,” she says to me like she didn’t just cut my balls off. She hands me the notebook. “I thought he could use this to record his thoughts for you while he still can, give you something you can hold on to, share with you his favorite memories of being your dad, his hopes for your future. Things like that.” She brushes her fingers across his forehead.

  I shift my focus to Dad and see tears glistening in his eyes.

  I should be moved. I should feel something. It scares me that I don’t.

  He says something, but his voice is raspy and I don’t catch his words.

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  He opens his eyes and fixes them on me with a look of exasperation. “I need you to clean the fish tank,” he says with some effort.

  Aunt Whitney smiles down at him, indulgently, I think, then turns her smile to me. “He’s been worrying all day about those fish. He wants you to check the water’s pH and replace the filter.”

  The thirty-gallon tank is Dad’s therapy. He set it up in their bedroom ten years ago, a couple of months after his diagnosis. Aunt Whitney says it gives him a sense of control. I say it gives him just one more way to avoid interacting with us.

  “Do you need anything else?” I ask.

  “Just take care of the goddamn fish,” he growls in a whispered voice. He squeezes his eyes shut like he’s fighting the reverberation of his words in his brain. Fighting that same reverberation in my soul, I turn to go.

  “And don’t forget to vacuum the gravel and do a water exchange.” I look back at this stranger for a moment, then I go.

  In the garage I have to move aside the lopsided, five-foot Scotch pine to get to the siphon tubing hanging on a rack on the wall. The tree has been soaking in a bucket of water for over a week now and the garage smells like a pine forest. It’s unlike Mom not to have the tree up and decorated the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year is unlike any other. I finger the needles and focus on breathing for a few moments. It doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. It feels like some kind of purgatory.

  I take a deep breath and remove the tubing along with the deep bucket hanging next to it. There was a time when I really liked cleaning the fish tank. It was one of the few things I ever did with my dad, but when it became all too clear that the only reason Dad let me help was because he could no longer do it by himself, the fun evaporated like the water in the tank. I was just a necessary evil, like the cane or the scooter or the wheelchair.

  He despised every one of those crutches. The tumor started on the right side of his brain, in the motor cortex, and even though the doctors removed it, the damage was done. The seizures that affected his left side were pretty well controlled for a long time, but then the breakthroughs became more frequent and the weakness on his left side more prominent. Despite the radiation and the chemo, it was clear he was losing the battle. Eventually he was forced to use a cane to maintain his balance. The second surgery to zap the tumor also zapped the brain tissue that controlled those muscles, and what little use he’d retained of his left arm and leg was suddenly gone. He had to trade in his cane for a power scooter, something I knew he found humiliating. Then the cancer spread, and the scooter was replaced with a wheelchair.

  I drop one end of the tubing into the tank. When I get the water flowing into the bucket, I drag the larger end across the gravel to vacuum up all the debris. I know what I’m doing, but I still feel Dad watching me. And I can’t help wondering whose future he is more anxious about—mine or the fish’s.

  He never wanted me after all. That’s a hell of a thing for a kid to find out. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child that I know things I shouldn’t.

  Like the fact that my dad wouldn’t have married my mom if she hadn’t been pregnant with me, and he did that only because my grandmother went all Catholic on him.

  Like the fact that when Mom got pregnant again eight years ago, Dad asked if she was sure the baby was even his. Like the fact that she miscarried my baby sister in a hospital room during one of my dad’s many admissions, this time for pneumonia; she was almost five months pregnant.

  Like the fact that Dad took his metal box of narcotics into the closet one night almost a year ago, and Mom didn’t try to stop him.

  I don’t want to know these things, but I do.

  I hang the siphon tubing back on its hook in the garage and return with a garden hose. An adapter is already attached to the bathroom sink.

  I think Dad is asleep, or at least drugged to the gills, until he croaks, “Don’t forget to condition the water.”

  Like I could.

  I’m just wiping off the hood and the outside of the tank when I hear the garage door go up. I store the chemicals in the cabinet below and flip off the light under the hood.

  “Leave the light on,” Aunt Whitney says.

  My mistake. Dad doesn’t like the dark. It’s too much like being dead, I guess. He quit sleeping at night years ago, instead staying up and messing around on his computer until the
sun came up, and then going to bed and leaving Mom to get me off to school or whatever. I turn the light back on.

  In the kitchen, Mom is clearing the right side of the sink of soggy waffles and dirty dishes. She glances up at me, then runs her forearm across her brow and sighs heavily. “I swear those children were raised by wolves.” I smile as she shuts off the water and dries her hands. She pulls the knife out of the peanut butter jar and shakes her head. I screw the lid on as she drops the knife into the sink and opens the dishwasher.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I say, helping her unload the dishes. “I would have cleaned up for you, but Dad wanted me to clean the fish tank.”

  She stops and looks at me for a moment, then musses my hair. “How was your day? Did the kids like ‘Jingle Bells’?” She withdraws her hand and looks a little guilty for touching me. It’s an echo from my touch-me-not days in junior high. I regret now making that stand.

  Did the kids like “Jingle Bells”? Her question actually makes me laugh, just a little. “ ‘Jingle Bells’ was a total bust,” I tell her, “but otherwise it was okay. I stayed after school and made up my calculus test. I made a one hundred, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Yeah. Mr. McNelis helped me through it.”

  She smiles and hands me the silverware basket. “Since when do you need help with a calculus test?”

  I don’t respond, but I can feel her watching me as I sort everything into the plastic tray in the drawer. She takes the basket from me and hugs it to her chest. “I’m so sorry you have to go through all this.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’m sorry the rug rats keep trashing the house.”

  She smiles.

  “Where did you go?”

  “The families we adopted picked up their holiday bags today. I was going to miss it, but they were shorthanded and since your aunt Whitney was here—is that pee on the floor?”

  “Apple juice,” I say, grabbing the earlier abandoned paper towels. “At least I hope it’s apple juice.”

  Mom sighs and rubs her eyes. “What else happened while I was gone?”

  You don’t want to know.

  Later, I haul the Scotch pine and the boxes of decorations into the house, and as we decorate the tree together, I fill her in anyway.

  I can’t sleep. Even though the volume is fairly low, I can still hear the TV in my parents’ room. And then there’s another noise, like Dad is fumbling around for something on his bedside table. It’s always this way. I don’t know how Mom gets any sleep.

  It’s been two days since Dad had his last MRI, since his neurologist confirmed what we all suspected—the cancer is out of control. Dad pushed for more chemo, more radiation, bone-rattling, anything. When the doctor told him no, he’d gotten irate, and when Mom tried to calm him down, he’d turned on her. She called me at school, and Ms. Lincoln sent me home early. Aunt Whitney and Aunt Olivia were already here, crying with Dad in his room, assuring him they would take care of him. And Mom, she was furiously cleaning the baseboards in the kitchen.

  He’s going to die at home. It’s what he wants. A hospice nurse is coming tomorrow. Aunt Whitney says they’ll do whatever they have to to keep him comfortable until the end.

  I wonder if there’s a hospice for the family.

  A goddammit sets my heart pounding. The clock reads two AM. I lie still and listen and piece together what happened.

  Mom, yelling: “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  Dad, crying: “I’m sorry.”

  Mom, more calmly: “Just stop. I’ll get it. I’ll get it. Why didn’t you ask for help?”

  Dad: Incoherent.

  Mom: “Oh, for God’s sake. Please. Just lie down. I’ll—”

  Dad: “Leave me the fuck alone!”

  Mom: Nothing.

  I hear the hallway closet door open, then close, the kitchen faucet turn on, then shut off. A few minutes later the steam cleaner is roaring in their room. And then I get it—Dad has knocked over his urinal again.

  When it shuts off, I get up. “I’ll put it away, Mom,” I tell her, taking the steam cleaner from her in the hallway. “Go back to bed.”

  She’s on the verge of tears as she bends over to wrap the power cord around the hooks. “It’s okay, baby. I’m already up. You’ve got school tomorrow. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

  I let her take the steam cleaner back from me. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She smiles wanly and shoos me back to my room.

  I don’t sleep a lot, but I do sleep. In the morning it’s not my alarm that wakes me; it’s Dad clanging this infernal bell Aunt Olivia gave him to summon us when he needs something. Aunt Whitney took his power scooter away weeks ago; yesterday she put his wheelchair in the garage so he won’t attempt to use it alone. I don’t really understand why they’re trying to protect him anymore. A concussion seems like a pretty attractive alternative at this point. He’s used the bell only a couple of times, but I have a feeling that’s just changed.

  When he’s still clanging it a minute later, I get up and pad into the room to see what he needs. The running shower explains why Mom didn’t heed his call.

  The carpet is wet under my feet, and I’m suddenly reminded of last night. “What do you need, Dad?”

  He pinches his face up when he speaks. “I need you to help me with the urinal.”

  At least he asked, but I don’t want to do this. I really don’t.

  He unsuccessfully tries to untangle himself from the sheet, and eventually I have to help him. With his good hand, he grips the side rail that Mom had me install a year ago, but he doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up. I grab his other arm at the elbow and help him into a sitting position. When he’s stable, I swing his legs around to the side of the bed. He’s nude under the sheet, his skin an odd color, slack, bruised, his useless left leg thinner than the other by half and completely lacking in definition. I support him, then avert my eyes as he releases the rail and positions the urinal. It takes a while for him to get started.

  When he’s done, he hands the plastic container to me. He’s got the handle, so I’m forced to take it by the main body before I can make the switch. It’s warm, and the instant aversion I feel makes my skin crawl. He reaches for a tissue to catch the drip, then hands me that too. I help him back into bed, then dump the foaming urine and the tissue in my bathroom toilet, resisting the urge to gag.

  I’m not remotely cut out for this kind of intimacy with my dad.

  So when Mom hands me an external catheter as I’m getting ready to head out half an hour later and asks me to roll it on Dad’s shriveled penis, I just can’t. Apparently Dad made a pity call to Aunt Whitney in the middle of the night and told her what happened, so she stopped by on her way to the clinic, before I woke up, and dropped off the catheter.

  “Can’t the hospice nurse do this?”

  “No, she can’t. She’s not even going to be here until this afternoon.”

  “Mom, please don’t ask me to do this.” I hold it back out to her.

  She looks at me with a mixture of anger, frustration, and sympathy, then snatches the plastic bag out of my hand and rips it open. Tubing and something that looks like a condom with a funnel on one end spill onto the kitchen floor.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Robert,” she says through clenched teeth. She kicks the catheter out into the dining room with her bare foot, then kicks it again into the living room, then again into the hallway.

  “Mom.” I get out in front of her and pick up the catheter and coil the tubing. I’m pretty sure it’s no longer sterile, but I don’t think anybody much cares anymore. I hold it out to her. “I can’t do this either, Mom.”

  She wipes her eyes on her robe, and I hate myself that I can’t do more to help her. She snatches the catheter from my hand and fires off a string of curses. I wince at the onslaught. Then she composes herself and heads to her room. I grab my backpack and get the hell out of there.

  Chapter 3

  Andrew

&nb
sp; My freshman Algebra kids surge into the room Thursday morning on a tide of whining.

  “Are we doing anything today?”

  “Can we just have a free period?”

  “I don’t know why we have to come to school these last two days. We don’t do anything anyway.”

  God, two more days—two more days—two more days.

  It’s this way right before every long holiday. We intentionally schedule final due dates and tests a few days before a break or the end of a grading period so we have a couple of days for makeups or redos or whatever concessions we have to make to get those sixty-niners—those kids right on the border—over the hump. And there’s no point starting something new with a two-week break coming up.

  And with boring regularity, some smart aleck argues that we should cancel those last two days. I remind this current smart aleck that no matter what day we end on before a break, there will always be a last two days.

  I don’t think they really grasp that logic though.

  Anyway, the best we teachers can hope for is to keep the kids contained until we can dismiss at two thirty on that last day (in this case, Friday).

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say over their grumbling. As they settle in, I turn on my projector and a collective groan rises in the room.

  “What?” I say, clicking Play on my tablet screen. “You’re going to love this movie.”

  Stephen Newman picks up the DVD case as he passes by my computer cart in the front of the room. “Stand and Deliver?” He rolls his eyes and tosses it back on the cart.

  “Why so cynical, Stephen? How do you know you’re not going to like it? You haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “I saw it in Spanish last year. Lame.”

  “Yeah, Mr. McNelis,” Kristyn Murrow says. “That movie’s like a million years old.”

  “It was released in 1988,” I say in its defense.

  “We weren’t even born. Can’t we watch Scream Three?”

  “No. And don’t get on my nerves, or I will get on yours. And, Stephen, don’t get too comfortable. You won’t be watching the movie anyway, pal.”