The sky was clear and bright, but the landscape was desolate, typical for late January. Winter in southern Oklahoma does not have much to offer the casual spectator besides stark, lifeless oaks and gullies of bare, red dirt. I stopped for gas at a reservation gift shop, where they sell cheap trinkets and kewpie dolls made in Malaysia. The highway is pretty lonely from the time you cross the Red River until you get to the university, and from there it is not long to Oklahoma City.
I made excellent time, there being little traffic, and I was at Mother's a full 30 minutes before I was expected. She greeted me at the door, as always, and asked about Bob and the boys. “They're fine,” I assured her, but she did not seem to hear. I leaned over Daddy's oversized hospital bed, the room's centerpiece, and kissed him gently on his left cheek.
“Hello, Janet,” he said in his quiet voice. He looked good, I suppose, for a man who had been in bed for the better part of 6 years, but I was not overjoyed to see him.
“Daniel will pick me up at one o'clock,” Mother began, heading to the kitchen. “I've left the number of the hotel where Daniel and I will be staying and the doctor's number by the phone.” She acted nervous, as though I were a neighborhood teenager hired as a babysitter.
I sat across from her and took her hand, comfortingly. “Mother,” I said, lowering my voice so that Daddy could not hear us over the television, “are you going to be okay?”
“Of course,” she replied, staring down at the table top, and pulling her hand away. “It's just a plane trip.” She paused and glanced up at me, as if to see if I could tell she was covering her real feelings. “It's hard, Janet. Ethel was my only sister, and now all I have is your father.”
“And Daniel and me,” I started, displeased that she had brought up Daddy. He was certainly not someone to call on for emotional support.
“The way she died … it was so horrible. And so unexpected.” Her voice trailed off, deep in thought. I shifted in the cold plastic chair. Four days ago Aunt Ethel, 6 years my mother's elder, had been found dead, her skull crushed at the hand of my cousin, Michael. The brutality and suddenness of the event had shocked us all, but it most affected Mother, who loved her sister dearly, and wrote to her several times a year.
She rose from the table, brushed a stray tear from her cheek, and announced, loudly enough for Daddy to hear, that she needed to pack.
I looked at Daddy, his thick chest rising and falling slowly with some effort. The doctors said his lungs were weak from 60 years of heavy smoking, and the alcohol had ruined many other organs. After the mid-May stroke 5 years earlier, they said he would not make it through the year, but Mother's diligent care and his own reluctance to die had proved them wrong. He never regained the use of his right side, but his mind was clear and his will strong.
My mother had spent much of their savings and all of her waking hours in caring for my father since the stroke. I urged her to put him in a home, where, I argued, he could get superior care, and she could go on enjoying her retirement. She played the devoted wife, though, despite the fact that Daddy did not deserve such treatment. I could not stand that she was giving up such freedom for him, the man who had denied her so much while my brother and I were growing up.
But she was steadfast, both in mind and in spirit. After Daniel's messy divorce, Mother even began helping him redecorate his house so he could sell it, and soon she had taken it over. I was glad that she was able to get out of the house and do something productive for 3 or 4 hours a day, because the years of confinement and solitude had begun to drain her.
“Your mother puts the leftovers in a bowl for Max,” Daddy said, his eyes following me as I took away the remains of his dinner.
“I know, Daddy.” There was a long, awkward silence as I tried to look busy, straightening up around the room. Nothing needed straightening, of course, there being just the two of us, but I could think of nothing to say.
“How is school this year?” He too was feeling the tension. I had not talked to him much in the last 30 years. I talked to Mother, and Daddy listened, sometimes asking a question or two, but without her or Daniel there to mediate, any conversation between us was extremely strained.
“It's fine,” I began, sitting on the sofa, running my fingers along the velvety surface. I was talking about my students, administrative problems. I hoped he would get so bored with the conversation that he would be content to quietly watch TV until Sunday, when Mother returned. I knew, however, that it would not work. Daddy always wanted to hear about my life now, or about the boys or Bob, as though he was truly interested. Or as though he was trying to make up for the past.
My father had been a foreman at a warehouse. He would come home from work, have dinner, send us to bed, then go out to bars after he thought my brother and I were asleep. Sometimes, coming in in the wee hours, he woke us up unintentionally, unaware of how loud he was. We pretended to stay asleep.
I was 12 the first time he did not come home. The following night, he treated us to burgers and root beer for dinner, and he did not go out afterwards. But soon he was back to the old routine, and within a few months he had begun to be gone for several days at a time. Once, after being gone for nearly a week, Daddy came home just long enough to throw some clothes in a small suitcase. There was a strange woman waiting in the car. He kissed us and told us to be good, then hurried out the door. Mother was in the kitchen doing the dishes the entire time.
We got used to not having him around, and Mother would talk about him as though he could still come back to us at any moment. Daniel and I did not talk about him to each other or to our friends. Mother started working as a secretary at a Methodist church in the neighborhood, and although we were not members there, the congregation often looked out for us. Then, when I was in high school, Daddy showed up on the front porch late one night, and Mother took him in. He had been out of our lives for nearly 5 years, and he suddenly thrust himself upon us again. I had learned to be quite happy without him, and when I thought of my family, I thought only of my mother and brother. But Mother said that this was his home, too, and that he belonged with us.
I went to college the next fall, and married Bob right after graduation, so I did not have much need for my father. I accepted the fact that he was living with my mother again, but I never really understood why she wanted him back. When my boys were born, I told him that if he ever touched alcohol around them, I would never let him see them. Mother constantly told me that he had changed, but I still was uncomfortable.
That night I struggled to lift Daddy from the wheelchair onto the bed, and once I nearly dropped him, but he caught himself with his good arm. As I drew the sheets over him, I apologized. “I'm not used to this, Daddy. Mother makes it look so easy.”
“She's had practice,” he said flatly, but he managed a smile. How, I wondered, could my frail, 70-year-old mother handle the physical strain of caring for this old man?
“Is there anything else you need right now?” This momentary closeness was touching, but difficult.
“No. Go on to bed.” He watched as I gathered my book, my shoes, and my glasses and headed for my old bedroom. “I love you, honey,” I heard him call.
I paused, gazed at the worn carpet in front of me, and echoed, “I love you too, Daddy,” before hurrying off to bed.
Mother came back from the funeral on Sunday. She looked 10 years older, and the brightness had gone from her eyes. I had hoped to go back home that afternoon, but she was complaining of chest pains, so I agreed to stay with Daddy while Daniel took her to see the doctor Monday morning.
That night, I helped Mother as she bathed Daddy, trimming his nails, shaving him. She emptied his urinal and helped him brush his teeth; he was entirely dependent on her. After he was settled for the evening, I sat in a back room with Mother.
“Aren't you tired of being his nursemaid yet, Mother?”
“Daniel helps out, since he still lives so close.”
“But, Mother, I can barely lift him myself, and with your health the way it is …”
“He's my husband. I love him, and I will take care of him.”
“But the if doctors say that you should take it easy …” I gestured vaguely. I was getting agitated, but she was perfectly calm.
“Janet, someone has to help him. He would do it for me. He has done so much for me over the past 20 years …”
“What about before that?” I strained to keep my voice quiet, but my hostility was winning out.
“He came back into my life, and I accepted him. I forgave him.” She got up to leave. I stared at the indention she had left in the chair. “You should try letting him back into your life.”
Monday morning Daniel took Mother to the doctor. I don't know if it was the years of stress, or the pain in her chest, but stooped over like that, with a green scarf tied over her head, her thin lips stretched into a tight frown, she seemed very, very old. I tried to remember her the way she was before her hair turned white, before I was grown, but seeing her like that, I could not.
Daniel called while Daddy was eating lunch. He said the doctor had checked Mother into the hospital. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, and it needed constant monitoring. Any exertion could cause a stroke, or worse. I told Daddy, and he turned off the television. He finished his lunch in silence, but when I came to take away his tray I saw that his cheeks were wet with tears. I sat on the bed with him, wiping his tears, trying to say comforting things, but I knew it was not working. When he turned the television on again, I went back to Mother's room and let my own dammed-up tears flow.
The next morning, Daniel came to be with Daddy, and I went to the hospital. It was much worse than he had said. Mother was in Intensive Care, hooked up to a dozen machines. She looked pale, and closer to death than Daddy had ever been. I held her hand and cried.
“What did you tell your father?”
“The truth. That you had high blood pressure and needed to stay in the hospital for a few days.”
“Janet, it's worse than that.”
“I know, but you'll pull through.”
She pulled her hand from mine and stared at the wall behind me. “No, Janet, I won't.” Her voice was quiet, weak.
“Mother, I won't put you in a nursing home …” The words died just past my lips. I was horrified to think of my mother in a place like that, surrounded by strangers.
“You won't have to.” She looked at me knowingly.
It took a moment for me to understand what she meant. “No, Mother, don't say that. The doctor said you'll make it, they just need to watch you for a few days!” I stood and turned away from her, as if to deny the truth in what she had said.
“Janet, I need you and Daniel to take care of your father for me,” she said, still calm. There was an urgency to her words, though.
“I don't want to talk about him,” I said, and I deliberately remained facing the wall. I did not want to start a fight about Daddy, knowing that Mother might get too excited and hurt herself.
“You can't put him in a home, Janet. It would kill him.”
“But I can't take care of him. I have a family, a job, a life of my own. I can't afford to be with him all the time.” I turned to her, hoping she would see past the tears and understand me.
“What if I were the one needing that kind of care?” she asked, her tone accusing me.
“But you're different. You were always there for me, for Daniel. You loved us.” I reached out for her and buried my face in her bedclothes. Mother smoothed my hair.
“He's been here for you for 25 years, Janet. He's been here for me, and for Daniel. He's been standing at the door. But you have to let him in.”
I felt like a schoolgirl, crying on my mother's shoulder. She was giving me the kind of wise advice I always needed, but now I did not want to hear it. My emotions were chaotic, my head was spinning. I was losing my mother and gaining responsibility for a father I didn't want, all in one horrid moment. It was as if I were about to give birth to an unwanted child, and nothing I could do would keep me from feeling the guilt.
A nurse came in, pushing a tall cart with a fresh IV bag. “How are you coming along, Mrs. Davisson?” Her cheery voice startled me, and I sat up, trying to regain my composure and wipe my tear-stained cheeks.
She informed me that I was welcome to stay as long as I wished, but I knew that I needed some time to myself. Driving back to the house, I wondered what Daniel thought we should do, but I knew that it would be he, not I, who surrendered his free time and social life to stay with Daddy. He had no wife, no family, and no real commitments outside his job. He had accepted Daddy's apology long ago and had always been around to help Mother care for him.
The next day, Daniel and I took Daddy to the hospital to see Mother. He cried a little, but she talked as though everything were fine. Sitting there, watching Mother and Daddy, I tried to remember to what it was like before Daddy left us. There were memories, but they were not much different than my family memories of when it was just the three of us, Mother and Daniel and me. I wanted to remember some kind of picture-perfect, 1950s-sitcom-type family, but the memories would not come.
Late that night, after Daniel had gone home, the phone call came. I knew before I answered that it was the hospital. I hoped that she had died already, because I did not think I could go there and watch her die. I didn't want to be there, holding her hand, like in the movies. That would be too painful.
Mother had had a stroke, and had died almost instantly. The nurse on duty thought that she had probably been asleep at the time. I checked to see if Daddy was awake, but he wasn't, so I called Daniel. He sounded somewhat relieved when I told him that she had been sleeping, and he said he would come over in the morning. I checked on Daddy again and went back to bed, where I cried myself to sleep.
In the morning, I called Bob and the boys. I had told him that she would probably die, but he was still shocked. Steve didn't cry, but little Mark did.
They came up Friday night to be at the funeral on Saturday. Daniel had called Mother's friends, with whom he had stayed more in touch, while I dealt with the funeral arrangements. Mr. Dawson had agreed to speak at the service. A retired Presbyterian minister, he had been Mother and Daddy's friend long before they moved from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. He had married Bob and me.
The air was bitterly cold as I wheeled Daddy out to the limousine. He squinted at the bright sky and shivered. The only suit that still fit him was about 15 years old, and its material was worn thin. I reminded him to keep his right hand under the blanket in his lap, since he couldn't feel the cold on that side. A strong breeze ruffled his sparse hair, and I promised him that we would fix it when we got to the funeral home. Daddy's vanity wouldn't allow him to arrive disheveled, so as soon as Daniel got him into the car's back seat, he started fidgeting with his hair and his tie. Slumped in the seat, he looked like a Bowery bum, passed out in a doorway.
Daniel and the boys rode in the car with Daddy, leaving the second car to Bob and me. It was the first time we had been alone since Mother's death. He asked me what Daniel and I had decided to do about Daddy.
“Well, you know how Daniel is,” I began. “He refuses to discuss it. I wanted to put Daddy in a home, but … I'm not sure.”
“Daniel doesn't want to?”
“No. Neither did Mother. Do you think Daddy could have changed?” Bob had usually stayed out of this. Mother had never liked Bob much, and when he had met Daddy, he was already back at home, very much a part of the family.
“Despite what you have told me, everything I ever saw seemed like he was a model husband. He was devoted, loving, and honest …”
“But he's been in a bed for 6 years! He just used Mother. He knew she wouldn't turn him away!” I felt betrayed, as though everyone, even my husband, was turning on me.
“He came back long before his stroke. And your Mother could have refused to sacrifice her own life for him the way she did. I think she felt some sort of responsibility or duty toward him.” He looked out the window as we neared the funeral home.
I watched Bob, wondering how much I would sacrifice for him. But he was such a good, decent man. And my father was … had been … so different. Selfish. Irresponsible.
Inside the building, I helped make Daddy comfortable, and I settled into my seat between Daniel and Bob. I glanced behind me to see the crowd. I recognized the Stevens and Mrs. Harris, who had been members of the church where Mother had worked. Our neighbors, the Walkers, were there, and Mrs. Dawson was in the row of seats just behind us. Sitting at the back were Bob's parents, who lived on the south side of town.
The organ droned a solemn hymn, and some of the people sang. Mr. Dawson got up to speak, and I leaned over to see Daddy, who was on the other side of Daniel. In his left hand he clutched a handkerchief. I knew that he probably could not hear Mr. Dawson, since he had refused to wear his hearing aid, but he was staring intently at the podium. Mr. Dawson said something about how everyone expected Daddy to go first, but that wasn't God's plan, and Daddy didn't move an inch. The words echoed about the big room, and I listened, but they seemed empty, vague.
Mr. Dawson was finished, and two somber-faced young men in nightmarishly dark suits came up the aisle and opened the gray coffin. The people started filing past us slowly. Most were elderly people, coming to see their dead, old friend one last time. Some paused at the coffin for several moments, and a few patted Daddy on the hand or said a few comforting words. It seemed routine, an unpleasant but unavoidable part of life. Bob and Daniel got up, and it was only when Bob took my hand to help me up that I realized that I had been crying for some time. I wiped my eyes and followed Bob and the boys to the front, Daniel pushing Daddy along behind me.
Mark and Steve and Bob stood at one side, a little distance away from the coffin. The boys were crying, which pleased me in a strange way. Mother's cheeks sagged, drawing her mouth into a broad, red band. Her eyeshadow matched the faded blue dress perfectly, but it was not a color she would have ever chosen for herself.
After several minutes, Bob took the boys away, and I started to wheel Daddy away, but Daddy, in one amazing movement, turned almost all the way around in his wheelchair, grabbed me gently by the hand, and softly pleaded, “Wait.”
Daniel and I backed off, leaving him there. He took mother's lifeless hand and talked to her, and though I couldn't hear his words, I could tell he was sort of saying goodbye. Watching Daddy, the anger and hatred I had always carried toward him seemed to fade, to become part of the past.
Steve came up beside me. “You're going to put Granddaddy in a nursing home, aren't you?”
“No, honey, we're not.” My answer came without thought, like an unexpected reflex, and I was as surprised at the response as he was.
“What are you going to do then? It takes a lot to care for him.”
I looked at him, nearly my height already, and quickly becoming a man, in thoughts as well as stature. I put an arm around him and turned back toward my Daddy, wondering how I would automatically answer this one. “I don't know,” I replied.