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Whenever I bad-mouth my sister to my father, he always explains what a hard beginning Lena had, before my parents adopted her. My mother was told she might not be able to get pregnant and she wanted a child desperately. They adopted Lena when she was six months old. She only weighed nine pounds. Her fourteen-year-old mother had left her with relatives who’d neglected her.
Every time Dad tells me she had a rough beginning, I know he’s right, until the next time Lena tries to hit me up for five hundred dollars. And even though she’s four years older than I am, most of my life I have felt like the older sister.
“So how long do you think you’ll stay?” David moves a screwdriver with a yellow handle from one side of his workbench to the other.
“Not long. I’ll just get the condo straightened out, cheer Dad up, come back as soon as I can. I figure three days will be enough to get the repairs done.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“I got an airline ticket for tomorrow. I was looking online and it was such a good deal, I was afraid I’d lose it. You could come with me if you want to. Dad was better when you were there.”
“I’ve got too many projects. Besides, with Jan there, your father’s condo is too crowded. I’ll hold the fort down here.”
He walks to the remote button, hits it hard and the garage door rumbles shut.
We are in bed. I have the TV on, and David is lying on his back waiting for me to turn off the TV so he can go to sleep. The gray-and-white light from “Leave It to Beaver” illuminates our bedroom. June is talking to Ward in their spotless kitchen, but I have the set on mute so I have no idea what problem they’re solving.
“Isn’t it wonderful I got a good deal on an airline ticket,” I say, although this isn’t true.
“What airline again?” He yawns and so do I.
“American.”
“How much?”
I close my eyes, continue to shade the truth. “One ninety-eight.” The ticket actually cost almost three hundred dollars. I put it on a credit card I have that David doesn’t know about—one I got when I was teaching. I don’t like doing this, but sometimes I don’t tell the truth about money just to avoid a fight. David has always worried about our finances. I’m sure it’s because his father died when he was eight and their family struggled financially after that. He’s explained how they never had enough and he wouldn’t have been able to go to college if he hadn’t gotten an academic scholarship. I guess our childhoods follow us around whether we want them to or not.
“That price isn’t bad,” he says.
I relax a little, wet my lips. “While I’m gone you’ll have plenty to eat. There’s the leftover Paprika Chicken, and the stew I made this afternoon.” I felt good as I neatly stacked food in the fridge—knew David would have home-cooked meals until I come home.
But now guilt slides up my spine, hitting each vertebra. I’m spending too much money and then lying about it, leaving my husband to fend for himself, and I’m sure the food won’t last for long.
“Great.” He turns to me, reaches out and musses my hair. “We’d better go to sleep. We both have long days in front of us.”
I turn off the TV, lean over, kiss his cheek. His skin is warm.
When David begins to snore softly, I quietly get out of bed and walk through the house. Icy winter moonlight illuminates each room and the tile floor feels cold against my feet. In the breakfast nook, I look out to the yard and the oak tree. The full moon is dousing the earth with cold glassy light. The tree branches, the grass and pansies are the same color as June and Ward.
I’m sitting on the edge of my father’s king-size bed, holding a large glass of water. He has been in here most of the day. A little while ago in the kitchen I put a red plastic straw in the glass, hoping he would drink more water.
Dad’s eyes are closed, but I know he’s not asleep. Gina, his home health care nurse, who left thirty minutes ago, told me he’s dehydrated and needs to drink water. So for the last thirty minutes I’ve been urging him to take sips of water. He did drink some, but a moment ago he said he’d had enough.
This morning I drove him to the radiation clinic. After I got to Las Cruces, I convinced him to continue with the treatments. All I did was sit next to him on the couch, tell him I thought it would be best that he go back to the radiation center. He nodded his head, said he would. Then I explained I thought everything was going to be okay. A moment later he got up and went back to bed.
When Dad and I got to the clinic this morning, we sat quietly in the waiting room. I leafed through old Southern Living magazines, and my father stared at the carpet. I looked over at him, realized he’s lost a lot of weight.
I’ve been in Las Cruces for four days. David told me this morning that he ran out of the food last night, and tonight he’ll stop by JR’s for dinner.
“Dad,” I say, resettle myself on the edge of the bed because my back is beginning to ache from no support.
He looks at me.
“Have a little more water.”
“No.” He shuts his eyes again.
I stare at the three Frank Lloyd Wright awards on the wall. My father has won many awards for building designs, but these are the most prestigious, proof that he has an ironclad will for doing everything flawlessly.
“Dad, the nurse says you need to drink more water. You’re dehydrated. Just take a few sips, then I’ll leave you alone.” It feels so strange telling my father what to do.
“’Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’” His voice is raspy, as if he’s thirsty, yet he enunciates each word perfectly.
I laugh. He used to quote this poem when I was a kid and we were traveling. Lena and I, from the back seat of the car, would beg him to stop at a Quick-Stop so we could get Cokes. When he refused, Lena would tell him we were dying of thirst. He’d look at us through rearview mirror, recite that line.
He opens his eyes. “Melinda, I don’t want any more water. I’ve had enough.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods once.
“If you’re hungry I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“I’m too tired.”
He closes his eyes again and I study his face. His skin is smooth and he doesn’t look seventy-two. After he retired, I called him every two weeks, worried that since he’d been such a workaholic, he might not adapt to retirement. But he got along just fine and was busy as ever with traveling, his volunteer work, his friends, Jan. On the phone we’d discuss politics, his trips or teaching, nothing personal, but it was nice to talk to him.
“Okay,” I say.
He looks at me. “Okay?”
“I can’t make you drink more water. I do remember that poem, though. Lena would claim she was so thirsty she was dying, and you wouldn’t stop the car because we were on a tight schedule.”
“Yeah, I was always in a hurry.”
“Oh, we survived. Do you remember the rest of the poem?”
“I do.”
“Remember, sometimes Mom interrupted, finished a line for you.”
He sits up a little, pushes back against the pillow but doesn’t say anything.
“Mom gave me the book of poetry you and she used to read from, when you were both in college.”
He turns his head a little. “Oh, really?”
“It was years ago, when I was going to school. She said I might be able to use it.” I place the water glass on the nightstand and watch the straw circle to the other side. “There are margin notes by some of the poems.”
“She and I used to go to the park, read poetry out loud.”
“‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ I always liked that even though you wouldn’t stop for Cokes.”
He shakes his head. “Back then there never seemed to be enough time. Now there’s too much.”
Another memory surfaces—Lena and I in the back seat, my parents in the front, my mother sitting close to him, and he has his arm around her.
“I forget. Who’s the poem by?”
Dad closes his eyes, licks his lips. They look dry and chapped. I need to get him some Chap Stick at the store tomorrow.
“Coleridge. It’s the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’”
“I used to love when you’d recite it.”
“‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!’” He smiles at me and I smile back.
“Did Mom memorize some of it, too?”
“I don’t know. I had to memorize it to win a contest in school. First prize was ten dollars. Back then ten dollars was like a million. We didn’t have much money. It took me three months.”
“You memorized the entire poem?”
He nods and I imagine my father as boy, trying to put each line to memory. I’m not surprised though. He’s always been determined.
“Yeah, I was the only one in the school who could recite it perfectly.”
“What did you buy with the money?”
“I gave it to my mother for food.” He closes his eyes again. “I’m so tired.”
I pat his shoulder, get up and walk through the living room into the kitchen. Three mugs half full of cold tea sit next to the sink. Dried-out tea bags, like winter leaves on our front porch in Texas, dot the counter, stain the white Formica. Jan loves tea and makes cup after cup, leaving a trail of tea bags behind her like Hansel and Gretel.
I look through the pass-through above the sink. She is sitting on the couch, the phone pressed between her right shoulder and ear. I hear her laugh, say, Oh, Donny, and I know she’s talking to her only child. Before Dad, Jan was married to a colonel in the air force and they had Donny. He’s thirty-three, a problem man-child who’s been in jail three times for drunk driving.
“Things are the same. Oh, Stanley’s daughter, Melinda, is here.”
Jan looks back to me, holds up her mug and smiles deeply. I have learned this means she would like another cup of tea. I turn to the stove, grab the kettle, fill it with water, place it on the burner, snap the control to high and hear the familiar hiss—fire licking metal.
“We’re bonding, Donny. She’s nice. You’d really like her.”
Jan’s words remind me I have not seen my ex-stepbrother in a long time. I try to think of the last time but only know it was when he was a child.
“It’s a lot of work for me, but I have to do it for Stanley. Work, work, work, there’s nothing else,” she says in her breathy persona as she flips her hand back and forth.
Jan has her back to me now, and I wonder if she knows I can hear her.
Work, work, work, my foot! Since I’ve been here, she sleeps till ten, sits on the couch and goes to lunch with Verna and Bob Skilly. I have encouraged her to do these things because I know it must be difficult for her to see my father depressed and in bed most of the time. And I appreciate that she has come to help him.
But in the last four days, I’ve cleaned the condo, arranged for the garage and water heater repairs, driven my father to his appointments, tried to get him to eat and drink and listened to her complain about how inept he was as a husband.
I have swallowed back the hurt that rises in my throat when she talks about him. I haven’t said anything to her about this because I don’t want to cause a problem.
The teakettle whistles, I fill her mug, dunk the tea bag up and down until the water is dark. I add two teaspoons of sugar, get the milk from the fridge. The carton’s opening is smeared with her red lipstick. I pour milk in the tea, put the carton back in the refrigerator.
Yesterday morning I was going to have cereal, but when I found the carton in such shape, I put it back, pictured Jan, late at night, lit in the glaring refrigerator light, head tipped back, guzzling milk. Instead I poured orange juice over my Raisin Bran, hoping she didn’t drink that from that carton, too.
I walk out to the living room, hand her the tea. She smiles and so do I. I know she is trying to be nice. I make it across the living room, to the edge of the dining room where I’ve folded my blanket and stacked pillows—the place where I sleep because Jan is in the guest room. She also told me when I first got here that she needs the couch late at night when she can’t sleep.
“Okay, baby, I’ll call you tomorrow.” She hangs up, sighs. “Melinda.”
I turn back reluctantly, want to like her, but there are so many things about her that drive me crazy.
“I’ve probably talked to him more this week than I have in months.”
I want to say, And all on my father’s dime, but I don’t. I feel bad for even thinking it. She has come here to take care of my father, and I should be thankful for that. I only wish she would actually do a little work while she’s here.
I nod, press my mean thoughts and words back where I hope they stay. “It’s nice you can talk to him.”
“He remembers you. He’s had his problems, but he’s straightened out.”
I think, It’s about time, close my eyes against the words, then I smile at her again.
“That’s good, Jan.” I walk into the kitchen, begin cleaning up. Through the pass-through, I see her get off the couch, cross the living room and head toward the kitchen. She sits at the pine table that holds the computer my father bought three months ago but has not used.
I sweep tea bags and crushed napkins into the trash, run water for the dishes. I really don’t feel like cleaning, but it will keep me from having to shift my full attention to her.
“Before Stanley and I were married, he was so nice to Donny.” Her voice is thin, baby-like.
I know she’s gearing up for one of her negative stories about my father. I wash a mug and watch a tea bag float in between the soap bubbles.
“The first year we were dating, Stanley fixed Donny’s bicycle, took him places, but then after we got married…it was like Donny didn’t exist. When Stanley moved down here and volunteered at the grammar school, well, I thought that is the perfect place for Stanley. He can help then walk away with no commitment.”
The anger I’ve tamped down turns over, groans, but I press it back. Maybe if I don’t say anything she’ll stop or talk about how she misses Seattle. That I can relate to. Right now I’d like to be sitting in my sunrise-filled breakfast nook, drinking from the coffee mug Jenny gave me.
“I never understood why he volunteered at the grammar school. He never liked kids.”
“I suggested he volunteer,” I say, remembering when he called me from Las Cruces right after he moved here and told me how lonely he was. I told him to call a senior volunteer program. He did and for a year he was a first-grade teacher’s aide at a school filled with Hispanic children. I was happy for him because he was getting a kick out of the kids and making friends with other volunteers.
“Like I said, I thought it was strange, but then I realized it was perfect for him because he didn’t have to make a commitment or really get involved. That’s how he likes it—his life without any ties.”
“Don’t we all. But he took some great pictures of the kids.” I submerge my hands in the hot water, remember the black-and-white photos he showed me of the happy young faces staring up into his camera lens. He snapped the photos right before Easter. They were perfect—artistic, beautiful.
“Some of those kids never had their pictures taken till Dad took them.” I manage to keep the edge out of my voice.
