See What I See

by Gloria Whelan

  Justin’s growing a beard for school, and his good-bye kiss is prickly, like our relationship. I like Justin, but lately I’ve had the feeling he considers me just another problem to work out, and once he does he’ll lose interest. We’re going in different directions. He wants to get away from Larch and I want to come back.

  Some of the passengers on the bus settle down comfortably with copies of Time and People and bags of M&M’s, not caring where they are. Others treat their bus windows like TV screens with no remotes, staring hopefully at everything. A couple of young kids across the aisle have a sullen, spooked look as if they’ve been hijacked. I wonder if they’re on a visit to see a divorced parent. I want to tell them they’re lucky if they get to see both their mom and their dad, even if it’s separately.

  I force myself to sit quietly in my seat as everything familiar disappears. I have qualms and wonder what a qualm would look like if you painted it—probably like a bowl of melting ice cream or a dish of Jell-O just before it sets.

  I panic a little as I watch the countryside’s empty fields and its acres of trees turn into small towns and then bigger towns. The trip takes hours, but it’s much too fast. I don’t want the moment to come when I have to face my father, but almost before I know it, there is Detroit itself. It seems to me there are many Detroits. First there are the suburbs with large houses and green lawns, but when the bus approaches downtown, I see deserted streets and boarded-up stores and vacant lots like a mouth of pulled teeth where houses once were. It’s a city like an Edward Hopper painting with an emptiness that worries you, as if all the people were lost and no one was looking for them. Then suddenly everything comes alive again. There are glitzy restaurants, tangles of expressways, and stunning new sports stadiums. At the baseball stadium’s entrance there are two gigantic tigers with welcoming, loopy grins.

  I unfold my numb body and stumble out of the bus and into the station, where people sit in long sleepy rows looking dazed, as if they’ve been airlifted there and then abandoned. Back home I studied a map of Detroit, so I know Dad’s street isn’t too far from downtown. It’s the section of Detroit where I lived with Mom and Dad. I wander outside and smell the city smell that is part cars, part french fries, and part wind kicking up dirt. A taxi driver and I exchange wordless looks. Mine says, How about it? his, Hop in. When I give the address, the driver says in a regretful voice, “Not far.” He isn’t going to get much money. I look at his license posted on the back of the front seat. There is his picture with a big smile, as if he’s been waiting all his life to drive taxis. Maybe he has. His first name is Fikry. His last name has consonants and vowels in a strange order I can’t pronounce.

  “You coming home from a trip, or what?” Fikry asks.

  “No. I’m going to stay with my dad for a while, but he doesn’t know I’m coming.” I don’t know why I say that, except it’s so heavy on my mind, it just slips out.

  “What are you? Some kind of surprise?”

  “No. He knows all about me.”

  “Your mother kick you out?”

  “No. It’s my idea. I’m going to art school here in Detroit.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Northern Michigan.”

  “Snow all the time up there.”

  I see blocks of small, well-kept houses that appear to be a couple of hundred years old. The houses are huddled together, looking as if they need protection from all the craziness of the city. Each home has its square of perfect lawn. There are hanging baskets of petunias and pots of geraniums in an alizarin crimson hue. Many of the yards have tiny, immaculate rose gardens. Along the sidewalks run borders of sweet alyssum and beds of daisies and marigolds in bright copper and light cadmium yellow light hues.

  “This is the street.”

  After the tall busyness of the commercial buildings downtown, here is this village right in the middle of the city. I am amazed. Nothing is familiar. There are churches and small stores with signs in languages I don’t understand. I ask Fikry.

  “Some Polish, some Albanian and Chaldean. Here’s the house,” he says. “You want me to wait and see how the surprise goes?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Fikry coasts slowly to the end of the block and stops. Curious? Caring? I give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Dad’s place looks like the rest of the little houses, except his grass hasn’t been cut and the only landscaping is a medley of weeds and a couple of empty cans. What is he doing here?

  I drag my suitcase up the porch stairs. At the end of the block Fikry finally drives away. I miss him already. I stand there for a long minute, considering whether the smart thing would be to get on a bus and go back to Mom. No. Not yet. I push the doorbell, and when there is no answer, I knock. Nothing. Dad might have seen me and isn’t answering on purpose, or he could be lost in his painting and not hear me. Heck, he could have gone back to New York. I try looking in the windows, but the shades are drawn. I knock at the back door. Nothing. I try the front doorbell again. I imagine how I look standing on the porch with my suitcase beside me. Pathetic.

  At last the door jerks open. The hair that hangs around my father’s shoulders is now thinner and grizzled with gray. His cheeks have sunk, and his skin is the faded yellow of old newspaper. His clothes are a size too large, or his body is a size too small. The hand on the door is scrawny and blue with veins. His voice is weak but furious, and his eyes are like two black weapons as he stares at me. “If you’re a reporter, you can get the hell out of here or I’ll have the police on you for trespassing.”

  I can barely get out “It’s me, Dad. Kate.”

  He peers at me as if I’m something that has stuck to his shoe. “What do you think you’re doing here? How did you find me? This is no time for a family reunion. I’m getting ready for a show and I need to be left alone.”

  “You’re still painting? You look like you’re sick.”

  “My health is not your concern, and yes, I’m painting. But I certainly wouldn’t be able to work with a child running around the house. I suppose your mother sent you to spy on me. Well, you can turn around and go back to wherever you came from, and you are certainly not to suggest to your mother or anyone else that I’m ill.”

  “I’m not a child, and Mom has nothing to do with my being here. She’s furious with me for coming. I told you in my letters that I have a scholarship at the art school, but I don’t have money for housing. All I want is a place to sleep. I promise I won’t get in your way, and if you aren’t well, I can do things for you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to do things for me, certainly not some amateur artist who’s deluded into thinking she can paint.”

  Desperate, I plead, “Could I at least spend the night before I go back? I’ve traveled a couple of hundred miles on a bus to get here.” I blink fast to fight off the tears. I thought I was prepared to be sent away, but maybe you can never be prepared for that.

  Still hanging on to the door for support, he steps aside, regarding me as if I am an alien crashing into his space.

  I hurry into the house with my suitcase and slip out of my backpack. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I leave my things in the hall and follow my dad into the kitchen, which looks more like the last day of a garage sale than a place where you actually sit down to eat. Dirty dishes cover the counters; magazines and books are piled on the table and chairs. Unaccountably, a lawn mower is parked in one corner. A laptop computer is propped up on the stove top, its screen saver a shot of New York City’s Grand Central Station in the thirties.

  Dad sinks down on a chair after first removing a pile of soiled clothes. “Coffee’s on the shelf.”

  I find the coffee hanging out with a couple of cans of baked beans and a bigger variety of Campbell’s soups than you’d find in a grocery store. I empty the coffeemaker of what must have been the morning’s brew and rinse it out.

  Dad says, “I like it strong.”

  “So do I.”

  We watch in loud silence as t
he coffee drips, as if the slow trickle is the most interesting thing we have ever seen. I pour two cups, taking pains to get the same amount into each cup as if it’s a test I’m taking, and hand one to Dad.

  He brings the cup up to his mouth with a shaking hand and swallows so slowly, I imagine the coffee making its way around a complicated maze in his throat. There are no questions like How is your mom? or What have you been doing since I last saw you ten years ago?

  No problem. I’m willing to go more than halfway. “My favorite painting of yours is the one in the Whitney Museum, the one of the woman in the red dress.” Most of the figures in my father’s portraits look like the people have begun to melt, morphing into splotches of color. Even the portraits you might recognize as people are like reflections in a fun-house mirror, distorted and grotesque. In all their ugliness, they’re powerful, although you do have to wonder what goes on in his head. But there’s something attractive about the woman in the red dress. That’s why it’s my favorite.

  “The woman in red is Julia, someone I particularly dislike.”

  “But not when you painted her.”

  “No, not when I painted her.” When he has emptied his cup, he puts it down and begins to work his way out of his chair. When I move to help him, he slaps my hand away. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Dad, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. Will you show me what you’re working on now?”

  “Certainly not.” He indicates the computer. “You can get tomorrow’s bus schedule online. There’s a vacant room upstairs.” He looks at my suitcase as if it contains something dangerous, a bomb or an eviction notice. “No need to unpack that.” He disappears into what must be the living room. Before he slams the door shut, I have a glimpse of paintings stacked against a wall, their vivid colors like shouts. So that’s his studio. One more part of his life I’m shut out of.

  I tiptoe past Dad’s studio, listening to the grunts and curses and happy shouts. It sounds like he’s engaged in ferocious warfare and enjoying it. Upstairs I find the empty bedroom. The walls are a dark, depressing green, the color of a rain poncho, and on the ceiling is a water stain that looks a little like an abstract painting. There’s an iron bed and a dresser with one drawer missing. A small shag rug lies on the wood floor like a sleeping dog. Ugly as the room is, I’d give anything to stay here. In the trailer I’ve never had a room of my own, just a pull-down bed where I can’t curl up during the day.

  I peek into Dad’s room. I know he’d hate my poking around in his space, but I’m just catching up. After all these years I’m desperate to know something about the man who is my father. Dad’s bed is a squirrel’s nest of soiled sheets, looking like they need vacuuming more than changing. His clothes are draped over a chair, and books are piled up next to the bed. I’m about to back out of the room when I see it tucked into the edge of his mirror. It’s wrinkled and a chunk of sky is missing, but it’s the drawing of a pine tree I sent Dad all those years ago. I edge nearer to the dresser to get a better look, feeling like someone has just swept their hand over me, erasing everything I had believed about Dad’s feelings for me. I have been a part of his life, even if I was nothing more than a piece of paper stuck in a mirror. When I didn’t even know it, he was thinking of me. That does it. I won’t give up. I’ll find a way to stay. I don’t care what it takes.

  After a long minute of staring at the picture, my watery eyes drop to an official-looking letter on the top of the dresser. It’s addressed to Dad and comes from some sort of medical department. A committee is informing Dad that regretfully they cannot recommend a liver transplant for him. They commend him for having “abstained from alcohol as is required for a transplant,” and they’re sure that will be “beneficial to his advanced cirrhosis,” but his physical examination indicates “a dilated congestive cardiomyopathy,” which eliminates him from consideration for a transplant. They say they are “sorry.”

  I hurry downstairs, pausing at the door to Dad’s studio to be sure he’s still painting. The sounds of work are there. I go online and Google “advanced cirrhosis” and “dilated congestive cardiomyopathy.” I learn that without a liver transplant, which he isn’t going to get, Dad’s liver is giving out. And his heart isn’t that strong either. He’s dying. And he’s alone.

  Suddenly it’s not all about me. Art school is important, but there’s another reason for me to be here. Dad needs me. It takes a long minute for that to sink in, and then I make my decision and hatch my desperate plan. I know what I’m going to do and I know Dad will be furious, but I don’t care. He can’t send me away because I won’t go. Whatever he says.

  When I open the door to his studio, he swings around, fuming. “You have no business interrupting me. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Now get out.”

  His paintings are gathered around him like children. There are a half dozen, many unfinished. Looking back at me from the easel and leaning against the wall are portraits. Dad has managed to discover ugliness in nearly every one of the people he paints. If they’re fat, the fat hangs in ghastly folds, the faces puffed and bloated. If they’re old, their sagging skin is a purplish white, their elbows and knees sharp angles, and their toenails curling and yellow. Children have blank, cruel faces, as if they’re plotting evil mischief. I know these devastating portraits are amazing. I know they made Dad famous. But I hate them for what they do to people. What is he trying to say with them?

  I’m not sure where I get the courage to follow through on my plan. It’s more than my need to paint and my longing for art school. It’s more than wanting to get close to Dad, to know him after all these years. It’s even more than seeing my picture stuck in his mirror. Dad needs me because he doesn’t have anyone else. I plunge in. “I read the letter from the doctors about your not getting a transplant. Even if you won’t admit it, you have to have someone to take care of you. Let me stay. It’s not just me feeling sorry for you. I’ll get to go to school. It’s an even trade.”

  He shouts, “What do you mean sneaking around and prying into my affairs? I should never have let you into this house. You can get out right now. Sleep on the street, for all I care. I don’t need you and I don’t want you here.”

  It’s now or never. I take a breath. “If you don’t let me stay, I’ll tell Mom and the newspapers and your gallery how sick you are. You won’t have your show.”

  He grabs a tube of paint and flings it at me. It isn’t even a near miss. His laughter comes out choked, as if it got strangled in his throat. He sinks into a chair and puts his hands over his face. When he takes his hands away, his face looks naked and I see more than he wants me to. Then he grins at me as if he’s discovered some wicked secret too good not to share. “No question you’re my daughter. Here’s the bargain. I’m not driving anymore. You do the shopping, get me to the doctor, prepare my food, and answer my emails. You keep out of the way. I don’t want to see more of you than I have to. You’ll speak only when spoken to, and you can get out of my sight right now.”

  “Fine,” I say. “It’s a deal.” I slam the door behind me and scurry back to my room. I have what I want, but what else do I have? I’m letting myself be locked in with a man who’s going to die, a man I don’t much like and who doesn’t like me at all, a man who hates having me here.

  I hear Lucinda Williams singing “Are You Alright?” on my cell ring. It’s Mom’s favorite song. “So are you all right?” Mom asks when I pick it up.

  “Sure,” I say. “I’m all settled in and everything’s fine.” I gulp down a sob. “I miss you.” I try to picture Mom sitting in what we call the cozy corner of the trailer, where there’s a bench with soft cushions and a lamp. It’s where we curl up to read or watch our favorite TV shows. I hate thinking of Mom there alone.

  “What’s his house like?” Mom asks.

  She won’t say his name. “It’s fine. I have a nice room,” I reassure her. “Dad’s busy painting, so I won’t see much of him. On
ce I start school next week, I’ll be gone most of the time.”

  “You promise to come home if things don’t work out? I mean if he gets to be too much.”

  “Yes,” I tell her, “I promise.”

  What is too much? I ask myself.

  Chapter 3

  On this first night in Dad’s house I have trouble sleeping. I go over and over what I have done. I’ve promised to take care of Dad, but I might as well have promised to care for an injured lion that might turn on me at any minute. Still, I tell myself, it was the right thing to do. At one point I hear Dad tramping down the stairs, followed by the sound of his studio door opening and closing. I want to see if he’s all right, but something tells me he wouldn’t be happy to have me checking on him. After all these years I have my father back and he’s going to die. It’s unfair. Then I think of my father locked into his studio downstairs and what it must be like for him to think of all the pictures he will never get to paint.

  I give up on sleeping, and by dawn I’m downstairs. Dad is moving around in the studio, talking to himself. When I knock on the door and offer him coffee, he looks at me as if he has no idea who I am. But he takes the coffee. I’m surprised at how happy that makes me.

  “Do you want a fried egg or something?” I offer.

  “A fried egg?” He makes it sound like something exotic, something no one in his right mind would think of eating. The door slams shut. Taking care of him is going to be harder than I thought.

  I decide I can at least do something about the mess in the kitchen. Growing up in a trailer, I learned early on that neatness is everything; otherwise, with so little room, you get buried under piles of stuff. I do all the dirty dishes that have been dumped in the sink. I stack the avalanche of art books and magazines. I empty the fridge of everything that looks older than I am, leaving the shelves nearly bare. Maybe when he sees I’m willing to be helpful, Dad will put up with me a little better.