See What I See

by Gloria Whelan

  Chapter 11

  The studio, empty of all its paintings and with nothing new started, has a deserted, eerie look.

  Erlita and Dad have an argument. “Let me order you a regular hospital bed, Mr. Quinn. You’ve got plenty of room in here, and you’ll be that much more comfortable. Plus I can’t give you a proper washing on that sofa.”

  Dad won’t have it. When I agree with her, Erlita orders it anyway. A man comes to set it up. It dominates the room like Dad’s paintings used to. I learn how to move the head and foot up and down and how the rails work. Dad calls it a metal coffin and swears at the deliveryman, who hurries away.

  Dad continues to sleep on the sofa. When he has trouble making it to the bathroom, Erlita tells me to get a portable potty, and I do. The studio has become a hospital room. After my one attempt at helping Dad shave, Dad decided to grow a beard, and now he looks like van Gogh.

  One morning I bring in his breakfast to find him sleeping on the metal coffin. I should be relieved, but instead I’m sad. We push buttons and make a game of all the things the bed can do. I buy a small TV for the studio, and we watch old movies. Thomas calls a couple of times, but he hasn’t called lately.

  Erlita comes twice a week now. She tells me about a monitor I can get so I can hear Dad when I’m in my room or in my studio.

  Lila calls me on her cell one afternoon when Erlita is there and says, “You’ve got to come over to the school right now. They’ve flooded the courtyard and it’s a skating rink. I know someone who’ll lend you skates.”

  I’m explaining why I can’t go when Erlita interrupts me to say, “You need to get out. I’m finished for the day. I’ll stay with your daddy for a couple of hours. Now go.”

  I tell Lila I’ll be there, and I grab my coat. I’m used to the expressways now, so it takes me only minutes to get to the school, and sure enough, the kids are all gliding around the outdoor sculptures on their skates. I find Lila and put on the skates she’s borrowed for me. Everyone is acting as if they’re ten years old. We play crack the whip and we make a samba line. A boy I remember from one of my classes puts an arm around my waist, and we join hands and skate like we’re in the ice-skating follies. A light snow drifts down on us, and we laugh at the way it lands on our eyelashes and gets into our mouths when we talk.

  “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you around,” the boy says.

  “I had to drop out this semester,” I say. “I’ll be back though.”

  “What’s your cell number?” he asks, and takes off his glove to write it down. His name is Adam. Lila skates by and gives me a thumbs-up. The winter sun disappears, and the cars on the busy street turn on their headlights. I have to get home. I say good-bye to Adam and Lila and hurry away. What I said to Adam is true. I promise myself I will come back to the school.

  When I hurry into the house, Erlita grins at me. “Look at those rosy cheeks. Don’t you stay holed up here in this house. You talk your daddy into getting someone in on a regular basis so you can get out.”

  Before I can do that, Dad has a bad day and I take him to the hospital, where they admit him for a couple of days. I don’t want to sit by myself in the empty house, so I drive around the city looking for something to take my mind off Dad’s illness. I guess I have death in the back of my mind, because when I see an ancient cemetery in the middle of the city, I drive in. The marble angels wear coats of snow. There are big, old trees and a few containers with flowers that have wilted in the cold wind. I recognize the names of old Detroit families on the tombstones: Brush, Canfield, Cass. They’re street names now. The cemetery is not sad. It’s restful, as if death were a nap you steal in the middle of the afternoon.

  On the way home I stop at the convenience store to pick up some milk, and I see Thomas and Mary getting into the Lincoln. I wave, and they pause to wait for me. Thomas must be taking Mary to see her boyfriend. Maybe he and I can do something after. I’d love to get out of the house.

  “Dad’s in the hospital, so I’ve got the night off,” I tell Thomas, and look expectantly at him.

  Thomas says, “Mary and I are heading off to a concert.” He names a famous rock band. “I’d invite you to come along,” he says, “but it’s sold out.”

  “Thanks. I promised Lila I’d stop by anyhow.” I say good-bye and hurry into the store. Emmanuel is behind the counter. He has been less than friendly with me lately, but tonight he’s all smiles. “You saw Thomas and Mary?” he asks. “They’re going to hear some music. They played me a CD and I put my hands over my ears. They make a nice couple, yes?”

  He gives me a sympathetic look. “You’re too thin. I’m throwing in a box of Christmas cookies. No charge.”

  I drive over to see Lila, who’s getting ready to go home to Flint for Christmas. On the way I console myself by eating the whole box of cookies.

  Lila asks, “Is your mama coming down to have Christmas with you and your granddaddy?”

  I’m choking with the truth and I have to tell someone. “Can I swear you to secrecy?” I ask.

  “I’m the best at keeping secrets.”

  “My grandfather is my father.”

  “What are you talking about!”

  So I tell her.

  “Dalton Quinn is your daddy? You’re making this up, right?”

  “No.” I show her the car registration with Dad’s name.

  “I heard he came back to Detroit. But you’ve got a different name.”

  “That’s because of how Mom feels.”

  “So how sick is he?”

  “The doctor says he only has months.” I can’t keep the quiver out of my voice.

  Lila puts an arm around me. “You can’t say anything to your mama?”

  “No. She would come and take me home, and I have to help Dad get ready for the show. It’s critical that the gallery doesn’t know how sick Dad is. They’re counting on having more of his work.”

  “You mean he’s a kind of investment?”

  “To them, yes. But for Dad it’s his last chance to get some recognition for his work.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No. Just telling someone has helped a lot.” And it has.

  Aunt Ernestine makes me stay for dinner. She and Lila keep pushing food at me like I’m one of those geese you force to eat so its liver gets bigger and tastier. Lila asks me what I’m working on, and I tell her I haven’t had the heart to pick up a brush lately. “I guess I figure if Dad can’t paint anymore, it’s not fair for me to.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Lila says. “You’re just punishing yourself, girl.”

  I tell Lila’s aunt about Dad, and she says, “That’s all the more reason for you to keep at your painting. Your daddy is going to feel a whole lot better if he knows you’re following in his footsteps.”

  I think about what she says. She has a point, but Dad was never a big one for appreciating someone else’s work. Besides, how could I ever follow in his footsteps? Then I ask myself why I should always measure my work against his. Didn’t Dad say no one else could paint the picture that you do, and if you don’t paint it, your glimpse of the world is gone forever? Suddenly my fingers are itching to pick up a brush and put down what I saw, and especially what I felt, in the cemetery. I get up from the table and say I have to get home. Aunt Ernestine gives me some brownies for the road, and Lila gives me a scarf with colors that haven’t even been invented. I give them both hugs and hurry back to my painting.

  Mom calls that night. She wants me home for Christmas. “School’s out, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but there’s going to be a student show on the first of the year and I have to finish a couple of paintings I want to submit.” I hate making up an excuse, but I can’t leave Dad.

  Silence. “I could come down there, stay at a motel. Your dad wouldn’t have to know I’m in town. You and I could go somewhere for a nice Christmas dinner. They’ve hired me permanently for the manager’s job, and I’m making good mon
ey.”

  For a minute it seems possible, and there’s nothing in the world I want more than to be with Mom for Christmas, but how could I explain having to leave her alone to take care of Dad? I almost break down and tell Mom the truth, but I know she’d want to take me home, and Dad needs me. “I’d better just concentrate on the painting,” I tell her.

  “Sure,” she says, “I understand.” But I can tell by her voice that she doesn’t.

  I stay up most of the night making a small painting of the pine tree in our yard in Larch that we always decorated for the birds at Christmastime with strings of dried cherries and cranberries, and ornaments made of peanut butter and melted fat. Underneath the tree we left corn for the squirrels and raccoons. I paint our trailer in the background, with lit windows and the outline of the two of us in one of them. In the morning I mail it to Mom, and then I go to pick up Dad.

  Thomas is waiting for me outside Dad’s room. “The doctor wants to talk with you, Kate. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  “How was the concert?”

  “Fine. Look, I owe you an explanation.”

  “No. I mean what you do is your business.”

  “Kate, I know what my family went through to get here, and Mary’s family is living in Lebanon practically starving.” Thomas’s voice is breaking. “It sounds dramatic, but the truth is if we get married, we’ll have a better chance of bringing some of them over and maybe saving their lives. With us family is everything. Mary and I like each other. We’ll be all right. It’s a small sacrifice.”

  I understand sacrifice, giving up something you want for something more important. I just hope there isn’t going to be a whole lot more of that in my life.

  Evidently there is. Dad’s doctor appears, looking incredibly businesslike. “Thomas here tells me you’re taking care of your father by yourself. Have you considered a nursing home for him? I must be honest with you. The news is not good.”

  “Dad would hate a nursing home,” I say. “We’ll manage.”

  “He’ll require full-time care. Even so it will be downhill. You’re too young to do this on your own. I’d advise getting in nursing help.”

  I know the doctor is right, because this time Dad doesn’t object to the wheelchair, and the minute we walk into the house, he heads for his bed. Something’s changed.

  Dad talks about starting a new painting, but it’s too much effort for him. “Not today,” he says in a voice that has become a hoarse whisper.

  I set up a small canvas on the tray table I use for his meals. It has a rack to hold books and newspapers, and I prop the canvas on that. Dad is pleased at first, and he makes a few swipes at the canvas with a brush. There are a string of curses.

  “Gone,” he says, and knocks the canvas to the floor. “What do you think you’re doing to me?” he asks. His face is red and his breathing comes in heaves. “You want to see me make a fool of myself? It’s payback time, isn’t it? Getting back at me for deserting you. Well, what do you think my career would have been if I had stayed with you and your mother? Nothing. I’d have been nothing.”

  I run out of the room. I try to excuse him. He’s dying and he’ll never paint again . . . but he means what he said. He wasn’t sorry he left us. I think now that Mom was right. I should never have come. It’s one thing to imagine how Dad feels, but I don’t want to hear him say it. From the window I see the cat prowling in the snow. I open the back door softly and call, “Kitty, kitty,” in my most beguiling voice. It runs away. Not even the cat has any time for me.

  Adam calls to ask me out, but I explain I have to take care of my father, who is sick. I don’t tell him who my father is. He says he’s going home for the holidays and will call me when he gets back.

  For the next few days Dad mostly sleeps while I struggle to hold off Morgan, who wants Dad in New York. I no longer have the excuse of Dad working to get his paintings ready for the show. Everything has been sent.

  “He has a little cold,” I tell Morgan.

  “What are you doing for it? Are you giving him vitamin C? And there’s that stuff you rub in your nose.”

  “I’m letting him get a lot of rest.”

  “I think you should get a doctor. The show’s only a couple of weeks away. He needs to be here. I heard the New York Times is holding space in their Sunday paper for a review of the show. We’ll sell out. I feel it. Your father is going to be a rich man.”

  When I tell Dad, he gives a bitter laugh. “You can buy me an expensive coffin.”

  Talk like that destroys me. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen. I’m practically killing myself to keep him alive.

  It’s three days before Christmas. At the market I buy a small tree, a real one that’s potted to plant afterward. I bruise the needles to get the piney scent on my hands. It smells like home. I put the tree in the studio and trim it with paper chains I’ve made from printing out Morgan’s emails. I don’t remember much about the holidays when Mom and Dad were together, except for one time when Dad cut us a Christmas tree in the woods. He maneuvered it into the house and got it set up in the stand before we noticed a wasp nest between the branches. I mention it to Dad. He looks surprised, as if he hadn’t thought I would remember. I also remember a Christmas Eve when he didn’t turn up until long after I was in bed. When he finally came home that night, there were angry voices. I don’t mention this memory.

  I want to make Dad a special Christmas dinner. Erlita told me they have fresh turkeys at the Eastern Market, so I go and get one. Up north there are lots of turkey farms. A few days before Thanksgiving and Christmas you can see the turkeys lining up behind the slaughterhouse to wait their turn. I’m hoping this turkey will be as fresh.

  There’s a big Christmas present from Morgan. It’s a check for five hundred thousand dollars. I can’t believe all those zeros. I have to read the check three times. The accompanying letter says, “Here is a little advance. I have competing bids from the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney for two of your paintings. You can leave your exile there at once and rent a decent loft or studio here in civilization. You’ll need a place to see the critics who’ll want to interview you. There’s a terrific photographer lined up to do a portrait for the show’s catalog. I’ll look for you next week, and be sure to bring your daughter along for the opening. You won’t want her in the loft, but my secretary here has a place in New Jersey and she would look after Kate for a day or two.”

  “Dad,” I say, “we’ve got to tell Morgan the truth. He’s arranging all this stuff because he thinks you’ll be there.”

  “He loves doing it. No need to disappoint him. Let him have his fun. I’ll try to make a timely exit so my obituary gets in the New York Times just before the show opens. Terrific publicity.”

  “That’s an awful thing to say.” I’m shaken and feel my eyes burning, but Dad only laughs.

  Dad has a lawyer, Mr. Krull, come over, and they talk behind closed doors. I can tell from the way Mr. Krull’s voice goes up and down that he has a lot of questions about what Dad wants to do. After he leaves, Dad tells me Mr. Krull will deposit several thousand dollars in an account at the bank in both Dad’s name and mine. Grocery money, he says, and tells me to use some of it to buy myself clothes. I don’t buy any clothes, but I do splurge on a fancy Christmas cake from the Polish bakery.

  On Christmas morning I run to the window, hoping the weatherman was wrong and that there is fresh snow. Instead it’s a typical Detroit winter day, overcast, with leftover mushy snow on the ground in shades of Portland gray medium and Portland gray dark. I brave Dad’s protests and get him dressed up in his best sport shirt. For a Christmas present I’ve painted a portrait of Dad, but I’m afraid to give it to him. I’m afraid he’ll say how amateurish it is.

  He tells me he has something for me and it’s in the front closet. I find a big package all wrapped in Christmas paper. Erlita must have done it for him. He watches me unwrap it. It’s his pallet and paint box. I throw my arms around him
and kiss him on the cheek. It’s the first time I’ve done that, and we’re both embarrassed. Feeling bold, I run upstairs and get the portrait. His hands are shaking as he holds it, and he looks at it for a long time. “Not bad,” he says.

  At dinner, which Dad hardly eats in spite of how tender the turkey is, I try to get him talking about his own Christmases as a boy. The thing about having your parents separated is that you lose half your family stories. I want to catch up. “What was it like when you were a kid?” I ask, meaning Christmas, but that isn’t what he talks about.

  “My mother used to call me her changeling,” he says. “You know what a changeling is? A child who has been substituted for the real child. I didn’t care about what my dad and my brother cared about, fooling around with cars, hunting and fishing, never missing a high school basketball game on Friday nights. I mean, I did all those things and I was even good at some of them, but I didn’t enjoy them. I was the best marksman in the family, but I hated the killing. I hated seeing the gutted bodies of the deer strung up in town on opening day.”

  I want to tell him I do too, but he doesn’t give me a chance. Once he starts, he doesn’t want to stop.

  “I married your mother because everyone else was getting married.”

  I stared at him. “That’s why you married Mom?”

  “I know how that sounds, and it wasn’t the only reason. I loved your mother, and I tried to put the two parts of my life together. The normal guy and the artist. It just didn’t work. I’m not proud of what happened to our marriage. I know I’ve hurt people, but that’s the way I am. What I care about is my work.”

  All he cares about is his work? That’s the way I am. That’s his excuse for hurting Mom and me? I’ve never been able to express how I feel about Dad’s paintings, but now in my anger and disappointment it all comes out. “You’re like your paintings,” I say. “They’re like a slap in everyone’s face. They shock you with their ugliness, but they don’t give you anything back.” I remember van Gogh’s ugly painting of the poor man and woman, and how you felt not only the ugliness but pity too. “There’s no pity in your paintings.”