When they rolled him out of the ICU and into his private room, my father spent hours holding my hand. My father, who, in a few short years had grown older, his features softer, his body losing its definition. He’d fallen asleep like that, and when he woke up, his face betrayed terror until he saw my face, and then he smiled, still under the influence of the anesthesia.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he mumbled.
As if I was the one who saved him.
I saw him last night for our usual Sunday dinner, a ritual that, I think, gives us both more comfort than we are willing to admit to each other. We had talked about nothing all evening, and then I drove him back home. He went inside, closing the door, leaving me standing on the mat outside.
Instead of walking back to my car, I stayed there a moment in the dark.
I could hear him walking around inside. I imagined him going, before anything else, to his LPs, greeting them like old friends, running his fingers over their well-worn spines. I imagined him taking his time, looking for the right one, the one that would carry within it whatever he was feeling tonight. Soon, I knew, he would find it. Soon he would slide it from its cardboard sleeve, place it on the turntable, and lower the waiting needle.
The Far Field Page 40
