Home Is Burning

by Dan Marshall

  “I’m going home to take care of my dying parents,” I’d say. “Lou Gehrig’s disease and cancer. They’re dying like super fast.”

  “Sorry man. That’s horrible,” they’d say back, a little uncomfortable. “You’re a good man for going.”

  “I know. I’m a hero of sorts,” I’d joke back. I sort of loved how uncomfortable the whole thing made everyone. I was pretty desensitized to tragedy because my mom had been sick my whole life, but other people my age weren’t.

  “Man, my parents are going to be dead soon,” I’d say.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” they’d say, getting more and more uneasy.

  * * *

  My last few days of work were easy. I was just wrapping up a couple of projects and tying some loose ends, as they say in the business world. I couldn’t take on any new projects, so there wasn’t a lot for me to do. One of my bosses jokingly called me a “lame duck account executive.” I had worked really hard during my time there, so it was kind of nice to go on cruise control. Mostly I spent my last days at the office in the break room, twisting off caps of the free Snapples they provided and reading the Snapple Real Fact aloud to whoever would listen: “A bee has five eyelids.”

  I wasn’t sleeping much. I’d lie in my bed at night, a slight L.A. breeze fanning through my balcony door, carrying with it the faint sound of a few wild drunks still searching for excitement. I’d stare at the cottage-cheese ceiling thinking about what I was in for.

  I was nervous. I had never been any good at taking care of people. My dad and I used to go boating at Bear Lake on the Utah-Idaho border every summer. The last time we went, he asked me to put sunscreen on his back. I did a lazy, sloppy job of it and he got the worst sunburn of his life. You could actually see all the spots my dumpy, lazy little fingers had missed. Was this going to be another Bear Lake situation? Was I going to be really shitty at taking care of him?

  I hadn’t spent a lot of time around my dad since his condition had worsened and he needed more care—certainly no more than just a few moments here and there, like the Boston Marathon dick washing. I’d mainly watch my mom or Greg care for him, electing to just sit on the outside looking in, while making silly jokes. It wasn’t a world I had entered yet, but here I was, finally on the precipice, about to jump in.

  I started to wonder how I should approach this whole situation when I got home. Should I just be a sad jerk? A stubborn asshole about helping out? Or should I be really positive and willing? I wasn’t going to be working, with the leave from Abernathy MacGregor and all. I wouldn’t have anything else to distract me. This could just be what I focused on for a while. I could just get wrist-deep in this dying-parents shit. Feel everything. Do everything. Roll around in the mud. Really experience the horrible reality of death firsthand. That would make me a wiser and better person, right? That would help me grow up, right? That would give me life experience that would put everything else in perspective, right?

  But if I was wiping my dad’s ass every day, what would our relationship become? Could we still crack sex jokes and talk about the Jazz? Or would it be all about the Lou Gehrig’s disease? And how much more time would I actually have with my pal? Was I going to go home and watch him die within a couple of months? It seemed unfathomable that he would go that fast, but he had an aggressive version of an already aggressive disease. He could easily die soon. Or could we get him stabilized so he could live a long, long time? That was the goal.

  Should we even be fighting this disease? Was making our house wheelchair accessible and having him go on a respirator mean, causing unnecessary suffering for him and the rest of us? Would we be better off doing nothing and letting him go quietly and quickly? I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions, and I wasn’t too eager to discover them.

  * * *

  Abby came to town from Berkeley to spend my last weekend in Los Angeles with me. It was also my birthday weekend. Big twenty-five. I had made a little L.A. bucket list of things to do before I left, so we went to a beach in Malibu, saw a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and walked around the La Brea Tar Pits. Pretty lame bucket list, I know. But my parents were dying. Life wasn’t just about fucking around anymore.

  Abby had been incredibly supportive up until now, but as my departure back to Salt Lake approached, she seemed to get a little more distant. While we were sitting at Zuma Beach in Malibu, watching the endless California waves roll to the shore, I noticed that she was acting off—quiet, not her usual cheery, smiley self.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said as she intensified the speed at which she flipped through her US Weekly, a sign that something was definitely wrong. When you spend so much time with someone, even a slight change in behavior is obvious.

  “Come on. What’s up? Do you want me to put my shirt back on? Is my whiteness hurting your eyes or something?” I joked.

  “It’s just, you’re taking time off work, and I was hoping you’d come spend a couple weeks with me up in Berkeley before moving back,” she explained. That didn’t really make sense to me. Things were bad at home. I wasn’t going back for vacation. I was returning to deal with some real-life shit. I had put off going home for as long as I could.

  “I’d love to go up to Berkeley, but I have to go back now. We’re in crisis mode,” I explained.

  “I know, but … I love you and I don’t want you to have to do this.” She began to cry. I pulled her in close to my pasty body and gave her a giant kiss. She was my first love. I adored everything about her. I loved her calm, relaxed demeanor that seemed to embody the California lifestyle. I loved how smart she was and how she’d excitedly try to explain quantum physics to my dumb ass. I loved that she’d make a clicking sound with her jaw when she slept. I loved that she was always happy, like a golden retriever shooing away the darkness. I loved that she’d snuggle up to me as close as she could get any chance she got. I loved that she’d laugh hysterically at all my dumb jokes. She made me feel safe and comfortable just being me. I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t lose her.

  I told her that we’d make it work, that she could visit as often as she liked and I’d visit her as frequently as I could. We were already doing the long-distance thing, so she’d just be coming to Salt Lake instead of Los Angeles.

  But she was scared. She had never so much as lost a grandparent. She wasn’t used to handling anything this intense. She, like the rest of us, wished that my dad had never gotten this fucking disease. Our life together had been an endless vacation, and that vacation was coming to an end. I hoped that this whole thing would bring us closer together, that we’d realize if we could get through this we could get through anything. It would certainly test our relationship in ways that it hadn’t been tested before. It’s easy to be together when things are good, but when they’re bad? That’s a whole different story.

  I kissed the tears off her soft lips and forced a smile. I pledged that I’d eventually make it back to the good life in California to be with her full-time as soon as I could.

  After a bittersweet weekend, I dropped Abby off at the Burbank Airport and kissed her good-bye.

  “I love you, babe,” I said.

  “I love you, too. Don’t drink too much,” she said.

  “Just my usual amount,” I said.

  “That’s too much,” she said.

  I watched her walk away into the airport shuffle.

  * * *

  My friends Aria and Henry flew in from Salt Lake to help me with the move. Most of my friends had stayed back in Utah while I went away for college. Utah is a strange place socially because all non-Mormons—no matter your background—bond together. If you aren’t Mormon, you are in this secret little club of “bad kids” who drink, swear, and have premarital sex—a blatant reaction to the oppressive religious vibe. Drinking is a huge part of showcasing that you aren’t Mormon, so most of my friends from home are heavy drinkers. Anytime I’d come back, it was always a boozy shitshow. My frie
nd Dominic—who we called the Mayor of Salt Lake because of his strong affinity for the city—always made sure I was good and drunk while visiting.

  But for help with the move, I decided to ask Aria and Henry. They were my closest, most dependable friends, and shared my dark sense of humor. I’d known Henry since the fifth grade and Aria since the seventh. They were the first two friends who called me when word got out about my dad having Lou Gehrig’s disease, so I knew I could turn to them.

  I picked Aria and Henry up from the airport, and we rented an eighteen-foot U-Haul with a giant triceratops decal running along the side.

  “Wow, this is a complete piece of shit,” I said, looking at the monster.

  “Yeah, it is. Let’s call it ‘Big Sexy,’” Henry suggested.

  “Perfect. She is big and she sure is sexy,” said Aria as he seductively jacked off one of the triceratops’s horns.

  “God, I wish my parents weren’t dying,” I said with a deep breath as I kicked one of Big Sexy’s big sexy tires, trying out some of my morbid humor on my pals.

  “You need to stop saying shit like that,” said Henry. “It makes everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable.”

  “I know. I will … But it’s true. My parents are dying,” I said once more time for good measure.

  “We know. You’ve mentioned it like fifty times in the last hour,” said Henry. “We get it.”

  “I don’t think you do, Henry, because your parents aren’t dying,” I said with a slick smile.

  “You’re an asshole,” Henry said.

  We set about filling Big Sexy with my life: clothes, DVDs, some shitty Ikea furniture I had poorly assembled myself. The U-Haul was way too big for what I owned, so everything was bound to slide around, but fuck it. Who cares? Part of me thought I should just run all this junk to the dump and start over completely when I got home.

  As we packed, it hit me. When you’re first leaving a town, it’s sort of exciting, like the opening of a new book, but this book was going to be a tough read—Infinite Jest times a million. I was moving from palm trees to pine trees. From beaches to mountains. From assholes to Mormons. From the living world to the dying world. From the selfish world to the selfless world. In L.A., I was on track to achieve society’s idea of happiness—independence, a career. I even had a girlfriend I wanted to marry sooner or later. My life was great. What was about to happen to it?

  But my sadness was coupled with something else, something bigger. During those last days in California, I felt more pride than regret, because I knew I was doing the right thing. They were, after all, my parents. They had given me the opportunity to live this happy life in L.A. I couldn’t continue to ignore that. They had taken great care of me. It was my turn to return the favor.

  Henry, Aria, and I loaded up the last few boxes into Big Sexy and slammed down the heavy back door. I hugged my roommate Gabe, who said good-bye with sad eyes.

  “Fucking dads,” he said, shaking his head, probably remembering his father’s battle with cancer.

  “Fucking dads,” I repeated back. We gave each other a final hug.

  I rubbed my hand across Big Sexy’s front hood. I’d drive that beast while Aria and Henry followed behind in my out-of-place-given-that-everyone-in-Los-Angeles-drives-a-fucking-sweet-car Subaru.

  “Try to keep up with Big Sexy, motherfuckers,” I said, jumping into the truck.

  I took one last look at my apartment building, at the palm trees waving in the blue California sky. I put Big Sexy in drive and started toward my new life, as ready as I would ever be for the long, shitty road ahead.

  MY NEW JOB

  Coming home had always been a joyous event. Our house was a relaxing refuge away from the scary real world. It was full of lots of entertainment options, from our tennis court right down to our pinball machines. It was a hub for all our social activities—the place where everyone always wanted to hang out. My high school friends had nicknamed it “The Marshall House of Fun.” Usually my arrival was greeted with an ecstatic “Danny’s home!” followed by smiles and hugs. Fuck, sometimes there would even be a sign hanging above the garage that read, WELCOME HOME DAN THE MAN. I’d toss my bags at my smiling dad, who would gladly carry them to my room with his fully functional arms, while I fucked around with the dogs and made sure the pantry was stocked with enough pretzels and beer to get me through my stay. After putting my bags in my room, my dad would usually pop a fresh bottle of wine saved for a special occasion and we’d sit in our gazebo, gazing at the Wasatch Mountains and catching up. My mom would bring us more wine and we’d grill up a steak dinner. We’d all eat together and let the food, wine, and company overwhelm us into bliss while thinking, Being rich and drunk sure is nice.

  Part of me was hoping coming home this time would be the same as always.

  But when I rolled Big Sexy into our cracked driveway, I was shocked to see our house. It was now fully buried in construction work. They had started building the elevator shaft and redoing a few of the bathrooms while widening some hallways. My mom figured that since we were already doing work on the house, she’d also have the kitchen and a couple of other bathrooms updated. The whole place had that ugly midproject look to it: tarps, tools, planks of wood scattered about. Construction workers streamed in and out as if they lived there. There was no WELCOME HOME DAN THE MAN sign. There was no wine. The dogs didn’t even run out to greet me. Instead, a cat I’d never seen before and my now bald-from-chemo mother—who wore an old-lady nightgown that made her look like the Ghost of Cancer Past—stood waiting for me at the front door. I hugged my mom’s fragile, diseased body as the stranger cat rubbed up against me, getting its germs and hair all over my spoiled white leg.

  “Whose fucking cat is this?” I asked, kicking it away.

  “His name is Pierre … or maybe this one is Pongo … I can’t remember. It’s Tiffany’s. Her boyfriend is allergic. Her cats stay here now.”

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked. “I was thinking we’d have a glass of wine.”

  “He’s hooked to his BiPAP machine. He doesn’t drink anymore. He gets his food and water from his feeding tube. Remember?” she said.

  “Well, fuck me. The house looks like shit,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, everything is going to hell. Welcome home.” She glided away to go lie down.

  Henry and Aria pulled up in my Subaru. I had somehow beaten them back despite Big Sexy’s size. Henry got out, took one look at the scene in front of him, and said, “Whoa, what happened to the Marshall House of Fun?”

  * * *

  So there I was. Back in Utah. Back in my once happy childhood home, now haunted by a pair of terminally ill parents, construction workers, and strange cats. All my siblings, except Tiffany, were back living in the house, but it wasn’t the safe, relaxing nest it once was. It was now a hectic place where it was impossible to get a moment alone. Every morning at six thirty, Jessica and Chelsea would get up for school. Jessica drove herself, but Chelsea was part of a morning car pool the Mormon neighbors had organized. Then my dad and mom would get up. My mom was off to chemo, but my dad needed to be showered, dressed, fed, and looked after for the whole day. He could still walk and would leave the house every day to go to his office or run errands. But when he was home, he was mainly hooked up to his BiPAP machine.

  It seemed as though someone was always coming or going. In addition to all the construction workers, visitors would pop by at all hours to check on my mom and dad. Every night, a Mormon neighbor would bring over a meal—usually lasagna. It was strange to suddenly be basking in the glow of neighborly love. Before this our neighbors had wanted nothing to do with us. In fact, when we first moved in, none of the children our age were allowed to play with us; they thought we were bad kids simply because we didn’t have the same religious beliefs. But now they were feeding us and driving Chelsea to school? Why? Did they actually feel sorry for us? Or were they using us to win points with Jesus?

  I felt as if my life path had somehow jumped off
course and was heading into a dark, depressing, alcohol-filled ditch. I was actually doing this. I was really home. My parents were really sick. The playpen that had been my life was closed.

  Stana—who seemed to always be hanging around even when it wasn’t her day to work—put it best: “Danny, this is you new home. No like old home.”

  But I tried to remain positive and decided that I was going to work as hard as I could to make things better. I didn’t come home to relax and play tennis this time. I came home to help my parents. This was, after all, my new job. I started in.

  * * *

  Like anyone at any new job, I was horrible at it my first few days. I didn’t know how to do anything, and even the simplest tasks seemed impossibly hard. I needed a trainer. At first, I thought it’d be my mom. But soon it became clear that she really couldn’t care for my dad anymore. The chemo was ruining her as it battled the cancer. Through all the years of watching her go through treatment, I had never seen her this bad. She had already dropped tons of weight. She could barely keep any food down. She could hardly do anything but sleep. She was just a giant lump on her bed hidden beneath her comforter. She needed someone to care for her, too.

  Tiffany had started her M.B.A. at Westminster College in Salt Lake. She’d decided to go the business route instead of becoming a lawyer. BCB had opted to stick with the lawyer junk, so he’d packed his bags and was off to the University of Maine in Portland. They’d be doing the long-distance thing. Tiff had a full schedule between her M.B.A., work, and visiting BCB in Maine, so she wasn’t around much. Plus, we were still at each other’s throats. Ever since the cruise, every encounter between us would spark a fight.

  “Finally made it back, huh?” she said as she stopped by to check in one afternoon between work and class.