The Book in Room 316

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  My first instinct was to tell them that where I was going was none of their business. But when I did get back, I wanted everyone out of my house. And I knew anything other than a “soon” would lead to another twenty minutes of them pleading with me not to leave.

  “Soon,” I said. “Fifteen, twenty minutes. Go back inside and enjoy yourself. I’ll be back.”

  “You know we all have been worried about you,” Marian said. “These emotional outbursts, your sadness . . .”

  I should’ve known that was coming. Ever since Elizabeth died, my children had been complaining about how “different” I was. I lost my soul mate. How did they think I was supposed to act?

  “I was doing some research—”

  “I’ll be back.” I cut Marian off before she could finish. She had done two years of community college, but the Internet made her act like she had three medical degrees.

  As I pulled out of the driveway, I stared at my family staring at me.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I repeated.

  The words danced in my head and I fought off the urge to add, “Just please be gone when I return.”

  chapter

  * * *

  15

  The gentle tap on the window startled me. I didn’t even realize how long I had been sitting in the driveway of my longtime friend’s house. We’d been knowing each other since the early seventies, when my construction company remodeled his law offices. I rolled down the window and Bruce stuck his head in.

  His brow furrowed. “Hey, big guy. What are you doing?”

  “Hey, Bruce,” I said.

  “How’s it going?”

  “I’m making it,” I replied.

  Bruce stood back, studied me, and then said, “I got the bourbon on the deck. Come on.”

  I rolled my window up, then pulled myself out of the truck and followed my friend up the walkway into his home of thirty-plus years. Bruce was a widower as well, but the only difference was he had long gotten over his lost love and gone through a flurry of women to help him heal. Something I not only had never done, but had zero desire to ever do.

  “So, what’s going on? What brings you to my house, and on your birthday at that? Happy birthday, by the way. But why are you sitting here in my driveway? Just sitting there like an old girlfriend stalking me.” He winked as he dropped some ice cubes into a small glass and then poured a drink. “I looked out of the window and thought you were Betty Jean Boiling. She’s been after me for weeks.”

  “I had to get out of my house,” I said, taking the glass and immediately downing the drink. The liquor burned my throat before settling in my stomach. “My sons, daughter, grandkids are all over. It’s just all too much.”

  “I would think you’d like having a house full of folks.”

  “They just never shut up,” I said.

  A hearty laugh filled Bruce, and his round belly jiggled as he spoke. “You shouldn’t have had that baseball team.”

  “I only had six kids.”

  “Only and six don’t go together,” Bruce chuckled, sliding into his La-Z-Boy recliner. “Have a seat.”

  I plopped down on the sofa across from him, feeling as if the weight of seven planets was on my shoulders.

  “So what’s got you so down, buddy?”

  I hesitated. I had never really talked to anyone about my feelings after losing Elizabeth. Following her death, I just kind of shut down. I didn’t think anyone could understand the depths of the pain I was feeling.

  “How did you recover?” I finally asked Bruce. “How are you able to just be so carefree and footloose? Just continue living life? Because I know you loved Laura.”

  “Oh, I did love her. With all my heart. But Laura died. I didn’t,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s just it,” I replied. “I feel like I did die. This has been the hardest year of my life.”

  “But you know Elizabeth wouldn’t want you walking around here moping.”

  “It’s been a year, and it still feels like yesterday when I put her in the ground. I’m just tired, Bruce. Tired of walking this earth with this huge hole in my heart.”

  He nodded in understanding. “I get it. Maybe you need to go out on a date.”

  I cut my eyes at my friend. That was his answer to everything. A woman. It didn’t matter that he was the spitting image of Santa Claus, minus fifty pounds, Bruce kept a smorgasbord of women. But that was his thing, not mine. “Now, you know that’s not about to happen.”

  “Okay. Let me rephrase that. Maybe you need to go find something social to do,” Bruce corrected.

  I released a heavy sigh. “I just don’t have any desire to do anything. My kids think I should go see a psychiatrist.”

  “What?” Bruce said, as if the mere thought was an abomination. “Come on, buddy. You’re really going to go lay on somebody’s sofa and talk about what ails you? How crazy is that?”

  “I know you’re right,” I said. “You know I’m not doing that. But I gotta do something.”

  “You know what you gotta do? Go see Elizabeth and tell her goodbye. A real, I’m-moving-on goodbye. I guarantee you, if you get there and talk to her for a few minutes, and listen to her talk to you, she’ll tell you she wants you to move on and be happy.”

  I thought about what my friend was saying. I visited my wife’s grave regularly. I talked to her and often felt that she was talking back. But I’d never asked her what she wanted for me. Maybe she would give me some advice on how to heal.

  “Okay. I’m going do that,” I announced.

  “Good, now here.” He extended the bottle toward me. “This bourbon isn’t going to drink itself.”

  We sat and talked for another hour, with Bruce trying to make me laugh, to no avail. Finally, I could tell I was bringing my friend down, so I said, “I have to get going. You’re right. I’m going to head by Elizabeth’s grave. That’s what I need. I need to be with Elizabeth.”

  Bruce shook his head like I was a lost cause. He stood to walk me to the door. “Ollie, I don’t know what you need, but you need to do something because I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  I could only reply with a grunt.

  I didn’t like seeing me like this. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the dark cloud that hung over me.

  chapter

  * * *

  16

  The rain had stopped me from going to see my beloved wife, and I had hoped it had been the cue for my children to go home. Unfortunately, when I pulled up in front of my house, all of the cars were still there. I considered flooring the gas and driving past. But the day had been long and I was tired. I stifled my groan, threw my truck into park, and then got out and walked inside.

  As soon as the front door opened, the mood in the room instantly shifted. The chatter that had filled it was gone. An uneasy silence blanketed the room as everyone turned their attention toward me.

  “Daddy. We’re so glad you’re back,” Marian said, jumping up to greet me. She tried to hug me, but I wasn’t in the mood and kept my arms at my sides.

  I walked around her and into my living room. “I’m back now. So, y’all can leave. It’s getting pretty late.” My eyes stopped on my daughter Mandy, who was sitting on the sofa with a worried expression on her face. My youngest daughter, Yvonne, sat next to her, her arms folded, her lips pursed in anger.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Mandy said. “Sorry I was late for the party. I had to work.”

  “Hello,” I told her, then looked at her sister. “Yvonne, what’s wrong?”

  I could’ve sworn she had tears in her eyes. But she didn’t say a word as she stood and left the room.

  The silence made me frown. “What’s going on?”

  “Dad, we need to talk to you,” Charlie said.

  Jeremiah looked at me with unspoken words, and the expression on his face made me uneasy. I was taken aback when he walked over, hugged me, muttered, “I love you,” and then went outside on the deck.

  I watched
him walk out and turned my attention back to the five sets of eyes on me—Marian, Mandy, Charlie, Cole, and Charlie’s older daughter, Paige. “Talk to me about what?”

  “Can you have a seat?” Charlie said.

  I almost protested, but I decided that the sooner I did what they asked, the sooner they would get out of my house. In that instant, I made a mental note to change the locks because I just wanted everyone to leave me alone.

  “Dad, we’ve been talking and we think this thing you’re in is not healthy,” Charlie began.

  I cocked my head and studied my oldest son. He and I had never mixed well. He was WD-40 and I was H2O. Elizabeth had been the peace in our storm. She kept us from killing each other, especially during his teenaged years. She often said that Charlie was just like me—headstrong and defiant. That’s why we butted heads. But Charlie was also the worst of my abusive father. Granted, Charlie’s abuse was verbal, and mostly directed at Jeremiah, but he could still be a vile human being.

  “And what thing would that be that I’m in?” I asked.

  “The depression, Dad,” Marian interjected. “We think you’re depressed, and we have to say it again, we think you really should go see a psychiatrist.”

  I stared at my daughter, suppressing the words I wanted to say. Bruce was right. There was nothing in my head that talking to some doctor could heal. There was no cure for a broken heart, and that was the only thing wrong with me.

  “I have the number of my therapist and she’s very good,” Mandy said, finally speaking.

  I looked at my privileged next-to-youngest daughter, who spent time with her therapist because she couldn’t cope with the demands of motherhood and working a part-time job. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Both Marian and Mandy had always been spoiled and couldn’t handle adversity, so they used therapy as a coping mechanism. The last thing I wanted to do was take advice from someone who had somehow never helped Mandy manage her inability to cope all these years.

  Yvonne, who had been our surprise baby when Mandy was ten, reappeared in the doorway. But this time there was no doubt that she was crying. She was the complete opposite of my other children. I could only assume the fact that she’d left the room meant that she didn’t agree with whatever it was they were trying to tell me.

  “Another thing,” Cole interjected, his eyes darting back and forth between his siblings, “we’ve been thinking, and we want to sell the house.”

  Cole always had been the crazy one. We had a bout where he was messing around with drugs his freshman year of college. To my knowledge, he was clean now, but obviously those drugs had fried his brain. I’d lived in this house for over fifty years. There was no way I was going to let children I brought into this world kick me out of my home. I owned this house outright, and I’d be damned if my kids would just up and decide they were going to sell it.

  “Dad, we really feel like you need to be in a facility.” This time it was Marian talking. As if, because she was the bossiest of the bunch, she’d been the designee to convince me that somehow this was a viable idea.

  “So let me get this straight. On my birthday—on the anniversary of your mother’s death—you come here to tell me you want to sell my house and put me in an old folks’ home?” I asked, drawing my words out to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood them.

  Marian nodded. “We think you have early-onset Alzheimer’s . . .”

  “There ain’t nothing wrong with me!” I shouted. “I’m old, dammit. I may forget things from time to time, but it doesn’t mean I have Alzheimer’s.”

  I was so sick of them. I’d gotten lost a few times, mixed up their names (like most parents), and lost my keys a dozen or so times, and Marian had declared that I had early-onset Alzheimer’s. The only disease I had was missing-my-wife-and-not-standing-my-kids-itis.

  “We think,” Marian said, her voice still calm, like she was talking to her terror toddlers, “that your forgetfulness, along with your depression, and the strain of maintaining this house, is just all too much. It’s time to let the house—and the strain and pain of it all—go.” She put her hand on my arm, as if that simple gesture would make her words less piercing.

  “This is all of our home, so this is a decision we did not make lightly. But being here, around all of Mom’s stuff, is just contributing to your depression. We actually feel like the change would do you good,” Marian added.

  I looked at Yvonne. “Are you on board with this?”

  “Of course not,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “It doesn’t really matter because she’s outvoted,” Charlie said, glaring at his baby sister. “She thinks that because she’s a nurse, she can take care of you. But she works in the ER. She barely has time for her own child—hence the reason her ex-husband has custody.”

  “You know what . . . ?” Yvonne said, taking a step toward her brother.

  Cole grabbed her arm to stop her as Marian jumped back into the conversation.

  “We don’t want to fight about this.” She flashed a smile at me again. “Daddy, just give it a chance.”

  “And we’re not talking about putting you in any old home, Dad,” Charlie added. “It’s more like an assisted living facility, where you can be around other people like you.”

  “Like me?” I snapped. “Do I have the plague?”

  “Nooo, Dad,” Charlie said, rubbing the bald spot in the middle of his curly hair like he was frustrated and I was being ridiculous. “Other old people.”

  “Yeah, you can play bingo and you guys can go do old people stuff together,” Cole said. “You might even find you a nice companion.”

  I had to take a moment to figure out how many ways I was going to curse out my son. “Boy, if y’all don’t get the hell out of my house,” I yelled. “Have you ever known me to play bingo? And I dang sure ain’t interested in any companion. Just go!” My patience had gone wherever Charlie’s hairline went, and I let them all know it by the way I stomped into my kitchen.

  Unfortunately, all of them followed me in.

  “We talked to Bert and he’s in agreement,” Marian said, referring to her older brother, who lived in California.

  “I don’t care if you talked to the Pope, Jehovah, and the Three Wise Men. I ain’t going nowhere!”

  “Dad, do not overreact,” Marian said. “You’re getting older. You’re spiraling into this depression and you haven’t accepted that we all have to die.”

  “Grandma lived a good life,” my oldest granddaughter, Paige, said. I wanted to ask her why she was even in here in this grown folks’ conversation. But since Charlie and his wife had been letting her do what she wanted since she was five, I didn’t bother. Besides, there was nothing a nineteen-year-old spoiled brat could say to me anyway.

  “And that’s what you need to focus on,” Marian added. “Mom is gone and we’re very sad about it. But you can’t stay in that sad place. It’s just not healthy.”

  “I’m gonna ask you all again,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m tired and I want each and every one of you to leave my house.”

  They exchanged glances until Marian folded her arms.

  “Well, Dad, it’s already done,” she announced. “I have power of attorney, and the decision has already been made.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Yvonne snapped. I don’t think I had ever seen my daughter so angry. It was obvious that whatever decision they’d made didn’t have her stamp of approval. “Happy birthday, Daddy. I hope you enjoy this gift from your kids.” Then she turned and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door on her way out.

  I was speechless. Marian had been taking care of all my bills (with my money, of course) since Elizabeth died, but that was because she was always the responsible one. Elizabeth and I had given her power of attorney when Elizabeth was sick, so that she could take care of our financial matters while I took care of the children’s mother.

  I glanced at my daughter, trying to see what kind of evil had taken over her soul. “When we
gave you that power of attorney, we never imagined you would use it to tear my world apart. Your mother would be heartbroken,” I said, not bothering to hide the hurt in my voice. How could children who I’d spent my whole life caring for turn on me like this?

  “No, she wanted us to take care of you, and this”—Marian motioned around the cluttered kitchen—“no one should live like this.”

  Yes, my dishes were piled high and dirty coffee cups lined the sink, but domestic stuff wasn’t my thing. Shoot, they’d been here all day. If my kitchen bothered them that much, then they could’ve cleaned it.

  “You shouldn’t live like this, in all of this clutter,” Marian continued. “That’s why we think it’s best that you go to an assisted living facility. Some of them are really nice. We’ll find one you like. And we know you don’t like it, but we have made the decision that this is something that we have to do.”

  “Over my dead body,” I spat.

  “Dad, we’re really worried about you,” Cole said.

  “Well, don’t worry about me,” I said, moving toward the living room. “Just get the hell out of my house.”

  All of them knew better than to argue with me when I was mad, and I was on a whole other level of fury.

  “Come on, Britt,” Charlie said to his wife, who had been sitting in the corner in the living room, not saying anything. Her standard MO. I often forgot Britt was in a room, because she was like a Stepford wife. She spoke only when Charlie gave her permission. “Grab the kids and let’s go. I told you guys Dad would act like this. We’ll talk to him later when he’s more rational.”

  “You don’t need to talk to me later!” I knocked a vase to the floor as I stomped toward the front door and swung it open. “I’m real rational!” I took a deep breath when I noticed Jeremiah standing in the doorway, staring at me with wide-eyed concern. “I’m tired of people trying to dictate my life,” I said, my voice now even as I struggled to maintain some semblance of calm. “If I want to mourn my wife for the rest of my life, I will.”