A Life Worth Living

by Lorrie Kruse

  Her lips parted. The eyebrows rose further.

  “I slept away only half my day.”

  Her mouth slammed closed and her eyebrows relaxed. Clearly not the news she’d been hoping for. She pushed the bag closer to him. “I brought you something to keep you busy for a while. Maybe you can stay awake even longer tomorrow.”

  “That’s sweet.” I don’t need gifts, babe, just you. He peeked into the bag. A new personal CD player, still in its rigid plastic tomb. Two cellophane-wrapped CDs. He glanced up at Crystal when he saw the artists. Brooks and Dunn. Toby Keith. Music he liked that she hated.

  “Figured I was safe since the CD player comes with headphones,” she said, giving him a smile.

  He looked back in the bag. A bundle of AA batteries. “You weren’t kidding about keeping me busy, were you? It’ll take hours to get through all this plastic.”

  “I thought you liked a good challenge.”

  He tucked the bag next to his pillow and said, “Thanks, babe.”

  “My turn, now.” His mother gave him a quick hug and then handed him another plastic bag. “I brought your mail and the things you asked for.”

  “The picture?” Matt asked. If he had to be stuck here another six weeks or more, he wanted to make this place feel more like home. Which meant having Crystal’s picture on the nightstand.

  “Picture?” Crystal asked.

  “Yeah, the one of you from camping.” He dug through the bag until he found it. He handed it to Crystal. “Can you put this on the nightstand?”

  She held it in both hands. She seemed to not breathe as she stared at the image.

  “I love that picture.” His eyes were drawn to the woman pressed beneath the glass. “That look in your eyes. The curve of your lips. You look so in love…and all I can think is you were looking at me.”

  Her gaze shifted to meet his.

  “I love you so much, Crystal.”

  “Good God, they’re going to kiss,” his father said. A hint of laughter tinged his voice.

  Matt kept his eyes on Crystal. “I’ll spare you, Dad. Crystal and I have the rest of our lives to kiss, don’t we?”

  Her nod was little more than a quick jerk of her chin. He tried to dismiss the sense of rejection until he noticed a movement from the corner of his eye. Crystal, twirling her engagement ring around her finger.

  His father coughed, long and hard, along with a good round of chest thumping.

  “You okay?” Matt asked, looking away from Crystal’s fidgeting.

  “Just a little burp is all.” His dad popped a handful of antacids in his mouth.

  “Geeze. I’d hate to see a big one.”

  “It’s all that greasy fast food you’ve been eating for lunch,” Matt’s mother said.

  Matt’s eyebrows slid together. “Fast food? You not making lunch anymore, Ma?”

  “Your father said it’s easier to just grab a burger and eat it on the jobsite.”

  “I just like a good greasy burger every now and then, that’s all.” His father slid the roll of Tums into his pocket and then pulled out a deck of cards. “I’m going to fall asleep if I just sit here doing nothing. Anybody want to play cards?”

  “Sounds like a great idea,” Matt said. Keep Crystal’s hands full of cards, she won’t be able to play with the ring. He reached behind him, grabbed the side rail, and pulled. Trying to roll onto his back, he was more than aware of his father just feet away. Against his will, he let out a soft moan as his neck muscles tightened. Damn, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but at least he could feel it.

  “Honey, you should ask for help,” Crystal said. She rubbed his arm as he flopped onto his back.

  “Sure thing, babe. As soon as I need some help, I’ll ask.”

  His father stared at him. Matt grinned, holding the smile in place, pretending he didn’t need help with most everything he did these days. He pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, more than aware he couldn’t sit up on his own. Something so frigging simple a baby could do.

  He looked at his legs. They were all twisted, like a rag doll that’d been tossed into the air. A tightness that was becoming all too familiar formed in his chest.

  “Dummy Rummy?” his father asked as he dealt the cards.

  “You can skip me,” Crystal said.

  Sure. Keep your hands free to fiddle with the damn ring. “It’ll be fun.” He gave her his winning smile while he moved the over-bed table closer, trying to camouflage his twisted legs. “I promise.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Deal me in.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  With two wins in his pocket, Matt forgot his twisted legs, forgot Crystal’s reminder that he couldn’t do anything on his own, and forgot the helpless feeling that made him want to cry. He put his cards down and said, “Looks like I win again.”

  Glancing at Crystal’s cards, he instantly added her damages. “Ooh, babe. Twenty-five points. Sorry.” He shifted to his mom’s cards. “But not as bad as that. Sixty?”

  “I still don’t get how you do that,” his mom said. “You barely looked at my cards.”

  He tapped his forehead. “Powerful calculator.” He shifted his attention to his dad, who was adding his cards to the running score for their third game. “You’ve got a total of seventy-five,” Matt said. “Ma’s at one fifty, Crystal’s at ninety, and I’m the king at fifty-five.”

  His father ignored him as he added everyone’s scores. After a moment, he tossed down the pencil. “Should have sent you to college to be a banker.”

  “Or an accountant,” his mother added.

  “Don’t think so. I much prefer pounding nails to pounding adding machine keys.” At age five, he’d wanted to be a fireman. Three months later, he wanted to be a dentist. A few months after that, a dinosaur. But from the time his father had first brought him to one of the homes he’d been remodeling, there’d been no question about what Matt was going to do when he grew up. He’d known that he’d work side-by-side with his father.

  His father yawned, stretching his arms wide above his head. “Speaking of pounding nails, dawn comes mighty early.”

  Matt hated what was coming next, their leaving, even though he knew they couldn’t stay all night.

  “And the hour you get up comes even earlier.” The deep creases across his mother’s forehead said she didn’t think kindly of how early her husband was getting up.

  “Gives me more time to think about how wonderful you are,” his dad said with a wink.

  Crystal pushed herself off the bed. She gave Matt the kiss he’d wished for earlier.

  She let her lips linger for a moment before she stepped back, allowing his mother to hug him.

  Crystal had her coat on and her purse slung over her shoulder in the amount of time it took his mother to hug him. He knew it wasn’t practical, but he wished Crystal would have driven separately so he could have some time alone with her.

  His dad tossed Matt’s mom a crowded key ring. “How about you and Crystal go start the car. I’ll be just a moment.”

  Thanks, Dad. Thanks for sending my fiancée away even quicker.

  His mom frowned for just a second before she nodded. “See you tomorrow.” She waved to her son. “Sleep tight.”

  “You start therapy Monday,” his dad said as soon as they were alone.

  “Yes…”

  “You can still tell that woman you want to go to one of those specialty places.”

  Matt refrained from rolling his eyes. “Dad, I told you, I’m okay with staying here.”

  “You don’t need to worry about the money. I’ve got it all figured out.”

  “That’s good. Use it to take Ma on a good vacation someday.”

  His father looked toward the ceiling. His jaw was set tight. He didn’t say a word, but Matt could read his father’s posture. Damn, stubborn kid, was what he was thinking. Matt didn’t see it that way. He saw it as doing what was best for his family. Like his father would do. Why couldn’t his father und
erstand that? “Dad, really, I want to stay here.”

  “I thought what you wanted was to take over the business someday.”

  “I do.”

  “Then go to Milwaukee where you’ll get the best therapy possible.”

  Go to Milwaukee. Rack up a pile of debt for his parents, on top of his own. With no guarantee of it making any difference. “You heard the lady. Going to Milwaukee isn’t the magical cure to get me walking again.”

  “Staying here isn’t, either.”

  “Talk about—” He clamped his mouth shut before the word stubborn could slip out. “You know, Dad, I appreciate your advice, but the decision’s made. I’m staying here.”

  “What about money? How are you set for paying your bills?”

  It’d be nice to let someone else shoulder the responsibility, but this wasn’t his father’s mess. He pasted on a smile. “Got it covered.”

  His dad didn’t move.

  Matt kept his smile in place. He and his brother used to have staring contests when they were little. Brad never won.

  “Crystal was right when she said you should ask for help. There’s nothing shameful in admitting you can’t do everything.”

  “I said, I’ve got it covered.”

  “For how long?”

  Matt looked away. He could feel his father’s eyes burning holes in him. Matt let out a deep sigh and then let his eyes drift back to his dad. “I think I can make it two months. Then…” He shrugged.

  “We’ll work it out,” his dad said with a nod. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ve got it all figured out.” He bent over and took Matt in a pair of strong arms. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  §

  What did I do to deserve this life? Abby’s shoulders slumped as she punched in the security code to the nursing home. Whatever she’d done to chase away her father, did it have to include a life-long sentence, too?

  The status light changed from red to green, the lock clicking as it disengaged. She pushed open the door and entered a world that, on the surface, appeared way too similar to the one she’d just left a couple of hours ago.

  There was nobody at the nurses’ station. A chirping noise kept time with the blinking, white lights on the grid behind the desk. Three lights today. Three residents on this wing requiring immediate care. Three residents waiting while the overworked staff took care of other duties. As she turned down the corridor on the right, her eyes automatically sought out the light above her mother’s door. Off, thank heavens.

  She sidestepped Sleeping Hallway Man, the elderly man in a wheelchair who seemed to only be able to sleep in the hallway. At the end of the hall, one of the residents called out her usual mantra of “help,” sounding like a wounded cat meowing. Overshadowing it all was a stale scent, like death waiting to happen.

  I hate this place. I could turn around and leave. Mom would never know I hadn’t visited.

  She bit her lip against the stab of guilt. Her mother might not know, but Abby would.

  She quickened her pace, hurrying to her mother’s room.

  At first glance, Helen Fischner looked like Average Jane Blow seated in a rocking chair, reading a book. But Abby knew better. Average Jane Blow would be rocking, even just the littlest bit. And Average Jane Blow wouldn’t be wearing a green floral skirt and an orange plaid shirt with the buttons in the wrong holes.

  “Hi, Mom,” Abby said as she shrugged off her jacket.

  Helen’s attention didn’t waiver from the book in her hands.

  Abby set her coat and purse on the bed and then crouched in front of her mother. Helen’s unmoving eyes stayed focused on the book. She looked like she’d been flash-frozen, forever fixed on one word. She’d stay that way for hours. Abby gently moved her mother’s face away from the book. “Hi, Mom. How was your day?”

  Her mother stared at her so deeply it felt as if she were staring right into Abby’s soul. She wondered, if that were the case, what her mother saw in her. Hopefully, a good person, someone who’d earned the right to be loved. More likely, her mother saw a woman full of flaws, too many for any man to see her as anything other than a sexual diversion.

  Helen blinked and then smiled, her face so beautiful it made Abby’s heart ache. “Abby.”

  Abby smiled back, wishing the alert, smiling woman across from her could remain that way forever. But her mother’s smile faded, along with the look of recognition, as she slipped back into her own little world where she’d stay until she had a reason to return to the here and now. Abby checked out the title of her mother’s book. A Summer’s Journey. “What are you reading today?”

  “War and Peace.” The book she’d been reading before her accident.

  As a physical therapist who wanted to work with brain-injured patients, she knew she should get her mother to acknowledge what book she was really reading, but she was too exhausted for the fight it would surely bring on. “Is it good?”

  “The words ran out.”

  Her mother had reached the end of the page and couldn’t comprehend that she needed to turn it. Tired or not, the physical therapist within jumped to action as Abby demonstrated how to turn the page. She flipped back to the page her mother had been on. A simple concept. Much easier to tackle than the correct title of the book. “Now, you do it.”

  Helen grabbed several pages and flipped them.

  “Just one page.” Abby turned back to the page her mother had been on.

  Helen’s fingers fumbled as she attempted to turn over just one page, grabbing several instead, as uncoordinated as a person wearing gloves.

  Abby wanted to take over and turn the page, but that wouldn’t help her mother. “Remember, just one page.”

  Helen’s foot tapped the floor. The chair rocked. The paper tore and crinkled as she thumbed at the page, trying to get just one sheet. “They’re…” Her beautiful face contorted as the word failed to come. The chair rocked faster. Another page ripped.

  Sensing her mother about to erupt, Abby shrank back.

  The book flew past Abby, so close she felt the breeze. It smacked the wall and then landed on the floor with a slap.

  “You snotted the pages together so I couldn’t trip them.”

  She could defend herself until her tongue turned to cotton, but her mother would never admit it hadn’t been Abby’s fault. Maybe it was her fault. She may not have glued the pages together, but she’d been the one to push her. She rubbed her mother’s knee, trying to calm her.

  “The pages were fine until you got here.”

  Just words of frustration, but they still registered within Abby, soaking into her core. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “I want to go home. When is Danny coming to get me?”

  Abby mentally winced at her father’s name and the same question she’d asked a thousand times herself. Ever since he’d dumped her on Aunt Norma’s doorstep a month after her mother’s accident. “Not tonight,” she said as she sat on her mother’s bed.

  “Tomorrow?” Helen asked.

  Only if the sky turned green and the grass turned purple. Maybe then he’d come. “I don’t know, Mom.”

  “He said we’d be together forever.”

  Forever. A meaningless word. Wanting to shift her mother away from the topic, Abby asked, “Did you go to the activities room today?”

  “We made chickendoodle cookies.”

  “Snickerdoodle?”

  “Yes. Chickendoodle. Flour and sugar and butter and horse feathers.”

  “Horse feathers,” Abby said, managing a laugh. “My favorite.”

  “Just like your father.”

  Searching for a new distraction, Abby resorted to the game she’d invented years ago to help sharpen her mother’s mind. “Do you like snails?”

  “More than puppy dog tails. Do you like snot?”

  Abby laughed at her mother’s word choice. “Yes, a whole lot. Do you like frogs?”

  “Only on logs. Do you like mice?”

  “I find them real nice. Do
you like a girl named Franny?” Even as the name spilled from her tongue, she realized her ploy for distraction had just failed.

  “Where is Danny? He said he’d come for me.”

  Abby groaned inside. Her father had been gone for seventeen years, yet, for her mother, it may as well have been yesterday.

  She wanted to yell that he was gone and that he wasn’t coming back. She wanted to beat the truth into her mother’s damaged head until reality stuck. But what she wanted to do even more was put her head on her mother’s shoulder and cry. If only for five minutes, she wanted her mother to be the mother so she could be the kid. She wanted her mother to say it was okay that he’d left them, that they were doing fine without him, and that they didn’t need him. Most of all, she wanted her mother’s assurance that the little girl Abby had been hadn’t chased away her father.

  Her mother stared at her, full of innocence. “Is Danny here?”

  “Not tonight.” She needed a new distraction, one that didn’t involve talking. Feeling a little guilty, she grabbed the TV remote tethered to the bed by a cord. “How about we watch TV?”

  Without argument, Helen faced the TV. Within minutes, her eyes took on a glazed appearance. Abby could easily sneak away unnoticed, long before her self-imposed two-hour visit was up. If she left early today, though, she’d easily allow herself to leave early tomorrow. Next, she’d justify coming only every other day until she stopped coming altogether. Like father, like daughter.

  Worn down by dealing with her mother, the old tears easily worked their way to the surface. She bit her lip to hold them back. She didn’t have as much luck stopping the memory of her father. She saw herself curled on his lap as he read to her. She could feel the softness of his old flannel shirt soft, the strength of his arms, and the comfort of his lap. And there was no other place she would rather be.

  Fearing she was about to lose the battle with her tears, she pulled a paperback romance from her purse. In the world of make believe, the heroine’s trivial problems would be solved within two hundred and fifty pages. Love was lasting. The hero never left the heroine. Parents didn’t leave their children. And every story ended with happily-ever-after.