Two years later, it still doesn’t seem fair that Jack died and Adam replaced him because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my brother.
I slide Adam down my body and tell Tahny I really have to get back to Elliot who’s waiting for me. I tell her this because seeing my dead brother in my little nephew reminds me of the pain Charlee must be going through when she sees her dead mother and dying father in me.
As much as I can’t stand to see Adam, he’s my last link to Jack and I can’t let go of him.
It kills me that I can’t get inside Charlee’s head to know if she feels the same.
6. Cups, Color, Candy
Charlee
Nana Betty is the type of person I want to be when I’m seventy-five. She doesn’t say much to me, just takes Darcy whenever I drop by and doesn’t ask if he’s too much for me or if I want him to stay with someone who’s stronger than me. For this I bring over a plate or packet of something—usually chocolate-dipped cookies for her, Pa and Darcy—as a replacement for my absence as I take off in my car.
Rather than risk running into Dexter, Dad, or any of the nurses I’ve come to know, I stop by The Crooked Shelf, a restaurant near the hospital. It’s a new-age-styled thing with a crooked double door at the entrance, and waiters and waitresses who wear spiked boots, wet-look leggings and T-shirts with stuff like upside-down monkeys on them.
I’ve come here many times with Mom. There was a stage when she was doing some freelance work from home and my swim teaching was taking place during random hours. My eyes glaze over the guests and ornaments and conversations. My legs are taking me to the table in the corner closest to the back where if we—I—am quiet enough, I can overhear the gossip from the kitchen. This time, I won’t have Mom to talk with, though. Although no one sits opposite me, I still sit on the wall seat because Mom always gave me that “special” one. It’s the type that looks like a couch cushion stuck to a wall. I’ve loved it since forever.
After a while the usual gossip, the routine, can’t stop it, and scenarios like Dad dying and Mom’s warm body on the snow, but soulless from the first moment of contact when she hit the ground, fill my head. Then it’s Dad’s voice—telling me not to lie to Darcy, too. That I need to “face facts”. That he believes in my strength to make it even when I don’t.
Just as I’m about to lose it, I hear “Excuse me, ma’am.”
I shoot up, aware that my arm was curled around my head, my cheek pressed to the scuffed table top, me listening to the sounds traveling up the table leg through the wood. I think I’ve found my savior.
“Oh, um. Yes. Wai—what?”
The guy chuckles. I think I’ve seen him before but I’m not sure. All I know is he’s the type of guy I should like. Standing average height, with shortish blonde hair, no piercings, and clean-shaven face he is a much better choice than Dexter. And the only normal person here.
“Would you like a menu…?”
“Charlee,” I finish for him. “No, thanks. Just a bubblegum milkshake with marshmallows and cream in a cup.”
He pops his notepad back in his apron without noting anything down, and says, “Hmm, I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I’m an old regular.” And that’s all I manage before my throat gets tight and I realize what an insensitive person I am for coming back to this restaurant. I should wait for Mom to come back with me… Okay, now I’m losing it.
“And I’m a relatively new employee,” the guy says. I sense he told me his name before this but I’m too embarrassed to ask him to repeat it.
He comes back with my cup and for a quarter hour I use my spoon to swirl it until the electric blue flavoring mixes with the cream and marshmallows. The result is a murky, dull liquid that’s impossible to pretend to enjoy. I sit there like this, finger poised on my spoon, watching guests come, eat, chat—even witnessing what appears to be a first kiss by a couple—and then leave. My waiter walks by. The first couple of times he smiled and tried to get me to reciprocate but has long given up.
At one point I open my bag to pay for my still-full drink and notice my cell phone. It’s somehow saying three pm, but it was only one pm twenty minutes ago.
There’s a shadow lingering over me, and I look up to see my waiter. I think. I do a double take and notice his sweatpants and ordinary T-shirt. No neon badge, no apron, no nothing.
“Charlee, it’s on the house,” he says, smiling when he says my name, and pressing his hand on mine to stop my fingers scrambling through my bag.
“Sorry?”
“Your disgusting milkshake. It’s on this crazy place because I’d never make a pretty girl like you pay for something she didn’t drink.”
My cheeks burn up. He has caught me off guard and I seem to have forgotten what “on the house” is. I need to rest. I need to cry for hours and then pass out under my warm flannelette bed sheets.
“It wasn’t disgusting!” I say, rushing. “It was nice.”
He glances between the drink and back to my eyes and shakes his head. “I do believe the glass is still full. You can’t have had any.”
Sure enough it is. There’s this line near the rim inside the tall glass and the liquid is just above it. I’m so caught.
“How about I take you out for a better one now my shift has finished?”
My first thought is to pull my clothing up over my head and run out of here, hoping I don’t crash, but then I get an idea. I’m not the type of girl to two-time guys so spending alone time with this guy has to kill my unnatural interest in Dexter. Right?
I oblige his offer, saying the drink is unnecessary but I’d like to hang outside. We sit on the edge of the outdoor seats. A train of advertised signs serve as the barrier between the seated area and the road. It’s a quiet afternoon with clumps of families and couples and friends walking by us. Everything’s much more normal out here.
Except I answer on average with two words to everything this guy says, masked by the fact I feel silly asking for his name again.
“I’m sorry I’m such horrible company,” he mumbles at one point. “My old man did always tell me I’m terrible at impressing the pretty girls and you’ve just proved him right.”
This is when I burst into tears. He leads me away from the curious customers and we walk around the corner to where a bus stop with a public seat hangs by the curb. Even I surprise myself. I sob into this strange guy’s T-shirt. I’ve completely wet the logo on his chest. But he holds me in a hug, enveloping me in his arms. Sometime around this point I start to pull away.
“I really don’t…” I look for a tissue and find nothing around us so just settle for sniffling, and continue, “this is really embarrassing. I’m—I’m sorry…”
“Elliot,” he says for me this time. Suddenly I’m half-crying, half-spluttering and the air is easier to breathe and my chest and throat feel lighter.
“The first date I go on in longer than I can remember and the girl bursts into tears and doesn’t remember my name.”
I laugh again, and I can’t stop laughing with this guy. Maybe I have lost my mind. “I’ll try not to soak your T-shirt with my tears again. And I promise to remember your name…Elliot,” I say, teasing. “But I do need to go.”
That I “need to go” is something that comes to mind as the words come out of my mouth. Yes, I need to go see Dad. If I’m in this mood, then now is exactly the right time because every other time is a struggle to convince myself to walk through that hospital. The smell. The slouched people from sixteen to sixty-six in wheelchairs. The distraught loved ones. Their pain is my pain.
“See? I was right. I’m a dud.”
Quickly, I kiss him on the cheek. His mouth is sort of hanging open when I pull back. I walk away with my feet weighing the same as they once did before, with my stomach calm, and my mind rational. I’m bummed I haven’t fallen head-over-heels for this guy or walked away as if I were floating or ecstatic, but maybe that stuff only happen in movies. This is the real world, after all.
I sling my bag handles over my shoulder and walk away.
“…your number?” I hear him call, but I only answer with a wave.
* * *
Dad’s skin is still yellow. There’s another machine by his bed hooked up to him as I sink into the nearby chair. By the time on the wall clock, it seems no one will be in to check on Dad or do any tests for a while. This comfort of being alone by my dad creates this itch inside me, a pressure that’s fighting to keep my feelings down. More loved ones have come by while I was out because the bedside table and wall bench have been restocked with flowers that brighten the color and aura of this room. It smells a little less hospital-ish today.
Dad says, “Oh, Charlee, you came,” sometime between me being deep in thought and later, head sunken in my palms.
“Dad!” I say, wiping down my face with my sleeve even though the tears have crusted up.
When Dad takes in what must be my red and blotchy face, he stops saying whatever he was going to say, and reaches out. I scoot my chair in and plonk my chin in his hand. He caresses my chin, which might sound weird, but it’s so easy. Just easy. I sigh, releasing weight from my shoulders.
“Oh, hon,” he says, and his voice sounds as though it’s being rubbed in gravel.
“I’m just a sook. Don’t worry,” I say. “Really.”
“Maybe it’s time we talk?”
“I really, really know I look like I’m falling apart, but it’s fine. Just a hard day.”
He lets go of me and it’s worse like this—Dad not comforting me because I realize how old and responsible I should be, and how I realize I’m not like this at all. I’m a Daddy’s girl and I was always so embarrassed to say that until now. It occurs to me that I might not be able to say that for too much longer.
“Do you want to talk about me?”
“Naw, how about I get you a chocolate bar from downstairs? I know they’re double or triple the price than they are at the supermarket but we so need one. I think I’ll get one,” I say, making up my mind.
I’m out of his room in a flash, fumbling for money. I have zero change when I reach the counter so I have to grab a pack of gummy candies too, and some sour straps just to make the bank-card limit. This makes me feel like a kid again. I’d kill to be Darcy’s age. I just—I want to be ten again rather than twenty and not have to act like I’m in control and—oh, how I hate that “R” word—responsible. I’m so useless.
I begin shaking while waiting for the elevator. A girl with nasal tubes, a balding head and see-through skin rides with me. When I leave, she smiles and tells me everything will work out. I just nod, unable to say a word.
“Weeks to months.”
That’s what Dad says as I drop my handful of goodies on the table by his bed.
My mouth is parched when I swallow so I must look like a fish on dry land. “Anyway,” I point to the spoils I’ve just set down. “Which would you like? Oh, wait, we can share the gummy candy. The sour straps are a bit too much for you.”
“No, hon, Charlee, baby.” He tries to clear his throat but begins a violent cough. I don’t know how his body is in one piece because that cough is a knife slashing through his insides, heaving him into painful fits. He wipes his mouth with a tissue when he’s done, and my hands are ripping at the bag of gummy candies while he does this. It won’t open until finally it does and they rain down on the floor of Dad’s hospital room. I crouch down, before Dad can say anything or before I can see what color the tissue is.
“Oh, my God. Dad, I’m so—”
“Get up, please.”
I look up and he has tears in his eyes. This makes me wobble on my haunches. I take a breath, which feels like nothing at all, and push my body up by the railing on his bed. I lower the railings, sit on the edge and lean on to him.
“Weeks to months is how long they think I have, Charlee. If I get the transplants I need soon enough, I might be right for decades to come but it’s all about timing and my health. Oh, God—” and Dad is coughing, spluttering.
“Why are you…” telling me this? Tears choke off my voice. My mouth continues to open and shut but the weight of the sadness in my throat is impossible to speak over.
Dad waggles his fingers at me. I lie by his side and he drapes his arm over my waist and hugs me. Hard as I’ve tried to be strong, this moment and the last month and a half have been the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, and now my dying father is the strong one because my mind goes like this:
How dare you? How dare you leave me? I need you, Dad. Dad? Stay here and be my dad. What’ll happen after a couple of years when I don’t have a reason to say your name anymore? When you’ll only pop up in conversations when we talk about the guy who saved the Australian car industry with Roycroft Engines? I don’t want you to be a memory, Dad. I need to you live your life with mine, concurrent, so we can go on together. What will I do when your life stops and mine continues the next second, minute, day, year? How do I go on when you’re not there to share my life?
Some time passes with Dad shhing me and rubbing my arm and mostly saying soothing things through that gravel-rubbed voice again because he doesn’t have the physical strength to do much else.
“Can you sit up?”
Yes, I’ll do anything. I sit up, not bothering to wipe my face this time although tears streak down my cheeks and land in my lap.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I believe in you, Charlee. You’re my big girl. You’re my gorgeous, beautiful young lady. I just needed to talk to someone about these things, but I get it. I can’t imagine what this is like for you, hon. I’m sorry.”
“Daddy, no…” How insensitive am I? Who’s the sick one here? Guilt feels so much worse when it eats up your mind and thoughts. In a memory, guilt seems bad, but in the midst of experiencing it, it’s entwined with unstoppable regret that I cannot hold, and so it crushes my everything.
“Tell me. I was distracted and silly and…tell me. Dad, tell me because I need to know and I want you to tell me.”
But I’m lying.
He nods. “I’ll need those gummy teeth first.” I bend to the floor and hand him the gummy teeth candy. He shakes his head. “A whole set, if I may.” I hand him the other one.
Dad sets them in between his top and bottom gums and the inside of both lips. Attempts a smile but they fall out of his grin.
We laugh, in a real and raw way, which reminds me of Elliot and walking away from him with pride and resolution. I take a breath and I’m better. Not fine, but okay.
“My kidneys haven’t worked since the accident, Charlee. I’m sleeping fourteen hours a day. They say the dialysis can cause fatigue. The blood poisoning has caused irreversible damage to my heart and liver, too.”
My mouth hangs open. I don’t know what to say because I’ve made sure I hadn’t heard the seriousness of Dad’s state for a reason. I don’t know why I was worried. I’m not crying. Everything is dreamy. This room doesn’t feel real. I pinch my skin and it doesn’t hurt all too much. Maybe this will still work out.
“I want to tell you so you can prepare Darcy. Now we don’t have to go talking wills or other drastic things, but they’ve always been in place so don’t you worry about the superficial stuff, okay?”
Dad continues talking so maybe I nodded to him. “I don’t want Darcy hating me for the rest of his life because I thought he was too young. I don’t want the last things I say to him to be promises I can’t keep. That would be the most cowardly act of all and I don’t want either of my children to remember me like that.”
“A-are you scared?” I say. As soon as the question is out I regret even thinking it, let alone saying it aloud. Insensitive, silly, bad choice.
“More disappointed than anything.”
“Oh?”
“I planned to walk you down the aisle. You are going to get married, right?” I nod. “Good. I planned to embarrass the hell out of Darcy at his twenty-first, like Mel and I wanted to do to you.” Dad grins with glistening e
yes. “I planned to have your mom fetch me a scotch and Coke every time I watched a documentary. You see, I make a lot of plans. I’m just terribly—” Dad usually does this thing where his face gets pink while he tries to appear in control but in this state he looks like nothing. My dad just looks like a slate of nothing while his mind is worlds away. “I’m quite peeved they won’t happen.”
This question has been on my mind for so long but now feels like the right time to ask. “So you’re ready to die?”
“What?” Dad shakes his head fast, which gives me hope his reactions are improving—his comprehension and all those types of measures—which is a good sign. “I’m going to fight death while I’m dead.” Dad looks at me funny then says, “So all this time you thought…no. Of course not. I’d never leave you and Darce, but sometimes things happen and I just need to know you’re prepared because it’d kill me to die and leave you unprepared.”
“You do realize how embarrassing you are saying that stuff about ‘it’d kill you to die’ because you’re too old to make jokes.”
“I’m forty-nine!”
“Right. Old.”
“Just not old enough to die?”
“Right again,” I say.
“All right, be honest. I get the feeling I look like a Simpson these days.”
I have to recover from an epic giggling fit. I savor the air, let it fill me up, and it calms me. “You’re not that bad.”
I move back to my chair after that and we talk about some technical stuff which is so unemotional even a wreck like me can handle it, and then we just go on to recent news, how Nana and Pa are, how my swimming and teaching is going and Darcy’s training, and it’s easy again. Being with my dad is so easy.
If he ever leaves me…
Drowning in You Page 4
