The Last Cadillac

by Nancy Nau Sullivan

  Conditions were clear as we sped along the road on the way to the hospital. The driver glanced in the rear view mirror, but he kept a steady pace behind the yellow Mustang in front of us. It was a thirty-minute drive, and after frantically venting myself on the driver to make some magic and get us there, I slumped down in my seat, tired and sick at heart. I’d known this would come one day, but there was no way to prepare for it. I had no idea loss could feel so bottomless.

  I looked behind me into the back of the ambulance. The cover was pulled up to his chin, and I could see his face. I watched for a faint hint of life in him. I couldn’t see anything.

  I swung around to the road again, and the rusty car the color of bile was still in front, even while the ambulance driver inched forward and then back, pressing the Mustang to move over. And then with a cocky swerve, the driver in front of us dropped sideways into the right lane. I looked down into the driver’s seat and saw a young man with a fat, leering face. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He righted himself in the lane and craned up at me, and as the ambulance lunged for the open road, the freak in the Mustang rolled his window down and shot us the middle finger.

  “Well, at least we know what we’re dealing with,” said the ambulance driver. “In this business, it’s always best to know what you’re dealing with—here, we have it, a perfect A-number-one asshole.”

  I gave him a half-smile.

  He grinned. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  When they wheeled Dad into the emergency room, the doctor was waiting there—the first time I’d ever seen a doctor waiting for him! And he was dead, so he couldn’t appreciate it. So I appreciated it for both of us.

  But, this time, the doctor hardly looked at him. The medics, the notes, the summary, I guessed, had filled him in. It was just a matter of signing the papers.

  “How did he die?” The strange sound of my words seemed to come from another place, from within the tile walls and stainless-steel fixtures and shelving, bouncing off the cold, hard surface of the place where my father lay dead.

  “Your father most likely had a stroke,” the doctor said. “A massive one before he even fell.”

  “How do you know that? Are you sure?”

  “Nothing is sure. You say he fell?”

  “Yes, he sort of drifted off to his side, and just fell sideways.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “What I mean is, that it was very fast.”

  “All I remember is the strange breathing—like little desperate puffs—and his eyes. They weren’t his eyes any more.”

  “Yes, you are right. Everything is in the eyes.”

  “But, I don’t think he could see anything anymore. He was in another world.”

  “Yes, he was.” Our sentences dissolved into smaller and smaller pieces that hung in the air, but I didn’t want to let go.

  Fortunately, the doctor was a good one.

  “We’ll leave you now, to have a moment …”

  I stood next to Dad in the middle of an open section of the emergency room in the hospital. Not a soul was there, except Dad and I, our last meeting in this cold place. All I could think was how he hated to be cold. But he was cold, and his face, when I touched it, had no resiliency and warmth, no one-liners and jokes, no more crinkles around those pale blue eyes.

  He’d made it into spring, and he didn’t see 9/11 and the horrors that followed. If he had, that would have killed him alone. If I’d done an inventory, I could have said there were some reasons that Dad was at peace.

  I lingered over him, tucking the sheet around his chin and stroking his white hair that was still unruly, untamed, no matter how much I smoothed it and combed it with my fingers. Some things do not change. It was a strange hour on a late Friday afternoon, before the overdoses, abuses, and accidents rolled in. No one was there that day, except for us. Dad was at peace. I touched his forehead, wishing for the old warmth to come back, but it was gone. I said goodbye, in an instant that will live forever in my head until the day I die.

  36

  THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD

  I went back to the house a couple of years after I sold it. I drove past it slowly, down to the cul-de-sac and back again. The day was hot and silent except for the invisible doves and crackling palms and distant tumble of waves. I rolled down the window and the heavy island air whooshed in and hit me with all its usual mighty force. I slowed the car almost to a stop to look at the house, to will back a good memory or two, and mixed feelings rushed over me. When I looked back on it all, it was hard. Would I do it again? Not the same way. But I would do it. The only problem was that there would be no second chance. We had to go with what we were handed.

  The new owners of the house made the best of it. The stucco had been white from its roof to the ground; now it was a deep buttery yellow and the barrel tile roof was painted brick red. My bright red French door was just as I’d left it. A tiny American flag was draped on a grapevine wreath at the door. Dad would have liked that—a touch I never thought of. The loud greetings and laughter, going in and out of that door, were only memories but I could hear them, drowning out the slamming and sneaking about and the escape, as Dad had done, scaring the daylights out of me.

  I drove on slowly. The holly that lined the driveway had grown up, round and bushy, and the silver palm by the door was a huge sphere of waving fronds. The white stone yard was completely free of the weeds I’d chased and sprayed relentlessly, and, of course, the glass chunks of unmade bluebirds of happiness were long gone. Someone living there must be happy, I thought, people who cared about the house, and I was glad for that. It was a sad sight, and happy at the same time, because The Adventure of our lives had taken us up and down so many times.

  Tick went to the University of Illinois–Chicago. He said he wanted to become an international lawyer, and in the meantime, he was playing lead guitar and singing in two bands, or solo, all over the city. My daughter was president of the National Honor Society, a cheerleader, and a juggler of meetings, parties, and life in high school. Then she went to New York for a couple of years to Fordham University, finally studying medical technology near Chicago. She’s going to be a nurse and take care of me when I’m old, she said. “Whenever that is, and not anytime soon. Then I’ll braid your hair every day.”

  How I admire those two for all they’ve done, and are doing.

  Me, I became an English teacher, thanks to Aunt Marian and to finally getting off my duff. It worked out well. And I made a sort of truce with my brother the tennis whiz, my sister the restaurateur/saleswoman extraordinaire, and my sister the nurse. None of them apologized for the hurtful accusations and the backbiting; I haven’t, either. But we are talking, civilly, infrequently—but at least civilly—remembering that we are still a family, however fractured it has become.

  I drove away from the house, remembering the time I’d raced down the street toward Dad. He had turned the driving over to me. I was sad, yes, and foggy in a flood of remembering all of it. And, no, I wasn’t sorry. It was The Adventure. I kept driving. I was free. The street looked the same, and Dad was in heaven with Mom, and all was right with the world, inside and out, I thought, slowly accelerating the last Cadillac and driving away.

  Tick on Then, Now, and Ever After

  As the surviving male family member of our Anna Maria Island branch, I just want to say one last thing. It was a great time. And it was weird. I’m in college now, after getting kicked out of two high schools. Mom doesn’t like to remember it exactly that way, but that’s the way it was. I hated high school, and so we parted ways, twice.

  My sister is a woman, and I can’t believe that, and my mom is happy now, I think. She wasn’t for a long time, with everything happening so fast. Nothing ever stayed the same for her ,or for us, and I regretted that, while at the same time liking it. I guess that’s life. In the end, there was nothing and no one my mom could really count on, not even me and my sister, or the Gampers, for that matter, but
I know we all tried. We had to because we’re a family. We lost a lot, but in the end we gained a lot, too.

  I lost Erin. Everybody lost Erin, but no one lost her the way I did. Every person means something special to each and every single person differently. Erin was like an angel to me. She looked me right in the eye and listened to me, and I listened to every word she ever said. I felt lonely that first day of school, walking through those halls with 2,000 students, not knowing anyone, except Erin. Tall, blond, soft, beautiful Erin. Heaven is lucky. It has Erin.

  Everything changed after Erin’s death, and it was so stupid, the way she died. Jared walked away from the accident, and they tried to make him go to the hospital for a checkup, but you can’t fix what happened to Jared. I don’t blame him, really. He’s just a knucklehead, born and raised up one, like most of us. He just had a bad run of luck, and Gampers always said, you make your own luck. After Erin died, she made Jared get off the beer and pot and shit. I know she did, because he’s a straight dude now. At least that’s one good thing that came of losing Erin, although there really isn’t anything good in it. It’s hard for me to say.

  Erin’s ashes are scattered in the water. I always thought sunsets were the bomb, but now when I look at them, I see Erin, in all the colors and in the clouds flying over the Gulf, or the lake. Crazy. In the end, I guess that’s OK. I know Erin would be cool with it, even about her ashes and all. Erin’s mom is an island mom, like my mom, real different, kind of passionate and stubborn about some things. They both do what they think is right, and it turns out all right. You have to do what you think is right, even if you doubt yourself. You just have to, and then maybe adjust the situation.

  Gampers would say that. He’s gone, and I miss him so much. I think about him all the time. He’d agree, and stand by me, like he did my mom and my sister.

  My teacher asked us to write about our proudest moment. I didn’t have to think about that one for very long. I wrote about the day my grandfather fell down, and I picked him up by myself, and he was all right, not hurt at all, and he thanked me. “You’re a strong, strong lad,” he said. “A good man.” I guess something happened to me the minute he said that. I could have lifted him up to the roof.

  I’ve had some crazy friends, and some awful good ones, too, but, in the end, he is probably the best one I ever had. We talked for hours sometimes. He didn’t remember later all of what we talked about. I could tell because I had to remind him a lot, and I sort of quizzed him without getting him mad at me. Maybe he didn’t remember right then, but I remember. I’ll always remember, and I’ll tell my kid one day, about their great grandfather, the strongest man in the world.

  ~ THE END ~

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My family gave me inspiration—and perspiration—in the making of this story. A family has a way of doing that. A little laughing, some crying, and a whole lot of growing up, apart, and back together again. Whew! That’s good.

  Thanks to Donald Nicholas “Mike” Nau and Patricia McLoughlin Nau, my parents, for their endless sense of adventure and bottomless love.

  And to my sibs—I have three brothers and three sisters; however, only three of them were involved in the personal drama of The Last Cadillac. In addition—full disclosure—I have five children. Only the two younger ones made the move to Florida with me and Dad. I thank all of them for their humor, kindness, and intelligence.

  I was blessed to have Frances Ella Pike McLoughlin Nau Sullivan and Miles Henry Sullivan along for The Adventure. They made The Adventure, and they taught me a thing or two about the resilience, strength, and love of children, as did their older brothers, James Patrick, Donald Nicholas “Mick,” and Amos Wiley. Thank you to their dad for his love and care of all of them.

  Thanks to Charles J. Nau, for the typewriter, and his support, love, and suggestions, and to Catherine Adams, who read the story and had so many good ideas to improve the manuscript. To Mary Ann Johnson, David Armand, Karol Jackowski, and Kris Mauk—more than words can say—Thank you! And to Jennifer Whaley and Jeff Everett, for their polished technical expertise, humor, and for lending a hand when their hands were full.

  And, thank you, especially, to Donna Essner, Kristina Blank Makansi, and Lisa Miller of Amphorae Publishing Group for their prodigious talent, warm acceptance, wise words and choices, and support.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NANCY NAU SULLIVAN has worked as a newspaper journalist, teacher, and most recently, as a university English Specialist in the Peace Corps in Mexico. She has taught English in Chicago, Argentina, and at a boys’ prison in Florida. In her later years, she earned her master’s degree in journalism from Marquette University. Her stories have appeared in Akashic Books, The Blotter, The Atherton Review, and skirt!magazine. Her story, “Once I Had a Bunch of Thyme” won honors at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, KY. The Last Cadillac is her first book.