The Light of Hidden Flowers

by Jennifer Handford

  “All I ever wanted was to serve my country, and to be a good dad.”

  “And you’ve done an outstanding job at both,” I said, “and you still are. Your service is just at home now. Right now your job is to take care of your family—to be that good dad and good husband. When you’re well enough, the Marines will need you back, too. Just not the same way.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  The two of us sipped our coffee in silence for a long moment before I said, “You’re from Chicago, right?”

  “The suburbs—Elmhurst.”

  “Have you been home since all this?”

  Nate shook his head no.

  “Do your parents still live there?”

  “Same house I grew up in,” Nate said.

  “You have a good relationship with them?”

  He nodded. “They’re decent people. They deserve better than this.” He pointed where his leg used to be.

  “Sounds like they’ll want to see you,” I said. “Sounds like they’ve probably been waiting for you.”

  That just got a shrug and a look across the room, but I kept at it.

  “Visit home,” I said. “I don’t know why, but there’s something about sitting in your old childhood room, reclaiming your stuff, touching things that were important when you were a kid. The garage, the backyard, the tree house. Whatever it is, touch it, it’ll replant itself on your memory.”

  “Did you do this?”

  “I did, and you know what else I’ve done? I’ve reconnected with a friend from high school, and buddy, I can’t tell you what it feels like. It brings me right back—to high school, to being seventeen years old. When I read her messages or look her up in the yearbook, I feel hopeful, optimistic, like I did back then . . . like I couldn’t wait for the next day. Do you remember what that felt like? To have so much expectation . . . like you were going to conquer the world?”

  “I remember,” Nate said.

  “I do, too. I was so spring-loaded back then, ready to jump into the fire. I couldn’t wait for a thing.”

  “You think that’s good . . . to feel that way again?”

  “You’ve gotta believe that the split second that changed your life—the brief moment that took your leg and bruised your melon—can’t be the defining moment of your life. It was just an instant, a flash. Just one second out of millions of seconds. It doesn’t get to own you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  On a cold day in February, Dad opened a can of soup and poured it into a stainless steel pot and put it into the microwave. The sparks and explosion that ensued were enough to cause a fire. Dad regained lucidity just in time to leave his house, to watch the flames engulf the kitchen. Had he not taken the extra ten seconds to go to the mantel on his way out and retrieve a framed picture of Mom and me, Dad would have never gotten injured. But the delay put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as a curtain whisked by, burning his right arm. A neighbor called 911, but the house was condemned for now, and Dad was hurt. He had no choice but to move in with me.

  For the next month I relished caring for my father with the tenderness and concern a child bestows upon a newborn bird that has fallen from its nest. He was my injured baby and, if need be, I would have fed him drip by drip from a medicine dropper. The satisfaction I gleaned from making him his favorite meals, brewing decaf coffee afterward, and watching Jeopardy! with him was massive. At bedtime, I cleaned the burn on his arm, changed the bandage, and doled out his medication. I smoothed the covers on his bed and fluffed his pillows. I set a glass of water by his bedside, asked if he needed anything else. In the morning, I was up cooking eggs and bacon before he rose. I squeezed him fresh orange juice and opened the newspaper to the sports section. Together we drove into the office, and for these few weeks, I was happier than I had been in years. Dad would be okay, as long as I could take care of him. He just couldn’t do it on his own.

  Even so, in slight gradations, his personality changed. Most days he was grateful and appreciative. But some nights, he turned mean. He held my defects against me. Put me in front of the mirror and pointed out how pathetic I was. “Look at you, Missy. Playing house with your old man. You should be taking care of a husband and children. But instead you’re playing June Cleaver with me.”

  Even in his state, Dad called me out. Playing house was exactly what I was doing. As if I were a child wailing for “five more minutes,” I didn’t want my playdate to end. I savored being the one who took care of Dad, even though I knew in my heart that he hated every emasculating minute of it.

  “It shouldn’t be this way, Missy,” Dad said. “You’ve made some big mistakes in this life.”

  “Don’t forget about Lucas,” I said. “He asked me to marry him, remember?”

  “You’d better grab onto him,” Dad said. “Or it might be too late for you.”

  I settled Dad onto the sofa with an afghan tucked around his waist. When the sting of his words subsided, my rational mind told me that it wasn’t my father talking. My father—never, ever—would speak of dreams being “too late” to pursue. My father was the consummate optimist, the one who could find beauty, hope, opportunity in any war zone. My father would never speak to me that way.

  Meanwhile, Lucas continued to press me for an answer.

  “I’ve got to be here for my father,” I told him.

  “But let’s not forget about us,” he said. “I want us to be together. If you waste the next year taking care of your father, that’s one less year for us.”

  Forgive him, I told myself. Pretend he didn’t really just say “waste.” Forgive him because his mind tossed him waste when he really meant to say spend. Forgive him, because I now knew that a brain wasn’t always the good friend I considered mine to be; sometimes brains set us up, sometimes they brought their buddies to hold your arms back so that they could punch you in the gut. Yet the blood was thrumming in my ears and all I wanted was to slap Lucas across the face, because whether he meant it or not, he just used the word waste in reference to my father.

  “He’s my father. I’m not abandoning him.”

  “Of course not. But there are people who could do for him what you’re doing for him.”

  “I don’t want to hire out my responsibility.”

  “Hiring a nurse to help you isn’t giving up your responsibility,” he said. “Let me at least do the research, find a service, and send you the information.”

  I had never been more ardently steadfast in a position. I wanted to take care of my father myself. Even so, capitulation was stamped on my forehead as visibly as a birthmark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  My father’s agitation accelerated alongside the disease. I now kept him at home. Lucas had found a reputable service, and I had hired a nurse—a no-nonsense Jamaican lady named Dolly—to stay with him in the day. I didn’t care for Dolly, but Lucas was right: I needed to gain some distance from Dad; I needed some hours in the office away from him. He begged to come with me like a dog scratching at the door.

  As if there were a switch in him, he’d alternate between the two jobs he had in life: soldier and financial adviser.

  Some days he rambled on for hours about Vietnam. In the murky water of his delusions, he would occasionally step on a dry rock and see for miles with mind-boggling clarity. He would rattle on about missions, spill out the names of soldiers, recall the head-splitting racket the Hueys made as they swept in over the thrashing treetops, whisper about the VC shadows shifting through the jungles, popping up out of tunnels.

  Other days he was in his office, struggling in a near panic to protect his clients’ life savings. He prattled and pleaded that he had to sell Johnson & Johnson before ex-dividend day, that if he didn’t dump Monkey Ward, it was going to be too late.

  “Montgomery Ward went under fifteen years ago,” I tried to tell him. “We don’t have a posi
tion in it.”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he persisted. His sense of time and space was muddled, shaken. When I reminded him of the date, he looked at me as though we were living in some science fiction saga.

  And then there were moments when he knew exactly who I was. Sometimes that was all right—sometimes it was lovely, he’d stroke my hand and say sweet things. But other times regret clouded his face, as though he was riddled with shame. “I never should have written that letter,” he’d say. “But now I can’t find it.”

  “What letter, Dad?” I asked, helping him look through drawers and his old briefcase.

  “Did I send it to you when you were in college?”

  “You sent me a lot of letters, Dad. Which one are you talking about?”

  Then Dad would cover his face and cry. “I didn’t mean it. You’re perfect just how you are.”

  I would sit by him and press myself to his barrel chest and tell him that it didn’t matter, that I was here—home from college—and that he shouldn’t worry about it. Meanwhile, I searched my mind for the letters Dad sent while I was at school. They weren’t substantive, just the usual confetti of Dad’s optimism: Here’s some pizza money for my beautiful daughter with the beautiful mind! Here’s an article I cut out about top women CEOs. Here’s a wall calendar with photos of your beautiful Italy.

  Dr. Bergman upped his medication to the maximum dose, and for a few weeks, my father was back, at least in the mornings. He told me he couldn’t even remember the things he said, but that I shouldn’t believe any of them, other than the fact that he loved me. He made me promise that I would never believe what “Crazy Frank” said. He made me swear that I knew the truth: that I was his pride and joy, that God gave him the greatest gift the day I was born.

  “I do,” I said. “I believe you, Dad. I love you so much.” I said the words, I meant them, but despite my greatest efforts, I could no longer look at him with eyes that saw him as Superman. I had seen ugly and cruel, and even though I knew he was not responsible for a word of it, I could no longer regard him the same way. His thousand-watt smile, his gleaming dentures, no longer looked like a stamp of approval. They now appeared oversized and discolored, and sometimes I wished he wouldn’t open his mouth.

  When the day-nurse, Dolly, arrived, Dad would look pleadingly at me. “Do you have to go?” He didn’t like her. He told me she was lazy, sat around and watched soap operas all day. When he asked for his lunch, she harrumphed and made a big production of it, like she was doing him a big favor. Most days I prepared him a meal so that all she had to do was take it from the refrigerator.

  I didn’t care for Dolly either. She did the bare minimum; anyone could see that. But she helped Dad dress himself, and bathe, and use the restroom. She had to have a decent level of compassion in her to even choose such a field of work. Finally, though, I called the agency and asked them to send a different nurse. Of course they could, they had said, but I needed to provide a reason. Was there a problem with Dolly? Did I have a complaint? The thought of confrontation made me recoil. The last thing I wanted was a face-to-face altercation with her, the insinuation of wrongdoing. “No, no,” I had backpedaled. “Never mind, Dolly is fine.”

  I texted myself a note to think of a reason why a new nurse was needed. A justification that wouldn’t reflect badly on Dolly, but one that would get us a new, hopefully better nurse. A win-win.

  Dad reached for my hand. “Do you have to go?”

  I didn’t have to go; I wanted to go. “Fletcher Financial needs me,” I told him. “I’ll be back soon.” And left him in the care of exasperated Dolly.

  And then there was Charlene, my mother, who Dad remembered every day. And forgot every day. A memory turned nightmare, every single day.

  “Where’s your mother?” Dad asked.

  “Come on, Dad,” I said, “we went over this just yesterday.”

  “Charlene!” he’d bellow, his hand to his mouth, his eyes darting wildly down the hallways.

  “Dad, let’s sit,” I said, dragging him to the sofa. Next to him, I took his hands. “Dad, Mom died. Charlene died.”

  “No, no,” Dad said, rising. “Where are my keys? I’ll go look for her.”

  “Dad, Charlene died a long time ago. She was in a car accident. A big truck hit her broadside, don’t you remember?”

  “Well that can’t be,” Dad said. “Didn’t she take you to school this morning?”

  “Dad, Dad.” I held his face in my hands. “Dad, look at me. I’m thirty-five years old. Mom—Charlene—died when I was only four years old. It’s been you and me for a long time now.”

  Finally, Dad would understand. A healthy neuron would throw the ball to one of the other few healthy neurons, and the information would snap into place. When it did, Dad’s face would twist and he would double over and the pain of hearing the truth would be as damaging as the first time.

  Easter, this year, passed with little occasion. If not for Jenny—devoted, doting, dedicated Jenny—we might not have noticed. She cooked a beautiful glazed ham and two different pies, and the four of us—Dad, Jenny, Lucas, and I—sat around the small kitchen table, engaged in the strangest conversations. Dad hollering for Charlene, Lucas attempting chitchat (“I was on the IRS website today . . .”), Jenny fussing over dishes, and me, staring numbly at the quirky players of my so-called family.

  When I turned my attention from Dad, there was Lucas. I wanted to want Lucas, because I was tired of being alone. Yet the fantasies of my life with Lucas did not lay evenly atop my reality with him. I longed for him when we were apart. The thought of his companionship—anyone’s companionship—was uplifting. But when the time came and we were together, I was left feeling empty, as if the movie had a depressing ending or the dessert wasn’t as good as the description on the menu. Lucas barely knew my father before he was ill. He never spent time with him one-on-one, never fell in love with his giant heart. What Lucas knew was Dad now, and in fairness to Lucas—to anyone knowing Dad now—there wasn’t much to love. But still. I needed Lucas to do better. I needed him to somehow erase the disgust from his face when looking at my father. I needed him to pretend better.

  My only refuge was Joe, on Facebook, through the digital ether. He provided me with exactly what I needed: a recollection of my father, just the way I remembered.

  “He’s gotten really bad,” I wrote to Joe one night. “He’s a different person and doesn’t remember me. I can’t stand seeing him this way.”

  Joe wrote back:

  It’s not him. Frank Fletcher loves his only daughter like a tree loves its last leaf. You’re his world, Missy. Don’t you forget that. His brain is not his own, but his heart is still beating, and I know it’s beating for you. Forgive him a thousand times and know that this disease has poisoned him and what he’s saying isn’t the truth, it’s a delusion.

  Remember when he took us to the Charles Town horse races in West Virginia? His goal wasn’t to teach us to bet, it was to prove the absurdity of it. He gave us money to bet a trifecta, and of course, we lost. It’s okay to gamble on love, you two. That’s what Frank told us later, remember that?

  “I remember,” I wrote back. “That was an amazing day. How are your kids? You and your wife must be the happiest people on earth,” I said. “You deserve it all, Joe. I’m overjoyed you’ve had such a nice life so far.”

  Then Joe responded:

  I can’t complain. But nothing’s perfect, you know that. My life is good, but not anywhere near the idyllic picture you’ve painted. I have my kids. I can’t complain. How about you, Miss? Do you see anyone?

  My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Why was I afraid to tell Joe that I was involved with Lucas? He and I hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years.

  “Actually, I’m seeing someone,” I said. “A very nice guy. I’m lucky.”

  “I’m glad you’ve foun
d love,” Joe wrote back, and as I read his words, I began to sob because I wasn’t sure if I had found love. I had found something: security, comfort, reliability. Refuge, contentment, consistency. Or some other trifecta of safety and sameness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  On the twenty-eighth day of May, my thirty-sixth birthday, Dad’s mood was particularly dark. I fed him soup, but he spilled it, and when I tried to clean it up, he shooed me away. “Let it be!” he scowled. And when I handed him his medication, he smacked the colorful pills out of my hand, sending them sailing in every direction. I had to move the table to find the green one. Hours later, he nodded off on the sofa and I hoisted him to standing with his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go to sleep, Dad. Let’s go to sleep.”

  As we moved toward the bedroom, an agitated alertness overtook him, as though he were receiving enemy fire. “We need to get out of here,” he snapped.

  “Dad, it’s me, Missy, your daughter. You’re in my house in Alexandria. Everything is okay. Your brain is a little screwy, remember?”

  Dad’s eyes jutted in every direction.

  “We’re going to the bathroom, Dad. You’re going to use the toilet and then go to bed.”

  “I don’t need the head,” he said, looking around.

  “You should try.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “The toilet, Dad. You should try.”

  “Now’s not the time,” he insisted.

  “Fine,” I said, steering him into his room and sitting him on the edge of his bed. “Dad, listen. If you have to go during the night, you have to get up and walk to the bathroom. See the night-light? Dad, the bathroom, the toilet, okay? Dad . . . Do you understand, Dad? Dad, are you listening? Can you make it to the toilet, Dad?”

  I left him, as he curled into the fetal position, ducking shells from the war that never left him, fighting another battle in his damaged mind.