LETTING GO
J. J. Haile
It took thirteen months, three weeks, four days and eighteen hours for my father to die. He hung on, fighting, cursing and crying until he had expended his last breath before he gave in.
I had to pry his fingers away from the sheet that covered him, so great was his hold on life, the life he had mostly squandered. When it was finally over, I breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes with my fingertips. Adieu, adios and farewell; game well played.
In the kitchen what was left of his family, all three of them; Gil his only friend, Ruth his wife and her daughter, Missy sat drinking coffee and waiting. I didn’t disappoint them, I went straight to the core without wasting any words or emotion.
“At last! Gil, I’ll need help cleaning him up, and Missy, you may as well call Rev. Stark and tell him,” I turned to the third person at the table, my father’s wife, Ruth and bowed slightly, “He’s all yours now Ruth. Once we get him presentable, you may do whatever it is you need to do.”
Her angular face screwed up as she tried to evoke a single tear, and she grabbed my hand.
“Didn’t he call for me? Lord, I wanted to be right there! You should have called me.”
I grasped the hand that was holding mine tightly, and then stooped until we were face to face, “Enough, Ruth, everybody’s had enough! Since you’re so concerned, come on in there with Gil and me, and help us clean him up!”
I watched as she tried to mask her disgust, and I let go of her hand so she could hide her face. She shook her head from side to side and began moaning, and since I had heard it all before, I went out on the porch to smoke. I could hear Missy on the phone with the pastor, filling him in on what had transpired, and I could hear Gil trying to console the keening Ruth who had yet to produce a tear, and I called for Smitty my father’s Jack Russell terrier who was hiding beneath the house. I stroked the dog’s coat and stared up at the night sky, wondering what Micah was doing right now. I hadn’t seen my husband or my two sons in two weeks, and I missed them sorely. The last two years had begun as a sprint, and had developed into a marathon, and I was all out of steam. I missed my husband’s arms around me, and the kisses from my two boys who were still young enough to openly display their affection. I missed my life. I punched in Micah’s cell number, and when he answered, I for some reason, I began to weep softly.
“Is it over?”
I was nodding as though he could see me, and watched as my tears fell on Smitty’s fur.
“Just now. God it was awful! I asked him if I could pray for him and he cursed me!”
Micah laughed softly, “You shouldn’t have expected anything else, you know how he felt.”
I nodded again and grunted, “I know. I just thought that at the last…”
“Baby, come on. He went out the same way he came in, nothing was going to change that. Listen to me, you let us know when and I’ll get us up there to be with you.”
I sighed and watched as Smitty trotted off, investigating a lone crumpled paper bag that the wind had blown into the yard.
“I will. Are they asleep? It’s just a little past nine.”
There was a pause and then my boys were each trying to talk at once, “Ma? When are you coming home?”
That was Ash, my ten year old, I could hear the whine in his voice. While Taylor was the baby, Ash had never outgrown his neediness; he was the quintessential mama’s boy.
“Soon, sweetie. Actually in a few days you and Dad and Taylor are going to be coming up here.”
Taylor was talking loudly in the background and Ash finally gave his brother the phone.
“Hi Ma, did Gramps go to heaven yet?”
I smiled at my child’s innocence. Whatever else I was definitely sure of, I didn’t think Gus Robinson was traveling anywhere near heaven, unless purgatory really existed as the Catholics believed.
“Yes Baby, just a few minutes ago. I was telling Ash, you all and Dad will be coming up in a few days, now send me a kiss and get some sleep.”
There were two very loud smacks which made me laugh, and then Micah was speaking again, “...called and of course Janie. When you get a minute you should touch base with her.”
I frowned.
“Who else called? I missed that part.”
“Your uncle Dave baby, he called about an hour ago.”
I nodded, that made sense, uncle Dave would call although he and my father hadn’t spoken in years. My sister Janie on the other hand had sworn she’d have no part of Gus Robinson, living or dead. I assured Micah I would call uncle Dave, and after listening to him tell me he loved me, I punched in Janie’s number.
“Hey, Micah said you called?”
I could hear James Taylor crooning in the back ground, Janie was probably half looped!
“Hey! Yeah I called, listen how long are you gonna stay up there? Your family needs you and that old booger doesn’t care if…”
I interrupted before she could add more.
“He died, Janie, just a few minutes ago.”
After a slight pause, as Sweet Baby James stated that was going to Carolina, she sighed.
“Thank God! Now maybe you can come back home and stop trying to salvage a relationship with that old heathen!”
I had to laugh, imagine Janie calling anyone a heathen! My sister , while no self proclaimed religious zealot, was the last person to identify anyone else’s spiritual bent, actually, she had been called a heathen herself.
“We’ll probably do everything in a few days, everything has been ready for months. Are you going to show your face?”Janie laughed aloud
“Why should I? God knows it would probably raise him from the dead if he saw my face hovering over him, I’ll send a card or something.”
I started to protest, but thought better, there would be ample enough time for accusations and recriminations later.
“Okay then. So, I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
She mumbled something I couldn’t make out, and then the line went dead. Typically Janie, once her spleen was emptied, she had little time or patience for anything else. The fact that our father was dead was of little import to her, as far as she often and loudly said, he might have been dead for years, she had no time for empty platitudes or gestures.
Unlike me, my sister was done, completed, finished, and she meant it. I however wasn’t able to just ignore the fact that our remaining parent was now dead, leaving us orphans, despite the manner in which it had occurred. It was too late in the day for “what ifs,” everything was now done and over. All that was left was the actual consignment of the remains inside to the dusty red clay. I called Uncle Dave and gave him an update and he promised to come when it was time, he wasn’t going to visit his brother either.
I went back inside, where Missy was still on the phone no doubt calling everyone that might have the slightest interest. Ruth sat in her same seat, idly stirring whatever was in the squat tumbler before her. She didn’t look up and I went back into the bedroom where Gil was just finishing. My father’s body was now covered by a clean white sheet, only his face exposed. I smiled my gratitude at Gil, my father’s oldest friend and approached the bed.
August William Robinson had once been a very handsome man. Scraping most ceilings at six feet five inches, he had once been a two hundred thirty pound Goliath who took on any contenders whether real or imagined. Deep teak in color, he had wore his greasy dark hair unfashionably long, and his dark eyes had been hooded and deep, hiding many secrets, yes, he was once considered very handsome indeed.
What lay on the wide bed now, was a caricature of what Gus Robinson had been, a dry desiccated shell of the man who had lived his life on his own terms, thumbing his nose at convention and suffering whatever slings and arrows life threw his way. He had married my mother, Felder Mackie when she was eighteen and pregnant with their first child, our deceased brother, Lil Gus. For the next nearly twenty years, they had battled as they produced Janie and me, finally parting after exhausting whatever wa
s left of their relationship. I think Mama always loved Gus, he was her first, but he made living with him such a chore. He leeched all of the love she had within her and left only bitterness and anger.
We were never participants in our parent’s struggles, they hid much and pretended when they had to, so neither Janie nor I knew what was really going on until our brother died of a gunshot wound as a result of a marital dispute. When faced with his only son and namesake, dead and cold on a coroner’s gurney, my father had lashed out at our mother, blaming her for Lil Gus’s fate, calling her unfit and passive. They argued throughout the final preparations for my brother, finally arriving at the place where they could not bear to look at each other, and my father moved out. Only then, did Mama let on about the life they had lived, more out of fatigue than anger.
She let us in on what exactly Gus Robinson had been. The litany of other women, sexually transmitted diseases and physical abuse appalled both Janie and I, but didn’t allow us to understand our mother’s seeming inability to end her marriage. I remembered Janie railing at Mama, demanding to know how she could have allowed him to treat her so, and I remembered Mama’s face and her pitiful explanation.
“I loved him! All he did, I always overlooked because he was the only man I knew! My Mama promised that in time, he was gonna change and come in but I’m still waiting!”
Janie was thoroughly disgusted, already on her second marriage, no one was going to throttle or abuse my sister. I saw Mama as a pitiful figure, and while it did not lower my esteem for her, made me understand why Janie and I were so righteous and demanding. If Mama hadn’t been able to leave her abusive marriage, she had somehow transmitted her resiliency to us.
Micah and I had more had twelve years between us and we worked on our marriage daily, neither forgetting that it took our combined efforts to make our union successful. I stared into my father’s dead face and I felt only sorrow, his life could have been so different, had he only learned to surrender himself to the marital yoke. He had married Ruth several years ago, someone he bragged would, “tend his mess and be glad to have a man.”
I have no doubt she suffered also just for the privilege of being Mrs. Gus Robinson. The door opened softly and Ruth came in, still unable to muster any tears, and she stood beside me, staring into his face.
“Reverend Starks says we can get everything done on Friday,” she glanced at me, “If that’s alright with you and Janie.”
I shrugged, when and where didn’t matter anymore, the object of my prolonged visit had never materialized my father never apologized. I nodded at Gil, and he pulled the sheet over the face, and I turned on my heel and left the room.
I didn’t know the Gus Mama had told us about, to me, he had always been my handsome, smiling father who could make the impossible a reality, a magician who was bigger than life and twice as exciting. He would take us out on Saturdays, to a neighborhood eatery where he could drink draft beer as we feasted on flaky po-boys filled with fat fried shrimp or thick, sweet ham.
We would go the movies sometimes, the woman at the booth waving us in as my father smiled and made off-color jokes. I didn’t know until later that she was one of his women, just like the waitress at the restaurant who pocketed the over generous tip he would leave on the table, as he stroked her hip through the nylon uniform.
Before Lil Gus died, he would take us all fishing, spending all day in a rickety boat as we cast about vainly, hoping to catch something. When Lil Gus married and moved away, the fishing trips stopped, but by then Janie and I were too old to enjoy it anyway, we understood that the trips were a part of the male bonding and we had been taken along just because we were there. I was engaged to Micah when my father left the house, and my greatest fear, I’m ashamed to admit, was that he wouldn’t show up to give me away. I never thought about Mama. But in true Gus Robinson style, he not only showed up, he showed out, bringing a date along and flaunting her in front of our assembled friends and family. There is even a picture of them dancing, something he didn’t even do with Mama. Yes, Gus was a different man alright, he whirled me around the dance floor that night, and he swore I had inherited my ability to dance from him.
“Your Mama always moved like a cow, no rhythm! But you, baby, have all my smoothness and finesse!”
I have to admit I was flattered, Daddy’s little girl getting her due. I forgot all about my loyalties to my mother as he floor-showed, calling attention to himself as usual. Janie was still married to Louis then, and shook her head when I beamed with delight as the band played a favorite and we evoked applause as he took me through the intricate steps he had taught us as children.
Even Micah remarked that I seemed like I was in heaven when I danced with my father on my wedding night. It was to be one of the last good memories I had, for leopards can’t change their spots, and soon enough, I met the real Gus Robinson and didn’t like who he was. Eighteen months after I married Micah, I was pregnant with Ash, and my father and I had our first serious falling out. He informed me that Gil, his oldest buddy would be Godfather to my baby. I told him that Micah and I would choose the Godparents, and he promptly ignored me.
“Gil is my best friend! Hell, your ditzy Mama let her brother and his wife christen Janie, and she snuck you off and let Dora and Simmy christen you!”
He shook his head, “No, it’s way past time for me to honor my best friend, he’s gonna christen my first grandchild!”
I stared at him, surely he was kidding!
“Daddy, I know how you feel about Gil, and I’m sorry he never got to be Parrain for any of us, but this is up to Micah and me.”
I saw the thunder cloud begin to gather and I tried to stave off the argument.
“Why didn’t he christen Lil Gus?”my father turned slitted eyes to me.
“Why you talking back to me? I know you heard me! Getting just like your damned Mama, trying to get in my face!”
He was fully engaged now, and I could see his anger building up.
“Now I said what I had to say, and that’s it! You tell your husband that Gil is going to be the Parrain, and that’s that!”
I walked away, the sound of his yelling following me and I cried all the way home. He never forgave me when Micah and I chose a couple from church, close friends who had asked when they found out we were expecting. His anger kept him from even attending the christening or the party after.
After that initial disagreement, he never mentioned it again, not even when Taylor was born three years later. There was never any discussion when it came to my sister, since she never had a child, and he taught Ash to call Gil “Ran” and ignored our friends. The next blow-up came when he decided to sell the house he and Mama had bought, actually believing that his word would be law. Mama however refused to sign any paper work, and he came to Janie and I to convince her.
“Ain’t like she really helped me buy the damned house, shoot, she only worked a little while! Now you girls make her act right, I’m going to give her some of the money.”
Janie snorted, “Oh please! Who do you think you are? Mama’s got a right to half of whatever you get, but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t want to sell!”
He stared at Janie as though she had lost her mind.
“She’s been filling your head with foolishness! August Robinson went to the service and earned the right to the government money that helped buy that place, and August Robinson’s the only one that will decide if it gets sold!”
I tried to intercede, “Daddy, you can’t sell without Mama, it’s the law. Maybe if you talk to her…”
He shot up, all six feet five and glared at me, “Another second class citizen with an opinion! Listen, this is going to happen, now Felder needs to get her mind right, and you girls too!”
Janie smiled at me as I stared at him.
“That’s what Mama meant when she said that he listens to no one but himself, but it’s all a moot point, the law is the law.”
I watched his face drain of color
as he leaned down and got in my sister’s face.
“In my house, I am the law! You all are going to see, watch a man do what needs to be done!”
Of course, he did not prevail despite hiring a lawyer, and in the end, he promised Mama that she’d get hers, and proceeded to move some of the furniture out while she was working. My meek little Mama simply threw up her hands and shrugged.
“I can get more furniture, let him have it, he’s just got to have something.”
After the fiasco with the house, Daddy was cool with me, as he was with Janie who always talked back to him, but it didn’t get serious until the night of Mama’s 65th birthday.
We had been planning the party for months, making sure we covered every possible detail, and finally, on a breezy October night, we assembled at the rented hall waiting for Mama to be delivered. A little more than a year before, Mama had begun seeing Lionel Grant, a co-worker at the restaurant where she was a sous chef. While neither Janie or myself saw anything lasting coming out of the relationship, we had hopes that Lionel would provide the company and the companionship Mama so craved, and we had enlisted his help getting her to the banquet hall. We were due to yell “surprise,” promptly at seven o’clock when Lionel would escort Mama in, and at six forty-five I was stepping into my new Palazzio pants when Ash brought me the telephone.
“It’s Gramps.”
I sighed and spoke into the mouth piece.
“Hey Dad, what’s up?”
I could hear music and voices in the back ground, and he sounded as though he had had a few.
“Hey Gracie, listen, I need your help.”
I frowned, “What’s going on Dad?”
He laughed and said something to someone else, then, “It’s Gil baby. He needs to go to the clinic, he says his blood sugar is low, I need you to run by and pick him up and take him, I’m having a lil get together here, and I can’t leave my guests.”
I smirked and zipped my pants.
“I’m sorry Daddy, but we’re on the way to Mama’s party, Can’t Ruth take him?”
“Never mind Ruth, I asked you. Now it will only take a few minutes, then you can go back to your party. The door is unlocked, come on in!”
I shook my head, the nerve of the man! He was completely ignoring what I had just said. I tried explaining.
“Daddy, it’s a surprise party for Mama, and I need to be there. Let Ruth take Gil…”
Before I could finish, he was yelling, typical Gus Robinson style, expecting his Gestapo tactics to work.
“Grace, get your butt over here and do what I ask you! Now Gil needs to get to the clinic, you come on by here and pick him up! You hear me?”
Tears were springing up in my eyes and I sighed deeply, a death grip on the telephone.
“Yes Daddy, I hear you, but it won’t work. You need to find another way for Gil, I can’t come, I won’t come. Do you hear me ?”
Before he could respond, I slammed down the receiver and took several deep breaths. As we were leaving, the phone rang again and after checking the caller I. D. I ushered the boys out of the door as Micah locked it. In the car, my husband glanced at me.
“Baby, are you okay? I mean if….”
But I smiled and shook my head, my hand covering his on the steering wheel.
“No, it’s alright, let’s just get there.”
Mama’s party was a complete success, she was absolutely surprised and wept for half an hour. All of her friends were there, the food had been catered from the restaurant where she worked and had closed for the evening, and she was surrounded by love and good wishes. I forgot about Dad and Gil as we ate, sang and danced, and near the end of the festivities, Lionel silenced the D. J and formally asked Mama to marry him. It was our turn to be surprised, and Mama made an it a memorable occasion by accepting. Janie and I embraced and then kissed Mama and Lionel, and the place erupted as the word spread, Mama had had a party she wouldn’t soon forget.
A week later, Janie and I were served legal documents requiring our presence in Dad’s lawyer’s office, we drove to the appointment together.
“Wonder what the old dog has planned now? Maybe he wants to cut us out of his will!”
Janie laughed as the words came out of her mouth and I joined her.
“Maybe, but from what I can tell, there’s not much to be cut out of, he always swore he wasn’t going to leave anything we could fight over!”
Long story short, our father was indeed cutting us off, and sat smugly and self righteously as the lawyer informed us that Daddy was awarding us each 5 dollars as our part of his estate. We were to accept our gift and sign paper work that effectively negated any claims we might bring later as his heirs. Janie shot to her feet, her face a mask of fury, at that moment she looked just like him.
“Why, you old miserable creature! Do you really think we want anything that’s yours? What in the hell do you own anyway? I for one, am embarrassed!”She turned to me, “So, Grace, are you prepared to be cut off?”
I looked around the room, at my father sitting like royalty, the attorney clearly uncomfortable and at my sister, visibly upset, and chose my words carefully.
“Daddy, neither Janie or I are looking for anything from you, Ruth is your legal wife and whatever you two possess is yours. Why are you doing this! What have either of us done to make you feel you need to do this!”
He smirked and re-crossed his long legs, avoiding our eyes.
“Just need my affairs in order, that’s it, then he smiled evilly at me, “A man can’t ever be sure about anything. I don’t want either of you trying to take anything from Ruth.”
Janie leaned toward him.
“How can you? We’re your flesh and blood, your only surviving children! How can you think so little of us?”
He clenched his jaw and waved a hand.
“That’s another matter altogether, nobody knows if you are or you aren’t mine.”
As the meaning of his words struck me, I watched as Janie’s eyes widened with disbelief and I spoke before I even knew it.
“You ugly old man! Are you sitting here saying that you don’t know if Janie and I are your children? I can’t believe this, even from you. You’re casting aspersions on our mother’s character and you expect us to be alright with that?”
He stood, grinning, and I saw something in his dark hooded eyes I had never seen or noticed before. His words were clear and precise, leaving no doubt as to what he really thought.
“Janie was a surprise baby, came right after Lil Gus and I wasn’t expecting her. You came after a two week R&R in Hawaii, and again, I wasn’t expecting you either.”
He shrugged and held out his hands, “Alls I’m saying is…”
His gesture spoke for him, and Janie and I left the office without accepting our gifts or signing any papers, or listening to any further explanation from him. That was the beginning of the end for us both, Janie nor I ever spoke to him again or discussed his allegations, the man we knew as our father had almost summarily disowned us, or at least questioned his paternity, there was no getting past that.
Three years passed. Mama and Lionel were married, Janie swapped Louis for Jeff and Micah and I welcomed Taylor into our family. That Christmas, my father stopped by with a gift for Ash and to see the new baby. I had Micah bring Taylor into the living room while I took a bath and refused to see or talk to my father. I had no problem with the boys knowing and loving their grandfather, but I didn’t have to deal with him.
Even though we lived within easy access to each other, neither my father or I made any effort to recreate our relationship. It took his illness to bring about our next meeting. Ruth called me to inform me that my Dad had been diagnosed with cancer nearly a year ago and was considered terminal. The years of physically misusing his body had come back to haunt him in the form of testicular cancer, when I spoke to Ruth, he was undergoing chemo as well as radiation, but neither would stop the malignancy from spreading to his lungs, liver and pancreas, he had
been given 6 months to a year to live.
“Grace he doesn’t know I’m calling you, Lord knows he’d be upset with me! But listen, I think you girls ought to know, and I know he won’t call you, so I did.”
I listened with no reaction.
“Ruth, I don’t know if either Janie or I are willing to see him, the last time we were together wasn’t nice.”
“Oh Grace, you can’t let that keep you from his death bed, he’s just a man, a different and sometimes mean man, but he’s dying and he should have his children around him.”
I wondered if he had passed on his doubts about my sister and I to Ruth, if she knew what he thought of us, but I also wondered if Gus Robinson might be ready to fix what he had shattered. I called Janie and we had lunch together and I told her about Ruth’s call.
“Well, talk about just desserts! I say let him stew in his own malignant juices. I’m sure the last people he wants to see are his questionable daughters, call me when it’s over.”
I talked with Micah, together we tried to find an answer. How responsible was I? What did God require of me? And of course, how could I face him, try to comfort him when he had summarily closed me out of his life! Maybe Janie was right, perhaps we should forget that Ruth had called, forget that we knew, and let August Robinson face his end just as he had faced his life, with a chip the size of Asia on his shoulder. But I was reminded that much more was required of me if I called myself a Christian, so I implored my sister.
“Just come with me to see him one time, I swear I won’t ask again.”
But Janie shook her head, her eyes cold and vacant.
“That old man never loved us, hell he’s always doubted that we were his! I have no need to have him wash my face in it again. If you need to go, then go, just don’t expect anything.”
So, after much soul searching and praying, I called Ruth and asked when might be a good time for a visit
“Oh, Grace just anytime! He’s in so much pain all the time, a visit might do him good.”
So on a Sunday after church, armed with the Word, I entered my father’s bedroom for a visit, and stayed three weeks.
The bedroom had once been a huge airy place filled with the indoor plants both he and Ruth loved, painted a soft muted Hunter Green, it was both comfortable and as elegant as Ruth could muster. Now, it was a sick room, the hospital bed was big enough for two, yet I doubted that Ruth shared it with him, and was devoid of the colorful decorations she so loved. Here, was all Gus, a decimated and dying Gus, but finally, a place where he had absolute rule, his last stronghold. She showed me in and left, and I walked softly in and closed the door.
The air in the room reeked of age, illness and despair; the prevailing theme was doom, and it hung in the room like a real presence. My father lay on the big queen sized bed, barely taking up a third of its width with the covers folded neatly up under his chin. He was asleep, snoring softly with his mouth agape. His respirations were wheezy and labored as his wizened hands clutched at the bedclothes and the fingers twitched with a life of their own. I gazed down at him and my heart did a flip-flop. This pitiable, wasted creature was my father, no matter what he thought or said, and despite my fury at him, there was still that invisible bond.
There was a chair by the bed, and I sat gingerly so as not to waken him, and stared at what remained of the man he had once been. His normal healthy coloring was now underscored by a sickly grayish encroachment, and the skin of his face was pulled so tightly, I might have taught an anatomy lesson.
His greasy hair was still lush and abundant, but was now mostly grey and I couldn’t remember what color it had been the last time I had seen him. The skin of his big hands were stretched like parchment, the huge veins at the surface and the normally buffed nails were over long and unattended to, and I could see what appeared to be remnants of food stuck between the fingers. His chest was flat except for a bulge over his left side and as I looked closer, I could see that there was an intravenous line from the bulge to a large vessel in his scrawny neck.
I had seen this before, it was a pain pump, designed to allow him to medicate himself when necessary, and one more sign that death was imminent. I glanced round the room and my eyes fell on some literature explaining Hospice, and I could see that the papers had once been crisp and straight but were now smoothed out by hand as though they had been crumpled. There was a humidifier sputtering on a low table, and next to it, a portable potty chair. How he must hate being reduced in this way!
The one bedside lamp’s shade was partially covered by a red towel, giving the room a strange and inappropriate somehow festive look, and made weird shadows in the corners of the room. It was one of the most depressing rooms I had ever seen, and all I could think of, was of course it looks this way, it’s a death room; how else should it look?
I sat for a while. perhaps thirty minutes, but when he didn’t wake, I went out to find Ruth. She sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, the ever-present Gil across from her. Gil kissed my cheek and excused himself and I sat in his vacant chair.
“He’s still asleep, maybe I should come back?”
She shrugged, but before she could reply, we both heard him, calling her name. She darted through the door and emerged a few minutes later, her face flushed, tears in her eyes.
“He needs to be cleaned up and he won’t let me do it. He wants Gil.”
Without a word, Gil crossed the kitchen and went into the sick room, after a slight hesitation, I followed.
My father lay on his side, facing the door, his hands clutching the sheet that covered him, the cords of his neck strained as he breathed laboriously.
“Help me out man! That junk they’re giving me…”
He paused and squinted at me in the doorway, “Who’s that? Ruth, I told you…”
Then I stepped forward into his line of vision and he was able to distinguish me. He grunted and turned his head.
“Ain’t no need you coming here, you can just wait ‘til it’s over.”
Gil began assembling what he needed and I assisted him without a word. When he realized that I was seconding Gil, he pulled the covers more tightly and tried to move away from my hands. Without a word, I pried the fingers back, and stared into his face, he lay with his eyes closed, ignoring me. I helped Gil to clean him and the sight of his wasted flanks stirred something in me. There was a catheter in his bladder, the tubing filled with bloody waste, and he wore an adult diaper that hung in folds on his frame, and a hospital gown was twisted around what was left of him, I blinked back tears.
“Ruth called, you should have told us sooner.”
He pressed his lips tightly over his teeth and shook his head without speaking, I went on, my right hand on his, “No matter what you thought, we’re still your children, and you’re our Dad, we have a right to know.”
He smiled then, an ugly, sardonic easing of his facial muscles and met my eyes.
“Why? So you could come here and curse me, soothe your soul with my suffering? I didn’t ask you to come and I want you to leave!”
The outburst cost him, and he began wheezing and coughing, there was blood on the tissue Gil used to wipe his mouth. He lay back, spent, but his feverish eyes tracked me as I nodded to Gil and sat in the chair next to the bed.
“It doesn’t matter why I’m here, I just am. I want to help, make things easier for you and Ruth and Gil, it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
He didn’t respond and I sat back in the chair and waited. He didn’t speak again for two days, not to me at least, although I could hear him castigating Ruth and pleading with Gil. I slept in the guest room and didn’t force myself on him. That Wednesday, as I was talking with Micah on the phone, Ruth came to the door.
“Your Daddy wants to talk to you.”
I added a few words to my conversation with Micah, hung up the phone and followed Ruth into the bedroom. He was propped up on several pillows and looked less ravaged, he gestured me over with one hand and I sat next to him.
“I wasn’t going to let either of you know, but Gil and Ruth…”
He waved a hand and paused to breathe, I touched his hand and nodded.
“It’s alright, they were right we have a right to know. I’m here to help out, but if you’d rather I didn’t stay…”
The hand that I was touching suddenly turned into a claw as he squeezed it around my fingers, he didn’t say anything, but I felt it in that strong grip. I called Micah later and told him what I had decided.
“It can’t be much longer, and since Janie won’t come, I want to stay and do what I can.”
My wonderful, caring husband understood, and after talking with my boys, I poised myself for the inevitable. Mornings, Ruth and I spruced him up before the visiting nurse arrived. Ruth shaved him and I applied lotion to his wasted body, massaging the prominent areas and using pillows to cushion his hips and outer ankles. The nurse came, administered what she had to, replaced the pain pump and left.
Ruth prepared is breakfast, and I usually sat in the kitchen as she assisted him with the small amounts of food he ingested. Gil came around ten, always with a bag, and while I was shocked to discover that in the bag was usually whiskey, it didn’t seem wrong. He was dying, what could it matter now? Gil spent nearly an hour with him, and if the day was fine, between the three of us, we rolled him out to the back porch. While Ruth did the house cleaning in the sick room, I sat with him as Gil prowled the yard or ran errands.
It had been ten days since I had arrived, and while his eyes sought me, he never spoke to me. One morning when it began to rain, he stared at the trees.
“Always liked the rain. My son did too, it’s like a bath from God.”
I stared, I could not remember him ever acknowledging God for anything. He breathed deeply, eschewing the portable inhaler in his lap.
“Your Mama did the best she could, I should have never said those bad things about her.”
He turned teary eyes to me, “But he was my only son! Man ought not to see his child buried like that!”
I nodded and reached for his hand.
“I know, but you still had two daughers.”
He pulled his hand away and I felt a sudden flash of anger rise up, surely he wasn’t going to revisit his slimy accusations? His fingers picked at the fabric of the wrap that covered his bony legs as he shook his head.
“I had it all planned out, him and me was going to enjoy life like men! But look what he went and did!”
My brother had challenged his wife’s boyfriend inside their home, and had been shot and killed, he had been only twenty-six. I wondered if Daddy ever thought about Mama’s reaction to losing her son, it seemed as usual Gus Robinson cared only about Gus Robinson. I wasn’t going to allow this pity-party while I sat awaiting death with the man who had voiced his doubts about my parentage.
“But you never consoled Mama, it was always about you!”
He stiffened in his chair but didn’t respond. I moved my chair so I could see his wasted face. “It’s always been about you, you never cared about anything else!”
He was saying something, something I couldn’t hear so I leaned closer.
“What was that?”
He turned suddenly and I saw in those hollowed eyes, another Gus, a smaller, emptier Gus
“I said, she didn’t want me to console her, she acted like it was my fault.”
I frowned, remembering my mother’s near shut-down at my brother’s death, he must know something I didn’t.
“But you continued to lash out at her, blame her when you were as much to fault! Daddy, Lil Gus did what he thought was right, neither you or Mama could have ever changed that. You should have been kinder to her, to all of us, but you shut us out and enjoyed your grief alone.”
He began to cry softly and I was red with shame and embarrassment, I had never seen him shed a tear before, not even when we buried my brother. I stood and left him to consider whatever it was that was causing his tears and took a walk. When I returned a while later, he was back in bed asleep, his fingers on the button of the pump that brought temporary relief. I ate dinner with Ruth as Gil sat with us but didn’t eat, sipping instead from his coffee cup.
“Your Daddy is a proud man, Grace. This thing that’s killing him is like an insult, something he can’t control.” Ruth offered, I looked at her, cowed even at her own table.
“So that gives him the right to be ugly, say nasty things? It must be hell, being August Robinson and being unable to tell God what to do!”
Gil grunted and I turned to him. He smiled.
“Baby you don’t know the half. When they told him he was gonna die, he tried to control that, took some pills. Ruth, you tell Grace what it was like.”
I listened as Ruth spoke, slowly and carefully like peeling an onion, telling me exactly how it had been.
“He was like a crazy person! They pumped out his stomach after I found him, and he cursed me and said I should have left him alone.”
She turned teary eyes to me, “But how could I do that? He’s my husband and I love him!”
She shook her head miserably, and her tears fell on the table cloth.
“He refused to let me call you girls, said that you wouldn’t come anyway, and he told me what he had said in that lawyer’s office.”
She reached for my hand and gazed into my eyes, tears coursing down her face, “He didn’t mean that, Grace, he was just being Gus, saving his own feelings.”
I started to reply but she tugged at my fingers, “No listen to me. I know how he hurt you and Janie, but he never meant it, never believed it, he was just acting out,” she smiled suddenly, “He’s been a weak, lonely man all his life, that’s why he did the things he did.”
She sat back in her chair, still holding my hand hostage.
“Him and your Mama probably should have never married, she was weaker than him and she let him rule her.”
I smirked at Ruth.
“And you were different? He bossed you around too.”
She nodded, still smiling.
“Yes, yes he did, but by the time we got together, he was mostly all talk, his days of running everything were almost over. I stayed because despite his mean spirit, I loved him, and I needed him as much as he needed me.”
She winked at me, “When your Mama didn’t beg him back, it took some of the wind out of his sails, took away some of his power and he didn’t know what to do. When I came along, he huffed and puffed and did all his usual, but I saw right through him, and that made him furious! He doesn’t respect me or anyone else, not even himself and that’s why it’s so hard for him to let go now.”
Ruth tugged my hand again, “Let him die like he lived, Grace, let him believe that he’s in charge and don’t hate him anymore.”
I stared at her ruined face.
“Hate him? I never hated him! He hurt me and Janie and Mama too, and I don’t know how they feel, but I don’t think its hatred.”
Gil cleared his throat, “He don’t know that, ‘cause he hates himself.”
There it was as clear as mud, Gil had it all figured out. After that, I was able to sit with him and not judge. I allowed my daddy his feelings as well as his fears and I was just there. By the third week, he was much weaker, pressing the pump button and tossing about in the bed. I put cool cloths on his brow and gave him broth through a straw that he mostly threw up, and waited for an epiphany from him. One night, when the pain seemed unbearable, I held his hand and asked if he would pray with me, he bared his teeth.
“Pray for what? I got nothing to say to God, and I ain’t going to beg him now. You pray for whatever you need, but leave me the hell out of it!”
After that night, he never spoke again, and the apology I had hoped and prayed for, for myself, and for him never came.
Write On Press Presents: The Ultimate Collection of Original Short Fiction, Volume II Page 7
