by Lisa Wingate
“Mari-lyyyn!” It occurred to me suddenly that the name my father had called out was my mother’s. The realization was bizarre, unreal, something my mind couldn’t process at first. Why was he in the house screaming for my mother, of all people? “Mari-lyyyn!” The call was fearful, panicked, demanding a response.
Adrenaline rushed like an electrical current through my body. I ran across the patio, threw open the back door, found my father crouched beside the coffee table, throwing piles of magazines, dirty dishes, and rotten food onto the floor in a frantic search for something. He batted a glass of soured orange juice across the room and it shattered against the heavy oak fireplace, spreading shards of glass, droplets of juice, and chunks of mold over the hearth and into last winter’s ashes.
“Stop!” I heard myself scream. “What are you doing?” I was on top of my father, grabbing his arm before I’d registered the thought that, even now, he was a large man. “Stop!” I hollered again. “Stop it!”
Rocking back on his heels, he swiveled toward me, blinked as if my presence surprised him. I backed away, slowly straightening as he stood up.
“You’re . . .” He paused, let his arms, loose-skinned and thin compared to the strong arms I remembered, hang at his sides. His head tilted as he took me in, his eyes sharpening with a look of recognition. “There you are.”
After thirty-three years, it wasn’t how I’d pictured our reunion. “Hi, Dad.” It wasn’t what I’d imagined I would say, either. I’d imagined something with more drama. I’d role-played this moment so many times, but never this way.
He leaned forward, grabbed my shoulders so quickly I didn’t have time to react. “You’re here.” He gasped out the words with a long sigh, pulled me close in a hug I didn’t return, but didn’t push away. His body sagged against mine, as if he had been waiting for me for a very long time. I felt his ribs and collarbones beneath his loose white undershirt. He seemed only half the man I remembered.
“I’m here.” A lump rose in my throat. My emotions were twisted inside, indiscernible. In some little-girl part of myself I didn’t want to acknowledge, I’d always dreamed that my father would be glad to see me—that he’d wanted to continue fighting for contact with me, but Hanna Beth wouldn’t let him. I knew better, of course. If my father had really wanted me, he would have insisted that the custody order be enforced. Instead, he sent the checks on time, paid for my health insurance until I was of age, and otherwise let go. If it weren’t for monetary considerations and the birthday cards my mother helped me send back unopened, he would have ceased to exist in my life.
He moved his hands to my shoulders again, pushed me back hard enough that I stumbled, and he held me up. His attention darted around the room, then fixed on me. He whispered, “Marilyn, those people are here again. They’ve taken my pills. They hid them somewhere.”
Breath rushed from my lungs, and I stood in a hollow, airless shell, caught between logic and the strange reality of this decaying house, in which my father called me by my mother’s name. Was it really possible that he didn’t know who I was? That his mind was so clouded, so tangled in the past that he believed he was talking to my mother? His eyes pleaded for me to understand, to respond. “What . . . what people?”
His glance flicked back and forth, checking the corners. Leaning around me, he peered into the darkened kitchen. “Those people. They went all through the house last night. They’ve taken my pills.” He put his face close to my ear. “They say things about me, you know. It’s not true. None of it’s true.”
His fingers squeezed my shoulders tighter. Nervous perspiration dripped down my back. When I’d watched him sleeping last night, crumpled in his chair, old and harmless, I’d assumed I could handle him, take care of his needs, figure out what had to be done here. Now it was clear that I’d had no real concept of the problem. Had things been this way before Hanna Beth went to the hospital, or had they become worse since she left? How could she possibly have taken care of him, like this? “There’s no one here.” I’d intended the words to be firm, but instead they trembled. “It’s all right. Let’s just sit down a minute.”
His nostrils flared, and he shook his head vehemently, then glanced toward the window. “I saw one of them in the backyard. I didn’t tell him anything.”
“That was Teddy.”
He gave the name no reaction, other than to release me and cross to the opposite side of the room. “They eat all the food. Now, they’ve taken my pills.” Turning unsteadily, he lost his balance and collided with the door frame. “They ate the bread last night. There’s an empty wrapper.”
“Teddy and I ate the bread.” Surely, faced with enough logic, enough reality, he would emerge from whatever world he was in, and step into the one in which I needed his help. “I’ll buy some groceries today. Let’s not worry about the bread. I need to know how to get in touch with Kay-Kay. Do you know where I can find her phone number?”
He pushed off the door frame and went to the entry hall without answering. I clung briefly to the hope that he was going after an address book or list of contacts. His footsteps passed over the ceramic tile, then echoed across the ladies’ parlor in the front of the house. “See there? There’s their car in the drive.”
“It’s my car.” Taking a deep breath, I started through the entry hall. “I parked it there. It’s my car. No one’s here but me.”
My father moved the heavy velvet curtain aside, peeking through the parlor window. “There’s one of them on the lawn. He’ll steal things. They always steal things. They hide things. They hid the car keys.”
Thank goodness, I thought, and the reaction was almost comical. On the heels of that thought, there was sadness, a full realization of my father’s plight. This man who had traveled the world, who loved antique cars and flew small planes as a hobby, couldn’t even drive anymore. He didn’t know where he was, when he was. He was seeing imaginary people out . . . A movement on the lawn caught my eye. I pulled the curtain back. There was someone on the lawn—a power company employee, with a van.
The reason for the house being dark, for the lights not working in the bathroom, the refrigerator not humming in the kitchen this morning suddenly became clear. I hit a light switch. Nothing.
“Stay here,” I ordered, and rushed to the front door, struggled to open the host of locks, then dashed across the lawn.
By the time I reached the curb, the meter man was getting back into his van. He rolled down the window when I knocked. “Excuse me. Our power is out this morning.”
He twisted to look at the clipboard on his dash. “Power’s been turned off for nonpayment, ma’am. You’ll have to go down to the office to get it turned back on.” He wasn’t rude exactly, just matter-of -fact, as if he dealt with this situation often.
“You can’t turn off the power,” I protested, desperation pounding in my ears. “My father’s wife has been in the hospital. He has Alzheimer’s. He probably doesn’t know how to pay the bill. Please. I’ll give you a check right now.”
He held up both hands, palms out. “I can’t help you, ma’am. You’ll have to go down to the main office. I just do the meter work. I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Without waiting for an answer, he pulled away, and I stood on the curb, exactly where I’d been thirty-three years ago. I wanted to do now what I’d done then—climb into the car, drive away, leave Blue Sky Hill and never look back.
CHAPTER 8
Hanna Beth Parker
The day-care van delivered Mary’s boys to her at the end of her shift, rather than their father bringing them. Mary didn’t linger, letting them pick flowers from the bushes or catch grasshoppers, but packed them into the faded minivan her husband had left in the parking lot earlier. She drove away, seeming in a hurry.
For three days, Mary didn’t come back, and neither did Rebecca. With the passage of each day, I felt a deeper foreboding. Sleep might have been a refuge, but each time I closed my eyes, I dreamed of taking Teddy, just a toddler, to the seashor
e down at Galveston, where Aunt Rae, my father’s sister, lived in an old beach house my uncle Hugh built before he died. In the dream, Aunt Rae threw her arms wide and hugged me. Her love wrapped around me like a favorite coat, warming away the chill of loneliness that had lingered since I’d chosen the scarlet path of unwed motherhood.
Teddy toddled to the top of the dune, excited to explore the beach and the wide expanse of curling water.
“I guess we’re heading to the beach.” Aunt Rae started after him, turned her face toward the sun, gazed out over the water and sand. Aunt Rae had always been beautiful, red-haired and olive-skinned, with full lips and a stunning smile. She looked like my father. I could see him in her face, and it was almost as if he were there, watching the grandchild he refused to acknowledge scamper toward the shore.
Putting on her sun hat, Aunt Rae laughed. She had my father’s laugh. I longed to hear that laugh again, to win it from my father’s mouth, but I couldn’t give up Teddy, no matter how strong my father’s archaic belief that the respectable thing would have been to give my baby to a family with two parents, not to condemn him to a life that would always be marked by the untoward label given to fatherless children. When I wouldn’t sign adoption papers, my father pleaded with me to at least divulge the identity of Teddy’s father, so the man could be compelled to do the right thing. I couldn’t tell him that Teddy’s father had married someone else, that the communiqué from his family lawyer had made his choice perfectly clear, sealed his decision without ambiguity. He was committed to his fiancée, to their planned life together. He didn’t want me, and he didn’t want Teddy.
In the dream, I looked up suddenly, noticed that Teddy was too far out in the surf. “Teddy, come back!” I called, but he couldn’t hear. “Teddy!” I tried to stand up, and the sand sank beneath me. “Teddy!” He was toddling farther and farther out into the water, mesmerized by the foamy waves, cautionless as always. The water lapped at his waist. A wave caught him, splashed over his chest and knocked him from his feet. He came up, turned toward the watery horizon, skimmed his small hands across the surface and started outward again.
“Teddy!” I fought to rise, clawed away the earth, but there was only more sand. “Teddy!” I screamed.
“Mrs. Parker . . . Mrs. Parker. I’m here. It’s all right. It’s okay.”
I dragged open my eyes, focusing on Mary’s face. “Mmmaarrry.” The word surprised me. I wondered if she was part of the dream, too. She’d been away so long.
“Hi.” Leaning over my bed, she fixed the pillow and moved my hair out of my face. Up close, her eyes were strained, her smile weary. “You’ve gotten a lot better these last few days. You were talking in your sleep, and I could understand you. I hear you’ve had good therapy sessions, too. Gretchen was really proud of you, and the speech therapist just bragged and bragged on how well you’re doing. I’m sorry I haven’t been here. I had . . .” She paused, looked away. “Brandon’s asthma’s been acting up and the after-school day care wouldn’t take him.” I could tell there was more to Mary’s absence, something significant.
I feared the case to be the same with Rebecca. If it hadn’t been for Claude coming now and again, complaining about Mary being gone and mentioning that he, too, wondered why Rebecca hadn’t returned, I might have thought I dreamed her visit. The clearer my mind became in the present, the more the past weeks seemed unreal. Sometimes, just waking up, I felt as if it were all a dream, as if I could step from bed, and walk to my garden, and begin spring planting, just as normal as you please. The illusion never lasted long, particularly with Gretchen’s daily sessions, and new visits from an occupational therapist, and the girl with the VitalStim swallowing machine helping me to eat ice cream and other mushy substances. In the afternoons, there was also a speech therapist. She showed me picture cards—scissors, computer, doll, sandwich, knife—and I tried to deliver the words from my brain to my mouth, and to remember what each item was used for. Not an easy task, but she insisted that I was improving.
Mary seemed to agree, but even so she frowned. “You look a little upset this morning.”
“Drrreeemm.” The word came out surprisingly easily, so I tried again. “Dreeem-um.”
Mary nodded. “Your brain’s healing. It’s a good sign.”
Despite her encouragement, I felt uneasy, uncertain. Underlying everything was the concern about what might be happening at home. What if, at this very moment, Rebecca was making plans to close up the house, making arrangements for Teddy and Edward? Surely, Kay-Kay would not allow such a thing without a fight, without coming to me. Kay-Kay had been devoted to Edward’s care for over a year, ever since it became a problem to leave him at home while I went to the grocery, the bank, the doctor’s office. Kay-Kay kept the house running, assisted with the cleaning, the gardening, frequently stayed overnight for no extra pay when Edward was having a difficult evening. Kay-Kay had seen us through so many difficult days. She wouldn’t let Rebecca waltz in and change everything.
Mary raised the bed and repositioned my legs. She forced a smile, but her face was lined with worry that made her look like an old woman in a girl’s body. “Did your daughter come back to visit? I’m sorry I wasn’t here to talk to her.”
“Nnooo.”
Mary concealed her surprise, then changed the subject. She unwound a cord from the safety rail and slid the remote under my hand on the bed. “Let’s try this. I bet you might be able to get the bed to go up and down, maybe even operate the TV.” She moved my fingers onto the buttons. I felt it dimly, like a sensation underwater. “See, this square one is the TV, then beside it is the channel button, then under that, the remote control for the bed. Feel that? The little triangles for up and down? Under that, the rectangle is your nurse call button.”
“Nooo.” I pulled my hand away. I didn’t want to talk about the television. I wanted to know why Rebecca hadn’t come back. I wanted someone to find out, to tell me.
Mary assumed my frustration was centered around the feeble workings of my fingers. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep trying. You can do it.”
“Rrrr-beeeck.” The ability to produce a decent semblance of the word, such a simple thing, gave me a quick sense of triumph. “Rrrr-beeek-uh?”
Mary cocked her head to one side, deciphering the sound. “Rebecca? ” she said finally. “Your daughter?”
"W-aare?” I asked. “Gen-boo?” The last word was a disappointment. I was trying to ask if Mary could find out where Rebecca was, why she hadn’t come back.
Mary’s eyebrows, arched like a little china doll’s, drew together.
"K-ul. K-ul R-baa.” Call Rebecca, call Rebecca, call Rebecca. My fingers clenched in frustration. My breathing sped up until my throat became dry and I fell into a fit of coughing and choking.
Mary grabbed the cup from the bedside table, dribbled a few drops of water into my mouth with the bendy straw. “Ssshhh,” she whispered. “Don’t try so hard. It’ll come. Stress makes things worse, that’s all. I think you better rest now, Mrs. Parker. I’ll be back again later.” After tucking the sheet around me, she moved toward the door.
I didn’t want her to go. I wanted her to call Rebecca, to call Kay-Kay, to find out what was happening at my house. I willed my hand to move to the remote, to lay over the button. My arm jerked, then moved, my fingers landing on the remote. The TV blared to life, and Mary jumped back, then threw a hand over her chest.
“Oh, my gosh,” she breathed, lowering the volume, then returning to the bed with a triumphant smile. “You did it, Mrs. Parker. Good for you!” She moved my finger to the channel button. “There, now you can watch what you want, and you won’t be bored.” She patted my hand, then started toward the door again, adding, “Good for you.”
I rested my wrist on the sound button, pushed down, and the TV blared again.
Mary turned in the alcove, braced her hands on her thin hips, quirking an eyebrow. “Well, Mrs. Parker!” she said, shocked and a little aggravated. “You’re going to h
ave us both in trouble.” She crossed the room again and reached for the remote.
I rolled away, dragging it with me.
“Mrs. Parker!” Leaning over the bed, she recovered the remote and turned off the TV, sounding as forceful as I’d ever heard her. “What in the world has gotten into you? You are going to have to calm down.” She tied the remote to the bed rail, out of reach, then helped me onto my pillows again and fixed the sheet.
Desperation welled in my eyes, spilled over. Mary’s face became tender. “It’s all right, okay? Just try to relax and we’ll talk again later. There are some volunteer readers in today. I’ll ask one of them to come by and read to you for a while. It’s good for your language processing. How would that be?”
I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes without answering. My legs had started to ache and burn, and I was suddenly exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to continue trying to make myself understood.
“Ssshhh,” Mary soothed. “Just rest.” She slipped away on silent feet, assuming I was drifting off to sleep. Instead, I stared out the window, tried to conjure a plan to make her understand. Nothing came to mind.
Sometime later, the squeal of the door hinges told me I had a visitor. I turned away from the window, hoping it was Rebecca. Instead, Mary was coming back, pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The woman, her hair plaited in a thin gray braid behind her head, her face weathered and wrinkled, looked older than me, but her manner, the upward tilt of her chin, her brightly colored Bugs Bunny sweat suit, testified to a spunkiness that even the wheelchair couldn’t camouflage. Any other time, I would have wanted to know her, but right now, I wasn’t in the mood for guests.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Mary said as she wheeled the woman around to the side of my bed and parked the chair. “Mrs. Parker, this is Ouita Mae Barnhill, Dr. Barnhill’s grandmother. She’s here with us, healing up from a little surgery and doing some volunteer reading to keep busy. Dr. Barnhill thought you two might enjoy spending time together.”
