A Different Kind of Normal

by Cathy Lamb

  Mr. Bonaparte was shrunken and wrinkled. He said, “Maybe you deserve it.”

  “Maybe I do, Mr. Bonaparte. Balls and tarnation, maybe I should wish for it.”

  “You still have those fake diamonds in your hair. Fake! Fake diamonds! I buy my wife real diamonds!”

  “I wear my fake diamonds to annoy you.” I loved my crystals from Tate, so my temper was now piqued.

  “They do annoy me. They’re annoying!”

  “I know, but it gets your heart rate up, which is helpful. Want to sit up so you can shout at full throttle?”

  “I don’t want to sit up and I don’t want help, and where did you get all that red hair?”

  “Rumor has it there’s some Irish blood in the line.”

  “Irish blood! Bloody Irish, not for me. In my company, I hired men. Didn’t need women driving my rigs with all those hormones. Women can’t drive at the same level as men. They get distracted easily, can’t take corners, emotional! Weaker sex. My daughter, she deserted me! She works for another company, not mine. Said I didn’t respect her. My wife never worked. She knew to stay home, do what she was told, and take care of me.”

  “That must have been a hellaciously hard job for her.”

  Out in the living room, Kendra started singing a beer-drinking song. She went on about stalking the town criminal and stuffing him into a trunk and pushing the car into a lagoon. “And he sang with the fishes, he sang with the fishes, oh how he sang with the fishes for the rest of his life. Kaboom and boom and there he loomed.”

  “Bah! It wasn’t hard for her! I worked all the time. She stayed home on her fanny. Didn’t do anything.” Mr. Bonaparte still had a shock of white hair. “I want to get up now, I want to get up.”

  He swung his legs over the bed.

  “Sir, please don’t. You’ve had a hip replacement that didn’t work, remember, and you have cancer all over your body. You need to stay in bed. I can’t support you.”

  “I don’t need support! I’m getting up, damn it, and I’m going to tell Kendra to shut up.”

  Kendra chortled out a new song. This one was about a woman who decided that she was going to explore the world without a man, carefree, and drinking whiskey. “Whisky this, whiskey that, I ain’t going to get caught in the corporate trap! Whiskey this, whiskey that, I’m going to Paris, you can kiss my ass!”

  “Shut up, Kendra!” her father bellowed.

  “Shut up, Dad, you old fart!” she bellowed back, then sang a song called, “My Little Titty, My Little Kitty . . .”

  Her father’s jaw dropped, his face turning purple. “Kendra, shut up!”

  “No, Dad, you disappointer, you shut up and soon you’ll be shut up forever!” Kendra came to the door and burped. “I’m a disappointment. I didn’t do it right. But you know what, Dad? I don’t care!”

  Kendra couldn’t see it, but I could. Mr. Bonaparte’s face fell.

  “My little titty, my little kitty . . .” she chirped.

  Mr. Bonaparte leaned back in bed, stared at his wife, and bit out, “Why is she talking like that to me, Joyce? I’ve been a good husband, a good father. She’s ungrateful. Her and her siblings. Ungrateful, miserable, spoiled. Disappointments! Capital D!”

  Joyce did not respond. She was a sticky white color and one of the most run-down people I’ve ever seen.

  “Joyce!” Mr. Bonaparte shouted.

  “What?” she clipped, short and impatient.

  His dark eyes opened wide. “Joyce?”

  “What?” She crossed her legs, and I noticed she was trembling. She was a skeleton. Anorexia happens at all ages. I had talked with her about this, but she denied there was a problem. Perhaps the problem would end in about a month. I eyed Mr. Bonaparte. Maybe less than that.

  “Don’t use that tone with me, Joyce. What’s gotten into you?” Mr. Bonaparte jabbed a gnarled finger at his wife. “What? You having one of your moods again? I won’t tolerate it, Joyce!”

  “Nothing has gotten into me. Lie back and relax.” Mrs. Bonaparte swayed in her chair.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, I won’t be bossed around by you or any other stupid woman, you two together, you and Jaden, you do nothing for me, nothing! Standing there, staring at me, what am I, a snake in an aquarium?”

  “If you were a snake in an aquarium, you’d drown or the other snakes would eat you so you’d stop biting them,” I said. “Mr. Bonaparte, I’m going to take your vitals, talk about how you’re feeling, then later you can have lunch.”

  “Lunch, I don’t want lunch. Joyce can’t cook at all. Did you order out, Joyce? Did you? What did you get this time? I don’t want that Chinese crap from the other day! Dumb choice! Dumb!”

  Joyce stood up, pale, white, shaking.

  “All these years, you never had to work a day in your life and I ask that you get my meals on time, too hard for you, too hard, Joyce. And I gave you servants and cars and clothes, you damn near spent all my money.”

  “I never did that, George, never.” Mrs. Bonaparte put her shoulders back.

  “Sit down, Joyce, no one needs you standing up. Don’t you stare down at me, woman!” He pounded a fist into the pillow. “Damn it, where ya goin’?”

  Joyce put her hand out to mine. “Thank you, Jaden. You’re a saint.”

  I shook it, gently. She was a tiny slip of a woman. “No, not a saint. Dealing with irascible people is sometimes part of my job.”

  “He makes it miserable.” She turned to her husband, flailing around in the bed. “Good-bye, George.”

  “What? What the hell do you mean, good-bye? Get the lunch and bring it in here, woman. I need my socks changed, I’m gonna get another disease on my feet if you don’t take care of me better. This is your fault, Joyce!”

  “I’m done, George.”

  “What do you mean? Speak up. I can never understand you. It’s her background. Poor family. Dad never made much of himself. Uneducated. Never went to college.”

  “I can’t take this anymore.” Mrs. Bonaparte swayed on her feet, and I moved pretty quick, thinking she was going to fall. “I’m sorry you’re dying, but you’re mean. Belittling and condescending and rude. To me, to the kids.”

  “No, I’m not! You’re too sensitive. You make me say the things I do. You don’t know when to shut up. You do things to make me mad. The kids are Mommy’s boys and girls. You did that to me, you did that. That’s why they cringe when I’m around. They never come home to see me. I have to die before I see my kids!” He leaned over and coughed, a messy, harsh cough.

  “It’s you, George. You’re at fault. It’s always been you. I should have left years ago.”

  Kendra sang out in the living room, top volume, “A one, two, three . . . down down down into the earth he’ll go, a coffin here, a coffin there, grass growing ’round his knees. . . .”

  Mr. Bonaparte gasped.

  Mrs. Bonaparte stood taller, but a couple of tears fell.

  “You’re crying, Joyce!” George blustered. “Close off the waterworks, you know I can’t stand a weak woman! I don’t need to see you being a baby!”

  “I’m crying because I can’t believe how many years I’ve lost, how many years I’ve cried myself to sleep, cowered from you, been scared, and I didn’t leave. And now, you’re dying, and you’re still trying to control me, and I still stand around and take it, and I can’t take it anymore.” She burst into tears. “I can’t take it. I’m supposed to be here until you die, but if I have to sit here one more day and listen to you—”

  “Listen to me!” he shouted. “Listen to me, what do you mean? You’ve never been smart. I’ve had to take care of everything, you get confused and upset, you can’t even think, and you need me to think for you! I’m sick! This ain’t about you, Joyce!”

  “Yes, yes, it is.” She blinked back the tears. “It’s about me. You ranting and raving and taking out your anger on me. Decades of meanness . . .”

  She turned and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry, Jaden. Call whoever you need
to, please. He needs nurses around the clock. I’m up most of the time getting him things he needs, and I haven’t slept hardly at all in two weeks.”

  “I understand, Joyce. I know what to do.” I hugged her back. It is not my job to be a marriage counselor. It is my job to care for the patient and be a help to the family, not repair a severely broken marriage that should have ended decades ago.

  “Good-bye, George.” Joyce wobbled out of the bedroom.

  “You gold digger, you stupid bitch, get back in here, get back right this minute! Shit, Joyce, I ain’t kidding. I will write you out of my will so fast your head will fly off. I’ll give it all away, the whole lot of it, the money, the homes, the stocks, it’s all going to a gorilla organization, better monkeys than you, Joyce, better monkeys than you!”

  He turned beet red and kicked a foot, his healthy foot. He wheezed and coughed.

  In the other room I heard Kendra, the CEO, stop singing for a moment, Joyce’s low voice cutting across Mr. Bonaparte’s ranting.

  “I’ll show her who’s still the boss of the house. That woman has always needed a firm hand to keep her in line, a slap or two to wake her up, and I’m going to show it to her—”

  I tried to keep Mr. Bonaparte calm, and to tamp down my own intense dislike of the man. “Please take a breath with me. . . . Let me help you, settle down. . . . I understand you want to get up. . . . No, I cannot let you strike your wife, or your daughter. . . .”

  “Get her back in here now, Jaden! Now! Get your ass back in here, stupid bitch, Joyce!”

  “I will not make them come back in here, Mr. Bonaparte. Especially because you’re being abusive, horrible to both your wife and your daughter.”

  Kendra burst into a new, high-pitched drunken song. “We are free, fluffy hairy birds, no more turds in our lives . . . free to fly, free to laugh, free to sleep with men we don’t bring home to Daddy . . . free because I’m not married to the gay guy that Daddy picked out.... Do la la la la la . . . My daddy cannot mock me, don’t mess with me, you cock. . . .”

  Mr. Bonaparte turned about purple, struggled to get up, and pushed me out of the way with truly shocking strength, as I pleaded, “Please stay in bed, I’ll get your walker, you’re going to fall. . . .” He stood up, shouted, “Kendra, I’m coming for you, you drunk, disappointing brat. . . .”

  And he fell. Splat. Right on down. I tried to catch him, but his weight was too much. He crashed to the floor and broke his other hip.

  We all have visions of dying with our loved ones around us, soft music playing on a harp in the background, receiving some last words of wisdom on how to live a love-filled life.

  That happens often, but often it doesn’t.

  For the people who have been truly maniacal to their loved ones, well, they end up like Mr. Bonaparte, still a vicious rat, still unloved. The families may or may not come to be with him or her near the end.

  People are often criticized for not being there when their parents die, not providing care. Now it could be that the child is a selfish frog, a self-centered and narcissistic coward when it comes to death, unsure of what to say or do because of immaturity or a lack of generosity, so they stay away. It could also be, however, that the person dying was a porcupine needle–stabbing whack job who hurt his family and anyone within twenty feet of his razor-sharp tongue.

  Those people die alone.

  Even if there are family members emotionally blackmailed into coming, even if they’re sitting around the porcupine as death creeps up, they still die alone because no one cares when they’re gone.

  I ate nine red cinnamon Gummi Bears that night.

  6

  The next night, as a family, we celebrated our annual Captain and First Mate Rescue Day.

  Captain and First Mate Rescue Day refers to the time when Faith fell off the ship into the Atlantic Ocean on their journey to America, Grace jumped in after her cousin to save her, and the captain and first mate jumped in to save both women, who were quickly sinking because of the weight of their dresses.

  We celebrate the captain, who was rumored to have dolphin blood running through his veins, and the first mate, brave soul.

  My mother flew up, Caden and his kids came over, and we all drove together to Portland to go on a dinner cruise on the Willamette River. My mother wore a burgundy-colored designer dress and a blond wig. Tate and Caden wore suits. I wore a red dress with a cross bodice. The triplets wore matching sailor outfits with Mardi Gras masks. Damini wore a short gold dress and gold sparkly heels my mom bought for her from a famous designer. “Aunt Jaden, look! My dress shines off my leg!”

  I love how Damini does not hide her prosthetic leg. As she said, “I still remember what it felt like in the orphanage to hop on one leg and how it hurt when I kept falling. Now, because of all this metal, I walk normal, I run fast, I don’t crash into the ground onto my face, and I’m joining track and I’m going to run and jump and kick some butt-ola!”

  Tate said to Damini, “You’re in gold and silver. You look like a treasure chest. Maybe you should put a lid on it.”

  She slapped his arm, grinned, then put her arm through his. “You’re a pain in my keester, Tate. A pain in my keester!”

  “I think a pirate is going to kidnap you, Damini,” he said. “Watch out! He’ll probably have sharp, pointy teeth, a hook for a hand, bad breath, warts. . . .”

  I knew my mother was thinking of Brooke and my dad that night as we cruised down the river, missing both of them as we nibbled on fancy-schmancy appetizers, but we still had a heck of a time, and none of us fell over into the river as poor Faith and Grace had tumbled into the waves of the Atlantic.

  One must celebrate that if one’s ancestor died years ago, you would not be here today.

  At least, that was our excuse for the champagne.

  This is how my mother summed up my love life at one point, when we were sitting on my white porch one sunny afternoon drinking peppermint tea: You are testicle-free by choice.

  “Mother, I don’t want to talk about this. I only want one man’s testicles, and I can’t have them.”

  “I know you feel that Ethan’s testicles have a male chastity belt on them, so let’s move to another man with the same plumbing. In fact, let’s pretend there are a whole bunch of testicles out there.”

  I groaned and buried my head in my hands. “Let’s not, Mom.”

  “Yes, let’s.” She swung her foot, clad, as usual, in a four-inch-high heel. She was wearing a purple silk wrap and leather belt. By contrast, I was in my jeans, cowboy boots, and a blousy blue shirt with embroidery across the front.

  “No.”

  “There are testicles flying around and about.” She pretended to try to catch tiny balls. “There are some at the university and at the hospital where you had all those nursing classes, some in our town, some in the city, some on online dating sites, and they’re all whizzing about.”

  “I do not want to envision whizzing testicles. Thank you.”

  “I do,” my mother said. She stared into the air, envisioning those whizzing testicles, and smiled. “You could reach up and grab those testicles, but you don’t because you think you’re too busy for testicle grabbing.”

  “I am busy, Mother.”

  She waved her hand. “I am here on many weekends and all holidays. You could date when I’m with Tate, but you don’t. Instead, we stay home and play Scrabble or have movie nights or family parties.”

  “I live for Scrabble, movie nights, and family parties.”

  “Me, too. But you need testicles.”

  “Scrabble is better than testicles.”

  “Ha. See. That’s because you don’t grab the right ones. Firm and full of action . . .”

  “Mother, must you be that graphic?”

  “You work with people who are sliding into heaven, you hover over Tate as if you’re a special agent stalking her prey, you spend masses of time being overly serious and thinking overly serious thoughts, and you have your gourmet recipe and h
erb obsessions and your greenhouse. You hide. You don’t even try love.”

  “I do try love.” I cleared my throat and ate my fifth cookie. “I did.”

  Josh, my high school boyfriend, and I dated through my father’s death. He was kind and sweet. He had no clue how to handle a girl grieving over her father, but he tried. But Tate, and my becoming Tate’s mother, that he couldn’t handle.

  At the time it sent me into a tailspin of sadness when he broke up with me. I missed him; he broke my heart. We both cried. But I don’t blame him. We were nineteen. He did not want to become a dad.

  I tried love in nursing school. There was a doctor I was interested in, he was going to be a cardiologist. We dated, and I told him about adopting my sister’s son. We were friends. I thought he had character.

  I showed him a photo of Tate on our fourth date. His face paled.

  Now, you would think that a medical doctor wouldn’t be put off by Tate.

  He was.

  It wasn’t long before I received a telephone call. In fact, it was the next morning, though he knew I had a huge final in a class in an hour. “I don’t think this is . . . uh . . . this is not . . . I don’t want to be a . . . not ready to be a father.... I have a friend who can figure out if there’s something he can do for that kid’s head. . . .”

  I told him to go screw himself backward with a fire poker.

  There was another man, Dr. Rogey Hicks. I told him about Tate right off. He said he was fine with my being a mother. I did not introduce Tate to Rogey because I made a rule long ago that I wouldn’t introduce Tate to any man unless I was going to marry him.

  Dr. Rogey Hicks zipped off to this medical convention, and that doctors’ symposium, and spoke here and there. Our relationship was passionate and intense, he listened, he was attentive, engaged. Lots of admirable qualities.

  On a hot summer day in August he was arrested for selling prescription painkillers out of his home.

  “I didn’t do it, Jaden!” he protested. “I’m an innocent man. It was a setup!”

  The drug enforcement agents who poured out of his garage with garbage bags full of evidence, computers, customer lists, and bags of painkillers, begged to differ.