by Jay Quinn
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Karl said again weakly. “I’m so sorry.”
“I should have been dead first,” Frank said apologetically. “I’ve outlived my life, Son.”
Karl wondered how to respond. His father sounded so bleak and lost. He wondered if he should try and joke him out of it, but that had fallen flat shortly before. He wondered if he should tell him how much he still needed him, and then he realized he had cut his father out of being needed many long years ago. So Karl settled on taking his father’s hand and squeezing it. He felt a deep peace when his father returned his grasp and didn’t let go. Karl held his father’s hand gratefully as they lay in their lounge chairs, watching the clouds chase themselves in the high, thin blue of the southern Florida winter sky.
5
“DINNER AT THE CLUB,” as Karl’s mother had so excitedly put it, had not been a part of Karl’s childhood. His parents’ country club membership hadn’t begun until his father’s retirement. At that time, golf had been a social activity Frank had enjoyed with his fellow ex-IBMers. While Annike never had taken up golf, or even tennis, she enjoyed having dinner at the country club a great deal. As they had grown older, it had become their cafeteria, in a way. It gave them something to look forward to at the end of the day and a place to entertain on the infrequent occasions when they did entertain.
Karl followed his parents into the dining room, dressed as formally as his suitcase could provide, with the addition of a sports jacket pressed on him from his father’s closet. He felt distinctly out of pi ace, though his mother seemed to be in her element, and his father proceeded to their table with magisterial nods at various acquaintances. They didn’t deign to stop at anyone’s table, Karl noted. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his own odd attire, or if his parents had simply stopped feeling the need to glad-hand and politesse their way around a room.
The maître d’ seated Annike first, then waited as Karl and Frank took their seats before handing them their menus.
“May I get you something from the bar? Or would you prefer to see a wine list?” the maître d’ asked unctuously.
Karl saw his mother give his father a brief look, which he answered with a slight nod. “I’ll have a Limoncello martini,” she answered with reserved politeness.
“Dewar’s on the rocks,” Frank responded, then added, “Make it a double.”
Karl thought for a moment as the maître d’ turned his attention to him. Obviously, his father was going to be well lubricated, considering he’d had two scotches while waiting for Annike to finish dressing. He thought it possible he would have to drive the unfamiliar streets back home if his father got drunk. Finally, he said, “Do you have Stoli orange?”
The maître d’ smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I’m sorry, no,” he said. “May I suggest a Smirnoff with a shot of Cointreau?”
Karl smiled, but shook his head. “I think I’ll settle for a nice glass of your house red,” he told the gentleman. Karl wasn’t a big drinker, so he’d deliberately asked for something he considered obscure or specific enough to guarantee it wouldn’t be available. A glass of red wine he could handle if he were called on to drive home.
“Excellent,” the maitre d’ said with a slight bow. “Your server will bring your drinks shortly. Is there anything else I can get you?”
Everyone at the table demurred quietly, and the maître d’ left them. Karl looked around the dining room and commented, “This is very nice. I take it you come often?”
Annike smiled and laid her warm hand over her son’s as it rested at the table’s edge. “Yes. Frank is very generous to bring me as often as he does. I simply can’t cook for two people anymore. It’s impossible. Your father hates leftovers.”
“It’s true,” Frank concurred. “I can’t stand heated-over food. Besides, they do a very good job here. I can recommend anything on the menu. I’m going to have the small sirloin with a baked potato. The ranch dressing is good. Homemade.”
“I’m having the scampi,” Annike told Karl as she pointed to his menu. “The secret to staying slim is to have only two bites of the pasta, no more. I try to fill up on salad,” she confided.
Karl scanned the menu. He was a bit disappointed by its offerings; none were very adventurous. He surmised that the country club’s membership was not culinarily sophisticated. For most of the men of his father’s generation, the height of success and good eating was beefsteak, cooked rare and presented simply. “I think I’ll have what you’re having, Dad,” he said, without much more than a glance at the menu.
“Good choice,” his father said approvingly. “It’s hard to screw up a good steak.”
Karl had nothing to add to that, so he was relieved when the server brought them their drinks. He tasted his wine as his parents placed their dinner orders and found it to be quite good. Pleased, he ordered his own steak, medium rare. After the waitress took their orders with a kind of fond familiarity, she gave Karl an appreciative once-over before collecting their menus. Karl caught her complimenting look, but responded with a shy glance down at his bread plate.
As the waitress left, Frank followed her swinging gait appreciatively and said, “It seems our Nydia likes your looks, Son.”
“You think?” Karl responded blandly. “I didn’t really notice.”
“Come now, Karl,” his father teased. “You’re just married, you didn’t go blind.”
“Frank,” Annike said disapprovingly, “that’s enough of that.”
Frank responded by giving his son a rather obvious wink and changed the subject to golfing. “I’m giving up my cart,” he finally announced. “In fact, your mother and I are giving up our membership here when we move to Palladian Gardens.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Dad,” Karl responded automatically. “Are you giving up golf entirely, then?”
“Well, that remains to be seen,” Frank replied. “Palladian Gardens has an arrangement with a couple of courses out west. I’ve never played either of them. I might have to check them out if I feel up to it.”
“Will you miss the country club, Mom?” Karl asked.
Annike looked at him a bit blankly for a moment before she looked questioningly at Frank.
“Palladian Gardens,’’ he prompted her.
She smiled sweetly for a moment, and Karl could almost see the concept of the place revealing itself behind her eyes as if clouds were parting there. Finally, she said, “Palladian Gardens has a lovely dining room. The food there is quite good as well.”
Karl nodded, discerning he had gotten his answer, though not to the question he had really asked. He noted the level of the cocktail in his mother’s martini glass. Though it was only half gone, she was disappearing along with the martini as she drank it.
“Are you looking forward to moving to Palladian Gardens, Mom?” he asked her gently.
She again returned his question with a blank smile before consulting Frank with her eyes once more. He nodded at her and smiled sadly. Encouraged, she told Karl, “Yes, my drink is very nice. How is your wine?”
“It’s very good, Mom,” Karl told her lovingly, yet she must have read the confusion on his face.
“Palladian Gardens is very nice,” she told him, and then looked at Frank for approval.
“We’re going to be very happy there, Karl,” his father told him. “You’ll see for yourself tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Karl replied, and took a sip of his wine. Suddenly, he found it sour and not as good as he recalled. He put his glass down and took a sip of water, praying that dinner would come soon. He suddenly felt very tired and certainly out of place. He thought of Caroline and glanced at his watch. She would be sitting at the dinner table, reading student work by now. Soon she’d make herself a cup of tea, sneak a bit of chocolate, and settle herself on her end of the sofa to watch TV. More than anything, he wanted to be home just then. Home, and far away from the funhouse mirror his parents inhabited now, where everything and nothing was just as
it had always been.
At last, Karl found himself alone in his old bedroom. Any of the vestiges of the room he’d left thirty-four years earlier had, of course, long since disappeared. When he’d left at eighteen, the room had been a pale blue. Now it was a bruiselike mauve that bespoke his mother’s last redecoration twenty years ago. It had been a guest room far longer than it had been his.
His evening ablutions were accomplished quickly after returning home from a long, mostly silent dinner at the country club. He offered no objections when his parents had declared they were ready to turn in just after nine. Quietly, he undressed to his boxers in the dim light of a bedside lamp and folded his clothes neatly to return to his suitcase. That task accomplished, he found his cell phone in his carry-on and powered it up. He was so wrapped up in the day’s awful revelations that he had never even checked his voice mail for messages. Concerned he’d neglected any questions Barry might have had at work, he was relieved to find he had no messages save one from Caroline, who had called about the time he and his father had been lounging in the backyard sun. Her cheerful message let him know she was home after a good day and was just checking m, and that she wanted him to call her to say good night.
Karl sat on the edge of the bed and dialed his home number, eager to hear her voice. When she picked up he said, “Hello, sweetheart. What are you doing?”
“Watching Project Runway reruns,” Caroline admitted guiltily. “And waiting for you to call,” she added. “How are things going down there?”
“Oh, boy, where do I begin?” Karl said as he twisted and sat up against the headboard of the bed.
“Oh, no,” Caro said with obvious concern.
“Well, the happiest news I have to report is that Sven and Rob are having some problems and may separate. Or not. They don’t seem to know,” Karl said evenly.
“That is bad news,’’ Caroline said genuinely. “Is it a difficult situation?”
“No,” Karl told her. “It’s almost eerily congenial. Rob’s having dinner with us tomorrow night, in fact.”
“So they’re not being hateful to each other,” Caroline responded.
“Quite the opposite. Watching them together, you’d think nothing was wrong at all between them,” Karl told her. “The bad news is Mom.”
“Oh, Karl, what’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.
Quickly, Karl outlined the facts, elaborating with the story of the misplaced kitchen utensils at lunch and her increasing vagueness over dinner.
“Damn,” Caro said gently. “You know, in an odd way, I feel cheated by all this.”
“What do you mean, hon?” Karl asked quietly.
“I just… I just enjoy your mother so much. We’ve always had a great relationship, and now it’s like she’s dying, but she’s not. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? It would almost be easier if she was dying.”
“I understand completely, Caro. I feel exactly the same way,” Karl replied sadly.
“Have you talked about it with her?” Caroline asked gently.
“No,” Karl said. “There really hasn’t been an opportunity to speak with her alone. And the weird thing is, Dad and Sven know, but they don’t talk about it in front of her. They just sort of overlook anything odd, and go on as if nothing is happening.”
“Maybe it’s easier for them that way,” Caroline offered. “I mean, there’s no need to dwell on it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Karl said. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“How are we supposed to act, Mel and I? I mean, do you even want me to tell anything to Melanie?”
“Of course, tell her,” Karl said emphatically. “The only advice I can give you is what Sven told me. Just be yourself and everything will be fine.”
“I wish I was there now,’’ Caroline said solicitously. “For you.”
Karl looked around the smartly appointed guest room and sighed. “So do I. But you’ll be here soon. I’ll pick you up in front of baggage claim. Be patient if I’m late. I-95 is still under construction and traffic is a bitch.”
“Don’t worry about it, love. We’ll be there waiting for you,’’ Caroline said.
“Travel safe,” Karl asked wistfully.
“From your mouth to God’s ears,’’ Caroline replied easily. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,’’ Karl said. “Give Mel a hug for me.”
“I will. Meanwhile, get a good night’s sleep. You must be exhausted. You’ve been up since four or so.” Caroline encouraged him, “Don’t dwell on any of this. We’ll get through it.”
“I won’t,” Karl said, his wistfulness coming in clearly across the radio towers between them. “I miss you.”
“And I miss you,” Caroline said with love. “Sleep well.”
“You, too,” Karl told her and pressed his thumb on the end button. He powered down the phone and, checking the battery, decided it didn’t need to be hooked to its charger. He laid the phone on the bedside table and got under the covers against the chill stirring of the ceiling fan. He switched off the light and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room. Thanks to a streetlight, the room didn’t become completely dark but rather achieved a kind of grainy dimness that revealed the edges of the room’s furnishings.
Karl folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He wondered at the funk of the six growing years and their secrets he had secured in this room. Here he had learned to dream, and to pleasure himself with certain dreams. Here he had studied for exams. Here he had rested from labors on the basketball court, and from the liquid resistance of many long laps in the pool. Now, with youthful energy mostly spent, he rested for the demands of the coming days and longed for the release of sleep. The man wistfully envisioned the boy he had been, and then his thoughts turned to the complexity of his new challenges.
Briefly, he recalled the little street scene he’d witnessed between the mother and her son early that morning. He’d been so quick to judge them and their loudly vocalized problems as just another lower-class vignette played out in his pretentious neighborhood. Now, far south, he was acutely aware of being a son and a brother rather than a husband and father with his own family. His own man, far from the little dramas of his own family. He suddenly felt ashamed of the earlier smugness he’d felt looking down from his high bedroom window in Cary. Now, lying in his old bedroom in his parents’ home, he felt less in control and less self-assured. Karl wasn’t certain how to assimilate his feelings about the day’s news.
As a man who liked simple, elegant solutions to problems, Karl was deeply grateful to learn that his father had found a way to keep him away from the messiness and untidy facts of his mother’s descent into limbo and helplessness. He knew he was lucky that his father had the resources to insulate his sons from the neediness that would accompany his own eventual decline. What Karl was left utterly unprepared for was finding a solution to the emotional need that came along with his parents’ decline. Karl didn’t know what to do with his feelings. He didn’t know exactly how to approach the inevitability of saying good-bye to the people he had loved so easily from afar.
FRIDAY
6
KARL BROKE CLEANLY from sleep at the sound of a splash followed by the rhythmic chuffing of waters outside his window. Disoriented, he looked around the guest room and situated himself before searching for his watch on the bedside table. It was seven-fifteen. Abruptly, he tossed back the covers and stood up, as if to confront some unforeseen threat, and was rewarded with a spinning head rush as his blood pressure adjusted to being erect after lying prone for so long. He steadied himself for a moment, telling himself this annoying result of the rising was the fault of the rate at which he stood. He cautioned himself to remember to first sit on waking, and then stand. Dismissing the familiar physical routine, he then walked around the bed to the window looking out on the backyard.
Frank was in the pool, doing a slow breaststroke. Karl watched as he reached the opposite end of the lozenge-s
haped pool and alternated with a backstroke for his return length. In nothing but his boxer shorts in the air-conditioned room, Karl shivered and marveled at his father’s determination to brave the cold morning water of the pool outside. Frank reached the end of the pool nearest Karl’s window and turned to breaststroke once more to the other end. Karl looked at the bulky expanse of his father’s back shining in the meager sun rising overhead, and he marveled at the muscle still evident there. He hoped he looked as good as his father did when he got to be his age. Karl did his laps in the heated pool at the Y, and like Frank, he remained committed to the exercise and the peace that came with the repetitive motion in the pool’s confines.
For a moment, Karl considered putting on his swim trunks and joining his father, but then decided he’d rather spend some time with his mother. Karl smiled to himself, happy just then to be “home” in a sense that was so distinct from the home he had made for himself as an adult. Despite the difficult new realties he’d discovered so far on this little pilgrimage home, he felt eager to begin the new day.
Karl headed to the bathroom, picking up his dop kit along the way. Within a few minutes he’d bathed from the sink and shaved himself satisfactorily in preparation for the day. He was anxious to see if his mother was up. He looked forward to spending some time alone with her before his father finished with his morning exercise and came in to dominate the conversation—and, Karl thought, to cover for any hint of unusual behavior from his mother. He dressed quickly in only a clean T-shirt and jeans, straightened the bedcovers, and padded out across the house to the breakfast nook.
Annike was sitting at the breakfast table with a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an ashtray next to her cup of coffee. When she saw Karl come in, she quickly tucked the cigarettes and lighter in the pocket of her robe and look at him pleadingly. “Don’t tattle on me, Karl,” she said by way of good morning.
