"And what do you know? If you don't mind telling me."
"Well," she said, smacking her lips again, thinking of another appropriate response, then releasing a high-pitched whistle from her pursed lips. She seemed to do this whenever she had something serious or important to say. It was like her cue: the whistle. Maybe her nickname should be The Whistler. Sounds like a Spider-Man villain, right? "Usually when they stop eating like this--and when I mean they I mean the other patients suffering from Alzheimer's--it means they are ready to die. They don't say it but that's what happens. Usually."
"Usually?" I said, repeating her word.
"Usually," she said, then went silent. I sat there with the phone in my hand in a state of shock. You are never really prepared to hear someone say the end is near for someone you love, even if they are in a rest home and you know the end is coming. It still doesn't prepare you to hear someone say it. "But you never know."
"Never know what?" I said.
"You never know. He may come out of it."
"Really?"
"No," she said, matter-of-factly. She was really good at that, speaking matter-of-factly. It's true. "When can you come down here?"
"Well," I said, thinking, perusing my mental calendar. "This weekend coming up, it is a three-day weekend. That might work."
"Might?" she said, bewildered. "I'm not joking here, Mr. Burchwood."
"Simon. My name is Simon. Please call me--"
"Simon," she said. "Figure it out. I'll be here. I suggest that you be here soon. Your dad needs you."
"OK," I said.
"Good day," she said, then hung up the phone.
Later that day, after leaving work then picking up the kids from school then getting home then freaking out from the stress of it all, I told the kids that we would be making an impromptu, emergency trip to San Antonio the next day to visit PeePaw. They screamed with delight. I didn't have the heart to tell them why we were visiting PeePaw--just all of a sudden--out of the blue. They were just happy to be going on a road trip to visit him and all. It had been a while since we visited him--something I felt quite guilty about for some time--but when you have little kids, you really can't feel guilty about things outside of your immediate purview. When you're a parent, you have enough on your plate as it is. You can't really worry about anybody else besides your own children. (And your spouse if you're lucky enough to still be married. Who stays married these days anyway? Nobody, that's who.) Besides, I didn't really like my dad, not personally anyway. I mean, he was my dad and all, but not a very good one in my personal opinion. What can I say? He was kind of an asshole to me for a lot of years. It's hard overlooking that, you know? Of course, you do.
I tried packing some bags for the imminent trip but the kids were being real pains in the butt. I mean, I had asked them to bring some things they wanted to take on the trip so I could put them in the bags but, instead of being practical and helpful, they were dragging all the toys from their bedroom into my room where I was packing. They brought in action figures and baby dolls and comic books and MadLibs books and markers and coloring books and sketchbooks and whatnot and so forth. Then they were throwing them on my bed, creating a makeshift pile of crap. They were driving me crazy. I pleaded for them to take their irrelevant things back to their room but they pleaded with me in return that they needed all of their things for the trip. Sammie, in particular, said he needed his sketchbook and pencils and pens and markers with him so he could draw his cartoons. I decided right then and there that I was going to need help for the evening. Out of complete desperation, I called in the babysitter: Nat. Maybe she could help keep the kids distracted so I could pack. I gave her a buzz on my phone and--thankfully--she answered.
"I don't mind coming over to watch the kids. I'm not, like, busy or anything. I was just watching TV," she said, sincerely.
"You don't mind?"
"Not at all. I'll be right over!"
"Thank you so much," I said. "You don't know how much I appreciate it." Then I hung up the phone. I couldn't believe my luck. Every parent needs that go-to person to help them from going bananas because of their insane children. For a lot parents, it's their spouse or their partner. But for single parents like me, it's just not that easy. I didn't have many people to call to help me out with my kids when I was in a bind, not many people I trusted anyway, like friends or family or coworkers, especially not my coworkers. But I trusted Nat so I guess she was my person. She was a godsend, really. It's true.
In a matter of minutes it seemed, there was a loud knocking on the door. Sammie and Jessie lost their little minds. They ran and answered the door--letting Nat inside--excited and shocked that she was there to hang out with them so unexpectedly. They just couldn't believe it. What a surprise! Their little minds were blown.
"Yeah!" they both said, screaming and running circles around Nat as she tried to walk to the couch to drop her things. They swarmed her relentlessly but, instead of being annoyed, Nat giggled and smiled. I think she liked the attention from the little creatures.
"Thanks for coming on short notice," I said, gratefully.
"Not a problem," she said. Sammie and Jessie were climbing all over her as she sat on the couch, like two monkeys careening up a banana tree. It didn't faze her at all, though. She was a real pro, I tell you. "Why are you, like, going to San Antonio again?"
"My dad. He's not doing well."
"PeePaw! We're going to see PeePaw!" Sammie and Jessie said. They just blurted it out like Nat knew who PeePaw was. They were a couple of heathens, what, with no manners or social skills or common decency, particularly when adults were trying to have an adult conversation. It was a little annoying, to say the least.
"And PeePaw is, like, your dad?" Nat said, looking at me, confused. She tried to keep her composure while the kids were climbing all over her.
"Yeah, the kids call him PeePaw."
"That's cute," Nat said. She seemed really sincere about that, too. Amazing.
"Anyway, if you can keep them busy while I pack, that would be great."
"Of course," she said. She looked at the kids and exclaimed, "Who wants to watch a movie?"
The kids screamed with joy. They had a ritual of making microwave popcorn for any movie, no matter what time of the day or the day of the week or who they were watching it with. The mere suggestion of a movie sent them into a frenzied panic for microwave popcorn. This time was no different. They both raced into the kitchen, tearing through the pantry for a box of microwave popcorn. Finding an unopened box, they ripped it open and fought over who was going to place it in the microwave and start the timer. That was Nat's call of duty.
"I guess I better go referee this, like, popcorn situation," she said, smiling then heading to the kitchen to breakup their disturbance. She was a godsend, I tell you. She lumbered into the kitchen, her tall, alabaster frame towering over my two, little monkeys. She reached down into the adolescent melee, pulling the bag of popcorn from their desperate grasps. As she placed the popcorn in the microwave and set the timer, their frenzy subsided as they watched the microwave inflate the popcorn bag.
I immediately went back to my room to pack for the trip. Without the kids disturbing me, I could get it done in a matter of minutes. I went into my closet, pulled a suitcase out, and started throwing things in it--pants, shirts, socks, underwear, shoes, and a belt. I could hear the microwave ding, so I knew that the movie would be starting soon, and it had gotten noticeably quieter since Nat went to control the movie / popcorn situation. The next things to pack were in the bathroom so I went in there and got the necessities--toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, deodorant, hairbrush, allergy medicine, fiber pills, pain meds for headaches, nail clipper, a razor, some shaving cream, and so on, plus stuff to cover my stink. For years, I used a dopp kit for my toiletries but the last one I had burst open when the zipper jammed, a wad of hair lodged in the zipper's teeth. I tried to force the zipper open and ended up ripping the side off of it, sending my stuff flying. I never
got another dopp kit. I was just too busy with life, I guess. I had a brown, paper sack--the kind the kids would use to take their lunch to school--so I put my bathroom stuff in it. While stuffing the bag, I noticed Nat was standing next to me, appearing out of thin air like a ninja, looking puzzled as I put my stuff in the brown paper sack. She was so quiet that I didn't notice her coming back into my room.
"What are you doing?" she said, her hands on her waist, her head tilted to the side as if examining something so puzzling that she couldn't put heads or tails together of what exactly she was witnessing.
"Packing."
"You put your toiletries in, like, a brown, paper bag?"
"I don't have anything else to put them in and if I put them in my suitcase with my clothes, then they might leak all over them," I said, exasperated.
"I have something you can use. Just got it today but, like, I don't need it. Hold on," she said, quickly leaving my bedroom. I stood there, looking at the brown, paper sack, thinking how pathetic I must look to a fashionable younger person--like a bum with a 40oz bottle of malt liquor wrapped in a similar brown, paper bag from a dingy, convenience store. Pathetic. Isn't it funny how sometimes you can inadvertently look like the biggest idiot in the world to someone else in your life? I did feel like the biggest idiot in the world. It's true. A moment later, she came back in my room and said, "Here, use this."
She handed me a small, canvas, tote bag covered in painterly flowers of orange and yellow and pink, fluorescent green leaves, a shiny, gold zipper, and a pink ribbon looped in one corner of the bag. And to be honest, it was the furthest thing from looking like anything even near manly, or even in the vicinity of manliness. It was the girliest-looking little bag I had ever seen in my entire life. Jeez.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" I said, confused.
"You should put, like, your stuff in it. Your bathroom stuff."
"Instead of in a dopp kit?"
"Yeah! It's great, sturdy, and, like, fashionable. It was given to me FREE at the salon for spending more than $50 on hair products. I don't really need it, though. I have plenty of little tote bags. Keep it! You don't even have a dopp kit."
"I don't know," I said, skeptical. "It's not very..."
"Very what?" she said, looking at me like I was being totally ridiculous for not wanting to put my shaving stuff in a pink, flowery, free salon bag. Who wouldn't want that? "It's way better than a brown, paper bag!"
I really didn't know what else to say. What looks better: a brown, paper sack or a pink, flowery bag? Seemed like a stalemate to me. But what did I know?
"How are the kids?" I said, realizing that Nat was hanging out with me instead of watching the kids. I peered around her lanky frame to see if they were destroying anything but I didn't see them.
"Oh, they're fine. Mesmerized by the movie! You know how they get when a movie comes on?"
"That's true." I reluctantly unzipped the salon bag.
"You don't mind that I hang out with you, do you? You seem, like, lost."
"I feel a little lost, actually. I was caught off-guard with what's going on with my dad. I wasn't expecting it, I guess," I said, looking around my room at the pile of junk my kids brought in as well as half-packed bags of clothes. I was a mess.
"Who does expect something like this?" she said, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Let me help you."
"That's very nice of you but you are helping me--just being here with the kids."
"That's cool. But they are, like, busy watching a movie," she said, her face lighting up. "Tell me something that relaxes you. Maybe it'll help you."
"Relaxes me?"
"Yeah, like, I take a bath with Epsom salt to relax. What do you do to relax?"
"I'm not taking an Epsom salt bath right now!" I said, embarrassed, chuckling at the notion of sitting in my bath tub instead of packing. "That would be ridiculous."
"No, silly. What relaxes you, not me."
"Oh. Hmmm, let's see," I said, thinking. "When I need to relax, I sneak out on the balcony and smoke a cigarette."
"Really?!" she said, looking surprised then disgusted, her nose and mouth scrunched. "Cigarettes are, like, gross."
"Right. Bad habit, I know."
"But if that's what relaxes you, then... by all means. To the balcony."
I felt a smile slide across my face, the kind of smile elicited from the recognition from someone that even if something you enjoy is bad, it's still good. I opened the drawer of my nightstand and found a pack of smokes and my Zippo lighter, then said, "Let's go!"
We made our way from my bedroom through the living room, even walking in front of the kids while they watched whatever Disney animated movie they were watching. It didn't matter which one it was, really. They were so mesmerized by it that they didn't even notice us walking between them and the TV. I mean, they noticed our forms--the mass of our bodies blocking the animated characters on the screen--but we were just three-dimensional objects obstructing their view. They craned their necks to look around us. We continued out the door to the balcony, the metal mini-blinds clanking against the door as we closed it.
Outside, Nat stared at the charred remains of my wooden bench and the burnt Café Bustelo coffee can underneath it. On the balcony floor, a black, charred area of singed cement spread out from under the bench like a pitch black, circular, shag rug. On top of the burnt bench lay a brand new seat cushion, a light crème color with a forest green pattern of bamboo plants sewn into the material--a cheap replacement I found in the grocery store seasonal section. The smell of burnt wood and cement still lingered in the air, a slight aroma that distinctly smelled of charred, man-made materials. Nat couldn't believe her eyes. It appeared something horrible happened yet no one was concerned enough about it to clean up the mess. I surely wasn't. My cheap, lazy fix was to buy a new seat cushion then pretend like the accidental, cigarette butt-blaze didn't happen. As far as I was concerned, it didn't--until I had to explain myself.
"This doesn't look good," she said, lifting her hand to her face to either cover her mouth and nose because of the nagging feeling of disbelief or to keep the aroma of burnt furniture and coffee can from entering her innocent nostrils. I couldn't figure out which it was. It was probably both.
"It was an accident," I said, opening the pack of cigarettes, fumbling to get one out. They were wedged in the pack like sardines. "I threw a lit cigarette into the coffee can and it caught on fire."
"On fire? Like, you could have burned the building down--fire?"
"Yeah," I said, lighting a cigarette. She couldn't hide her displeasure that I was smoking in her presence but she didn't tell me to stop either, which I respected and appreciated a lot, so I took a drag. She was now an accomplice to my bad, secret smoking habit. "The fire could have been bad."
"And Sammie and Jessie saw the fire?"
"Yeah, freaked them out," I said, taking a drag then exhaling a rather large plume of smoke into the evening sky.
"I bet."
"I felt really bad about it, too. Like exceptionally guilty. It made me feel like a bad parent. I've been feeling that way a lot lately, too."
"Like, you’re a bad parent?" she said, then sat down on the new bench cushion. A little air escaped from the seams of the cushion like a slight fart. Nat giggled. She patted the cushion for me to sit down so I did.
"Yeah," I said.
"You're not a bad parent. I promise. I've seen bad parents. Like, really!"
"Like how?" I said, continuing to smoke, curious.
"You don't even want to know. It's bad. But you, you're one of the good ones. I promise."
"How do you know for sure?"
"Because your kids tell me things and I listen to what they have to say. Your kids adore you, whether you believe it or not. They, like, love you to death."
"Really?" I said. I played coy a little although I knew my kids loved me. What parent doesn't know that? Well, I guess if you're one of those kinds of parents who doesn't give a shit about
being a parent, then you wouldn't know. But if you have even an inkling of the desire to at least want to be a good parent, then you know. How could you not know? I mean, the love just pours out from children. It's unconditional. Most kids adore their parents unless they are psychos. Kids will overlook a whole litany of bullshit as long as they receive a little love from their parents. Kids are easy to please. It's true. "I try my best."
I leaned back on the bench and finished the cigarette, the two of us sitting in silence. I turned my head to look into the door window, my two kids sitting on the couch, mesmerized by the movie they were watching. The popcorn in their bowl was gone--some stray kernels on the couch and on the floor--but their gaze to the TV was strong. When the cigarette extinguished itself from lack of tobacco to burn, I leaned forward then dropped the cigarette between my legs into the burnt coffee can underneath the bench. I placed my head in my hands, heavy from the stress of the things to come.
"It must be hard, like, taking care of kids while you're in a crisis, by yourself," she said, placing her hand on my back. Her touch startled me. I wasn't expecting it. I mean, who would expect like that, a 20-something they didn't know very well to just touch them? I didn't expect it, that's for sure. It was nice, though. It had been a while since someone--anyone--had laid a hand on me.
"Yeah, learning to be a single parent has been tough for me. Thinking about how this weekend will be with the kids and me having to deal with my dad... Well, it's been stressing me out."
We sat in silence for a good 30 to 45 seconds, the breeze blowing on the balcony from the west, a breeze that had traveled from the Hill Country then over Lake Travis and finally to my apartment complex. The breeze was cool and crisp and dry.
Nat shifted in her seat, changing the configuration of her crossed legs, then said, "Well, if you need some help, then I don't mind going with you guys. I don't have, like, anything planned this weekend. And I could use the extra money."
I was shocked, really. I mean, her suggestion came out of nowhere, just out of the blue. I didn't think of asking Nat to go on the trip with us. Why would I think of that? It had never crossed my mind but it made total sense. I mean, the kids absolutely adored Nat. She was the cat's meow to them. But would it be weird asking her to tag along with us? I had to think it through. After I got over the initial shock, I said, "Would you really want to help me? If so, I'll get an extra room at the hotel so you have some privacy."
Sammie & Budgie Page 17
