Relief and despair fight for control of her face. “I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“I’ve been hoping you would come up to Washington and live with me.”
She clears her throat. “That’s very kind. But all of my friends are here.”
“Well, you can stay here. I’m not pressuring you.”
“You could look after me a lot easier if you lived here, too.”
For a couple of seconds I struggle to come up with a reply, but then I see that she’s teasing me.
She gets up and washes out her cup. Looking over her shoulder, she says, “Marty Denis told us you had a date to that party at the Aurora last night. He said you took Nadine Sullivan.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t see Marty there.”
“Well, he was.” She dries her cup with a rag, then hangs it on a hook beneath the cabinet. “I always liked Nadine’s mother, Margaret. A real lady. And Nadine’s as cute as a bug’s ear.”
Why does everyone describe Nadine as if she were nine years old? Of course, the people who describe her that way are about seventy. “Mom—”
“I know, I know. I’m just hoping there are some grandchildren in my future. It’s past time.”
“We’ll see,” I tell her, getting to my feet.
“Cute as a bug’s ear,” she repeats, walking into the hall. “And smart. Ten years after you left St. Mark’s, she had her picture in the paper for winning all the same awards you and Adam did.”
“Eight years,” I correct her. “Nadine’s eight years younger than I am.”
“Even better! She’s as smart as Jet Talal was, but not as . . . complicated.”
“Mom, that’s enough.”
“All right.” She’s actually chuckling now. “You can’t blame me for trying.”
Without meaning to, I’ve followed her to their bedroom. Before I can make my escape to my own room, she opens the door, revealing my father lying asleep in his hospital bed. The bed has been tilted up at the middle, putting him at a forty-degree angle. He’s lying with his mouth open, his white hair sticking out in all directions. A faint, irregular wheeze comes from his nose or mouth, and his blotchy hands, folded on his stomach, jerk without rhyme or reason.
“I thought his tremors were under control,” I think aloud.
“They are, for the most part. But during REM sleep he can jerk violently. That’s part of what causes his insomnia.”
“I see.” I’ve stood in the room long enough to smell feces. It reminds me a little of when my son was an infant, but it’s not really the same. With a baby, caretakers know that they’re progressing toward a day of continence and control. Whereas here . . . entropy reigns cruel and supreme. This is a world of constipation, fecal impactions, enemas, and agonizing manual evacuation—
“Watch him just a minute while I brush my teeth,” Mom says. “He’s asleep. Just stay with him till I get back.”
“Mom—”
“I’ll be right back,” she says, and then she’s gone.
Though I’ve been back in Bienville for five months, I’ve hardly been alone with my father. Neither of us handles it well. Any discussions inevitably turn to politics and journalism, and while in theory we are of the same mind about the present insanity, our approaches to dealing with it are quite different.
Watching my mother care for this failing shell that was once her proud husband, performing years of menial tasks—and now doing those things that wound and ultimately destroy personal dignity—humbles and even shames me. To do those things and not complain, to stand by your partner come what may . . . that is love. My mother and father endured what my wife and I could not: the death of a son. They didn’t survive it whole, perhaps, but they stayed together. I’ve kept that in mind while Jet and I have fallen ever deeper into what surely feels like love. But where Jet and I are concerned, I know only one thing beyond doubt—
We have not been tested like this.
Looking down at Dad now, trapped in the grim spiral of life’s last unwinding, I’m confronted by the essential fact of our relationship. Were it not for this man, I would not exist. Surely he and I must have shared happy experiences before my fourteenth year, when Adam drowned and nearly took the rest of us down with him. A few times over the years I’ve had flashes of memory, déjà vu while doing something with a friend or acquaintance, and