A Dream of Death (16 page)

I didn’t know what to say, there were so many questions I
wanted to ask, but he wouldn’t have had the answers to any of them. There were
so many things I wanted to tell him, but he wouldn’t understand. So we sat
beside each other for two hours watching the fish swim by and back again,
occasionally sharing some observation of them with each other.

Even if he didn’t know who I was, even if I couldn’t talk to
him as my father I was happy just to sit with him, to share a simple moment. It
was hard, but everything important always is. I had given up on him a long time
ago, the first piece of my life that I had lost, and it was time to get him
back. He would be the first step in regaining my life, in bringing back the
things that meant so much to me. But it would be a victory I would revel in
alone, spending time with a man who didn’t know me.

* * *

I returned to the nursing home every day for a week, just
watching the fish with my father. Each day he gave me a new identity—a nurse, a
gardener, a boyhood friend—but each day we sat together. As the days went by,
we spoke more and more, branching out from the topic of the fish to other
topics, the weather, the food at the home, the attractive nurses who happened
by. My father had changed. As far as I had been aware, he never cast a glance
in another woman’s direction while my mother was alive.

I laughed as he commented on the young woman who had let me in
my first day here and said that a roving eye would cause no harm. Youth seemed
to flow back into him as he watched her walk by, smiling coyly at her and
winking at me as she smiled back. I felt sympathy for the nurses, dealing with
amorous old men on a daily basis, but for the most part they didn’t seem to
mind. My father, unlike some of the other residents, kept his hands to himself.

Once a gentleman, always a gentleman.

Every day for a week I came, the hour-long drive a time of
reflection and meditation. I would arrive and sit with my father, alone but
together. I brought DVDs on the last day, his favourite television show now
compiled on a few mirrored discs. It was
MacGyver
and it was something
he and I had always watched—the exploits of a man using brains over brawn. I
commandeered the television from an old woman who had fallen asleep through a
rerun of
Murder, She Wrote
and slid the DVD into the home’s ancient
machine. Good thing I didn’t bring a BluRay.

As soon as the theme music started, my father’s eyes
brightened and he turned to face the set. We sat on either side of a leather
sofa, only an arm’s reach away but still so far apart.

“I love this show,” he said. “Didn’t know it was still on.”

MacGyver
he remembered, his son he forgot. I tried to
hide the tears, but there was nothing I could do to stop them as they trickled
down my face from the opening theme until the show ended. His eyes stood in
stark contrast to mine, wide open and glued to the television with the
admiration and awe of a child.

“That was great,” he said when the credits rolled. His eyes
met mine, his gaze reflected in the streaks of moisture on my cheeks.

“You all right, kid?”

I nodded and forced a smile.

“I’m fine. Just fine.”

“Good.” His hand moved to rest on my knee. “You seemed
pretty upset.”

“Yeah. I’m good though. Not sure I can really talk about
it.”

I wanted to but I saw no point. I would confuse him, I would
scare him and I might lose what little we had together.

“Buck up, then,” he said.

It was a phrase he had always used when I was a kid. ‘Buck
up’ when I fell out of a tree, ‘buck up’ to my first bee sting, ‘buck up’ to
skinned knees and sprained ankles. It had always come with a tight and loving
hug, a reminder of the duality of my father.

“It’s almost lunch anyway, shouldn’t you be getting to
work?”

I was the kitchen help today.

“I guess so,” I said.

I stood up and excused myself then walked to the exit. Tears
streamed down my face. I felt like I had been within sight of my destination
only to have the road give out beneath me. No matter how close I got, he’d
always be miles away.

* * *

I returned home that night mentally exhausted—the constant
emotional pain was wearing me down and I found that I had little left to give.
Link and Kasia had called in the morning—afternoon their time—and I was
secretly thankful that they would not be calling again. As much joy as their
little voices brought me, rest and relaxation were the only things on my
itinerary.

The answering machine light was flashing when I walked into
the kitchen, a red light blinking in the corner of the room. It required no
investigation—it would be Kara wanting to talk, wanting to sort out what little
remained of our relationship. I loved her, there was no denying that, but my
wife and my family were my everything. If only I knew what to do to make things
right.

These thoughts paired with thoughts of my father were too
much to bear, and, for the first time in my life, I turned to help to drown
them out. The first drink went down smooth and the rest slid down unabated, the
path already lubricated.

The sun was still up when I finished the bottle, its near
final lights pouring through the rear windows of our home.

My home.

I was alone here now, a single person in an empty house. The
floors above and below were devoid of life, no one downstairs watching
television in the finished basement, no children upstairs preparing for bed.

The bottle clanked as I set it down on the quartz
countertop. The glass had made its way into the sink some time ago. I looked at
the bottle and felt a slight pang of sorrow; it had been a birthday gift from
Chen and was a bottle I only drank from on special occasions. There was nothing
special about today, nothing to celebrate, and yet there I sat with a belly
full of expensive single malt scotch lamenting the messes I had made.

The stairs were uneven as I took ginger steps up them, the
handrail keeping me steady. The master bedroom was in a sad state of
affairs—the bed unmade, sheets rumpled and piles of clothing lying on the
floor. There was no reason to clean it, no one to complain about the clutter.

I made my way down the hall to the kids’ bedrooms and
marveled at the contrast. Kat had cleaned before she left, tidied the rooms and
made the beds. They sat in front of me like a hermetically sealed museum
exhibit of years gone by; an unchanging glimpse of how life had once been.

I lay down on the floor and the unforgiving berber carpet
began to leave patterns on my exposed skin. The view of their rooms held me
fast as I imagined them sound asleep within. My mind had changed since
returning home, and now speaking to them seemed like the only option. But it
was the middle of the night there, and there were two things Kat hated: being
woken up in the middle of the night and drunkenness. A combination would not be
the way to win her back.

I fell asleep on the floor outside Link and Kasia’s rooms,
awaking many hours later to the first rays of sun breaking through the
darkness. A pounding headache was my reward for stupidity and self-contempt,
and I did not wear it well.

A familiar feeling in my stomach brought me to the bathroom,
staring into a porcelain bowl as the manifestation of my grief and pain flowed
out of me in torrents.

That day I did little of anything. My father would have to
wait for me to pull myself together. The fact that he wouldn’t miss me didn’t
help. My body was devoid of energy and I left the couch only for washroom
breaks, taking in a
Mythbusters
marathon on
Discovery Channel
.
Sustenance came in the form of pizza delivered for lunch and Chinese delivered
for dinner. I saw no reason to cook a meal fit for a king only to have it eaten
by a jester.

The night brought clear skies and more stars than I knew
existed. It had been years since I’d given the stars their due, the art of
stargazing lost as time went on. The air was warm as I stepped out onto the
deck, my bare foot feeling the wooden boards beneath them and the protruding
nail I had been intending to hammer down. My hands were full of promise and
responsibility, two cans of Coke and not a drop of alcohol.

I stood in the darkness, the lights out in the houses to my
left and right and nothing but woods behind me. The moon had waned to
nothingness and the stars found no competition as they shone down upon me,
constellations I had long ago forgotten reappeared as I stared.

I draped a towel over the railing beside the hot tub that
was rarely used for its intended purpose. The kids had commandeered it as a
pool, and the lack of steam that greeted me as I opened it told me that they
had last been in it. The water was warm but far from hot. I turned it up to a
suitable temperature, preparing to never notice the change, a frog in a pot of
water brought slowly to a boil.

I peeled away my shorts and t-shirt. A glance in all
directions satisfied me that I was alone, and my boxers landed in a crumpled
mass at my feet. I stood before the universe as I had been born, staring into
the abyss of space for only a moment. My shyness then took hold of me and I climbed
into the water, safe beneath the surface. If only they’d had waterproof casts when
I was a kid, the summer of eighty-four would have been much more fun.

The lights of the hot tub always soothed me as they morphed
from one colour into the next. Tonight I left them off, the glow they cast on
my naked body left me unable to hide. Also, the stars shone brighter without
the lights on—the faint colour would have hung in the steam that was beginning
to form.

The phone rang inside but I had no intention of trying to reach
it in time. I had found a place of peace at last, and no force on earth would
cause me to leave before I was ready. The first can of Coke was empty and
placed upon the side of the hot tub before I slid down deep. Bubbling water
cascaded around my neck. I saw the stars in their entirety now, every single
light in the sky visible to me from this vantage point.

A bolt of light shot across the sky above me and I thought
of Link and the first time he saw a shooting star. I explained the science to
him but it was beyond the cares of a then seven-year-old. All he was interested
in was his wish.

I had so much to wish for but I could not bring myself to do
it, to utter what I wanted, what I needed. No miracle would bring my family
back to me, no fire in the night had the power to erase what I had done. I was
on my own, alone in a universe full of mistakes.

An hour or more later both Cokes were finished. Sweat beaded
on my head and my feet and hands were wrinkled; it was time to get out. My eyes
wandered all around me to ensure the coast was clear before I clambered out of
the water and draped the towel around my dripping body. I closed the hot tub
and secured the lid then went inside, my clothes left for another day.

Two days later I woke early and made the drive once more to
Chatham. I arrived to a sad look from the object of my father’s affection.
“He’s not doing so well today, Mr. Munroe. There’s a bit of a cold going
through here. He’s up in his room if you still want to see him.”

I nodded and she gave me his room number. It saddened me to
think that I had forgotten it. The hallway was simple, a straight line laid out
in green carpet, lights on the walls guiding me until I found my father’s room.
The door was open and a nurse stood beside his bed checking his temperature. I
gave a soft knock.

“Oh, hello,” the nurse said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He removed the thermometer from my father’s ear, looked at
it, then trashed the probe and placed the device back in the pocket of his
scrubs.

“He’s a little warm still, should be fine in a couple of
days. Lincoln,” he said as he tapped my father on the shoulder, “you have a
visitor.”

They never announced who was visiting. It would only confuse
my father if he had said, “your son is here”. I pulled his armchair over to the
side of the bed and sat down, my eyes never leaving his weakened body. He was a
shadow of his former self—just over half the weight I remembered, half the man
I saw in my dreams.

But despite the withered body, as I looked at him lying in
the bed half awake, I found myself in awe of him once again. His strength had
astounded me when I was a child, and now even as death, as implacable as it
was, approached him, he did not seem to waver. This illness would not take him.
He would stand fast and rise again, ready to fight another day like he had
fought for me.

It didn’t matter whether he had killed Jeffries or I had. He
fought for my life. He saved me. As I sat watching him, I felt helpless; it was
a favour I could not return. I wanted to hold him, to lie beside him in the bed
as I had done as a child while he read to me. Instead I would read to him, my
words soothing him to sleep. I would say “I love you” before he drifted off to
sleep and he would counter with “you”, starting a battle that would not end
until one of us gave in—the word “me” the coda said in concession.

It was a waking dream that I could not fulfill. My presence
in his bed would terrify him, my words would have an effect opposite to what I
had intended.

“Dad,” I said. “I wish you knew me still. There’s so much I
need to ask you, so much I wish I could tell you. I’m so far gone I don’t know
how to get back. Everything is falling apart.”

I choked back tears as I spoke to a man who seemed not to
hear my words.

“I know something happened, years ago Dad. If only you could
remember.”

I took his hand in mine, feeling his bones and tendons
through the onion skin of his flesh. His eyes opened and I saw in them
something I had not seen for years: a spark of understanding, of recognition,
of unabated love. He moved his lips to speak but found no words. I saw the
strain behind his eyes, the thoughts forming slowly in his addled mind.

“Lincoln,” he said.

My face was wet instantly, salted droplets rolling down my
cheeks.

“Dad? You remember?”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes were welling up, tears I had hardly
ever seen before dripped down, staining his pillow. “I did it for you.”

I could hear the dryness in his mouth, his lips looked as
though they would crack if he smiled. I reached for a glass of water on the
nightstand and helped him take a drink. The man he was to me right then, only a
damp sponge on a stick raised to his parched lips would have sufficed.

“I wanted to tell you, Link, before it was too late. I was
scared, scared what you would think of me. You’ve made me proud, son.”

I was sobbing at this point, my nose running as the tears
flowed forward and back.

“It’s okay, Dad, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Well, you deserve to know the truth, but I’m too weak. I’ve
always been too weak.”

Both of my hands now held his not wanting to let go for fear
that this moment, a miraculous moment, would end.

“I love you, Lincoln.”

His eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. He had gone too
soon.

I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes, unable to
believe what had happened. He had broken through, fought past the disease and
spoken to me, remembered me. I had never thought it possible, but it happened.

I opened my eyes again and looked upon my father, sound
asleep in a bed far too large for his slight frame. His face was dry and there
was not a spot on the pillow below his head. I refused to believe I had dreamed
it, refused to believe it wasn’t real. My face was still wet, my shirt soaked
at the collar and my nose running.

I stood up and leaned over the bed, kissing my father on the
forehead. “I love you,” I whispered as I stood back up.

His eyes moved beneath his eyelids and his mouth opened a
crack. “You.”

“Me,” I said.

A slight smile formed on his face as he peacefully slept.