Dirty Secret (26 page)

I feel like killing my mom for making my dad have to worry about something like that at a time like this. The ambulance guys start wheeling him on the stretcher toward the front door and one of them says, “It's okay, sir, let's just get you to the hospital so they can really check you out.”

Ten or so people are already out there on the sidewalk—ambulance sirens are big action on a quiet Minneapolis street, and the neighbors all knew the sirens were for my dad, because everyone knows about the heart attack and the surgery. My uncle Darren, aunt Eve, and cousin Billy, who live next door, are among the crowd.

Now my dad is saying he doesn't need the ambulance. “It was just that damn nitro,” he's saying, “I'm okay,” but I'm sure he's just saying that about the ambulance because of how expensive they are.

“Rick,” Sandy says, “we need to find out why your blood pressure was so high in the first place,” and then I say he should definitely go, and then Eve says it, and Mark the cardiac nurse, who's just arrived, says it, too, and finally my dad says okay.

Only one of us, Sandy or me, can ride in the ambulance with my dad, so Uncle Darren volunteers to drive me to the hospital. Sandy's in the waiting area near the emergency entrance when I get there. She tells me my dad's being examined right now. Her eyes are red. The television mounted to the wall blares
The Price Is Right,
though the room is empty aside from us.

“I don't know how much more of this I can handle,” Sandy says and starts crying. She puts her hands on my shoulders and I honestly think that my dog standing up on his hind legs and reciting the Gettysburg Address would be less bizarre to me than seeing Sandy like this. I hadn't realized, until that very moment, how dependent we all are on her. Our family might be splintered, but she holds the pieces together—my dad, me, my missing brother, my stepsister . . . even my mom. If Sandy loses it, there will be no core, no one to count on.

I can't let that happen.

“Sandy, he'll be all right, I know he'll be all right.” What else is there to say?

She sniffles. “I know. He will be. He will be.”

“He will be,” I repeat.

Pretty soon, a nurse comes out to the waiting area and says my dad is being moved up to the cardiac floor and that we can meet him there.

The cardiac floor is where he was just a week ago, for the bypass, so Sandy knows it well. When we get to his room, my dad's sitting up in his bed, looking pretty much back to normal.

“Hi, guys,” my dad says. He tells us that even though it's clear he passed out from the nitroglycerin, he'll probably have to stay overnight for tests to determine why his blood pressure was so high—it's still high now, but nothing like this morning.

“You're alive, Pop! It's so good to see you talking,” I say, and Sandy leans over my dad's bed to hug him.

“And check out these digs,” my dad says.

His room is more like a suite, with a hospital bed in one area and off to the side a generously sized love seat, a reclining chair, and a wide coffee table. I stretch out on the love seat.

“I could sleep here. Dad, do you want me to stay here with you?”

“Sure, honey, we could have a slumber party.”

“And Sandy,” I say, “we could ask for an extra bed for you, so you can sleep here, too.”

“We'll see,” Sandy says. “Maybe Rick won't really need to stay overnight.”

We're all so relieved about my dad being back to normal that we barely notice as a nurse slaps a sign on my dad's door and then another above his bed:
CONTAMINATED
.

“Jesus Christ,” I say.

“I had to tell them,” my dad says.

How humiliating. I suppose it's necessary—none of us wants to spread this any more than the nurses want to catch it—but I just wish the signs didn't have to be so
big
.

Sandy has to deal with a bunch of real estate stuff, and by now it's about 8:00 and her day is just beginning. Her cell phone is ringing constantly, mostly about business, though friends and neighbors concerned about my dad keep calling, too.

There's a special room on the floor for making and taking cell phone calls and that's where Sandy is when the jauntiest looking fellow I've ever seen comes striding into my dad's room. Even though he's wearing the typical white coat of a doctor, he exudes the air of being swathed in tweed. He looks like he'd wear one of those flat hats my husband and I call “chappies”; he looks like he smokes expensive cigars and plays golf and has a perfectly gorgeous wife who has a perfectly gorgeous toddler and a perfect AKC-registered Cavalier King Charles spaniel. I'm guessing he's a little older than I am, maybe forty, but I get the feeling he's always looked and acted about forty, even when he was five or eleven or twenty.

The doctor picks up my dad's chart from the end of the bed, flips through it, and says, “I'm Dr. Nelson.” He holds out his hand for my dad to shake.

“Uh, I'm not sure you should . . .” my dad says, gesturing with his head toward the “contaminated” sign.

“What's that about anyway?” Dr. Nelson asks.

“I've been exposed to scabies,” my dad says, probably phrasing it that way because it sounds better than saying he “has” it.

The doctor immediately looks over at me as if I'm the one responsible, and I feel like yelling, “Hey, I didn't give it to him, my mom did!” only I'm not sure how much better that is.

“That's my daughter, Jessie,” my dad says.

Dr. Nelson nods at me and then turns back to my dad. “Well, I'm not concerned about scabies,” he says and shakes my dad's hand, which makes me like him.

He says he can get my dad's blood pressure and his pain down. “Way down,” he says and grabs my dad's toe, which is sticking out from the sheet, and kind of wags it. “Though you may need to be here for a few days. I hope you didn't have any grand plans.”

Once we're alone, my dad wants my opinion about asking Dr. Nelson to be his cardiologist—he needs to choose a regular one—and I say yes, that doctor really seems to know what he's talking about.

When Sandy comes back, we tell her about Dr. Nelson; it feels like something big has been accomplished.

Sandy says, “Wait a minute, Rick, you were talking to the doctor just now?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You don't have your tooth in.”

In our rush this morning with the ambulance, no one thought to bring his tooth—we had more important things on our minds.

My dad says, “Geez, I didn't even think about that. I'm kind of embarrassed now.”

I'm kind of embarrassed, too. But then again, my dad's conscious, he's talking, the color in his face is completely back. He's okay. That's what matters.

“You know what, you guys? Who cares if the cardiologist thinks we're Cletuses,” I say.

My dad starts laughing. “I think at this point I'm beyond a Cletus: Not only am I missing a tooth but I have scabies!”

And then we're all laughing, and it's the best feeling in the world.

*   *   *  

A FEW MINUTES
later a nurse comes in and tells us she's going to treat my dad with permethrin. Of course it makes sense that they want to do this, but it'll be my dad's third treatment with it and none of us has high hopes—though we're not about to argue with the nurse. Sandy says she's going to use this opportunity to run home and deal with a few real estate things, and I decide to go into the room where you can make cell phone calls.

“There's a computer in there,” Sandy says, as we say good-bye in the hallway. “In case you want to check your email.”

I decide that after I call David, I'll use the computer to look up my dad's symptoms and make sure the theory about the nitroglycerin is correct. There's no harm in double-checking. As I walk down the hallway, I try to look only at the beige-carpeted floor and not into any of the rooms that have their doors open. But I can't help it. I find myself looking into all of them—and I'm relieved when everyone is old, way older than my dad. That means he's going to be okay.

When I reach David, I tell him about the horrible morning and that we'll probably be here at the hospital for a few days.

He says he'll call my dad later in his room to say hi. Then he tells me that he may have found an apartment for us in the Italian village. He's already received photos of two places from a guy there. David emails them to me as we're on the phone. No one else is in the room, so I go over to the computer and sign in to my account.

One of the options is inside the town's medieval walls and the other is adjacent to a parking lot, so we make the obvious choice. The photos are a little blurry, but from what I can tell, it looks like a small, rustic apartment at the top of a steep stone staircase. There are a few shots of the village, too, of the cobblestone streets and the tiny town square. I remember it from when we were there five years ago: When we lived in Rome for three
months, we took a day trip to the village, and have been talking about going back ever since.

David's excitement about the trip is palpable and I don't blame him. After all, we've been planning this for almost a year. I was excited about the trip as well, until my mother's cancer and my dad's heart attack. Now the thought of leaving the country makes me nervous. What if something happens to one of them while I'm there? It's hard enough being 1,200 miles away from two parents in ill health, but I can't even imagine being 4,000 miles away, with an ocean between us. Of course, David can tell what I'm thinking because he always can.

“Magpie, your dad's going to be okay. That's what the doctor said, right?”

“Right.”

“So you can stop worrying.”

“I'll try.”

“Remember, you're strong.”

“Thanks,” I say, thinking, Sometimes.

DR. NELSON DOES
a bunch of tests on my dad that turn up nothing unusual. My dad's blood pressure is at an acceptable level, too. Each day Dr. Nelson comes in to my dad's room fewer times than the day before. On the third day, he says my dad's pain level is higher than some people's, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything's wrong. He's healing at a slower rate, but he
is
healing. Then on the fourth day, after not seeing the doctor at all, we're told that my dad's going home.

“Well, I guess that means I'm okay,” my dad says, as if trying to convince himself.

On the way out, we make an appointment for my dad to see Dr. Nelson the following week, and as we're walking through the
parking lot to the car I tell my dad and Sandy that I can change my plane ticket and stay for the appointment if they want.

“There's no need, honey,” my dad says. “I'll be okay. I just need time. And I know you've got your classes and you're getting ready for your big Italy trip.”

“We'll see,” I say.

Over the next few days, I cook and do laundry, trying to make myself useful. My other task is taking my dad out for walks. He's supposed to go around the block, but the first day he's too tired to even try. The next day just getting from their house in the middle of the block to the next corner takes ten minutes, and immediately afterward he needs to lie down in his rented hospital bed.

But the day after that, he goes one and a half blocks, and the next day, when he goes all the way around, the three of us are as happy as if he's just won a gold medal in the Olympics.

He's definitely improving. But still, I don't like the idea of being so far away.

On my last day in Minneapolis, my dad, Sandy, and I are having our usual lunch of salads with something on top—this time it's grilled salmon—when I say, “Guys, I'm thinking about not going to Italy. Maybe I should stay with you instead, and help out around here. That way I could keep an eye on my mom, too.”

“Jessie, that's a terrible idea,” Sandy says.

“No way,” my dad says. “You're not her mother. You don't have to
keep an eye on her—
and anyway, she's fine, the cancer's gone.”

“But you're not fine. I could help out.”

“For six months! No way. I don't want you changing your life for me.”

“Dad, it's just a trip. I don't even have to be there. David's the one working on a book about the place, not me.”

They both shake their heads and say
no way, uh-uh, absolutely not
and I know it's not worth trying to convince them.

“Okay,” I say. “But remember, if you need me to come back at any point from Italy, I'll do it. Happily.”

“Sweetie, we appreciate all your help, but that's not going to happen,” Sandy says, popping a bite of romaine into her mouth.

WHEN I GET BACK TO NEW YORK, I IMMEDIATELY throw myself into getting the apartment ready for our subletter. David and I have decided we're going to repaint around the windows, recaulk the bathtub, get new curtains for the front room, and replace the toilet seat and some of the lighting fixtures. It's not entirely because of the bitchy friend's comments, but partially. Also, we figure, the nicer the apartment is when Carolyn arrives, the more careful she'll be with it.

Online, I order some thick velvet curtains for the front room, then David and I go to Bed Bath & Beyond to get the rest of the things we need. The Container Store is across the street; we stop in to buy some of those plastic bags that shrink down into flat pouches. We'll use those to store our clothes away. We
want to clear out as many dresser drawers, shelves, and as much closet space as possible.

Every time I'm in The Container Store I'm amused and disgusted by the fact that there's an entire retail chain peddling ways to store possessions. The store must be a hoarder's paradise, since so many of them think their problem is not having enough space, or the proper arrangement of their space, rather than simply having too much stuff. That thinking applies to everyone, really, not just hoarders, and it's the reason The Container Store thrives. Instead of whittling down our belongings, we just look for better ways to stash them.