Home Is Burning (45 page)

My dad smiled and nodded. “You've told me several times.”

My mom came back in with a smile on her Grinch face.

“You take that Klonopin?” I asked.

“I did,” she said, forcing a high five on me. She looked really out of it. She clearly wasn't going to remember anything from today. She spoke in a soft voice that could hardly be heard, her speech now muddled by the drugs. Her eyes could barely stay open. “Could you read me the will? I'm not sure I trust it,” she asked.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Yes, please. I don't want Dad's family fucking me out of money. It'll make me feel better,” she said, handing me the will.

She thought that there was some trick in my dad's will that would give all his money away to people she didn't like. I opened it up and read it aloud to put her mind at ease. She was too out of it to hear a word I was saying, but I read it anyway while she spooned yogurt into her mouth, her eyes closed. She looked like a child being lulled to sleep by a bedtime story.

*   *   *

The rain stopped and the clouds began to clear, letting the sun suck up all the fallen precipitation like a giant invisible straw. The sky turned a perfect blue to match my dad's eyes. Things were looking up.

Regina arrived and helped get my dad ready as my mom dozed off in the chair next to his bed. He looked great: clean-shaven, his graying hair slicked from left to right, the way he always wore it. He wanted to wear his marathon-running gear on his last day. So we slipped the orange hat on his head and the blue shirt over his bony shoulders. We needed some sun to gleam off my dad's still-alive face one more time, so we decided to head outside for a walk around the neighborhood.

“No man should die without a sunburn,” I said to him, taking off his hat and ruffling up his combed hair. “Come on, let's load this fucker into his wheelchair,” I said to Regina and Greg.

Meanwhile, my mom shot back awake with a sudden burst of energy. She looked at Regina, Greg, and me as we started to transfer my dad to his chair.

“Where the fuck are you going?” she asked.

“We're going outside,” Greg said.

“Well, I have some questions to ask your dad,” she said.

She opened up her red notebook. She was trying to learn everything that she had to do once my dad died. She wasn't in the state of mind to really absorb anything, but she fired off a set of questions:

“How do I change the filters in the furnace?”

“How do I balance a checkbook?”

“Should we sell the van?”

“How do I fix the pool cover if it breaks?”

“What do I do if we need to cut down some trees in the yard?”

“Are your siblings going to fuck us out of money?”

“Can we read the will again?”

I interrupted, ignoring my frantic mother. “We're going outside now.”

We all swarmed around my dad as if he were some sort of celebrity. We argued over who was going to drive him to the nearby elevator. As everyone pleaded their case, I grabbed the wheelchair controls and drove away.

“Fuck you all. I'm driving him,” I said, middle finger raised. I had been the first in the family to learn how to run his stupid respirator. I had programmed his stupid communication device and helped him learn how to use his stupid wheelchair. I was the first to change his stupid diapers while he remained in his stupid hospital bed. I was the last to walk him up a stupid flight of stairs and the first to call his stupid suction machine a bad word. I had his neurologist's stupid phone number memorized and knew more about stupid Lou Gehrig's disease than stupid Lou Gehrig himself. I had earned the opportunity to drive him to the stupid elevator.

I got my dad into the elevator. We had had very few moments alone lately. Someone was always around. The elevator only fits him and one other person, so we got a lot of our intimate, one-on-one conversations done during these short rides. The last day of Dad's life was no exception.

“Can you believe today is the day?” I asked.

“No, I really can't,” he managed to say.

“Seems like I was heading back from California just yesterday,” I said. I had, in fact, been home for exactly 366 days.

“I know. I could walk back then,” he said.

“What a wild, fucked-up year,” I said.

“Thanks for being here for it,” he said.

“Wouldn't have missed it. I love you, Dad,” I said.

“I love you, too, DJ,” he said.

The accordion elevator door swooshed open before we could get too emotional and sappy. Greg was standing in the garage with a bottle of water in his hand. It was just him. Everyone else had disappeared.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

“I don't know. She's worrying about something pointless,” Greg replied.

“So she's not coming on the walk?” I asked. “Jesus, we really need her around. This is the worst day in the world for her to pull her wacko shit.”

Greg took a big pull from his water. “I know this is fucked up to say, but I feel like we're losing the wrong parent. I mean, we're stuck with her now? Things would be so much better if she were the one dying and you were the one living,” Greg said, while gently stroking my dad's hair to one side.

Tiffany, Regina, Jessica, Chelsea, and Creepy Todd finally came out the front door. We all stood on our cracked driveway in front of our tired home. My mom was still inside. We waited for a minute, all our eyes trained on the front door, hoping that she would emerge.

I finally said, “Let's go. She can catch up if she wants to do this.” We all turned our backs to the door and walked away, like disappointed children realizing that their parents didn't love them anymore, realizing that there was no one left to help them fight their fights, realizing that they were all alone.

We began our push down Briarcreek Drive, our street for nearly eighteen years. Just as our backs were good and turned, we heard our mom's familiar voice. “Sorry.” We all excitedly turned toward her. She was running out of the front door. She caught up with us. “I thought I was going to shit my pants,” she explained.

“Glad you decided to come,” I said as I smacked her on her back.

“Not so hard. I just put on a fresh Fentanyl patch,” she said with a coy smile and an attempted wink.

As we began to walk—our mom with a fresh dose of pain medication being sucked into her back—things started to sink in. This was it. This was actually the last walk with my dad. This was actually the last time the neighbors had the chance to look out the windows, look at my dad, and say, “That poor, poor man. To be stuck with both that awful disease and that awful family. My lord.” This quiet, physically disabled man was the life vest that held this family afloat, even as Lou Gehrig's washed over the person he once was. We only had him for another hour. We needed to take advantage of this and ask all of life's important questions.

“Okay, so let's each ask dad one last question,” I suggested.

“What's your favorite color?” my pilled-up mom asked.

“If you were a zoo animal, which one would you be?” Chelsea asked with a giggle.

“Daddy, who are you the proudest of? Keep in mind that Danny doesn't have a job,” Greg joked.

“What's your favorite mountain to ski?” Tiffany asked.

“What's your favorite episode of
Friends
?” Jessica asked.

“I meant things that matter, like ‘What's the meaning of life?' or ‘What's the key to happiness in ten words or less?'” I shot back at them.

“No one knows that sort of shit, Danny. And the ones who claim they do are the biggest idiots of all, since we're all different, and we're all just trying to get through the day,” said my druggy mom, displaying a remarkable flash of coherence.

We pushed forward. Regina kept trying to hold my dad's hand, but my mom kept shooing her away. “This is family time,” my mom told her. Poor Regina—searching for love in all the wrong places. I pulled out the video camera and tried to capture the towering Wasatch Mountains in the background to remind us that the universe is huge and we are all merely parasites shit here by luck. I thought looking at the mountains would help dwarf our problems, but it didn't. My dad was still dying. Our problems were still as big as ever.

We were approaching a street named Keddington. When we first moved to Utah some twenty years before, we'd lived on this street. It was a modest tree-filled neighborhood full of happy families and old couples who I always thought would die before my dad.

We were silent. There really wasn't much else to say. The important thing was that we were all together. In a fucked-up way, my dad getting sick was good for this reason. Tiffany and I had never gotten along, but we had gone from being at war to being war buddies who had bonded over a real shit situation. Greg and I had rekindled our roles as each other's best friend, and we had spent many nights talking about life. I knew we'd have each other forever. Chelsea and I had been given the chance to make each other laugh. And though I was critical of Jessica, I made it clear it was because I loved her and felt protective of her. We knew we could turn to each other if we ever really needed something. Before she married Creepy Todd, she had asked me for help getting a prenuptial agreement drafted, and I had turned to her when I was too drunk to drive but still really wanted to go to the bars to try to sloppily hit on girls. And my mom and I—well, we'd sort things out after this mess. I had faith that she'd turn it around again and keep on fighting, keep on being our resilient, spirited mom cheering us on no matter what. We were a family. A nice big fucked-up family that was certainly cursed with some misfortune, but we were still a family. We looked after each other. We had to. No one else would.

*   *   *

Our walk came to an end. We rolled back into the driveway of our home. We took my dad out to our backyard gazebo area looking out at the mountains. Creepy Todd left to get the balloons for the balloon-release shenanigans.

We were all circled around my dad as if he was a fire keeping us warm. I couldn't believe this was actually it. I looked over at my tired dad, and he looked at me, at his whole family. He looked like he wanted to say more, do more. But he couldn't. This fucking disease.

And just then, the sun hit his face as though he was the only person on earth it was lighting up. All the chirping birds in our backyard shut up. In fact, they stood and began to salute my father with their little bird wings. His respirator, hanging on the back of his chair, turned itself off, finally shutting the fuck up. My dad lifted up his arm and unhooked himself from the device. The hole in his trach filled itself in. He took a big gulp of fresh mountain air on his own accord. He cleared his throat and, just like that, his voice returned back to normal, just as it had been before the disease launched its game-winning attack.

“There, that's better, and just in time to say good-bye,” he said with clarity.

We looked to the gazebo table and it was suddenly set for a family dinner, just like old times. Steaks, potatoes, asparagus, salad, and wine to wash it all down. My dad gestured to it, and we all took our seats in front of this giant feast, him, of course, at the head of the table.

He looked at his youngest daughter, Chelsea. Her unexposed emotions finally started to kick in as she uncurled his brittle, skinny fingers and squeezed his hand with her own brittle, skinny fingers. She stopped thinking about school and realized this was an opportunity to learn a more important life lesson. My dad looked deep into her eyes and said, “Chelsea, you are a great kid. You are very smart and attractive. You will make a difference in the world. Keep your mom company and never forget that I'm still here for you, even if I'm not. Keep up the dancing. Keep up the interest in school. Good luck learning to drive and good luck turning into a woman; both events I wish I could witness. You are uniquely you. Never change that.” Chelsea cried and said, “You're not really going to do this, are you?” flashing her signature blend of optimism and denial. My dad nodded his head and said that he was. Chelsea understood and released his hand.

My dad looked at Jessica. She was already crying. And not a soft weeping, but a hard and painful expression of misery that was difficult for all of us to watch. Her body trembled with powerful sobs, her emotions banging against her rib cage. She got up from her seat, gave my dad a two-armed hug, and watered his shoulder with her tears. My dad said, “Jessica, I wish you the best of luck. Good luck with your marriage. Good luck with your pregnancy. Good luck with everything. Kiss your children for me. Go back to school when you're ready. You are smarter than you think. You are a very gentle and kind person with a bigger heart than any of us. I love you very much. Good luck.”

My dad looked at Greg with a gleam of serenity and poise. Greg was the strongest of all of us. He started to cry and thanked my dad for going on the respirator so he got to spend an extra ten months with his number-one conversation buddy. My dad said, “Greg, you are the new rock. You react with both emotion and logic, making you a rare commodity. You are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and a great listener. You will use those skills to achieve more than the rest of us. I hope you always cherish the time we spent together: the U.S. Open in New York, the trip to France, the countless times we battled it out on the tennis court. You have shown bravery and honesty in your life and I am proud of you for who you are. I love you.” Greg's crying intensified. He didn't want to lose his dad. He didn't want any of this to happen. But he understood and didn't try to talk him out of his decision.

My dad turned toward me, his oldest son. I thanked him for all that he had given me and taught me. I reminded him how a silly sport like basketball had brought us together and thanked him for always letting me beat him to build my confidence. He said, “Get a fucking job and lose twenty pounds, you bum, and then look after Mom and help her as much as she needs. I know you think she's crazy, but also realize that she's your mother and you are half her. You have given me a lot over the last year and let go of a lot along the way, but I want you to move forward without resentment toward me for putting us all through this, toward Abby for moving on with her life, and toward your mother for putting so much on your shoulders. I think in the long run you will look back at this and think it was all worth it because I'm your fucking father and it was your duty to care for me when I needed you the most. I'm sorry it happened when you were only twenty-five. It is now time to get on with your life and push forward as an adult without any excuses.” I reached over and pinched his nipples and messed up his hair. I looked at him with a loving smile and said, “Don't watch me masturbate from heaven.”