How to Talk to a Widower (8 page)

12

DRIVING NORTH THROUGH NEW RADFORD, YOU CAN
actually feel the real estate values rising like floodwaters around you. The quarter-acre plots become half acres and then acres, with increasingly larger houses set farther and farther back from the street, the minivans and Japanese sedans give way to upscale SUVs and German luxury cars, and the streets become wider, and lined with taller trees. And then you pass through a white-bricked gateway into the village of Forest Heights, and everything jumps another few income levels, and it's between these bulging tax brackets that you'll find the massive red-bricked center-hall Colonial of Stan and Eva Parker. I had been fiercely determined not to come to this dinner, but in the two days that Claire has been living with me, the old behavior patterns have already reasserted themselves and she has effortlessly assumed command.

Claire turns into the driveway like it's just another street, maintaining her speed until the last possible instant, braking just inches from the rear fender of my mother's Audi. In the backseat, Russ, who has come along because anything is better than spending another evening at home with Jim and Angie, lets out a strangled breath and says “Fuck.” Russ is an accomplished linguist when it comes to swearing, and he can make the word mean anything he wants. In this case it's a fuck of relief that Claire hasn't killed us and the harrowing drive is over.

“You have a problem with my driving, you can take the bus home,” Claire teases him, reaching back to muss his hair.

“Like buses even come to this neighborhood,” Russ says, batting away her hand, his tone a complex adolescent amalgam of envy and contempt.

“How do you think the help gets here?” Claire says.

“Look,” Russ says, pointing out his window. “Isn't that your dad?”

My father is out in the front yard, backlit like an apparition by the late afternoon sun, wearing nothing except sky blue boxer shorts and white Nikes with black socks, throwing a baseball against the side of the house and catching it in an old, weathered mitt of mine. He performs the exaggerated windup of a major league pitcher, his flab shimmying around him like Jell-O as he follows through on the release, his silver hair plastered against his forehead with sweat. Rudy, his nurse, is hovering in the foreground with a bathrobe in his hands, desperately trying to get him to come inside and get dressed.

“Please, Dr. Parker,” he whines. “This is so not funny.”

“Hey, Dad.”

His face lights up when he sees me, and he comes lumbering over with a big grin while Rudy, who looks poised to have a breakdown, chases after him, plaintively holding out the bathrobe in front of him. “Dr. Parker, please! Just put on the robe!” Rudy's about my age, skinny, bald, perennially agitated, and no match for my bullish father, who outweighs him by a good seventy pounds and nudges him out of the way like an elephant swatting flies with his tail.

My father drops the mitt in the grass and pulls me into a tight hug, exactly like he never did before the stroke. He smells of grass and sweat, and his back is rough and hairy against my hands. “Doug,” he says, squeezing the breath out of me. “What are you doing here?” This has become his standard greeting, a genuine query brilliantly disguised as a salutation, because he so often has no idea what's going on, or even what year it is. Sometimes he appears to be on target, and other times he thinks I'm a kid again, coming home from school. Two years ago, my mother discovered him on the shower floor in a wet crumpled heap. He was in a coma for three days, from which he emerged vibrant and healthy but with his mind somehow folded in on itself and the impulse control of an eight-year-old boy. The doctors called it a CVA, which turned out to be an acronym for cerebrovascular accident, which turned out to be a fancy way of saying that there was nothing they could do about it. There are days when he's lucid and days when he's lost, but even on the good days, he's never quite sure about the details. He's a man constantly in search of context.

On the plus side, he hugs me all the time now. I guess it took having his brain fried for him to start loving me. In my more twisted moments, I actually consider it a fair trade, but then again, I'm not the one parading grandly around his front lawn in his boxers with the fly open.

He steps back, keeping his hands on my shoulders. I wonder how old he thinks I am today. “Where's Hailey?” he says.

That narrows it down a bit. I turn away so he won't see the searing pain that momentarily melts my features. In the world he woke up in today, he loves me and Hailey's still alive, and it's like I'm standing outside in the rain, peering through the window and wishing I could come in from the cold and warm my chilled bones at the fire of his dementia. “She'll be along soon,” I say.

“Hi, Daddy,” Claire quickly interrupts, stepping in to give him a hug.

“Hey, sugar, what are you doing here?”

“Just coming to see Debbie,” Claire says. “She's getting married, you know.”

His expression falters and he frowns, his forehead becoming deeply furrowed as he tries to chase down a specific memory, but it loses him in the chaotic thought riot going on in his brain. “Mazel tov,” he says mournfully, staring down at his feet.

“He really needs to come inside and get cleaned up,” Rudy says.

My father shakes it off. “Who's this?” he says, sizing up Russ, who's been standing off to the side awkwardly.

“It's Russ,” I say. “You remember Russ, Hailey's son?”

“Of course I do,” he says, stepping forward to give Russ a hug. You can see the fight-or-flight debate played out in Russ's stricken expression as he stands stiffly in my father's sweaty embrace, but he keeps his cool and even pats my dad's back with his fist, ghetto style.

“Hey, Dr. Parker.”

My father steps back and sizes him up. “You're all grown-up now. You play ball, Russ?”

“Sometimes.”

He tosses him the ball. “You'll be the pitcher.”

Russ grins and picks the mitt up off the ground. “Batter up,” he says.

“I think that's a really, really bad idea,” Rudy says.

“Duly noted, Rudy,” my father says jovially, jogging over to pick up the baseball bat leaning against the wall.

“Dr. Parker. We have to get ready for dinner. You haven't even showered yet.”

“Buzz off, Rudy,” my dad says, twirling the bat and squatting down into a batter's stance.

“Yeah, Rudy,” Claire says, grinning. “Buzz off.”

My dad looks at her. “Can you call balls and strikes?”

Claire steps up to him and kisses his shoulder. “I was born for it,” she says.

         

My mother is at her post in the kitchen, perched on a high stool at the center island, halfway through what I can only hope is her first bottle of red wine, arguing over wedding details with Debbie and barking the occasional order at Portia, the maid, who is fussing over a London broil. The counter is laid out like a photo shoot for
Bon Appétit,
with picture-perfect salads, side dishes, a glazed Cornish hen, breaded veal, and the London broil, which Portia is wrestling into a silver serving platter. My parents may behave like they were abandoned in Greenwich and raised by WASPs, but when it comes to preparing meals, we are once again the chosen people.

“Douglas,” my mother says, setting her wineglass down on the marble top of the island. “Darling.” She leans forward to kiss the air somewhere in the vicinity of my face, taking care not to disturb the multiple coats of lipstick that cover her lips like paint sealant.

“Hey, Pooh,” I say, kissing Debbie's cheek. She's immaculate as usual, dressed for dinner in a short black skirt and powder blue sweater, her hair pinned up off her face. She is severely beautiful, like a polished sculpture, and I wish she would wear her hair down sometimes and look a little less tucked in, a little less like someone who has forgotten to exhale, someone inches away from taking offense at something.

“You came,” she says.

“Why wouldn't I?”

“Because you hate me?”

“‘Hate' is such a strong word.”

She smirks. “Go to hell.”

“Language, Deborah,” my mother says sternly. “You're getting married, for heaven's sake. Try to at least sound like a lady.”

“You look skinny,” I say. Debbie's always been an aspiring anorexic, cheered on enthusiastically by our mother.

“I have to fit into that gown.”

“She looks perfect!” my mother snaps at me. “For heaven's sake, Portia, garnish the brisket, don't bury it alive.” She turns to me. “So how are you, Douglas?”

“Same old same old.”

“I was worried when I couldn't reach you.”

“I'm fine.”

She gives me her best you-can't-fool-me look over the rim of her wineglass. Whenever I picture my mother it's always this image, large knowing eyes floating disembodied over the rim of a wineglass. “Did you bring Russell?”

“He's outside, playing ball with Dad.” She nods and looks away. “How is Dad?” I say.

Her expression darkens and she waves her hand. “Every day's an adventure. He's discovered sex again.”

“Mom!”

“He wants it all the time now. It's a wonder I can even walk.”

“Jesus Christ!” Debbie says.

“Language,” my mother says absently, snapping her fingers twice at her. “The other day, your father chased me around the house for a half hour before Rudy could calm him down.”

“How's Rudy working out?” I say.

“I give it another two weeks.” She pours herself some more wine, even though her glass is still half full. She sighs, a deep, dramatic, Oscar-clip sigh. “I love the man, I really do. But he's going to kill me.”

“Speaking of which,” Debbie says, turning to me. “I've been thinking. How would you feel about giving me away?”

“We tried for years, Pooh. No one wanted you.”

“Be serious,” she says.

“Dad should do it.”

“Dad's insane, or maybe you haven't noticed.”

“He's just occasionally befuddled. He'll be fine.”

“I can't take that chance.”

“It is what it is, Deb. If he's a little bit off, people will understand.”

“This from the man who hasn't left his house in a year,” Debbie says, shaking her head in disgust.

“What's your point, Debbie?”

“Nothing, Doug. I have no point.”

My mother puts down her wineglass, nervously anticipating an explosion, but Claire walks in just in time. “Hey, Ma,” she says, kissing her cheek and stealing the wineglass in the same motion.

“Where's Stephen?” my mother says.

“He had to go out of town on business.”

“That's a shame.”

“He'll get over it.” Claire takes a long swallow of wine, which she shouldn't do in her condition, so I give her a look to remind her, and she raises her eyebrows defiantly to tell me to back off. “Hey, Pooh,” she says.

“I wish you both would stop calling me that,” Debbie says softly.

“Yeah,” Claire says, nodding her head sympathetically. “That's probably not going to happen. Am I right, Doug?”

“It's funny, because I'd just been thinking that it was time to stop calling you that, but then you made that bitchy comment about me not leaving the house … ”

“So it's unanimous,” Claire says brightly. “How's the wedding shaping up?”

“She doesn't want Dad to give her away.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Claire!” my mother says, snapping her fingers at her. She can swear like a sailor when the moment demands it, but she hates hearing her children swear because it makes her feel old.

“Jesus!” Debbie says. “Have you met Dad? He's the one running around half naked in the front yard.”

“He's your father.”

“Oh, fuck off, Claire!”

If my mother snaps any faster, her fingers will start a fire.

My sisters and I start going at it, at high speed and in three-part harmony, and when my mother's snaps have fallen hopelessly behind, she silences us by slamming her fist down on the counter hard enough to rattle the hanging light fixtures. “You were an ugly baby, Deborah,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“It's true,” my mother says, leaning back and closing her eyes. “You looked like a troll. A swarthy little troll. I was embarrassed to take you out with me. But your father, he loved you. He thought you were the most beautiful thing on God's green earth. He couldn't wait for you to wake up so he could pull you out of your crib and sing to you. He showed you off to everyone like you were the crown jewels. It didn't matter what you looked like. You were his beautiful little baby.”

We all look at my mother. She's never told us this before, but it's very possible, likely even, that she's making it up on the spot. She's never been above some creative ad-libbing if it will enhance her performance. She opens her eyes and fixes Debbie with a steely glare. “He may be impaired, but he's still the same man who looked at that ugly child and saw his beautiful daughter, and he will be the one to give you away.”