Imperfections (27 page)

I handed over the last forty dollars of Mother's money to the taxi driver when he dropped me off in front of the hospital. It was early evening and the heat of the day lingered in wavering ghosts escaping from the asphalt and concrete. It coated me with a tactile embrace.

I stood on the curb as the taxi drove away, its crown light glowing a thin yellow in the fleeting light of the day. I inhaled and concentrated on the air held in my lungs.

I stood as people came and went through the automatic door, it sliding open and shut under the backlit
Entrance
sign. The motor hummed as it worked. Watching those people, I focused on consciously experiencing their presence, seeing them move through this world and then seeing them no more.

I stood until the streetlights flickered on overhead and then, I went into the hospital.

I was struck by the antiseptic smell in the air. It took me back to the last time I had been in a hospital and the immediate association I made with the smell was Mother.

I approached the information desk.

“I'm here to see Jack Trench,” I said.

The man behind the counter removed his hands from where they had been resting, fingers interlaced on his belly. “Are you family?” he asked. His sausage fingers poked at a keyboard.

“He's my dad.”

“Six fourteen,” the man said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Bank of elevators. Sixth floor. Take a left once you get there.”

His chair creaked as he leaned back and wove his fingers together over top of his belly again. He looked over my shoulder, into the night outside.

Bank of elevators. Sixth floor. Took a left. Six fourteen.

I surveyed the room from the door. Mother was looking out the window. Dr. Sloane sat in one of the two chairs in the room, his fingers templed in front of his mouth and a blissful look on his face. Donna was in the other chair, which was pulled up to Dad's side. She held his hand.
 

Dad was pale and gaunt. I didn't recognize him from when I left seven months ago. He had come to the airport to see me off. He had still been a bit unsteady. When I glanced back from the far side of the security scanners, he stood, the only stationary person in the bustling airport, and waved goodbye to me. He had been a mountain of a man then.

Now, his hand seemed frail in Donna's. His skin was slack, draped like a shroud over his bones. His eyes were sunken, his lips thin. What hair he had left was a baby's wisp, but grey.

Then, surveying the room, I knew why I had left. I couldn't watch him turn into this. I couldn't watch him fade away. Even so, I came back because I needed to watch him die. I owed it to him.

What I had learned about myself over the past months was that I was afraid of this. More than anything, I was afraid of drifting away in time without a trace. That was why I needed to watch Dad die. I wanted him to know he wouldn't just disappear, that he would be remembered; that as his son I would do my duty and carry him on in the world after he was gone. Regardless of what had happened over the past twenty-five years, I owed him.

I cleared my throat.

Mother spun on her heel.

“Richard, you made it.” In a blink she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me. I squeezed her back. Over her shoulder, my eyes locked with Donna's and I saw pain and something else I had never seen before in those eyes. Awareness.

“What's wrong with Dr. Sloane?” I asked. Sloane hadn't moved a titch.

Mother released me. “He's conversing with the universal flow. Trying to ease Jack's passing.”

I wanted to cross the room and stick my foot through his chest, pushing his heart under my heel until it was impaled on the shards of his broken ribs. Then, as he bled out into his chest cavity, I wanted to watch the last painful moments of his life fade from his eyes. I wished it were he who was rotting from the inside, not Dad.

Mother went to Dr. Sloane and rubbed his shoulders. He didn't move.

I joined Donna by Dad's side.

She stood and I embraced her.

“How're you holding up?” I asked.

“He's sleeping,” she said, fear and sadness wavering in her voice. “I'm so scared for him.” She whispered, her breath warm in my ear. Her cheek, wet with tears, pressed against mine.

“I know,” I said and held her out at arm's length. “When the time comes, you and I have one job.”

“I don't want him to go. It's not fair,” she said. “I don't want to be alone again, not like I was with you.”

If we were still together that comment would have festered in me, one more thorn among many. I let the slight slide. I knew what she meant. Since we parted years ago, I had grown to understand her.

“I know,” I said. “But that's our job, Donna. Don't let him leave you. Remember him well.”

Donna's body shook in my arms. I had never given Donna credit to be able to feel such true emotion. I wondered when she had learned it, or was it always there and I had just chalked it up to drama.

“You're small,” a croak came from the bed. “You should hit the gym.” While Dad's face was pained, his eyes sparkled.

“You're one to talk,” I said and released Donna.

“Harsh,” Dad's chuckle sounded more like a series of breathless coughs. He grimaced. His lips looked blue set against his ashen skin. “I'm glad you're here, Richard.”

Donna sat back in her chair. She fought her tears, wiping them from her face with an open hand.

“You don't have to be so brave, Donna,” Dad said, reaching out an IV-tentacled arm to her. “It's okay to be sad.”

“I know,” Donna said. “It's not easy though.”

“Richard.” Dad held out his hand.

I took it and tried not to flinch at how frail and clammy it felt in mine. I remembered how strong his hand used to be from those foggy childhood memories of him holding me, to the crushing hug I had received when I introduced Donna as my fiancée to the family, to the tens of nearly forgotten handshakes and hearty backslaps we had shared.
 

Dad had waved goodbye at the airport and then faded to this.
 

I finally understood why Donna and Dad worked so well together. Dad could see through Donna's facade. He saw who she was after the catwalk show was over and the venue was dark and empty. He deciphered Donna's language and translated it into something he could love. Donna knew this and, in a world where she was always eyed and known whisperingly as Prima Donna, she had found someone who finally knew her. In her eyes, he was the only person in the world who could comprehend the words she said and the things she did.

I squeezed Dad's hand and felt a weak contraction in response and then it went limp again.

I had nearly forgotten Dr. Sloane was in the room, he had been sitting in his trance for so long. Then he said, “He's gone.”

“He's fine,” I shot over my shoulder, through gritted teeth.

“He is fine, but he's also gone,” Dr. Sloane said.

I looked down at Dad. The blanket covering him no longer stretched and crinkled with his breathing. His hand, which had been so weak in mine, was still.
 

Donna wept openly and with abandon. I leaned forward, kissed Dad's forehead and said, “You did well.”

I tucked his hand under the blanket and stepped back from the bed to make room for Donna to fling herself on it. I left her there, raw and undignified. It was what she needed.

I joined Mother and Dr. Sloane who were in a quiet embrace near the window. I stood for a minute, looking into the dark night, until they released each other.

“I miss him,” Mother said to me.

“I know. I want you to know something though. I wanted to say…”

“You still loved him a little bit,” Dr. Sloane interrupted. “We carry little pieces of the people we know, inside us. Some people leave bigger pieces behind and those tug to rejoin the universal flow, to be with the rest of him. That's what we're feeling now. Little pieces of Jack left embedded in each of us, trying to rejoin him.”

I punched Dr. Sloane in the mouth. It was lightning quick and carried as much might as I could muster. I had never punched anyone before. I felt his lip split and warm blood pour over my fist. I felt two of his teeth fold, sliding neatly from their sockets. My fist met bone. There was some give in his jaw as it strained against tendon and muscle. It kept its form though, and that was where my fist stopped.

Dr. Sloane dropped to the floor.

I kissed Mother's cheek, which was taut because her mouth hung open.

“I wanted to say I love you, Mom. I wanted to say that because we never know when we'll get another chance to,” I said.

“I love you too, honey,” Mom stammered.

I left the room. I don't remember anything until I was going down in the elevator, picking at the torn skin on my knuckles. The elevator door dinged and slid open. I shuffled to one side, making room for whoever was getting on.

“Richard.”

Without looking up I said, “I think there's some tooth lodged in my knuckle.”

“Richard.”

My name snapped me back to reality. Leonard stood in front of me, his foot wedging the door open, which chimed from being held ajar for too long.

“Leonard?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

I staggered out of the elevator and it took me a moment to register the question. I looked down a bustling corridor over Leonard's shoulder. Nurses in pale green uniforms flitted like leaves in rapid water, in and out of rooms. Doctors in white coats and stethoscopes draped across their shoulders moved like icebergs, examining charts and chewing on the ends of pens. Patients and visitors moved in and out of the bustle, flotsam drifting around in an eddy.
 

Life went on.

“Dad just died,” I blurted out.

My cheeks burned. I cried. Relief spilled out of me in big waves. I hadn't realized I had been carrying so much.
 

Over the past year's travels I thought I had grown strong and gained control. I had convinced myself I was ready for anything and, suddenly, that was gone. But maybe, I thought, maybe this was strength. Maybe strength is reaction and is allowing control to be lost. Without control, without a filter, blubbering incoherently like a child with a gelatinous pendulum of spit quivering from the corner of my gaping mouth, maybe this was strength.

Leonard embraced me. He wrapped his arms around me, his open palms on my back. He held on tightly.

“I knew he was here,” he said. “I was just on my way up.”

Leonard smelled. I could smell his armpits and the nutty scent of his unwashed hair and skin. I wrapped my arms around him, returning his embrace. After a while, my breathing became regular, matching Leonard's. His chest slowly, smoothly expanded and contracted against mine. My breathing grew calm.

Through his open palms on my back, the embrace of his arms, the pulse of the crook where his shoulder met his neck, that same spot I had inadvertently deposited my stringy spit to form a dark, damp spot, I felt my heartbeat align with his.

I released Leonard. “Can you write something about him for me, for your paper?”

“Of course,” Leonard replied. “Of course, I will.”

“I don't know if I remember him right now, anything about him,” I said. I had always thought Leonard's job was obscure curio but I started to realize the importance of what he did.

“That's okay. You'll remember. You don't realize how little you know until you start exploring people's pasts. Their lives, after they have been lived, move from things that are works in progress to complete stories with a beginning, middle and an end. Once we know the dead like a friend, once we've explored their life lived, then we know what we've lost,” Leonard said. “Obituaries don't just serve the memory of a person, they testify to what we've all lost.”

“It could've been me,” I said. “It should've been me on New Year's Eve. You said it would be me.”

“I made a mistake,” Leonard said. “But I've figured it out.”

“When do I go?” I asked. I had to know. My tone must have conveyed my need.

“You remember when I told you about my theory. Paul Winchell and John Fiedler?”

I thought for a moment. It had been the night I introduced Dad to Donna. Leonard and I had been standing in the backyard at Dad's house, watching Donna wander “the gardens.”

“Tigger and Piglet,” I said.

“Yeah. And the Pope and Prince Rainier. You're tied to all of them.”

I thought back to that night. The Chinese takeout. Dr. Sloane grinning across the table from me and the feeling of wanting to push my fist through his face.

What was it Leonard had said?

“2005,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Four years left,” I said flatly.