The Last Cadillac (27 page)

“Well, then what? Is he ready for the prom?”

She ignored me. I was overstepping my bounds and I didn't care. I was going to push this as far along as I could. I just couldn't go back in there and look at George without trying. Down the course of my Dad's decline, I'd met my share of meatheads who ostensibly meant well but weren't doing any good. Hardly anyone came to see George, but I'd heard he had a son somewhere.

The next day, I ran into George's sole visitor, a neighbor who had come to see him once. I asked her to call George's son about getting the doctor to prescribe more pain medication. Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about, but I had spent nearly two weeks with George and I saw he needed relief. What were they afraid of? That George would become an addict in the short time he had left on earth? That was my prayer for George, that he would become an addict.

George's visitor, a puffy, harried woman seemed put out about being asked to deliver news to the son. Where was the son? She said she would call him, an engineer who lived in Memphis and was very busy at the time. “You can hardly get ahead of it. The pain,” I said, remembering the days with my mother. “Please, call him.”

On the last day of my dad's stay in the hospital, we said goodbye to George. I felt I knew him well by then, after listening to him and sitting around with him in his half-dressed, half-aware condition on the edge of the world. I touched his hand that was like a shriveled leaf. He tried to
lift it, to raise himself up in the bed, moaning all the while. I patted his dry, dead arm. I tried to smile.

Dad sat in his wheelchair, with his hat on and his lap piled over with his belongings, and waved, like he was on the back of a train running for office. “Keep the faith, George.”

“All right, Mike. You, too.”

“It'll be OK now, George,” I said, lying. “They're coming with the medicine.”

“Ooooo. Lady.”

Dad was able to come home from the hospital, but Marilyn wasn't there to help. She was off in California visiting her daughter—so I panicked. I recovered immediately when I found out the hospital staff was way ahead of me. Upon Dad's release from the hospital, he became eligible for daily home health care under Medicare, which is truly a good show of government dollars at work. For a prescribed length of time under the Medicare program, the doctor was able to assign different types of therapists and bath ladies to get him going and “unstick his blood,” as my brother said. They helped change Dad's life, and mine, and they also ended up being his unexpected pleasure.

The morning I picked him up to take him home, he was very tired, more tired than I'd ever seen him. On the way into the house he leaned on the walker, laboring over the flagstones up to the front door. Finally, I got him into his room where he sat down on the side of the bed. He threw up.

Heart lurching, I studied him, bent over and pale. There was no reason for him to throw up. He had just completed every kind of test and therapy known to mankind and was
declared well. In the hospital, he tolerated the antibiotics, and he ate heartily on a careful diet for two weeks. He didn't wheeze anymore, and, thankfully, he hadn't begged for the cigarettes. What's more, he wasn't going to have any more cigarettes. A potential problem brewed there, which I had to head off with Tick and Marilyn, but they would understand, and cooperate.

I got him as comfortable as I could in his cool, dark room, under the covers, tucked in, just like he'd done for us about forty-some years previously. I gave him a peck on the forehead, but he was already near the snoring stage. Dad would come around. He always did. I figured with George's moaning all night, and every other interruption the hospital had to offer, Dad hadn't slept well for two weeks. He needed to readjust after all the drugs. Too many drugs. He would sleep it off. Later, I'd make him a dinner of rice, lean hamburger patty, applesauce, and a roll. That would make him all better. At least I hoped it would make him better.

And he was. He slept all afternoon, and then went back to sleep after the sensible dinner that he gobbled down. He slept on and off for two days, with minimal interruption. I thought it a good idea to head off the exercise until he recovered from being in the hospital, so I asked the doctor for a temporary reprieve from the therapy. Dad rested up.

But soon the bath ladies and therapists began in earnest, and Dad took to them like he was off on a new adventure. Their daily visits were pure entertainment for him, and he was the entertainer as well. These women—mostly young women of every style and background—fussed over him, took over his bedroom, and led him out and about for short walks after his nap.

“If I'd known they were coming, I'd have gotten sicker a whole lot sooner,” he said. “That little one, what's her name, Carol, we could be an item.”

Each morning a different bath lady from the agency appeared at the door: Laverne, with a cap of gleaming, wavy hair, blue nails, and skin the color of fine chocolate; Jackie, who looked like Tammy Wynnette, but didn't sing; the other Jackie, who looked like Diana Ross and did sing; Carol, the former Navy petty officer, who gave Dad a good cry when she started talking about her days on the ship; Henrietta, the blond Amazon with braids on top of her head, whom Dad insisted on calling “Heidi.” I saw her lift Dad off the bed like he was a toddler.

The bath lady of the day showered and dressed him, changed his bed every day, and straightened his room. He always invited her for a sort of “date” over coffee, but she was always bound for the next client—sometimes up to eight a day. Before she left, however, she sat with Dad for a few minutes to quiz him and determine how sharp he was. She recorded his bowel movements, appetite, and intake of medication. In under an hour, she was out the door like a small tornado, leaving Dad freshly combed and outfitted and smelling good, poised in front of the newspaper and ready to pounce on his Mueslix with banana, poached egg on toast, juice, fruit, and coffee, all of which he ate to the last crumb.

He was fond of his bath ladies, especially Carol. But the real love of his life was Noelle, the physical therapist, his “little sweetie,” the blond mother of two with the full lips and long eyelashes, who “cued” him on how to get up and sit down properly, ride a portable bicycle, walk without dragging his left foot, keep his back straight up to the walker, and then practice walking up and down the driveway. They
talked and laughed, and he flirted shamelessly.

I wondered what went on in that be-stroked brain of his—my dad, the puritan who had never played around with other women and never even allowed an off-color joke in the presence of women. He'd once dragged my mother, my sisters, and me out of
Hair
on Broadway when the actors rolled the humongous penis out on to the stage. But that Dad was surely gone. The stroke had affected that part of the brain that deals with emotions and the ability to make subtle judgments, the doctor said. So, he flirted and made off-the-wall, even slightly lewd comments sometimes.

I began to understand what my mother told me years before when he suffered his first big stroke. He had become a different man. The one she had married was gone. She'd been so sad, but I hadn't understood. I thought it was all right, because we still had Dad. The different Dad was a simpler version, a little goofier and sweeter, and fortunately for all of us and for him, he hadn't lost his sense of humor and his proclivity for the one-liner. I felt badly for caretakers who were left with the brittle shells of loved ones who turned into mean, dry, demanding people. That wasn't Dad. I was so lucky for that. There was some silver lining in the cloud that hung over his head, as his mother used to say.

Even so, it was embarrassing that sometimes he was out-spoken in his love for the ladies. He told Henrietta he liked her “little panties,” to which she simply smiled and put his hat on his head with a firm pat. Then, one day, he told me he had to cool it with Noelle. “I found out she wants to have another baby,” he said.

Laura, the occupational therapist, looked just a tiny bit like Elizabeth Taylor, but she had the unglamorous job of trying to get him to care for himself on the toilet and dress
himself. When she said she was going to teach him to make a light meal, I had to laugh out loud. The only thing he'd ever cooked in his life was a pot of oatmeal, but Laura seemed undaunted. They all seemed that way—crisp, professional, friendly to a fault—Dad's bevy of women.

Then one day, Noelle said Dad was about to graduate to a restorative therapist. I knew what that meant—Noelle was about to leave him. We decided not to bring it up to him, just yet. She said he had gained strength. I couldn't see much progress, except the he seemed to have more endurance when on his feet, and he was definitely a happier man.

After she was gone, he moped a little, like a puppy who misses the one who cuddles him and gives him treats. I wasn't worried about the situation, because Dad lived so much in the present, dependent on comforts and routine. Getting old seemed to be more and more a job of simply managing each section of the day in as practical and comfortable a manner as possible. He was freshest in the morning and then spent his energy and memory throughout the day. Forget the past, and the future, as well. Gather the roses. Today. I could hear Lucy, like she was standing there, waving a glass of Veuve Clicquot at me. But Dad kept asking about Noelle, so I ended up calling the agency that had sent her to us. They sidestepped my inquiry. Noelle had many clients, the nurse-official said. It was best for Dad to learn to adapt without one particular therapist. I couldn't quite agree, mostly because I didn't like seeing my dad so down in the dumps. All it would take would be a visit, or a phone call. I felt like he needed weaning.

I finally got hold of Noelle on the phone. I asked her to stop over for coffee. She declined, nicely, but with a firm “no” nonetheless. Some weeks later, I saw her in the bakery
aisle at the grocery store with her two little blond daughters. All three of them were arguing over the pros and cons of purchasing a bag of chocolate chip cookies. Noelle was so harried, she didn't even look up and see me, and I didn't feel like interrupting her small drama and bringing her back into ours. She clearly had other situations to deal with closer to home, and Dad had been such a small corner of her world. I checked out and walked away.

Dad continued to have occasional therapy, and I could see some improvement, mostly because I wanted to see it. And then, thankfully, Marilyn came back. I'd forgotten how much I'd come to rely on her spirit—her strength and humor, her ability to inspire Commando to get up-and-at 'em, like they did on the USS
Barnes
.

We got into the swing of our good days and bad ones, and then there was the day he surprised us all. Again.

I got up around seven one morning and shuffled toward the front door to unlock it for Marilyn. She wasn't due until nine, but I couldn't sleep. I wanted to enjoy the day before it broke into chunks of business I had to manage, or else. There was a wicker dresser on the porch, and each drawer was full of paperwork—one drawer for me and my education applications, divorce proceedings, transcripts and certificates and the like, and then the kids had theirs: sports, school, lessons, letters, applications, permission slips. Dad had several drawers. The health insurance companies were driving me nuts with their reams of reports (one aspirin cost $1.75 in the hospital). And then there were the forms, because Dad had Blue Cross on top of Medicare. Somebody had to deal with this stuff, and that somebody would be me. I was lucky to have the time; I didn't know how anybody could deal with it part-time—but most people did.

The house was so tranquil, I hated to wake it up. The sun streamed into the porch throwing blocks of light across the long oak table and onto the tile floor. A white poinsettia still thrived after months of humid temperature. It was early
winter, a good year and a half into The Adventure, and we were all thriving and surviving, especially in the peaceful moments. A gecko skittered along the jalousie windows, and the only other sound was the soft crackle of palm fronds in the backyard. I simply did not want to move from my spot at the table to mess up the day when it was so new and clean, except that I needed coffee.

I fished around in the basket for the key to unlock the door for Marilyn, but I couldn't find it, and then I saw that I didn't need it, because the door was open. I knew I'd locked it the night before, and not because I was afraid someone would get in. Most people on the island didn't lock their doors. I kept our door locked mostly because I was afraid Dad would get out. The nurses had warned me about night dementia, which my father seemed to experience. We started to notice it when Mom got sick, when he'd get up and get himself dressed, down to hat and coat. My mother couldn't sleep in peace, because Dad sometimes would start stirring at 3:00 a.m.

I half turned toward Dad's bedroom to check on him. And then I froze. The front door slowly yawned open, and the cat scurried in, curling around my legs, purring for her breakfast. Then I saw a trail of Kleenex wads dotting the flagstone walkway.

Dad left them wherever he went, usually in his pockets where they got a good shredding in the washer and dryer, but they were his unmistakable calling cards where he walked, sat, ate.

My eye followed the trail of tissues down the walk and hit the driveway. Something was not right, and for half-a-second, I couldn't tell what it was. And then I saw what was wrong with the front of the house.

The Cadillac was gone.

I raced out to the driveway and looked up and down the street. The car had not rolled away, nor were there any signs of a disturbance. The street was empty and quiet, except for the birds and the sun and breeze gently rippling through the morning. It did nothing to soothe me.