The Last Cadillac (29 page)

Then Marilyn stopped midway between the kitchen and the laundry and shouted at me through the kitchen window.

“Where in heaven's name did he go?”

“I have no idea. I tried to get it out of him, but he was too confused, and too tired. If the sheriff shows up, we'll know. But so far, so good.”

I was hoping he hadn't stuck up the Circle K for a pack of smokes, or run over a jogger. He may have had a mission, besides going off to see Leonard, but I would never know. I was still amazed he'd driven more than three blocks away and back—which was all the evidence I had—and I was relieved more than I could say that he was back safe and sound.

A heron alighted on the dock and picked along carefully, and then it took off over the canal. The danger was outside,
and inside, and this was one of the things I didn't consider when Dad so innocently made his announcement, sitting on the patio at the dollhouse up North: “I'm going with you.”

The phone rang and cut through the morning silence. I almost didn't answer it. I didn't want to talk to anyone after the hunt for Dad. I just wanted to re-group and maybe mop the floor for the tenth time that week, a therapeutic exercise that seemed to let my demonic energy flow out through the squeegee. I especially didn't want to talk on the phone. I'd have gotten Caller ID if I weren't so cheap—and call waiting, if I were ruder.

No question about it, during that particular stretch of time in my life, I was isolating myself and becoming dangerously anti-social, but this was something I didn't see, nor would I admit, if asked.

I let it ring six times. Unfortunately, I picked it up.

It was my sister the nurse. “How are you?” she said, in an official tone.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I'm fine,” I said. I lied. “We're all fine.”

My impulse was to cut the conversation short. It was too bad that it had come to this. I didn't want anything to do with my sister the nurse.

I tried to speak in a friendly tone, but the sound of my voice stiffened with each the syllable. We always started off in a fairly civil manner, but I knew where it would end, with a plume of annoyance rising up inside me. She always wanted something, but she never asked for it directly. She led me along and we inevitably ended up in a free for all. Our relationship was a disaster. I regretted how far we'd come from the days when she wore an eyelet bonnet, when I had just turned seven and she was barely seven months, and I was so happy to take care of her! We had grown apart as sisters, and the further apart we grew, the less agreement we had on the best way to care for Dad. In fact, we never agreed on anything.

“How are you doing with Dad? Do you have help, and some time to yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” I said brightly. “We're a little family down here.”

“He has a family up here, too, you know,” she said.

I didn't answer.

Finally she said, “Don't you think you should get on with your life, instead of babysitting Dad?”

“Excuse me? I'm not babysitting Dad.”

“Well, maybe not exactly. But that's what I'd call it,” she huffed.

“Well, I don't. He lets me know what he wants, and I can usually figure out what he needs. He's getting along fine. We all are.”

“I think I should take over. I have a better handle on what he needs, you know, as far as the meds and therapy and such.”

“We have doctors and drugstores down here.”

“That isn't what I mean and you know it.”

“No, I don't know it. And, goddamit, what do you mean?”

If she told me she was the “professional” one more time, I was going to throw the phone in the canal. But she was the nurse, and she wanted control of Dad. I had the control. Before we left for Florida, Dad designated me his health care representative. My sister the nurse didn't say a word to me at the time, and I hadn't given the matter much thought. It was a piece of paper, a simple piece of paper that just made sense because he was coming to live with me. His family doctor and Joe, the accountant, pointed this out. I didn't even have the presence of mind to think of it—with all my lists and plans to move out of there as fast as I could. But the issue of the health care authorization remained at low boil in the relationship with my sister the nurse. She didn't throw it in my face exactly. Instead, she needled and annoyed, called me with insistent, off-the-wall demands that made no sense at all.

I felt that plume of annoyance puffing out as big as a hot air balloon.

“Look, he likes it down here, and he's doing just fine,” I said. I didn't mention that he nagged me for martinis, as he reached out to grope his therapist's rear end. I also left out the part about his early-morning spin around the island. I wondered where he went, but it was the last thing I'd ever mention to her. I couldn't level with her. She was still telling everyone that I had kidnapped Dad, according to one cousin. That hurt. I hadn't tied him up and hustled him out of Northwest Indiana; he wanted to go.

I couldn‘t be honest with her, and God forbid, let on that I wasn't in control of the situation with Dad. I'd just have to keep all the doors shut and locked, along with my mouth.

“Why don't you visit him?” I asked, trying to wind up the call and diffuse the plume that was ready to burst into flame. “I'll get you a plane ticket.”

“You'll get me a plane ticket. That's nice of you,” she said. The sound of her voice froze our connection in one unbending, brittle line, from North to South. “I just can't fly off like that.”

“Oh, now you can't just fly off. That's interesting. How about that magic umbrella of yours, Nurse Poppins? You've never missed a party, and you came to see Mom all the time. Now you can't come down and see Dad once in a while, even if I get you a ticket.”

There was dead silence on the line as I stood in my kitchen and bit my lip, and she adjusted her nurse's cap.

“I don't want you to get me a ticket,” she said. “I don't want to visit him. I want him to come back up here and live near us. And, by the way, what puts you in a position to buy ME a ticket?”

“Ah, there's the rub, isn't it. That I would buy you a ticket with his American Express card, which he has asked me to do. For all of you.”

“Really.”

“Really,” I said, quietly, not letting the plume take over and smother me. “And I would, if you'd let me.”

I didn't give a flying fig if she came down to Florida to visit or not. I was sick of her needling and hoped she'd leave me alone. No, leave us alone. Maybe the hostility would evaporate and we could get along, even make some sense of it all.

Who was I kidding?

I hung up. My hand was still cramped from gripping the phone in a strangle-hold when it rang again. Now I was definitely not going to answer it, but I did. It was Lucy.

“You've done everything, and if I can give you a break, I'd like to do it so you can get your life back on track.”

“Huh? Who have you been talking to?”

“Why?”

“Because I just had an unpleasant conversation with our sister, and I don't feel like having another one with you.”

“Oh, stop it. Why do you get so defensive? And why do you let her bother you? She's just trying to do her job. She's a nurse, for God's sake, and you're the oldest. Never the twain shall meet.”

“Well, you got that right. But she gives me a fat pain.”

“Forget it. You're doing a great job. He loves it down there. I know he does, and she knows it, too. So what the fuck?”

“You have such a nice way of putting it.”

“I'm trying to help you over here,” she said. “Jesus almighty, you must be burned out.”

“I'm doing all right.”

“Just all right? Is all right good enough?” she said. “Come on. What do you think?”

“What do I think? No one's asked me that. Ever.”

“Well, I'm asking you now. What do you think about taking a break?”

Until she said it, it never occurred to me to think about taking a break. If I did, I would have to think about how off-track life had gone. Our mother was dead, our father was in Florida, and the family was tattered beyond repair, it seemed. It was a good time to think, for once.

“We have to look at all this. We aren't a family anymore. It goes beyond where Dad happens to be living,” she said.

“I suppose so. But what's important now is taking care of him, and I'll keep doing that for now, the best I can.”

I tried to focus.

“All right,” Lucy said. “I just want you to know. I'm here. You can call me. Just to talk, that's all.”

“Just to talk. Thanks. That's good. That's very, very good.”

I walked out across the backyard, picking my way through the weeds over the stepping stones, and with each step, I saw more clearly.

For now, it wasn't just about me. It was about all of us as a family, but in that particular moment, the spotlight was on Dad. I hadn't really thought about my siblings in the decision to take Dad to Florida. Dad hadn't either. I'd taken it for granted that they'd go along with the plan to take care of Dad, once it was on the table and they saw how much he wanted to go. But it hadn't turned out like that. We didn't feel like a family together.

That was only part of it. Deep down, I had to admit that I wasn't Daddy's little girl anymore, and that was the part I kept holding on to. I just didn't want to give that up at all. I didn't want to give up my dad.

As such, I would continue to cherish the relationship I had with my father, and I would be his caretaker. And I must take care of my kids, those kids that grew and grew. They were learning a lot from Dad, and from me, and The Adventure. The kids were growing, but I kept returning to that strange reversal of roles with Dad. Dad wasn't taking care of me anymore. I was taking care of him, and I didn't weigh this as much as I just went ahead and did what I had to do. He needed the care. He needed me now.

I had to think about the future. I wasn't going to be able to stay in this house on the canal, with the increasing taxes and flood insurance, if I didn't start thinking seriously about a job. The freelancing began to run out after we landed in Florida, although I continued to write some articles for the newspaper and others in the early months. We were well into our second year together in Florida, Dad paying rent, the Ex sending support, and I still had some savings from the house and furnishings. I hated to think of it, the temporary life of caring for Dad. But it always got back to that in my mind. After Dad, what? The world would shift again. So, I needed to put a serious spin on it. Dad was fast approaching eighty, and he was still dodging one health scare after another. I could not deny the fact, even as much as I tried to tell myself how resilient he was, how he leapt from one crisis to another. Time was running out.

What I wanted to do was to be a teacher—not a news writer with weekend and holiday shifts, because I needed to be with the kids. I needed to start doing something about
getting my certification, beyond shuffling papers and making phone calls. I had to get off my ass, instead of filling the late afternoons with wallowing and resentment toward my siblings. Some day, after this hiatus as caretaker was finished, I'd have to start over. Really start over. Again.

I walked into the kitchen and looked at the clock. It was four, and Dad was down for a late nap before his martini and the news with Tom and me. The kids were hanging out at the community center. My daughter had taken to cheerleading, a perfect occupation for her, and Tick was playing soccer. And me? What was I up to? It was time for a chardonnay. I poured it into the glass and I put the frosty globe of wine, like a piece of cool fruit, up against my forehead.

Ah, relief!

The wine felt good going down, and the tile under my feet felt soothing. I stared out the kitchen window at the mango tree with a canopy that spread over nearly half the backyard. Before I called the school board, I would get out there and rake up the pesky brown gravel and the ripened fruit that fell off the tree, which the squirrels attacked and left teeming with ants. The cleanup was a major yard chore, but it was worth it. The Kent mangos were stringless and juicy, and tasted sweeter than peaches. I thought about picking some to go with chicken. The mango would give it an exotic flavor, but I would probably be the only one who liked it. My daughter wanted chicken nuggets every night, and Dad had a craving for grilled peanut-butter-and-ham sandwiches. It was his favorite treat, because that was the treat he shared with Mom at the malt shop when he was courting her, when he suavely ordered a soda with two straws and one straw went up his
nose. It was their first date. “I guess I really impressed her,” he said. His shoulders shook when he told the story, remembering it, and I patted him, and then I went into the kitchen and made him another peanut-butter-and-ham sandwich. We all ate sandwiches for dinner a lot. Tick would eat anything, if I could get him to sit still long enough. He didn't really care what I fixed; eating was boring, he said.

But Tick liked mangos. When they were almost gone in the late fall, he'd climb to the top of the tree giving me fits. Higher than the squirrels he went to get the last of the sweetest mangos that had baked in the sunshine. He had gone up on his second harrowing trip to the top of the tree—we had long passed our October anniversary in the house—and the last of the mangos sat on the windowsill.

It was still a strange, beastly time of the year, when summer would not give up and the hurricanes threatened in the last days of November, when the breeze in midday hardly moved at all, except for the wild bursts of tropical weather. I stood at the sink and I didn't feel like doing much of anything. I should have been out there raking, but instead, I watched the great, long, leafy branches sway and scrape the window.