Waking Lazarus (14 page)

Yes, he could.

18

REMEMBERING

Jude pulled his car into the parking lot of the nursing home, turned off the ignition, and stared at the front doors. Somewhere inside the building was his father, William Allman. And somewhere inside William Allman were answers to questions Jude was just beginning to ask.

The front doors of the building slid open, and out walked a woman, holding the hand of a pigtailed young girl. Probably a mom and daughter visiting an aging grandparent. It was good the woman wanted her daughter to see . . .

He realized he didn’t recall anything about his own grandparents. No names, no faces, no warm, inviting home. Nothing. The thought scared him.

Jude pulled his keys from the ignition and got out of the car, then walked toward the front doors. He couldn’t think about what he was doing now; he needed to do it all in one sustained act. A pause would let him stop and back out.

The doors opened, inviting him to a front desk and a receptionist. He noted a cat wandering the halls and a couple of bird cages out in the lobby area. Pets, of course. The nursing home had pets for the residents whose own families had forgotten about them. In a way, he thought, it made perfect sense. Nursing homes and animal shelters shared a lot in common: they were places where people dropped unwanted family members they never wanted to see again.

The woman at the desk was waiting for him to speak.

‘‘Um, William Allman?’’ he asked.

‘‘Hold on a sec,’’ she said as she clicked a few keys on her computer keyboard and stared at the screen. After a few moments she had an answer. ‘‘Room 305.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’ He turned and started to walk, then realized he had no idea where he was going. He turned back around to find the woman smiling at him.

‘‘Take a left here, follow the hallway around the curve, take another left and go in about five or so doorways. His name and picture will be on the door.’’

He nodded another thanks, then followed her instructions. As he walked to his father’s room, he passed a menagerie of forgotten people— some dying, some already dead but not realizing it. Most sat in their rooms with the television blaring; one or two had visitors.

Jude passed a common area filled with people sitting motionless in wheelchairs. Only one of them seemed aware he was there, an old white-haired woman with a brushy mustache on her lip. She motioned to him.

‘‘Weren’t you in my class?’’ she asked.

‘‘No, I don’t think so.’’

‘‘Sure you were. Class of ’43, Baker High School. I’m Velda Barnes, remember?’’

He started to correct her again but stopped himself and smiled. ‘‘Of course I remember you. Velda Barnes. Class of ’43.’’

She smiled, her eyes studying a scene that played in her mind. She patted his hand, then started wheeling her chair down the hallway with one hand. He stood and watched for a moment before continuing on his way.

Before long he was at the door. As the receptionist had promised, his father’s name was on a plaque mounted in the hallway. WILLIAM ALLMAN, it proclaimed in bold letters, beneath a photo of his father and mother standing on the porch of a farmhouse. Jude was not in the photo. The farmhouse seemed familiar to him, yet he couldn’t quite place it.

Jude felt as if he were standing on Rachel’s porch. He wanted to knock on the door, but he also wanted to turn and run. Slowly he reached out and rapped on it, then took a step back and waited. No answer. He started to knock again when a voice came from inside.

‘‘Yeah,’’ the gravelly growl said. He recognized it as his father’s voice, of course, although the sound still startled him, and he couldn’t quite make himself reach for the handle. On the other side of the door was a very real ghost from his past, and he was now quite sure he didn’t want to talk to that ghost.

Again the voice came. ‘‘Who is it?’’

Jude was now of the mind that coming to see his father was an all-around horrible idea. All he had to do was walk back down that hallway, then go back to the way things were. Maybe he could even keep the whole Kristina thing quiet, continue life as Ron Gress. It would be luxuriously quiet, free from distractions. Sure, he could pull it off.

Jude turned to walk away, almost running into a nurse. ‘‘Whoa, sorry,’’ she said, ‘‘but it’s time for his BP check.’’ She grabbed the door handle. ‘‘You can come in, though. It’ll only take a minute.’’

She opened the door and walked inside, leaving it open for him. The curtains were drawn, and the room’s stifling darkness prevented Jude from seeing much. ‘‘Oh, it’s just you,’’ he heard his father’s voice say to the nurse. ‘‘Why did you knock?’’

‘‘I didn’t,’’ the nurse said. ‘‘You have a visitor.’’

Jude stepped into the room, waiting for his eyes to adjust. In the corner, the nurse stood over a hunched figure in a lounge chair.

‘‘Well, well,’’ his father said. Jude expected something else to follow, but William stayed silent. Jude walked into the small room and chose a plastic chair opposite his father. The room smelled of detergent and sourness at the same time, as if something rotten had seeped into the walls. It was impossible to totally remove the smell of rot or putrefaction; as a janitor, Jude knew this.

The nurse put a blood pressure cuff on his dad’s arm and squeezed the bulb. While the air leaked out of the cuff, Jude’s eyes adjusted enough to let him see his father’s features. Sure, he was still the same, in most respects. He seemed thinner—a lot thinner, maybe even gaunt. And his hair was more salt than pepper now. But he was still pretty much the same as the last time Jude had seen him. His deep-set eyes were closed as he leaned his head back on the chair; a scowl occupied his face while he waited for the nurse to finish.

The nurse abruptly took the stethoscope out of her ears, pulled off the cuff, and stood up in one fluid motion. The sudden burst of motion startled Jude, much like a flock of pheasants had once startled him by thrumming out of the brush during a hunting trip with William. (
There it was finally: a second memory of his father
.)

The nurse walked by Jude, giving him a forced smile as she moved toward the door. ‘‘Next meds in two hours, Mr. Allman,’’ she called out before letting the door slip shut behind her.

William’s eyes remained closed, and Jude thought he must have fallen asleep. Just as well. Jude felt like he was on the verge of hyperventilating, and he needed a chance to relax for a few minutes.

‘‘Thought you’d forgotten your old man,’’ his father said, keeping his eyes shut.

Jude cleared his throat, tried to think of something to say. William peeked open one eye.

‘‘No, I didn’t forget. I’m just . . . you might say I haven’t been myself these past few years.’’

A humorless smile spread across his father’s lips. ‘‘I can only imagine,’’ he said as he adjusted himself in the chair. Something caught in William’s chest and a bout of coughing gripped him. Jude stood up, but his father’s hand waved him back down as he finished the brief outburst.

William opened his eyes again, put his hand on his chest. ‘‘Nuts to gettin’ old,’’ he said. ‘‘Congestive heart failure, they call it. Highfalutin name for ‘dying,’ don’t you think?’’ Jude nodded, unsure what sort of answer his father might be wanting.

‘‘So, where you living?’’ William asked as he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth. This motion made William look much different than Jude’s fractured memories; he was more frail, fragile.

‘‘Red Lodge,’’ Jude answered.

A pause. ‘‘Only about sixty miles away.’’

Jude nodded.

William half snorted, half chuckled. ‘‘Wondered where you’ve been hiding out, and here you are just down the road. Still have one or two folks track me down now and then, trying to find out where you are.’’

Jude sat up straight. ‘‘Looking for me? Like who?’’

William shifted in his seat again, a pained look crossing his face. ‘‘Dunno. Reporters mostly, I suppose.’’

Jude nodded, wondering if Kristina had been this way recently. It was possible.

‘‘Brings you all the way from Red Lodge?’’ his father asked.

Jude looked at the floor as he thought of what he wanted to say. He realized he should have practiced all this, rehearsed a speech of sorts. Anticipated what his father would say. But he hadn’t, and now he was left to stumble along. ‘‘I’m not sure,’’ he started, hoping other thoughts would come.

‘‘See that,’’ his father said.

‘‘I was just thinking about, you know, me growing up and all. What it was like.’’

‘‘Don’t say.’’ Another memory jolted Jude’s system: his dad’s annoying habit of talking in shorthand, clipping down sentences to one or two words when he was in a foul mood. Which was, he was now also remembering, most of the time.

‘‘Did we ever . . . I don’t remember much about you,’’ Jude blurted. He looked back at the floor, avoiding his father’s stare.

He heard another snort. ‘‘Odd as ever,’’ William said. ‘‘What’s it matter, anyway?’’

Jude shrugged, finally looked up at his dad. ‘‘I guess it doesn’t.’’ He started to stand again, and his dad waved him down a second time.

‘‘Don’t be so dramatic about everything,’’ William said. ‘‘That always bugged me. Every little thing was like the end of the world to you.’’ William stopped, as if waiting for Jude to fight back. Jude didn’t.

Jude tried again. ‘‘I do remember a bit. I remember . . .’’ He swallowed. ‘‘I remember flying a big box kite with you.’’ He studied his father’s eyes for some sort of emotion or fondness but couldn’t detect any.

‘‘Hmmm. Wind
did
howl through there somethin’ fierce.’’ William paused, softened for a moment. But only a moment. ‘‘Guess you’re not such a know-it-all these days, are you?’’

Know-it-all? ‘‘What does that mean?’’

His dad snorted. ‘‘What did any of it mean, Jude? How did you
know
all those things?’’ his dad shouted. He stared into Jude’s eyes, fire and rage burning in his own. Jude held the stare, felt he
had
to hold the stare for reasons he didn’t fully understand right now. After a few moments his father’s face softened again, even seemed to age more. ‘‘So . . . you really don’t remember,’’ he whispered.

William took his handkerchief out and wiped at his mouth again. He put the handkerchief back, then reached for a pitcher on the TV tray next to his chair. Jude got to the pitcher first, poured two cups full, and handed one to his father. As Jude took a few shaky sips of his own, William said, ‘‘Think about the time the barn burned down,’’ he said.

Jude sifted through his memories, doing a specific search for barn fires. No hits. He shook his head. ‘‘Don’t remember.’’

‘‘You knew about it before it happened,’’ his dad said, looking him in the eye again. ‘‘You told me that morning, so when it
did
happen, I was ready to skin your back-end. I thought you started the fire, see?’’

Jude nodded, unsure what else to do.

‘‘And Mrs. Callahan’s wreck?’’

Jude couldn’t recall such a woman, or such a wreck.

‘‘You woke up crying and told me I should call Mrs. Callahan and tell her to stay home. Said she shouldn’t go to church and play bingo, because something bad was going to happen. Don’t you remember?’’

Jude’s tongue was thick and hairy, his mind gelatin. His father was talking about things that made no sense to him, scary things that crawled up and down his spine on icy legs.

‘‘What about Elvis?’’ his dad continued.

Elvis? Did they have a pet named Elvis? A horse? Was one of the neighbors named Elvis?

‘‘Elvis Presley? You don’t remember Elvis Presley?’’ his father said, incredulous.

‘‘Oh,’’ Jude answered. ‘‘Yeah, sure.’’

‘‘You told me he was going to die. I was playing one of his records on your mom’s stereo, and you just walked in and said: ‘He’s going to die next week.’ It was just so matter-of-fact. And, you were only like three or four at the time. That’s not the way a three-year-old talks.’’ William stopped and took another jittery sip from his cup.

Keep it secret, keep it safe
. Jude said it to himself again, even opened his lips and mouthed it without realizing. But it wasn’t comforting him anymore, instead only ringing hollow and empty. A new voice crowded into his head. Kristina’s voice:

‘‘I think there’s something more to you.’’

‘‘ ’Course, that was nothing compared to what you said about your mother,’’ his father continued.

Jude, only half listening now, drained the rest of his water. But still his throat burned. He stood and poured more before he realized what his dad had just said. ‘‘Mom? What about her?’’ The fresh cup of water was poised halfway to his mouth.

His father remained silent.

‘‘What about my mother?’’ Jude pressed, his voice rising in anger.

Jude could see his dad withdrawing, retreating, suddenly becoming very interested in the view out the window. ‘‘I’m getting pretty tired now,’’ William finally said in a hushed tone. To prove his point, he put his head back against his easy chair and closed his eyes again, much as he’d done when the nurse checked his blood pressure.

‘‘Look, I really don’t remember,’’ Jude said, trying to sound more calm.

William didn’t open his eyes. ‘‘That’s for the best. You mind shutting your door on the way out?’’

Jude sat in the room all alone—sure, his dad was there, but he was all alone, to be sure—and fumed. He had come to get answers, and he would be leaving with even more questions. Was there something else about his mother’s death he didn’t know? He finally stood and stepped toward the door. ‘‘I’ll come see you again soon,’’ he said to his father.

‘‘Do that,’’ William said.

Jude slipped out the door and quietly closed it behind him.

Jude drove back to Red Lodge holding the steering wheel in a tight, white-knuckled grip. His mind tumbled and jumbled with images, all of them filled with white fury directed at his father.

Jude had never been emotional, even in the days before Ron Gress, and he wasn’t prone to crying. But now, as his car moved down the road, he found tears welling in his eyes for the second time in a few days. He had weathered a long dry spell of some six years without any kind of emotion, and now it seemed he would be letting loose a flood fit for the Bible.