I woke early and ran seven miles, my longest run in years. I forced myself to eat breakfast and then fed London. While she relaxed, I finished my edits on the first commercial and started working on the second one. I brought London to art class, continued to edit while she was there, and learned that London had made a vase. She carried it to the car gingerly, careful not to bang it on anything.
“We have to bring this back next week so that I can paint it,” London told me. “I want to paint yellow flowers on it. And maybe some pink mouses.”
“Mouses?”
“Or a hamster. But hamsters are harder to paint.”
I had no idea why that would be, but what do I know?
“Okay. Flowers and mouses,” I said.
“Pink mouses.”
“Even better,” I agreed. “Are you ready to head to Nana’s?”
I helped her into the car, knowing that it was time to tell my parents that Vivian had left me. Because Marge wanted to stay with me while I shared the news, Liz took it upon herself to take a walk with London. I called my father in from the garage, and he took a seat next to my mom.
I spilled it all in a single rush of words. When I finished, it was my dad who responded first. “She can’t leave.” He frowned. “She’s got a kid.”
“I should call her,” my mom interjected. “She’s probably going through a phase.”
“It’s not a phase. She told me she was in love with him. She’s got her own place now.”
“When is she coming back?” my mom asked. “If she comes next weekend, your dad and I will be out of town. We’re going to visit your uncle Joe in Winston-Salem. It’s his birthday.”
My dad’s younger brother by a couple of years, Joe was a mechanic who’d never married but had, over the years, gone through one long-term girlfriend after the next. Growing up, he was the cool uncle, and I can remember wondering why he’d never married. Now, I suspected he might have been onto something.
“I don’t have any idea when she’s coming back,” I answered.
“The work must have been too stressful,” my mom said. “She’s not thinking right.”
“How is she going to see London?” my dad asked.
“I don’t know, Dad.”
“Doesn’t she want to see London?” my dad pressed.
“I should really call her,” my mom fretted.
“You’re not going to call her, Mom,” Marge said. “This is their business. I’m sure that Vivian will be back to see London. And even though she hasn’t told Russ when that might be, I’d guess it’ll be within the next week or so. In the meantime, it’s probably not the best time to pepper Russ with a ton of questions or to start making plans. As you can imagine, it’s been a pretty rough week for him.”
“You’re right,” my mom suddenly said. “I’m sorry. It’s just such a shock, you know?”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said. I watched my dad rise from the couch and walk to the kitchen.
“How are you holding up?” my mom asked.
I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“Is there anything I can do? Do you need help with London?”
“No,” I said. “I’m doing okay with that. It’s not so hard, now that she’s in school.”
“Why don’t I bring over some dinners for the week? Would that help?”
I knew she felt like she needed to do something. “That would be great,” I said. “London likes your cooking a lot more than she likes mine.”
I felt a tap of cold glass against my shoulder. My dad had a beer in each hand and was holding one out. “For you,” he said. “I’m in the garage if you want to talk.”
When I wandered out to the garage twenty minutes later, my dad motioned for me to sit on a stool while he took a seat on a toolbox. I’d brought out a second beer for both of us; there was something on my mind—something I hadn’t mentioned to either Marge or Liz—and I wanted his perspective.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Be a single father. Take care of London. Maybe it would be better if London went to live with Vivian in Atlanta.”
He cracked open the beer I’d brought him. “I take it you want me to tell you that I’m in agreement with you.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“That’s not your real problem. Your real problem is that you’re afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid.”
“That’s what parenting is all about. Doing the best you can while being terrified of screwing up. Kids can turn hair gray faster than anything else, if you ask me.”
“You and Mom weren’t afraid.”
“Of course we were. We just never let on, is all.”
I wondered whether that was true. “Do you think I should fight for London like Marge said? If it comes to that?”
My dad scratched at the jeans he was wearing, leaving a streak of grease. “I think you’re a damn good father, Russ. Better than I ever was, that’s for sure. And I think London needs you.”
“She needs her mom, too.”
“Maybe. But the way you’ve been taking care of her? I know it wasn’t easy, but you just got up and did it, and she’s a happy little girl. And that’s what being a dad is all about. You do what needs to be done and love your kid the best way you can. You’ve been doing that and I’m real proud of you.” He paused. “Anyway, that’s what I think.”
I tried to recall whether he’d ever said anything like that to me before but knew that he hadn’t.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re not going to cry are you?”
Despite everything, I laughed. “I don’t know, Dad.”
“Why are you crying?”
I wiped at a tear I hadn’t known was there. “It doesn’t take much these days.”
CHAPTER 15
One Day at a Time
Unlike my friend Danny, I was around to experience my mom’s angst as one by one, she lost the family with whom she’d grown up. I was thirteen when my grandfather died, eighteen when my grandmother died, twenty-one when the first of her brothers passed away, and twenty-eight when the last one slipped from this world to the next.
In each case, my mom bore the heaviest burden. All four were lingering deaths, with frequent trips to the hospital while poison was administered in the hopes of killing the cancer before it killed them. There was hair loss and nausea, weakness and memory loss. And pain. Always, there was too much pain. Toward the end, there were occasional days and nights spent in the ICU, with my relatives sometimes crying out in agony. My mom was there for all of it. Every night, after work, she would head to their homes or to hospital, and she would stay with them for hours. She would wipe their faces with damp cloths and feed them through straws; she came to know the doctors and nurses in three different hospitals on a first-name basis. When the time came, it was she who helped with funeral arrangements, and I always knew that despite our presence she felt very much alone.
In the weeks and months following that fourth funeral, I suppose that I thought she would rebound in the way she always had before. On the surface, she hadn’t changed—she still wore aprons and spent most of her time in the kitchen when Vivian and I visited—but she was quieter than I remembered and every once in a while, I would catch her staring out the window above the sink, isolated from the sounds of those of us nearby. I thought it had to do with the most recent loss; it was Vivian who finally suggested that my mom’s grief was cumulative, and her comment struck me as exactly right.
What would it be like to lose one’s family? I suppose it’s inevitable in everyone’s family—there is always a last survivor, after all—but, Vivian’s comment made me ache for my mom whenever I would see her. I felt as though her loss had become my loss, and I began swinging by more frequently. I’d drop by after work two or three times a week and spend time with my mom, and though we didn’t talk about what she—and I—was going through, it was always there with us, an all-encompassing sadness.
One night, a couple of months into my new routine, I dropped by the house and saw my dad trimming the hedges while my mom waited on the porch. My dad pretended not to have noticed my arrival and didn’t turn around.
“Let’s take a drive,” my mom announced. “And by that, I mean that you’re driving.”
She marched toward my car and after opening the passenger door, she took a seat and closed the door behind her.
“What’s going on, Dad?”