He had slept through dinner, one of the aides told me. She warmed up some food and brought it to the table next to the TV area. It was a sloppy joe. He looked at it for a moment. “Split it with you?”
I was going to say that I was meeting my sisters later for dinner, but instead I said, “Sure,” and I took a half. The hamburger bun was soft and warm. He ate his in three bites. He grimaced when I suggested he eat the vegetables, as if he were thinking, “Are you out of your mind?”
The staff scurried about, bringing nighttime meds and sleeping pills to each resident, the drugs tucked into a spoonful of ice cream. They were very gentle with them, and the residents responded gently and gratefully. One of the staff nurses stopped and spoke with Dad for a minute. She didn’t have pills for him, but she gave us a carton of vanilla to share. “John and I have known each other a long time, haven’t we, John?”
She was pretty, with strawberry-blonde hair and lots of eye makeup. Dad didn’t respond but as she walked away he said, loudly enough so she could hear, “You called me by my first name.” And then more to himself: “My reputation must be spreading.”
He always had an eye for attractive women. He’d flirt with waitresses, cashiers, even nuns. I used to find this mortifying. On the other hand, I always had an eye for the guys. When I finally told my parents this news thirty years ago, Dad found it shocking, bewildering. I was his only son, for god’s sake. There was a long time there, back when I was in my twenties and living in San Francisco, when we didn’t see each other or speak. We conducted a war of words via letters by mail. Eventually, we found neutral ground.
He doesn’t remember any of that now—one of the blessings of dementia, I suppose. Instead, we talked about paratrooper training at Fort Benning and some of the jumps he’d made during the Korean War. Even after being blinded in one eye from a combat injury, he continued to make jumps—night jumps—into enemy territory. We also talked about swimming, something I’ve taken up with a great passion—Oliver and I swim together two or three times a week. I guess I’m more like my old man than I used to think. “You were on the swim team at West Point, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Captain of the team,” he said dully, then added, “I think.”
As we talked, another resident wheeled up to the table where we were sitting. She sat there for a moment regarding us like weeds in a garden, and then asked, “Who’s this?”
Dad didn’t answer.
“I’m John’s son,” I said.
“You’re my son?” Dad said. “You’re not my son.” Suddenly he looked confused and suspicious.
“Right. Yeah, we were in the infantry together,” I told her, correcting myself.
He nodded and his head dropped and he fell asleep.
I rolled Dad over to the TV area, where one of the aides, Cassandra, was sitting with Sophie and others, desultorily watching “Jeopardy.” Cassandra told me to roll John next to her. I did, but she grabbed the arm of his wheelchair and brought him even closer in. This woke him. She looked deep into his eyes, as if she were reaching some part of his brain deep, deep inside. “John?” she said. “How many children do you have?” She spoke very clearly and calmly and smiled at him.
Dad thought for a moment. “Six? I have six?”
“Yes,” Cassandra said, smiling, holding that gaze. “And how many boys and how many girls?”
“Four girls, two boys.”
“How many, John?” She took his hand and gazed with such benevolence.
“Five girls, one boy.”
Cassandra smiled. Dad smiled. “And what is your son’s name?”
“William,” Dad said, “William.”
I put my arm on his shoulder and leaned over and kissed his head. He gave me a look like, “What the heck are you doing, kissing me?” He offered me his hand, and we shook—soldier to soldier. I said goodbye.
“See ya later,” he said.
End of the Day
NOTES FROM A JOURNAL
3-2-14:
I lay on the couch reading the newspaper, not really aware of the time, not in a rush to do anything, as O practiced the piano. I put down the paper a few times and closed my eyes and just listened. I love hearing him play, hearing him hum along to himself deafly. He came over at one point and leaned over the couch in that way that he does, and touched me, in that way that he does, as if I were an animal in a zoo—his hand reaching through the bars to pet me (or is it the other way around—is he the animal, caged, pushing his snout through the bars, or his trunk or a paw, to feel me?).
“Come here, Beautiful,” I finally said, grabbing O by the hand and pulling him toward me.
_____________________
5-2-14:
The sun was setting, it was getting dark, when I popped my head in to Ali’s this evening to say hello.
He held out his hand and we shook: “My friend,” he said.
We stepped outside. We talked about the endless, noisy construction on Eighth Avenue: “Nine times I see it, they tear up this street,” Ali said.