“I gave him a bath. Sorry.”
“Say good night, Ethan,” she said. No hint of Jacuzzis, wine, the extra bedroom where Ethan could sleep while Mary and I quietly made long overdue love.
“Where. Stinky Bear. Be?”
“He’s inside. Come on. Say good night.”
Ethan shot me a resigned look that made me wonder if, on some basic male level, he had sensed his father’s intentions. “Leave. Now,” he said solemnly.
“Good night,” I said.
“Leave. Now.”
Mary took his hand and closed the door without so much as glancing at me. I lingered for a moment, all-dressed-up-with-nowhere-to-go, considered knocking, considered serenading her, but thought the better of it. Instead I issued my official one thousandth sigh of the trip and turned away.
*
I resisted the temptation of the lobby bar and instead returned to my room to map out the remainder of the trip. I pored over the Rand McNally and, factoring in dozens of poo-poo, pee-pee, Cracker Barrel, and Tonto breaks, tried to determine an ETA for Maine. With so many intangibles (conclusion: poo-poo is one of life’s great intangibles), it was impossible to say exactly when we would arrive.
Off duty for the night, I pulled out Blue Highways and reread a few pages, marveling at the contrasts between our two journeys. William Least Heat-Moon had touched, seen, and tasted America. I had touched, seen, and tasted Cracker Barrels. He had hit the road to escape a failed marriage. I had hit the road and taken my failed marriage with me.
I scanned the room for Stinky Bear. I needed to talk things out with him, seek his wisdom, ask him about love and life, but remembered he was with Ethan. I only had old Grandpa Bear with me, and he was sleeping.
Sensing I was ripe for a visit from the Doubt and Guilt, I turned on my laptop and went to the Ocean View Web site. I needed to remember why I was on this trip.
Built at the turn of the twentieth century, Ocean View originally had been the summer home of the Doyles, a well-off Boston family with ties to the shipping industry. Seven years ago, with real-estate prices in free fall and with the last of the Doyles long gone, the sprawling estate was put on the market and purchased at a fire sale price by a group of far-thinking and deep-pocketed parents who were frustrated by the shortage of suitable housing options for disabled adults. The founding families, all Boston Irish Catholics, found a small order of nuns to oversee the care of their children in exchange for a comfortable place to live and worship. The nuns accepted, with the stipulation that a small chapel be built on the grounds and that 10 percent of the yearly contributions the families made be donated to their order.
Only twenty residents lived at Ocean View, with ten more higher-functioning adults living in three group homes down the hill in Camden. I had toured one of the group homes, and while impressed with the arrangement—the residents were thoroughly integrated in the communities and even had jobs—I knew Ethan would do better in a more structured environment.
For parents of disabled children, Ocean View was the proverbial shining city on the hill. But it came at a steep price: a one-hundred-thousand-dollar down payment, thirty thousand dollars a year, and a pledge in writing, certified by an attorney, that Ocean View would be beneficiary of your will and that that inheritance would be a minimum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
It was expensive, but there were few choices. America has many attributes, but the care of its growing population of disabled adults is not one of them. I was fortunate that I could afford this steep price, fortunate that I worked in an affluent school district that paid me well, fortunate that I would get a good pension for the rest of my life. Mostly, I was fortunate that David Prioletti, Mary’s father, had started a rock quarry business some sixty years ago in southern Illinois and that that quarry would one day be sold in excess of forty million dollars.
Other families, I knew, did not have such resources, such options. To most, Ocean View, with its swimming pools, airy gymnasium, on-site medical staff, and bright and cheerful café, was a dream. I knew this and felt some guilt, but there was little I could do about the inequities of life. Simply put, Ocean View was more than good place: it was as I have mentioned, our salvation.
I browsed the site for a while longer, checked the weather in Camden (cloudy and sixty-five), then clicked off the computer and climbed into bed. I had high hopes for a dreamless sleep.
*
I had just drifted off, when the hotel phone rang. I groped in the dark to answer, heart racing. Good news, I knew, did not come in the form of late-night calls.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Dad, it’s me, Karen. You need to help. We’re locked out.”
I sat up, glanced at the clock. It was one thirty. “Karen? Where are you?”
“Outside the hotel. In the parking place. We forgot our keys. Mindy’s puking.”