Hazel found she was crying in the really hysterical way that made her face wet and plastery. There were some mucal fireworks as she began to pound on the glass with her fists in addition to her head.
It felt like if she made enough noise, the house would transform into her dream parents’ home instead of her father’s. The bright suburban décor that filled its rooms would be a convincing argument that it was not inhabited by a dour hermit couple but by two warm parents who weren’t too depressed or cynical to attempt home improvement. Hazel often thought of how different her life might be if she’d been raised by people who knew wallpaper could make a difference and proved it. Parents who were enthusiastic and boundlessly accepting and messaged her sayings like “Failure is part of the journey to success.” Ones who were politically active in causes of social justice and didn’t base their voting decisions on xenophobic rumors they heard from the line cook and sometimes counter waiter at the corner diner who felt Hitler was not a saint but did have a lot of good ideas that should not be thrown out with the Holocaust bathwater. “I’m grateful for the myriad ways you did not abuse me,” Hazel clarified. “I was never starved or kept inside a cage or repeatedly burned with cigarettes. I guess it just sucks how a lot of parents like their children but you didn’t like me. It also sucks how even though I didn’t really like you, I never stopped wanting you to like me, because you never cared if I liked you or didn’t.”
Now she was trying as hard as she could to break the glass. “Do you know how when people are really hungry they will be driven to eat the inedible? Grass and soil and the like? That also happens with love. If you want love badly enough, you will start gobbling harmful substitutes like attention and possessions. Do you know what I thought when I first met Byron? ‘He doesn’t seem to hate me! I can easily work with this!’”
“STOP!” her father yelled, wheeling toward her from the other side. “Jesus and Joseph! What is happening here?” He slid the door open and looked at the blurry smears of knuckle blood Hazel had left. “This is always unlocked. God, look at you. You’re having an emotional meltdown? I don’t want to get into a discussion of feelings. What I can do is dismiss my expectations regarding the light household tasks it would’ve been civil of you to have not fallen behind on, particularly given the state of my health and mobility. Come inside and shut the door behind you and don’t wash a single dish today.”
“You’re dying,” Hazel said. “And you’re refusing medical attention. I get the feeling you aren’t going to miss me.”
“Oh, Hazel.” He raked his nails through the chest hair beneath his bathrobe. “I just want some peace and quiet.”
Was he talking about death? About the present moment? Both? “Liver’s dead,” Hazel near-whispered. “Someone killed him.”
“Good grief,” her father said. The silence filled with the mechanical sound of him moving the Rascal back a few inches then forth, thinking. “Go to the kitchen and make yourself a drink then join me and the girls in the living room. We’re going to watch Jeopardy! and pretend for a half hour that things aren’t going to hell in every direction. Let’s do it while we still can.”
She didn’t want to feign normalcy, but drinking sounded okay. And from her time growing up and her time being married, Hazel knew that if you were having a moment where you couldn’t bring yourself to pretend, sitting quietly was a good enough substitute.
Out of nowhere, Hazel thought of the driver who used to take her between The Hub and her father’s house. She’d been fond of him; he had a family. Byron could hurt all those people. Then she scolded herself for having the thought. Since he received all her thoughts, any fear she experienced might as well be a wish.
She’d call him soon. I will talk to you soon, Byron, she thought. She’d wait until her father got so weak he couldn’t fight being admitted into medical care, and then they’d both go to The Hub together. She didn’t want to screw things up for anyone else.
14
HER FATHER HAD BEEN TELLING HER DAILY THAT HE MIGHT HAVE ONLY a few weeks to live, but Hazel factored in some wiggle room: nothing was ever as bad as he made it out to be. Growing up, prior to each summer vacation they’d take in the family sedan, he’d recite a lengthy soliloquy as they packed about how the next week was going to be the worst waste of time and money imaginable: every motel they’d find to stay in would be a rat hole with broken plumbing; every bedsheet would be rife with parasitic infections; every tourist trap would be packed and overpriced and an uncomfortable temperature. “I’m going to walk around all day and get a groin rash, then we’ll retire back to the motel and some bug with a heavy abdomen will crawl on my thigh while I sleep and lay her eggs in my open sores.” But the vacations and rooms were never that awful. “Boy,” he’d exclaim as they headed home. “We really lucked out. We really dodged a bullet.”
This time, though, her father had perhaps underestimated. His fever wasn’t breaking; he couldn’t keep anything down. Hazel kept begging him to go to the medical center with her, but he still had enough strength to forcibly spit on the floor and refuse. “I’m not leaving,” he’d stress. “And no one’s asking you to stay.”
Hazel wished he was, but it was becoming clear his decline would not include emotional delicacy. He’d had her place Diane and Roxy into bed with him. She figured that soon his slips in and out of consciousness would become deeper and farther apart, and then she could call Byron and tell him they were ready.
There were things she ideally wanted to say to her father before medical personnel were present, some a little bitter, but now also didn’t seem like a good time to pick a fight. He’d retreated into his cave, and Hazel knew he’d prefer to stay there alone. He wanted to advance toward expiration without giving his embarrassment an audience. At least not a living one.
Since they had no physical needs, Di and Roxy could keep a constant vigil. Maybe lifelike mannequins were the way to go in terms of hospice. They could be tailor-made for this purpose—Diane’s full breasts could lactate morphine, for example. Roxy’s torso could slide open on command and double as a bedpan chamber.