?
Chuck and I stood on the farthest sides of the blue Honda in the parking lot. The Waveriders had lost the game, and the boys were taking longer than usual. Coach Iona waved at us, and we waved back. He didn’t tell us that he loved our boys today.
Chuck kept looking over at me, and I kept looking at the gate, waiting for the boys to appear. Then Chuck let out a long sigh, fluttering his lips at the end of it. “Nance?” He sounded exhausted. And then he looked at my water bottle longingly, so I took a nice long sip before responding.
“Chuck?”
“Never mind.” He took off his hat, smoothed his thinning hair back, returned the hat to his head, and leaned back on the trunk of the Honda.
I tried to compose myself. “Chuck, I’m upset you’re drinking again.”
“It’s under control,” he said, defiant.
I wanted to scream: You’ve said this before! We’ve done this before! Hello! So I said nothing instead.
Chuck let his arms fall by his sides. “I feel like you’re pushing me away.”
Pushing him away? He was pushing—“I feel like you’re pushing me away, Chuck. You’re the one who’s down at the bar shooting pool every night!” Nancy, don’t yell. People can hear you.
In a cool, measured voice, which pissed me off because it made him the calmer one, Chuck asked, “Aren’t you the one who told me I should join the Tide Poolers?”
And then I decided to tell him. We needed to remember what was important. “Ana is dying, Chuck. She has terminal cancer.”
“Oh,” Chuck said. I couldn’t see his face under his hat, but I hoped he looked sorry. “Has she had terminal cancer this whole time?”
“Chuck. That is so the wrong question to be asking. How about ‘How is she feeling, Nance?’ or ‘I’m so sorry you’re about to lose your best friend in the world, Nance.’?”
“See? But that’s what I mean, Nance. I thought I was your best friend in the world.”
I rolled my eyes, but all I said was “Chuck,” because he did have a point.
And then there were the boys walking toward us. Tom with Cam and Jed with—ugh—Liko, just like the last time.
“Boys!” Chuck called. He sounded so excited. Even in his worst moments, he really was a good dad.
Before anyone could say hi, Cam made a whiny request to go to Denny’s. “Pleeease.”
Chuck scrunched his face. “Aren’t you still grounded, young man?”
“Aw, come on, Mr. Murphy.” Liko hit Chuck’s arm in a manly way. “Everybody gotta eat!” Then he looked at me, and said, “Hey, Mrs. Murphy,” in that lascivious tone, and this time I knew I hadn’t imagined it.
Chuck, unable to resist being Cool Dad, caved immediately. “Fine, but I want you home by four o’clock. You have a shed to build.”
Tom looked at Cam as if to say: A shed? And Cam looked back at him like: I’ll explain later.
“Fi-ya,” Liko said in a spooky voice, and twinkled his fingers.
Chuck looked at his feet, thinking of what to say next. “I know! Tom and Liko, you boys should come over for dinner some night. I’ll show you the ball Tony Azevedo signed for me.”
I hadn’t seen that ball in years and I knew Chuck hadn’t either. Had we even brought it to Hawaii?
“You got a Tony ball?” Liko put his hands on his hips. “Naaah,” he said, pulling his head back.
“Oh yes,” Chuck said, “I do. How about you all come see it next week? You pick the day.”
“Hump daaaaay,” Liko said. Of course he would say that.
Chuck tried to understand.
“He means Wednesday, Dad,” Cam said.
“Wednesday, hump day,” Chuck said. And then, “Oh, I get it!”
So passive-aggressively and also like the lamest housewife on earth—why?—I put my hand on my hip and asked, “Am I cooking?”
“Sloppy joes,” Jed confirmed.
“Sloppay,” Liko said.
“Pleeease, Mom?” Cam whined.
“Fine,” I said, “fine.” And then because I was such a good person—how much good karma would I receive for this?—I added, “We would love to have you for dinner.”
After we’d waved the boys good-bye—“No fires!” I yelled; “See you at four o’clock!” Chuck reminded them—I turned to Chuck and said, “Alcoholism is a disease, Chuck. Until you get help, I can’t help you.”
Chuck’s face. He looked so stressed-out. “I’m not asking for help,” he said quietly.
“You think it’s under control, but it’s not, Chuck. It never is.”
“This time it is,” he said. The way he seemed to really believe this was astounding.
“I have to go.”
“Do you want to go to lunch and at least talk about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I worried that if I said yes, he’d convince me it really was under control, and I couldn’t go through all that again.
“We can go back to Bite Me, if you want. And have some poke. And just talk.”
I sighed. Without even realizing it, I’d taken my phone out of my purse and was checking the screen for new red bubbles.
Ana had written back. Come over?
“Chuck,” I said, “I don’t think lunch is a good idea right now. Plus I have to go see Ana. She needs me.”
Chuck took his keys out of his pocket. “She needs you,” he repeated.
“She does,” I said, trying to sound sure.
“Well,” Chuck said, “I guess I’ll go play some pool then.”
He turned and walked away before I could say anything. Maybe that was better right now. It felt like there was nothing else to say.
?
The door was open.
“Ana?”
Half-empty glasses on the low tables in the living room and Portico on the low chair, still as a hose and possibly asleep. The flowers I’d brought her were on the counter next to the fruit. The mangoes were rotting.
“Ana?”
The sliding glass doors to the lanai were open all the way, which they never were. The thick salt smell and the breeze ruffling the pages of her yellow legal pad.
I poked my head outside. “Ana?”
There she was, on the far side of the lanai, splayed on a rainbow afghan. No wig and wearing her black silk kimono. She was on the phone, speaking in a British accent. “Yes, three o’clock would be grand.” She winked at me. “Thank you, kind sir.” She hung up.
“Nan!”
“Ana!”
“Come come.” She patted the afghan and scooted over to make room for me.
“All your doors are open,” I said, lying down next to her and looking up at the sky. It was blue and blue and blue and completely clear.
“I want the birds to go inside.”
I smiled. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” She touched my hair. “Haven’t you always wanted a house full of wild birds?”
This was the type of thing only Ana would say. I would miss her saying things like this. I tried to look at her, but the sun was too bright. “I guess I’ve never thought about it.”
“Well,” she said, and then, “Ow,” and she jerked her body suddenly and her knees pressed into my legs.
I sat up. “What’s wrong?”
Her hand to her stomach. “No,” she whispered, “I’m fine.” She closed her eyes, breathed with intention. I breathed with her, louder than her, leading by example like she did for us in class.