Those words didn’t make me feel better. I missed him when he was gone.
At the funeral, my grandma told me my grandpa had left his car to me. I felt so special. I assumed that because he adored that car, he must have adored me. To this day, I have no doubt this is true, but sometimes I wonder if that car was nothing but bad luck.
Last summer, I drove Ben down the coast to visit our grandma without my mom. I was hoping to take my brother on all the same rides at the fair. He wasn’t tall enough. But I did get to buy him cotton candy as big as his head.
This morning, my grandma tells my mom everything that happened between yesterday morning and now. My mom stands in the bathroom getting ready for work. She has to set her cell phone on the back of the toilet and put it on speaker so she can use her hands to brush her teeth and comb her hair. I listen from the hallway, but my mom doesn’t know. Ben can’t hear because he’s eating breakfast in the other room with the TV on. She thinks I’m with him. She wouldn’t want us to hear this.
My grandma’s brittle voice comes through the speaker. “When I went to pick him up, the people there said he has PTSD. They gave me some phone numbers. They said it would be a good idea to try to get him into a program, and that he needs to stop drinking, too. The drinking makes everything worse.”
“No kidding,” my mom says.
Anybody I’ve ever been related to knows this already. Even my grandma knows this. But she says it like yesterday was the first time she’d ever heard it.
My grandma tells my mom she thanked the doctors and walked out the door. She says my dad sat in the passenger seat and didn’t say a word. At home, he sat on the couch and still didn’t say anything. She said it was like he was a teenager. She chuckles. My mom doesn’t. My grandma says she cooked all day. Eventually my dad migrated to the kitchen to watch. He sat in a chair and made promises that he would research the alcohol counseling programs listed in the pamphlets my grandma had fanned out in the middle of the table. And while he made those promises, she made him everything he always loved to eat. She mashed potatoes and drowned them in gravy. She served the potatoes with a pork roast she’d marinated for hours in the fridge. She made a three-layer chocolate cake with homemade buttercream frosting for dessert. When my dad ate all the food, it made my grandma think he was okay.
“He had his appetite.” She says this as if it should’ve been proof that he was getting better.
My mom explains that what’s wrong with my dad isn’t like having the flu. Eating might not mean anything. It’s something in his brain and his body. It’s something different.
My grandma doesn’t pay attention. Instead, she tells my mom that after dinner, my dad took a long, hot shower. She says she washed his clothes. She stuck her hands in the pockets of his pants, but didn’t find anything aside from two dollars, some change, and a crumpled-up fortune from a fortune cookie. Later, when it was dark and everyone was tired, my uncle Matt came over with three pairs of jeans and five new T-shirts for my dad.
“He brought every color.” My grandma says it like it matters. As if my dad wants to be the best-dressed homeless vet in San Diego.
My grandma says my dad folded the clothes neatly and piled them into a duffel bag. He put his new toothbrush and toothpaste in a side pocket. There was also soap. And deodorant. And two packages of brand-new underwear still wrapped in the plastic bag they came in. My grandma lists everything like she’s reading off a checklist for sixth grade camp.
“It was like he was embarrassed to take everything. Like he wanted to shove it all in the duffel and not look at it.”
I can picture her hovering in the doorway, watching him.
“Why are you packing?” she probably asked.
I can see her walking over and touching my dad on the shoulder. Her touch would’ve made him flinch. I’ve seen the way he flinches when people try to touch him, even if he loved them once. I knew to never sneak up on him to give him a hug. He became skittish even after only one tour in Afghanistan. I knew I had to make sure he saw me before I climbed into his lap and hung around his neck. And then he’d settle me into the crook of his arm and we’d watch TV together. He got worse with more tours. When I was older and he was sad all the time, I’d feel bad when I startled him as I came around the corner and into a room. I’d tell him I was sorry and try to hug him. He’d flinch at the contact and shrug his way out of my hug.
“I begged him to stay,” my grandma says through the phone. “Stay as long as you need. We can get help. We can fix this.” We’ve all said those things before. But as much as we say the words, my dad never hears them.