“You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know, but I still feel terrible. This isn’t what I ever wanted to happen to us or to The Happiest Day.”
“I know. But we need to make some decisions. I’ll send you the e-mail with the offer for the buyout. At least consider it. Talk to Mike about it.”
Erin knew she didn’t want to consider it and she didn’t want to present it as an option to Mike. Not right now. “I’ll read the e-mail.” It was all she could honestly agree to at the moment.
“Let’s talk again tomorrow,” Sharlene said. “My schedule is full all morning. Try me in the afternoon, or I’ll try you tomorrow night, okay?”
“Sure.”
Erin hung up feeling more alone than she had in a long time. The worst part was that in her intensely groggy state she couldn’t think clearly at all. She wandered upstairs and took a restless nap before Mike called and she went outside again to have another difficult conversation in private. Mike’s conclusion was the same as Sharlene’s. He suggested they both think things through for another day and pray about them before making a final decision.
The next day Erin felt no different about her decision to stay. She felt only more tired. She prayed, talked to Mike, talked to Sharlene, prayed some more, and still knew this was where she belonged. Mike said he supported her decision and would come up in a week or so and stay with her a few days. Sharlene’s response wasn’t as comforting.
“I’m sorry to be the negative one here,” Sharlene said, “but I just don’t see this as a good decision. And as I said before, even if you are able to move your dad into your home in Irvine, you won’t be able to keep up with work the way things have been going.”
“We don’t know that. I’m still working on e-mails here, and you can send more my way. I can do more than I have been doing.”
Sharlene disagreed. She asked Erin once again to seriously consider the buyout offer.
“I don’t understand why you’re pressuring me to let you buy my half of the business. This is my dream, too, Sharlene. I’m not ready to give it up.”
“But, Erin, in a way, you already have.”
Sharlene’s words dealt a stunning blow that left Erin’s head pounding as her eyes welled with tears. “Sharlene, give me more to do, okay?” Erin tried not to let the emotion show in her voice. “Keep sending me e-mails, and let’s see if I can paddle a little faster on my side of the canoe.”
Erin heard Sharlene release a long, steady breath on her end of the phone. “Okay. We’ll try that until the end of next week. Then we’ll have to reach a mutual decision about what to do. Be prepared because I’m sending you a mountain of work.”
“That’s fine. That’s good. I want to do my share.”
The tears were still in her eyes and the tension still tightened her throat after she hung up. Erin knew she had to do something to help improve her sleep.
She changed the structure of her day the next morning when Marge arrived right on time. Erin didn’t crawl upstairs to try to go back to sleep as she had on previous days. She felt rested because she finally had given in to freshening up the master bedroom downstairs and had slept in that bed, which was far more comfortable than the couch or the upstairs twin bed. Erin had arranged the master bedroom to her liking and moved her dad’s clothes to the far end of the closet. Then, for the first time since she had been there, she took her clothes out of the suitcase and hung them up.
During the night Erin kept the bedroom door open so she could hear her father if he was in any distress. Now that Jack had a proper bed, he was sleeping far better than he had in the recliner.
It all took Erin back to when each of her sons was born. She remembered how when they finally slept through the night, she was able to do the same. That Friday morning, she had the same sense of rejuvenation.
Over the bed was a framed souvenir from one of her dad’s trips to Ireland. It was in the shape of a shield and labeled “From the Shield of Saint Patrick.” Erin had developed the habit of reading it each time she entered the room, but now decided she would read it each morning.
Christ be with me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ in me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ on my right
Christ on my left
Christ where I lie
Christ where I sit
Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me
Christ in every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me
Salvation is of the Lord.
After a refreshing morning shower and the simple happiness of using her favorite shampoo again, Erin worked on e-mails for an hour and then went for a walk in the glen across the road. She picked a bouquet of wildflowers and put them in a vase so her dad could see them. He gave a nod and a half smile.
While Marge got Jack in the shower, Erin changed his bedsheets and put on the music. She opened all the shades and two of the windows. Now that much of the furniture in the living room had been moved around to make space for the reclining bed, Erin kept the rearranging going.
“Dad, do you mind if I keep moving things around here?”
Fresh from the shower, Jack gave a wave of his hand, and Erin went at it, moving unneeded furniture and other items from the living room out to the garage with Marge’s help. They dusted and vacuumed and then together adjusted the bed’s position so that Jack had the best of everything. He could press a button and the back of the bed would lift him so that he had a perfect view out the front windows. The foot of his bed was now over the main heating vent in the living room so when it was cold enough for the heat to come on, his feet would be first to feel the warmth.
Erin then moved the stereo unit so that if her dad wanted to, he could use his left hand to start or stop the system. The carousel held fifty CDs. Only nine of those fifty slots were occupied. The one in the first slot was the Irish tenors. As soon as Jack found that he could push the button and the three tenors joined him and sang “O Danny Boy,” his morning was the most tolerable he seemed to have had since becoming confined.
“This is good for him,” Marge said as she and Erin stood in the garage after hauling out the recliner. “It’s a generous thing for you to stay and make these arrangements.”
Erin leaned against one of the stacks of boxes Delores had organized before her departure. She knew her dad couldn’t hear them in the garage so she asked, “What’s your assessment of his situation, Marge? You’ve been with patients like my dad before, right?”
“Yes.”
“Delores said he could live another five or more years.”
“Not with the condition of his kidneys. You know how I check for blood each time I change the bag?”
“Yes.”
“This morning I saw blood for the first time.”
“Are his kidneys beginning to fail?”
“Yes. It looks like that’s what’s happening. I will tell you this: if I had to make an estimate, I would say he might be with us another four months. Maybe less.”
Erin stared at the garage wall and let that new piece of information sink in.
“Didn’t you realize the shortness of time he had left when you decided to stay?”
Erin shook her head. “The doctor said he was strong. I thought Delores told me that the first doctor who examined him said he could live another five years or so even with the paralysis and the G-tube.”
Marge shook her head. “No, that’s not accurate. Delores knew. She knew he had months, not years. She read the charts. She knew about his kidneys.”
Erin felt her teeth clench. Her slow-burning anger toward Delores returned. It took a big dose of self-control not to spill out her frustrations.
“Your father deserved someone better,” Marge said with diplomacy.
�
��I know. And he did have someone better, much better. He had my mother. She was perfect for him.” Erin and Marge lingered in the garage as Erin talked about her mother. It felt good. Therapeutic. She was better off focusing on the positive than retelling the negative.
Marge left to check on Jack. Erin remained in the cool, damp garage with the stack of unopened boxes.
Erin felt as if an invisible hourglass had been turned over. Four months. Could she stay here for four months? Mike would understand, especially once she gave him this new information. But would Sharlene?
“First things first,” Erin told herself. The task at hand was going through those boxes. She could call Mike and Sharlene later. In the same way that she had organized for garage sales over the years, Erin sorted, stacked, and reorganized the remaining pieces of her parents’ life.
She came to a box marked FAITH and recognized the handwriting as her own. She had packed this box for her dad after her mom died. It had all the things in it that Erin didn’t think she should claim for herself. Now she felt differently as she lifted the lid and revisited treasures that she assumed her father never had looked at since his wife’s passing.
Deciding the garage was no place for such a rendezvous with memories, she dusted off the box and carried it into the living room. Placing it on the floor beside the couch, she went to the kitchen to make some lunch.
When she returned to the couch, now bathed in afternoon sunlight, her dad was awake. He pointed at the box and raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a box of Mom’s things. I thought I’d do a little deep-sea diving for long-buried treasure. Do you mind if I do it here?”
His expression made it clear that she was welcome.
The small treasures were wrapped in tissue. Erin remembered the day she had carefully placed many of the trinkets into this box. The first one she now unwrapped was a figurine of a woman holding up her hand. Balanced on her finger was a tiny bluebird.
“Aawwgh.”
“Do you remember this, Dad?”
“Yaaaah.” He pointed at Erin.
“No, it wasn’t mine. It was Mom’s.”
He pointed at her with firm determination. She didn’t know what that meant. Turning the figurine over, she looked at the bottom and noticed the letters EMO and the numbers 5/22. That was her birthday.
“Erin Melody O’Riley. EMO. Is this mine?”
“No.”
“Mom’s?”
“Yaaaa.”
“Did she get this when I was born?”
His eyes lit up.
“Mom got this little statue when I was born. I didn’t know that.”
Jack vigorously patted his chest.
“I know. That makes me happy, too.”
“No.” He pointed at the figurine and then pointed to his face.
Erin took a wild guess. “Did you give this to Mom when I was born?”
He started to cry and made one of his happy wails.
“Oh, Dad, that’s so sweet.” She looked at the statue again. Fifty-two years ago her father had seen this little treasure of a woman with a bluebird on her finger, and he had thought of her mother. And of her. His baby bluebird.
Erin wrapped the statue in tissue and placed it on the side of the couch that would be her “keep” pile.
“Nooo.”
“Do you want me to leave this out?”
“Yaaaa.”
Erin placed the figurine next to the vase of wildflowers. Creating a grouping was so like something her mother would do. She was good at displaying art around the house. Erin remembered how the kitchen table always had a centerpiece of some sort. If no flowers or bowls of fruit were available to brighten the table, a candle with a shell beside it or a china cup and saucer with her mom’s favorite teapot next to it took center stage.
That was the extent of her mom’s artistic expression. She wasn’t good at decorating or scrapbooking the way Delores was. Erin’s mom didn’t see the whole picture or the entire timeline. Her life was a scattering of small moments, bits of meaningful conversations, and bright dashes of beauty where least expected. She held life like a bouquet.
Going through the box of favorite things was a reminder of her mother’s cheery, spritely spirit. Erin had been in the midst of mourning the loss of her mother when she had packed away those trinkets. Holding them now turned into a sweet celebration of her mother’s life. And it was just between her and her father. If Delores were still there, things would have been quite different.
Erin knew that if the circumstances were different, she wouldn’t be there having that moment with her father. This was for her. It was an important and filling moment. She was so glad she was there.
Four more months.
15
May you enjoy the four greatest blessings:
Honest work to occupy you,
A hearty appetite to sustain you,
A good woman to love you,
And a wink from God above.
Erin became sidetracked from her project of going through the boxes from the garage. She left the box marked FAITH in the living room by the couch and put her full attention to e-mails and laundry and a list Sharlene sent her of phone calls that needed to be made.
The next morning, as soon as Marge arrived, Erin bundled up and walked up to the bench on the cliff. She called Sharlene, and as the wind whipped her hair, she calmly told her friend, “I know for certain that I need to be here. It doesn’t look like my dad has much longer. Marge thinks it could be four months or less.”
Sharlene offered a quiet “Oh, my.”
“I wanted you to know that because it might help you to see that I think we can keep pressing on for a few more months.”
It took Sharlene a moment to respond. “I don’t know, Erin. I received a call from a bride yesterday, and she said you were talking to her on the phone and in the background she could hear someone gagging and moaning.”
Erin knew which call that had been. She had tried to make the call in the kitchen but was cut short when her dad woke and started to choke.
“I know. I need to find a better place to go when I make the calls. My phone gets the best reception from the kitchen or on the deck, but it’s not always convenient to sit outside and my dad’s hospital bed is too close to the kitchen.”
“Where are you right now? Because I’m only catching every three or four words before it seems to cut out.”
“I’m outside. It’s windy.” She tried to shelter the mouthpiece with her hand to cut out the wind.
“You know, as hard as this is for both of us, I have to be direct about this, Erin. If your dad lives another four months, that’s still six months that you will have been on this sort of part-time schedule and part-time leave of absence. Six months is a long time.”
“I know.”
“And what if he improves, and he lives another two years? Are you going to stay that whole time? Would you expect to be able to keep the business partnership the way it is that whole time? I need a full-time partner in this. Since you can’t fulfill that position, why not cut me free so that I can find a new partner and keep the business going? I feel like you’re drowning right now, and I’m trying to save you, but in the process you’re pulling me and the business down with you.”
The reality of the situation hit Erin more intensely than it had in their previous conversations. This wasn’t fair to Sharlene. Simply acknowledging that it was difficult and apologizing didn’t make it better.
“I have to go,” Sharlene said. “How about if we talk on Friday? That’s what we agreed to last week. We need to come to a conclusion on this. I’ll call you Friday evening, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll talk to you then.”
Erin returned to the house and spent the next two days trying to catch up with the e-mails and make all her phone calls without interruption. She ended up using the musty, drafty garage since she got good reception and could talk privately.
By Friday afternoon, Erin knew what she wanted to s
ay to Sharlene. She had talked to Mike about it and was ready for Sharlene’s call that evening. Until then, it seemed like a good idea to finish the project of going through the box of her mother’s mementos that she had left by the couch. Her father awoke when she sat on the couch and watched as she unwrapped the faded tissue paper and revealed the hidden items.
One small treasure that particularly caught his attention was a heart-shaped frame. Inside was a photo of Erin’s parents when they were in their early twenties. She knew the photo was taken at Huntington Beach when they were dating. Her dad had a basketball under one arm and the other arm around Faith, who was wearing a scarf around her neck that fluttered in the ocean breeze. She had on a full skirt cinched at the waist and a white blouse with the short sleeves rolled up. Her naturally blond hair was pulled up in a bouncy ponytail, and behind them was the vast Pacific Ocean. In the black-and-white photo, the crest of the waves looked like a jiggly silver line. Her dad was so strong. So sure of himself. So invincible.
Erin held out the framed photo. Her dad took it with his good hand, blinked, and stared for a long time without making a sound. Then he coughed, choking on his own saliva. Erin reached for the suction tube and ran through the usual routine. When she finished and turned off the noisy machine, he sighed.
“Do you want me to leave this one out, Dad?”
He didn’t reply. He just held the frame and stared. Then, pressing it to his chest, he closed his eyes and went away. Erin watched his face and had a pretty fair idea of where he went. It was to that place where there is no time. The place where the gray of the sky meets the gray of the ocean. That squiggly silver line somewhere beyond the deep blue sea.
Staying with the task in front of her, Erin dredged up and sorted the treasures. She pulled out another framed photo and carried it into the kitchen where she put it aside. When Sylvia stopped by right on time for her daily afternoon gossip fest, she saw the framed photo and helped herself to a long look.
Erin quietly answered the question she knew Sylvia was about to ask. “That’s my brother.”
“Good-looking young man.”
“That was in high school.” Erin looked at it again with Sylvia. The uncanny thing was how similar this photo was to the one of her dad and mom at the beach. This one was taken in the driveway of their childhood home. Her brother, Tony, was wearing a basketball jersey with number 17 on it. Their father stood next to him with his arm around him the same way he had had his arm around Faith, and under Jack’s other arm was a basketball. The expectation was written all over Jack’s face. His son was as tall as he was and was smiling at the photographer with the handsome charm of the O’Riley men through the ages.
Cottage by the Sea Page 16