Unblinking

by Lenzo, Lisa;

  Stepping back behind the security desk, Laura asks how my father is doing.

  “Not so well,” I tell her as I wheel my suitcase toward the elevators.

  “I love your mom and dad,” Laura calls after me. “I love your whole family.”

  “We love you, too,” I call back from inside the elevator before the doors close.

  All the security and maintenance staff at my parents’ condo have been caring and kind, especially Laura and Michelle. And Benjamin, who one day lifted my dad in his arms from an outside bench after he grew too weak to stand, set him in his wheelchair, and pushed him back inside. Lately, my mom has called the front desk a number of times after my dad has fallen and my parents’ combined efforts have failed to raise him back up from the floor. Within minutes of my mom’s call, someone from security or maintenance is at my parents’ door, offering their kind voices and their capable and gentle hands. All but two of the thirty or so condo employees are African American, and about eighty percent of my parents’ neighbors in this somewhat luxurious co-op are black as well. I like to joke with my parents, “What is it about you guys that makes other white people leave?” In truth, ever since my parents heard Martin Luther King give his first “I Have a Dream” speech—in downtown Detroit in 1963—they have chosen to live in integrated neighborhoods, and each time my parents have moved into a new community, white flight was already under way.

  The elevator rises six floors and opens, and I walk west down the long hall. Nearing its end, I look out the hallway window at the bare, leafless tops of sycamore trees, and beyond them at the side of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building, which has enormous letters painted on it: “Glad to be back home in the D.” That’s how I feel, too, whenever I return.

  My parents’ door is unlocked and I step through the small entrance hall and into the large, L-shaped living area, a combination of living and dining room walled by glass on two sides. The river runs beyond the longer wall of windows on my left, the towers of the Renaissance Center loom straight ahead, and the Greektown Casino and Ford Stadium rise beyond the windows toward my right. Even on this gray winter day, the room is brightened by the faint light from outside. Ever since my dad suffered a slight stroke, the Persian rug has been off center, pushed close to the window-walls so that my dad has a wide area of bare floor to manipulate his walker.

  My mom steps toward me swiftly, calls out, “An-nie!” and hugs me tight. We are both short: she’s five three, I’m five four. My mom used to tease me about being the runt of the family, but she has shrunk three inches as she’s aged, her spine contracting through osteoporosis, and so it’s my turn to tease. Right now, though, I simply hug her back. Then I cross the room to greet my dad. He is sitting upright in the big leather recliner, eyes open and lucid. Now that he rarely blinks and can smile only with effort—a symptom of his Parkinson’s—his huge, staring eyes appear even more prominent and intense. “Hi, Ann,” he says when I’m right up close, and his voice sounds clear and fairly strong, not garbled and weak as it often does.

  I hug him, then pull back a little, so that I can take him in. “You’re looking pretty good,” I say. “You’re sounding good, too.”

  “I’m feeling halfway decent at the moment,” he says, and I’m surprised at how relieved I am to hear this. Even though I’ve thought, at times, that I’m ready for my dad to die fairly soon—from a fall or in his sleep—rather than continue to watch him decline piece by piece, I know that once he is gone, I’ll wish he were still here.

  ⊙

  On my first night back in Detroit, we eat an early dinner—takeout from Steve’s Soul Food—and by the time we clear the table, it’s only six but dark outside. Lights have come on in the towers of the Renaissance Center, emerging out of the gray in the distance yet seeming close because of their size: the tallest of the three main towers is seventy stories, twice as tall as my parents’ condo. Through the panoramic windows to the right of the towers, the Greektown Casino lights flash pale red and icy blue. “Oh, I meant to go for a walk with you today, Mom,” I say. It’s one of my goals for the week I am home: to go for walks with my mom and also my dad, taking him out in his wheelchair.

  “It gets dark so early,” my mom responds, gazing out at the softly lit city. “The day just slips away. But maybe it will be sunny tomorrow, and not too cold. Then we can get your dad outside, too.”

  “Or maybe we can go to the flower house on Belle Isle,” I suggest. Belle Isle, rising from the river between Windsor and Detroit, is only a couple of miles from my parents’ condo, and it has an old, magnificent greenhouse made up of six spacious, plant-filled rooms. Strolling in the greenhouse, if only for an hour, is like taking a vacation from winter: you’re sheltered from the wind, surrounded by tropical plants and colorful flowers, and the domed glass ceilings amplify the sun.

  “Well, the nurse is coming in the morning and the physical therapist in the afternoon,” my mom says, “so we won’t have time tomorrow. But maybe we can go the day after.” She turns to my dad. “You’d like that, Ralphy—wouldn’t you like to go to the Belle Isle conservatory sometime this week?”

  My dad keeps his gaze on the TV, but he answers her. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “That would be great.”

  Tonight he has what my mom calls a “good” night: he wakes up only four times, instead of six or more, and he sleeps from midnight straight through till four-thirty. I get up with him only once, my mom gets up with him three times, and this night’s aide, Isadora, gets up all four times. My dad is no longer disoriented, agitated, or combative when he wakes up, as he was in the hospital after he fell and gashed his head two weeks ago. He’s in his own bed and he knows it, with his wife of over sixty years at his side.

  ⊙

  We rise late and have a big breakfast. My mom makes kaseschnittenli for my dad, a Swiss dish he loves that consists of ham and cheese melted on a slice of toasted bread and topped with a fried egg. I make oatmeal with pears for my mom and me, plus decaf coffee with lots of foamy milk. Isadora is leaving soon, and she insists she only wants black coffee and a slice of peach bread.

  We are still at the table when the outpatient nurse from Detroit Receiving arrives. Yvonna is youngish, in her thirties, with short, straightened hair and a loud and friendly voice. It’s obvious that she is fond of my dad, whom she calls “Mr. Zito.” It sounds strange to me, and I feel like gently correcting her—“Dr. Zito”—even though, throughout my life, I’ve not often heard him called that. More commonly, he’s been “Ralph” or “Ralphy,” “Dad” or “Old Man.” My brother Dan used to jokingly call him “Pasta,” claiming it was an Italian endearment for “Papa.” My mom sometimes calls him “Ralphy Darling.”

  My mom tells the nurse that I am their daughter, and Yvonna considers my face and pronounces, “You favor your father.” Then she turns to my dad and says, “So how are you this morning, Mr. Zito?”

  My dad clears his throat and collects his voice. “Well, if you subtract the fact that I have Parkinson’s, I feel like I could jog around the block.”

  Yvonna laughs, and Isadora does, too. Isadora is from Jamaica, and even her laughter sounds like notes of music.

  When it’s quiet again, my dad says, “If you discount the fact that it takes all I’ve got to lift a fork to my mouth, I’m not doing all that bad.”

  “So—not that bad,” Yvonna says, resting her hand on my dad’s shoulder. She glances down at the portion of ham, cheese, egg and bread left on his plate. “It looks like you’re getting well fed, anyway.”

  “One of the few things my wife is still good for.”

  “Mister Zito!” Yvonna says, gripping his shoulder and giving it a shake. “You are full of spice this morning!”

  “Not spice,” my mom says; “snakes and snails and puppy dog tails,” and I remember the rhyme from my childhood: it was girls who were made of sugar and spice and everything nice.

  My dad says something I don’t catch.

  “You better be nice, Ralphy,”
my mom warns, “or I’m going to start calling you Staplehead.”

  “Staplehead!” Yvonna says. “What for?”

  “Our daughter was cutting his hair, and she noticed that the doctor left a staple in his head.”

  “No!” Yvonna says, and she stands straighter and looks down at the staple the doctor missed. “Well, yes, there it is. What do you know.”

  “We were wondering if you could take it out, rather than the doctor.”

  Yvonna rubs the staple and the flesh surrounding it as if she’s thinking of prying it loose with her fingers. “I’ll have to call and get the doctor’s permission,” she says, “but sure, I can take it out, no problem.”

  “Oh, good,” my mom says. “It didn’t seem worth it to go back to the doctor for just one staple.”

  Yvonna continues fingering the top of my dad’s head, squinting down at it. “I can take it out right here, when you’re finished eating.”

  “You can’t take that out,” my dad says.

  “Why not?” Yvonna asks.

  “I wouldn’t advise it, anyway.”

  “You wouldn’t?” Yvonna asks. She leans over so she can look directly into my dad’s eyes. “Why not?”

  My dad pauses. We’re all watching and waiting. Quietly, he says, “It’s the last thing holding me together.”

  All four of us women laugh at once. Yvonna pushes his shoulder, harder this time, and cries, “Spices and snails!”

  “And don’t forget snakes,” my mom says.

  After we all quiet down, Isadora leaves. The rest of us continue to sit at the table as Yvonna checks my dad over. She measures his blood pressure and records it, takes his temperature, and listens to his lungs with a stethoscope. Everything is normal, except that she hears a slight crackling in his back—there’s some fluid in his lungs—fluid where there should be only air. She reports this to the doctor over the phone. She also tactfully mentions the staple that the doctor overlooked, and he gives his permission to remove it. Since there is no fever, the doctor says he’ll hold off on prescribing an antibiotic at this time to address the crackling in my dad’s lungs, which could be the start of pneumonia. Twice last night, my dad coughed up phlegm, which isn’t unusual with Parkinson’s, but this phlegm was discolored, due to infection and possibly blood. Could this be the beginning of the end? When he was younger, my dad used to call pneumonia “the old person’s final friend.”

  After Yvonna leaves and we clean up from breakfast, I help my mom dress my dad. She can do it alone, but it’s easier with two. My dad’s fingers can’t work buttons or maneuver a shirt over his head or pull on and tie his shoes. He is able to hold out his arms to receive the shirt, and he is also able to help us, a little, to pull up his pants. Once he’s dressed, my dad sits in his wheelchair ten feet from the TV while my mom retreats to her and my dad’s bedroom to get dressed herself. I go out to shop for groceries, taking their car although it’s only a short walk down the street, because I’ll buy more than I can carry.

  I stock up on groceries, then drive over to the CVS on Jefferson Avenue for more “briefs” (adult diapers) and liquid cold medicine, which can be administered through my dad’s gastrointestinal tube. By the time I get home my dad’s physical therapist, Arnav Patel, has already come and gone. My mom tells me that Arnav says we should put off our trip to the Belle Isle conservatory until he has taught Dad to transfer from his wheelchair into the car. “Oh, too bad,” I say, thinking of pushing my dad through the green and flowery rooms, protected from the bitter wind. “It’s pretty cold for walking outside today.”

  “I know, I can tell from here.” My mom looks out and down at the shifting tops of sycamore trees through which snow is swirling. Beyond the treetops, the towers of the Renaissance Center are lost in the white-flecked gray air, except for the sign atop the highest column, which spells GM in red neon that shifts to blue, then back to red. The neon letters seem to float freely, disconnected from the structure holding them up, as if GM, which once reigned over Detroit, is today claiming to own the sky.

  We eat leftovers from last night’s takeout dinner for lunch—I’ve been here for almost twenty-four hours, yet I haven’t made any meals except for helping with breakfast. I have hardly accomplished a thing, it seems. I’m reminded of what my mom told me over thirty years ago, when my daughter was a baby and I complained that whole days went by when I didn’t get a thing done. “You’re getting a baby done,” she said. Now what’s getting done is the end of an old man’s life.

  ⊙

  My mom has canceled the daytime aides for the week I am here, and on the following morning, as we are finishing breakfast, I mention bringing in hospice for daytime help after I’m gone, rather than paying for private home care as they’ve been doing. Using hospice would save money because their services are covered by Medicare. I remind my parents what a social worker told us: that a patient no longer has to be on the brink of death to be eligible for hospice care but only to have stopped all curative treatments, and that leads my dad into talking about when his death might occur, and he starts tearing up.

  “Sometimes I think I’m really close, that I can’t last much longer,” he says. “But then I’ll feel a little better. I just don’t know how much time I have, or what’s going to happen next.”

  When I was younger and feeling discouraged about the ups and downs of an illness, my dad would reassure me: “Recovery doesn’t always happen in a straight line.” Lately, watching my dad, I’ve come to see that neither does decline.

  My mom, standing behind my dad, lays her hand on his shoulder and says, “None of us knows how much time we have. You just have to live life to the fullest. You might have only a year left. But you could live another five years.”

  “Oh, no!” my dad protests, firmly shaking his head.

  I voice my strong agreement with my dad: “No way does he have five!”

  My mom is not stupid; in fact, although she doesn’t flaunt it, she has a genius IQ. What my youngest brother and sister have said flits through my thoughts: Mom is in denial.

  “Well,” she says, “you could live two more years, or maybe three.”

  “No,” my dad says. “Maybe one.”

  “Remember, Ralphy, when you told me you didn’t think you’d see our sixtieth wedding anniversary? And then, on our sixtieth, you said you for sure wouldn’t make it to our sixty-first?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve gone downhill since then.”

  “Well, you have in some ways,” my mom agrees. “But you’ve also made some gains. You’ve had more energy since the feeding tube was put in. You’ve rallied, both physically and mentally. And working with Arnav has improved your mobility and strength.”

  My dad sighs. “I’m still getting closer to death.”

  “We’re all getting closer to death,” my mom says.

  My dad turns to me. “It’s not that I’m afraid to die.” He starts tearing up again. “I just don’t know when it will come. Am I dying soon? Or not so soon? Sometimes I think I have a month or less. Sometimes I feel as if I won’t live another week. Then I’ll feel a little better again.”

  “Don’t worry about when it’ll happen,” my mom soothes. “It’ll come when it comes. And in the meantime, maybe we’ll see our sixty-second anniversary.”

  “That’s not likely,” my dad says.

  “You’ve been wrong twice so far,” my mom points out, her voice hopeful. “Maybe you’ll be wrong again.” She rests her forearms on my dad’s shoulders and brings her face close to his. “Give me a kiss,” she says. They kiss tenderly.

  When they pull apart my dad growls, “You’re such a damned optimist, Rosie.” But I can hear the pleasure and love in his voice.

  ⊙

  After we’ve cleared up from breakfast, we wheel my dad to the closest bathroom, help him out of his clothes and onto the shower chair, soap him up and hose him down. Years ago, I wondered if it would be difficult to bathe my parents when they got old; I feared I would balk at seeing a
nd touching their aging naked bodies. But I’ve found it isn’t awkward; it’s simply something that needs to be done, and so I take off my socks and step into the tub, reaching out almost without thinking whenever and wherever my strength and hands are needed. Once we’ve soaped him and had him stand and sit a couple of times and traded the hand-held nozzle back and forth until he is thoroughly rinsed, he asks us to direct the spray at his head again, so I hold the nozzle over him, and the spray hits his bald dome and cascades down. While he’s had several bed baths, this is his first real shower in a week.

  Everything is a lot of work for my dad, and all his standing up and sitting back down and getting into and out of the shower has worn him out. After we’ve finished dressing him, he falls asleep in the big recliner. Again I’m reminded of how the last stage of life is a lot like the first—all the extra sleeping, eating foods that are liquid or soft or cut into small pieces, needing to be lifted and dressed, bathed and changed. But instead of gradually becoming stronger and more capable and independent, as a baby does, my dad is gradually moving in the other direction.

  ⊙

  While my dad sleeps and my mom putters around the house taking care of many small tasks, I start making chicken scaloppini, a fairly complicated dish. This is the way it has always been in my parents’ home and even more so since the two of them retired: a great deal of time, energy, and care goes into cooking and eating. And lunch has become the main meal of the day, since if my dad eats a big meal too late, he coughs more at night, and both he and my mom lose sleep.