by Lenzo, Lisa;
I cut up onions and mushrooms and sauté them in olive oil. While these gently sizzle, I slice chicken breasts into small, thin pieces, dredge them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and brown them in a second pan. Then I stir up a sauce, using the pan drippings, vermouth, and juice I’ve squeezed from my brother Zachary’s fragrant backyard lemons. Meanwhile, my mom has come into the kitchen and cooked some broccoli, and I’ve added bowties to boiling water. My mom and I take turns stirring and testing the bowties for doneness.
Chicken scaloppini is the sort of dish you should eat as soon as it is finished; it doesn’t hold well. When my dad used to make it, he’d bellow from the kitchen so we could hear him throughout the house, “Get to the table! We’re eating in two minutes!” If he didn’t immediately hear feet on the stairs or other sounds of compliance, he’d shout out our names—“Mike! Arthur! Annie! Dan! Zachary! C’mon, damn it! You need to eat this while it’s hot!”
“We’re coming, Old Man,” one or more of us would answer. And as we straggled in, he’d still be fussing and cussing as he walked around the table, dividing the chicken onto our plates.
I keep the scaloppini covered while we get my dad’s medicines ready, and then we wake him, help him from the recliner into his wheelchair, and wheel him to the table. He puts his brakes on himself. Any little thing he can still manage to do, he likes to do himself.
We eat until we’re full, leaving plenty left over, something that never happened with scaloppini when we were younger. My mom starts falling asleep right at the table, so I escort them both to bed. While they are napping, I drive to the Eastern Market and buy bread, olives, ricotta, and mozzarella.
When I step back into the apartment, I creep to the open doorway of my parents’ room. My dad’s face looks like a cadaver’s, the skin stretched thin and tight over his skull. My mom’s straight white hair has fallen across her face and blended with the sheets, and at first I don’t see her; it’s as if she’s been erased. But then, out of the whiteness, her mouth and chin take shape. They are sleeping soundly, my dad on his back with his arm around my mom, who is on her side and snuggled close, her head resting on his chest. They always sleep this close, their bodies pressed together or intertwined, and as I gaze at them I wonder how my mom will sleep when he is gone.
⊙
Later that afternoon, we are sitting in the living room when my dad suddenly stands.
“Ralphy! Ralphy, where are you going?” my mom says. I’ve joked with her that “Ralphy, where are you going?” has replaced “Ralphy Darling” as her nickname for him.
“I’m going to put on some music,” my dad says, his voice annoyed and imperious. He’s not swaying or frozen but simply standing, as if he’s flashed back to a time before Parkinson’s.
“Ralphy, your walker?” my mom half demands, half pleads.
I’ve already jumped up, trotted across the living room, and snatched up my dad’s walker with a déjà vu feeling. I’ve done this so many times. I bring it to him and set it in front of him, but he pivots away from me with a few shuffling steps.
“Dad, c’mon! Use your walker!”
“Ralphy, please!”
I’ve repositioned the walker so that it’s right in front of him, blocking his way. He sighs and grasps it in his hands.
“If you fall again, Dad . . .”
“Now instead of one chickenhawk,” he says, “I’ve got two pecking at me.”
“Use your walker,” I say, “and we’ll stop pecking.”
“You try to control my every move. Especially your mother.”
“Oh, Ralphy.”
“Dad, I think you like to disobey Mom because it’s one of your last ways of being independent.”
He is looking away from me.
“And at the same time, you order Mom around. You use her as if she were your proxy.”
My dad looks at me sharply. “Well, of course I do,” he says. “She is.”
⊙
On Wednesday morning, I get a call from the acquisitions editor at the university press to which I’ve submitted my second book. This editor emailed me last week that she was very interested in my book manuscript, but now I’m not sure whether she’s going to say she wants to publish it or if she is calling to let me down gently.
Her voice on the phone, as in her emails, is friendly and warm. She asks a couple of questions about my collection, which is made of up love stories, more than half of which are based on my past relationships with men. And then somehow she is saying that she wants to publish it. While she can’t give me a definite yes, she is so certain that my book will be accepted by her board that she wants to offer me an advance contract. We talk about the logistics, and by the time we say good-bye, I’m feeling at once dreamy and grounded. After I get off the phone, I tell my parents.
“That’s wonderful, honey,” my mom says. “Congratulations.”
My dad says, “That’s terrific, Ann.”
My mom’s main wish for us kids has always been simply that we be happy; my dad’s primary hope is slightly more complicated: he wants us to succeed at something we love. To this end, our dad has always supported our passions, something his parents didn’t do for him. He was the first son of Italian immigrants, and his mother decided that he would be a doctor before he was born, and his father put aside part of his wages as a tool and die maker to help pay for medical school. My dad’s passion, however, was for playing ball; he so excelled at baseball that he could have played on a college team. But his father pressed him to focus solely on his studies, and my dad set baseball aside. Eight years later, when he finished medical school, he realized that he didn’t want to be a medical doctor, so he went on to become a psychiatrist instead. Eventually, my dad returned to playing ball—in the evenings and on weekends, in adult leagues and with us kids. And while he took pride in his work as chief of psychiatry at Detroit Metropolitan Hospital, his job didn’t satisfy a deeper need for expression.
For years, he talked about writing a play when he retired, and when he was in his late forties, he decided to develop his singing voice, which was quite good. My dad had just completed his first lesson with a voice teacher, an older woman who had been an opera singer, when my brother Dan’s legs were crushed at a summer factory job and amputated above the knees. Besides spending most of his time in the hospital with Danny, my dad lost the desire and ability to sing. When he called to cancel his lessons, he told his voice instructor that whenever he thought of singing, he felt like crying. His teacher told him she understood: after her sister died, she said, she wasn’t able to sing for over a year.
My dad never resumed his singing lessons. But after he retired, he began to paint with watercolors. Then, a year and a half later, Parkinson’s began to affect his fingers. They grew stiff, slow, unresponsive, unable to control a paintbrush. Still, he continued to encourage and take pride in the passions of his children.
My parents ask more questions about my forthcoming publication. My mom says, “Now you have another reason to live longer, Ralphy. You have to be here next spring, so you can see Annie’s new book.”
“I’ll try,” my dad says. “But I’m just glad to know it’s going to happen.”
⊙
Later that morning, the nurse returns, and after Yvonna presses the stethoscope to several places on my dad’s back, listening, she announces that the crackling is gone and his lungs are clear. A few hours later, my dad’s physical therapist leads his exercise regime: my father sits in his wheelchair, obeying the commands Arnav calls out in his meticulous accented English. “Hold your arms out straight, sir. Now lower them. Now raise them up high—as high as you can. That’s right. Okay, let’s see you do eight reps. One . . . two . . . three . . .”
My dad lifts his arms up and down, following Arnav’s instructions precisely. I am making peach custard pies for my husband’s birthday, which we’ll celebrate here two days from now, and since the kitchen is so small, I am working on the table in the dining room, which
is completely open to the living room and only a few feet from my dad and Arnav.
“Now, sir, I’d like you to raise your knees. Right angles to the floor. Okay, lift your knees. Up, down. Higher. As if you are marching.” Arnav holds his palms above my dad’s knees. “Higher,” he says, “higher.” My dad tries to lift his knees as high as Arnav’s palms. He manages to brush them. “Good,” Arnav says. “Keep going. Mar-ching. Mar-ching. Mar-ching.”
My dad starts moving his knees swiftly, up and down, up and down, each time hitting Arnav’s extended palms as he says, “Ching.” If he were standing and steady, he’d be marching down the hall.
“You’re really moving fast, Dad,” I say, impressed.
“Good job, sir,” Arnav encourages. “Keep going. Now rest.”
My dad stops lifting his legs and lets out his breath.
“Very good,” Arnav says.
“You really can move,” I tell my dad. “I didn’t know you still had that much coordination and strength.”
My dad doesn’t meet our eyes, but he seems very pleased—both by what he can still do and by our praise.
Arnav tells him to repeat the exercise, and as he continues to monitor my dad, he asks me what I am making.
“Peach pies, for my husband’s birthday. He’s driving over here on Friday from the west side of the state.”
Arnav nods, smiling approvingly at the two piecrusts, seemingly impressed as well as nostalgic, and I wonder if he’s remembering his mother or sister in India, preparing food he now misses. Turning his gaze and full attention back to my dad, Arnav says, “Okay, sir, two more, and then stop.”
My dad lifts his knees twice more, smacking Arnav’s palms, and then he comes to a decisive halt. After a brief rest, Arnav hands my dad his walker, helps him to stand, and tells him to walk down the hall. The Old Man shuffles along at a fairly good pace, lifting his feet a little higher than usual. Arnav follows behind him. “Turn around now, sir,” Arnav instructs, and my dad turns around and starts shuffling back, Arnav spotting him from his left side.
“Dad, you’re doing great,” I tell him. “And he listens to you really well,” I tell Arnav. “When my mom or I tell him to use his walker, he ignores us.”
Arnav smiles but doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Maybe we should start calling you ‘sir,’” I tease my dad. “Would you listen to us then?”
“No.”
“Why not? You listen to Arnav.”
My dad takes a few more steps without answering.
“I bet it’s because Arnav is a guy,” I say. “I bet you’re just being sexist.”
“It’s because Arnav is nice,” my dad says.
“Arnav’s nice, and we’re not? You don’t think Mom and I are nice?”
“No. You nag me like a couple of chickenhawks.”
I turn to Arnav. “He thinks we’re nags because we’re always telling him to use his walker. But you agree that he should use it all the time, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Arnav says, grinning. “At this point, yes.”
“See, Dad—Arnav agrees with the chickenhawks.”
My dad ignores me. Arnav is grinning widely but keeping his lips tightly closed, as if trying to keep from breaking into a full smile. He starts my dad on more exercises.
⊙
After Arnav leaves, my dad falls into a deep sleep. We don’t need to wake him for dinner, since all he is getting is Jevity, his liquid food, which my mom empties from two cans into the bag on the IV pole while my dad sleeps in the recliner. As the tan liquid descends through the plastic tubing and then through my dad’s G-tube and into his stomach, my mom and I sit at the table and eat leftover scaloppini with a green salad and beets my mom has pickled.
When my dad wakes, he joins my mom at the table, and they play chess. Despite his mental lapses, my dad is still sharp at the game. My mom wins the first match, and the second is a draw. At nine o’clock, we help my dad get ready for bed. Once again, the day has flown by—at least I’ve gotten the peach pies made, and I’ve bought the ingredients I need for my husband’s birthday dinner. And between my mom and me, we’ve taken care of the Old Man.
As I’m saying good night to him, my dad says, “Congratulations, Ann.” I’m cheered by his mental acuity as well as by his good wishes—we haven’t mentioned my forthcoming book since this morning, yet he has remembered it.
⊙
In the middle of the night, I hear something drop—it sounds like a piece of metal hitting the floor. My mom has told me to not get up at night if I wake up, that my dad doesn’t need three people attending to him, but remembering how my dad was confused and combative at night not so long ago, I get up to check.
I pause at my parents’ open door. Tonight’s aide, Emma, has gone back to bed, so it’s only the two of them, the bed cranked so that my dad is sitting halfway up, my mom standing beside him, leaning over him. “Oh, did we wake you?” my mom says. “You shouldn’t get up, Annie, we’re fine. I was just getting Ralphy some cranberry ice, and I dropped the spoon.”
“I’m just making sure he’s not being belligerent,” I say. They’re watching me, both of them quiet, my mom smiling, my dad calm and expectant. “If he was,” I say, “I was going to kick his ass.”
“I’m behaving fine,” my dad says, his voice lucid and gentle. “You know your mother—always dropping things.” It’s true, my mom has always been something of a klutz, although she’s now far more physically adept than my once graceful and athletic dad. I walk over to them and hug my dad and kiss his sharp-boned cheek.
“How does the new author feel?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say, once again glad that he remembers. Then I tell him, “But I’ve been thinking about the men I’ve written about in my book—all my old boyfriends. I was feeling a little bad for them—you know, because I’m exposing them, to an extent. But then, when I woke up just now, I thought: Motherfuckers should have known not to mess with a writer.”
My dad barks out a pleased laugh.
⊙
On Thursday, my sister picks up our brother Arthur at the airport and drops him outside our parents’ building. When I open the apartment door, there he is, grinning, long silvery hair flowing down past his shoulders. He’s brought one wheeled suitcase plus the satchel in which he keeps his medications, slung over his shoulder. In his free hand, he holds his cane. “Annie!” he says. “It’s so good to see you!” He lets go of his suitcase, sets aside his cane, and clasps me to his chest, holding me tight.
Before he started having seizures, Arthur was the most articulate of all of us kids, and besides being a fast and accurate thinker, he was also quick on his feet. He played more stoopball with our dad than any of the rest of us and more backyard basketball with the neighborhood kids. Now, though he is only fifty-six, slightly more than a year older than me, his seizures have caused lasting damage to his legs and his brain, so he always walks with something to assist him, a cane or a walker, and he often speaks slowly and at times loses his train of thought. He is more disabled than our brother Dan, who is quick-witted and funny and, despite his missing legs, incredibly graceful and swift. Yet on good days, using his cane, Arthur can still walk a couple of miles, and his intelligence still often shines through.
Arthur has changed in other ways—he’s more emotional than he once was, closer to laughter and to tears, more likely to tell you he loves you, with feeling. I’m not sure how much of this is due to the changes to his brain, but I think part of it comes from his not knowing how much longer he has to live. Any seizure could result in his death, and the toll of repeated seizures means he isn’t likely to live to be old. Life, and everything it offers, has become more precious to him, and he especially treasures the people he loves.
This leads him to a tendency to cling. He’ll prolong our embrace for minutes, if I let him. I pull away gently, feeling a little guilty, but our parents are waiting for hugs, too. “Mom!” he says, walking into the living room. As she answers, “H
i, Artie, how are you?” he throws his arms around her and sighs. Above them, on a shelf that runs the length of the vast stereo system, is Arthur’s ceramic art—thrown jugs sculpted with forbidding and grotesque faces and a variety of objects jutting from them. In the past two and a half decades, he has focused on creating face jugs, an art form initiated by American slaves and later undertaken by southern whites. Arthur has made the genre all his own. Hundreds of his face jugs are in private collections and a few are owned by museums, including the Smithsonian. My parents own several dozen, all on display. Lately, Arthur has begun marking the names of his three kids on the bottoms of his jugs, so that when he dies, they each will have a few of his pieces, either to sell if they need money or else to keep and remember him by.
That afternoon, Arnav is back working with Dad, and Arthur, too, is amazed at how well our dad can move. “Look at you, Dad! You keep that up, you’re going to beat me in a race.”
“Mar-ching, mar-ching, mar-ching,” Arnav calls out. Our dad’s face is focused, intent, and he is hitting Arnav’s palms with his knees at each ching.
⊙
On Friday evening my husband arrives, and we celebrate his birthday with lasagna, garlic bread, and salad, followed by peach custard pie. My dad says it’s the best lasagna he’s ever eaten, and Murray is pleased with his birthday pie, into which I’ve poked a handful of candles. We sing “Happy Birthday” to Murray, and, as usual at our family gatherings, there is a lot of talking and joking and laughter.
That night after our early dinner, our dad is watching TV in the darkened living room when Arthur starts asking him about the Selma to Montgomery march, which has been in the news lately because its fiftieth anniversary is approaching. I stop beside my dad’s wheelchair to listen.
I had just turned eight and Arthur was nine when our dad told us he was going down to Alabama to march. I remember his good-bye because it was unusual: he spoke to each of us separately rather than all five of us together, and he was extremely solemn. Our dad returned safely from Montgomery, but I later learned that Viola Liuzzo, also from Detroit and the parent of five children, had been killed by racist whites soon after the march was over, and so had never made it back home to Detroit and her family. I realized then why our dad had taken his time saying good-bye, looking into our eyes and being so serious and quiet.