“I’ll get it!” Dad called. Mom followed him to the front door and they returned to the kitchen with Aunty. Aunty placed the large cardboard box she was carrying on the kitchen table. Foster could smell the warm pastry immediately.
“I asked you to pick up a cake!” Mom said.
“Well, I got sausage rolls,” Aunty said. She looked Mom up and down, then said with a slight smile, “I see you want to look like you’re coping.”
“Can I have a sausage roll?” Foster asked.
Mom looked Aunty up and down. Then she said, “You could have made a bit of an effort.”
“This is me having made an effort. And I brought sausage rolls. As far as effort is concerned, I’m exhausted.” Aunty kissed Dad then. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“Let’s have sausage rolls!” he said.
“I want one too,” Foster said.
“Not yet,” Mom said, retrieving a large platter. “When they get here. Foster, you can take some to your room.”
“When who gets here?” Dad asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Mom said.
“Why do I have to go to my room?” Foster asked.
“The social workers are coming, Malcolm, remember?” Aunty said.
“I don’t want anyone in the house today,” Dad said. He looked sullen and annoyed. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“You were told,” Aunty said. “They won’t stay long.”
Mom arranged the sausage rolls on the platter, flakes of buttery pastry sticking to her fingers, delicious-smelling slivers crumbling onto the table. She was muttering, like she did a lot lately, but Foster still heard it: “…asked you to bring cake…”
Foster was picking up pastry crumbs with a wet finger when there was another knock at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Aunty said.
“No, I’ll get it,” Mom said. “Fossie, go to your room.”
“Why do I have to go to my room?” Foster demanded, somewhat soothed by Aunty shoving three sausage rolls wrapped in a paper towel into his hands.
“Foster, I have no idea,” Aunty said. “But just do it. Make Mom happy, huh?”
“I’m going with him,” Dad said, reaching over and grabbing sausage rolls with both hands.
“Actually, I think it’ll make her happy if you stay,” Aunty said. They could hear fast, quiet voices in the family room. Foster took his bounty and headed down the hall. Halfway to his room, he stopped. Without thinking too much about it, he walked back and stood just out of view in the foyer. With his hands full, he used his mouth to manipulate one end of a sausage roll into it. Chewing slowly, he peeked into the family room.
There were two of them: a man and a woman. The woman was very thin and wore a skirt that stretched tight as a drum across her thighs, so tight he doubted she could have crossed her knees. She had her ankles crossed instead. She was running her palms across her lap, smoothing the skirt. The man was fat. He was fat all over in the way Foster imagined jolly people would be fat. He wore a suit and tie. The suit jacket had no chance of ever being buttoned and Foster could tell the tie was too short. Dad would never wear a tie that short. The man seemed to have bosoms as well. Foster stifled a giggle with a swallow.
They were soon joined by Aunty and Dad. Then Mom walked in, placing cups of tea and coffee on the little table usually covered with dirty dishes and magazines, now polished to a high shine. She had to make several trips to bring in all the drinks, then the sausage rolls. She put the sausage rolls down as if she was sorry about them. Foster heard her suck her tongue into a tsk.
“Thank you for coming,” Mom said. “This is my husband, Malcolm. My sister-in-law, Linda.”
“Linda,” Fat Man said, leaning forward to shake Aunty’s hand. “Malcolm,” he said, leaning forward to shake Dad’s. Fat Man’s hand was left hanging awkwardly in midair before it was retracted. That was when Foster saw that Dad still had two fists full of sausage rolls. Mom reached across to take them, but Dad pulled his hands away roughly and said, “Get your own! Plateful there!”
Mom sat again, looking uncomfortable.
“Don’t blame you, Malcolm,” Fat Man said. “I love sausage rolls.” With that he picked one up and took a hearty bite.
Thin Lady said, “We understand you have a ten-year-old son? It would probably be useful if he sat in on this. Get some understanding of where things are going?”
Foster didn’t want to give Mom the opportunity to make excuses for him not being there, so he stepped out of hiding right away and said, “Okay.”
Mom looked uncomfortable again, as if she were about to take a test.
But Dad smiled his happiest smile and said, “Hiya, Fossie!”
They stayed for an hour. Foster watched the clock hands crawl around the face, wishing he had gone to his room and refused to come out. His boredom for the duration of that crawling hour trumped all his previous annoyance at being left out. Dad was bored too. Foster could tell, because he got up several times without excusing himself and wandered off. Even Foster knew not to do that. Aunty would go after him and bring him back, and even though Thin Lady said it was quite all right if Malcolm wanted to go and do something else, Mom got a bit bothered by that suggestion, so the regular Dad retrievals were put up with for her comfort. Foster thought they should just let him go take some doors off or something.
They talked a lot about Mom getting enough help and enough rest and about setting things in place now for when things began to deteriorate even more. Aunty asked about residential care, which elicited a surprisingly fervent “No, no, no, no” from Mom, along with a hurried but firm explanation that that sort of thing was surely a long way off. Aunty took pamphlets anyway. Foster whiled away some of the time flicking through them, looking at pictures of well-dressed, happy old people doing crafts and playing board games. It occurred to Foster that there were no people in the pictures like Dad. No one wearing a suit.
Soon the sausage rolls were gone. Foster and Dad kept shoving them down. Foster waited for a scolding word from Mom about ruined appetites, and was surprised when she didn’t seem to care. She was all high-strung, as Aunty called it, because everyone was finding talking directly to Dad hard work. When they did ask him a question, he’d answer the one that was in his head rather than the one that was in the room. So Mom did a lot of answering for him, which Foster thought was a bit rude. She wasn’t giving Dad enough time to think, and she was making him look stupid. The only time Foster was really interested in what was going on was when Fat Man asked him a question. Foster was really annoyed when Mom started to answer for him as well.
“Foster is doing just fine. He’s been very good, very understanding and—”
Foster flicked all the pastry crumbs sticking to his clothes onto the floor and said, “You said I was making things more difficult.”
“Oh, Fossie, I did not,” Mom said with an embarrassed smile.
“Yes, you did. Remember? You said Aunty was too. Didn’t she, Aunty?” Foster waited for Aunty to come to his aid.
Aunty hesitated before saying, “Well, not exactly. That’s a bit out of context.”
Foster didn’t know what context was but continued anyway, speaking right at Fat Man, who had asked the question after all. Mom didn’t even know how Foster was doing. It’s not like she asked him.
“I miss Dad’s stories. Mom is angry a lot. She never cooks really good stuff anymore. She works a lot. And I have to watch Dad when he used to watch me.”
Foster felt a bit breathless when he finished speaking. Mom looked devastated.
“That’s in context!” Aunty said, laughing.
“That can’t feel very good, Foster,” Fat Man said.
“It’s okay.”
“Do you want to talk more about that?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because we can talk about that if it’s bothering you.”
“Not bothered.”
“Well, let’s look at it th
is way. What’s one of your favorite things that Mom used to cook?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Sure you do! What’s your favorite thing to eat for dinner?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Mom said, suddenly standing up. The whole room snapped to attention. Foster had been enjoying the chat with Fat Man, and had been planning to drag it out a bit longer. He felt very visible in the spaces between each of the questions Fat Man asked. Every eye in the room had been on him, and not in the sideways way people usually looked at him lately. That sideways look that was really just a way of estimating his distance from a grown-up conversation so that the volume could be adjusted to exclude him. But Mom had all the attention now, and for someone who had just stood up and yelled into a quiet room, she was looking as if she didn’t want it anymore.
“What’s wrong?” Dad asked.
“Nothing. Nothing, Malcolm. I’m just going to take these cups out.” She quickly placed the empty cups on the platter. One fell over.
“I’ll help you,” Aunty said, leaning forward to stand up the cup.
“I don’t need any help.”
“You don’t say.”
“Foster, perhaps you could go and play now,” Thin Lady said. “Let the grown-ups talk for a bit?”
“I’m going with him,” Dad said. “Who are you people, anyway? When are you leaving? I don’t want you here.”
“The kitchen’s that way,” Aunty said, pointing. Mom was still standing in the middle of the room, platter in her hands.
They all started moving then, all at the same time. Mom to the kitchen, Aunty right behind her, Dad down the hall, Foster right behind him. In a matter of seconds, Fat Man and Thin Lady were left alone in the room, everyone else having scattered as if on the tailwind of a fart. Dad used to say that whenever a room cleared quickly. Foster thought it was funny.
“Are we on the tailwind of a fart, Dad?” Foster asked, taking his dad’s hand.
“I did fart,” Dad said. Foster laughed until his tummy hurt.
The signs went up the following day. Mom printed them on the computer in big, bold lettering—all in capitals too. They said things like LAUNDRY and KITCHEN and BEDROOM, and there wasn’t just one of each. One went on the door of the room, and one went on the wall of the room in case Dad went in there and then forgot which room he was in. In the kitchen there were lots of signs. CUPS and SPOONS and PLATES, and on the fridge door a sign that said MILK, BREAD, BUTTER. Mom suggested Foster do drawings on the signs. Pictures of what the signs meant, or just nice colored borders to make them more interesting. Foster was thrilled to be included and was hunkered down at the kitchen table doing just that when Dad joined him. Foster spread the pencils out so Dad could reach them. Dad didn’t say anything, he just picked up a pencil and began writing numbers all over the sign that read TOILET.
“What are you doing, Dad?” Foster asked without looking up.
“Making money for other people,” Dad replied.
Aunty had been suggesting signs around the house for a while, but Mom didn’t do it until the respite lady suggested it. Aunty was mad about that and had told the respite lady that Mom was pig-headed. Foster wasn’t supposed to have heard that, and Mom hadn’t heard that. She had been at work. Respite Lady had told Aunty, “We are all on the same side here.” Aunty had told Respite Lady she had a dog who was easier to communicate with.
Respite Lady’s name was Sophie. There were a few different ones, but Sophie came the most often. There was only one respite man and Dad didn’t like him. Dad thought he was Mom’s new boyfriend.
Foster asked Sophie what respite was. She said it meant giving Mom a break so she could go out shopping or see a movie. Foster waited and waited for Mom to take him to a movie. She didn’t. Foster felt like she was respiting from him as well. He didn’t know where she went when she had her respite time, but she was always dressed up and always seemed to come back even more tired. He assumed she was still working on her “just until” things.
“Let me come to the accountant with you,” Aunty had said one day. “Let me help you get the paperwork together. What else do they need to get this thing moving?”
“It’s our private financial business,” Mom had replied.
“Then talk to Sophie! Talk to anyone! Get some independent counseling on this compassionate grounds pension release thing!”
“I am.”
“From whom?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“You are getting completely lost, you know that?” Aunty had said. “You are so desperate to be in control of everything that you’re just white-knuckling with no direction at all. Being a guilt-ridden martyr doesn’t make you noble. Sure as hell won’t save Malcolm either.”
Mom always drank wine after Aunty had visited.
Foster knew what a martyr was from Dad’s stories. It was someone who would rather die than give up what he or she believed in. In ancient times people did it a lot. Foster didn’t know whether to be fiercely proud of Mom’s allegiance to Dad or terrified that it would kill her. He wasn’t afraid of her getting lost, though. She’d been lost before and clawed her way back. Foster was hoping she’d drag Dad back with her this time. Foster assumed the signs around the house were a part of that.
Dad had been getting confused in the house quite a bit. He knew he was home but kept asking why things had been moved or changed. He became convinced that his favorite chair had been sold and replaced with another. He was sure the carpeting in the hall had been ripped up and replaced, and demanded to know where Mom had found the money to do that. He could go hours and hours without speaking a word and then become really angry that all the clothes in his wardrobe had been swapped with someone else’s. Foster didn’t like this angry Dad, and Mom just seemed to make things worse. When she called him irrational, Dad would slam doors and try to get away from her.
Sophie told Mom that Dad was not being irrational, that his delusions were as real to him as they were unreal to her. She suggested distracting Dad rather than arguing with him.
“Can we tell him his old chair is out for cleaning and will be back tomorrow?” Aunty asked. “He’ll have forgotten about it by tomorrow, and if he hasn’t we can just tell him the same thing again.”
“I will not become a part of his delusion,” Mom said.
“You already are,” Aunty said. “He thinks you’re sleeping with that guy who comes in on Tuesdays.” Then Sophie told Mom to pick her battles, which Foster knew would really set Mom off.
Sophie also suggested a name tag: something Dad could wear on the off chance he wandered away while they were out or left the house without their knowledge. Mom did her “No, no, no, no” thing again, assuring Sophie that the need for a name tag was a long way off. Aunty got mad again because she’d been mentioning that for a while herself. Mom suggested a card placed discreetly in his wallet until Sophie pointed out that a stranger would be reluctant to go through Dad’s wallet, especially if Dad was already in a distressed state. Something more immediately and visually apparent would assist in the police being called promptly. So Sophie suggested a nice piece of jewelry—a bracelet or pendant—with Dad’s name and a couple of phone numbers on it.
“Malcolm doesn’t wear jewelry,” Mom said.
“Teachers at school wear a plastic thing around their neck when we go on field trips,” Foster said.
“I’m with Fossie on the lanyard,” Aunty said.
“Fossie, this is nothing for you to worry about,” Mom said.
“I think he is worried,” Sophie said. “I think he should be encouraged to contribute and to understand what’s happening.”
“I don’t think a child should have to deal with adult issues,” Mom replied.
“I think you might be forgetting that he is already dealing with it,” Sophie said.
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Mom replied.
“But you did!” Foster yelle
d. He’d had a yell in him for a while, just sitting there festering, a yell he’d done in his head, a yell his clothespin-basket captives had done for him, a big yell about missed lunches and silent dinners and all the anger that hid under even the nice things that were said around here lately. “You forgot everything! Dad told me. But you got everything back after you were cleaned up! And now Dad’s been cleaned up too, and you’re just mean about it and everyone’s always mad! And if he runs away again I’m going with him, and we won’t wear lemon yards!”
“Lemon…yards,” Aunty said slowly.
“Lanyards?” Sophie offered.
Foster ran out of the kitchen and down the hall to his room, trying to make his feet really loud. He heard Mom call after him pleadingly. He heard her sorry voice following him. He didn’t care. He stood on the threshold of his bedroom and yelled, “Pick your battles!”
Then he slammed the door.
Foster hadn’t felt really scared until Dad forgot Geraldine. It wasn’t that Dad sometimes forgot her and then reconnected when she shoved her wet snout into the palm of his hand. Dad just suddenly stopped recognizing her altogether and started shoving her out onto the street as if she were a stray who had somehow managed to get into their backyard. Geraldine started hiding down in the back by the jacaranda as if she somehow knew Dad wouldn’t venture that far. But there was always that random moment when she was sunning herself on the bricks by the back door that would be interrupted by Dad’s furious conviction that she didn’t belong to them. If Dad could completely forget the years of burying his face into her prickly muzzle and holding her like a baby on his lap, how long would it be before Dad tried shoving Foster out through the side gate? Geraldine had been around longer than Foster too.
Mom put a padlock on the side gate, but that just meant Dad started dragging Geraldine by the scruff through the house and pushing her out the front door.
Sticky Notes Page 9