A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents

by Liza Palmer

  “I know you know,” I say. Ugh. I KNOW YOU KNOW?!

  “I know you know I know,” John laughs, just inches from me now. The quiet of Dad’s office is all but gone.

  “I know you know I kn—” I can’t help but attempt a joke. John stops me with the gentlest kiss. Light. Warmth. Comfort.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back.

  “Didn’t you say that you would have said ‘I love you—’ ” I point out.

  “I love you,” John says, without hesitation. I brush his lips with the tips of my fingers. I can’t help myself. He watches me intently.

  “I know,” I answer.

  “So you’re Han Solo now?” John laughs. Right. I unwittingly called up Han Solo’s nonchalant response to Princess Leia’s declaration of undying love in The Empire Strikes Back.

  “No… right?” I babble. John helps me up off the floor of Dad’s office.

  “No, right?” John repeats.

  “I always thought that was an asshole line, too. But now I think I get it.”

  “Are we honestly talking about Star Wars right now?” John asks, his head tilted.

  “No, well, yes—but no.”

  “You sound like Leo.”

  “I always knew I loved you, but I never really believed you loved me. That I…” I trail off. Where I’m going with this sounds pathetic.

  “That you?” John presses.

  “That I deserved to be loved back,” I finish, my stomach turning. My brutal honesty is working as a sort of organic ipecac, ensuring that I will most certainly vomit again if I insist on voicing my innermost thoughts further.

  “Yeah, I can understand that,” John agrees. I breathe deep.

  “I guess I wasn’t the only one who was abandoned,” I say, pulling him close.

  “Nope,” John answers, his eyes darting around Dad’s office.

  “I’ll never walk away from you again,” I promise, steadying his body.

  John takes a deep breath, his eyes averted and searching. He lets out a wry laugh, but finally allows his gaze to rest on me again. His head tilts as his eyes lock on to mine.

  I let my hand fall onto his chest, his crisp oxford-cloth shirt just underneath. I unbutton the top button of his shirt. Then the next. Then the next. John’s breath quickens. I open the top of his shirt, my hands moving eagerly over his now bare chest. His gaping shirt barely hangs on to his broad shoulders.

  Then my eyes fall on my own name. Engraved across his heart. He notices and starts to raise his arms to protect himself. I gently ease his arms back down to his sides and look up at him. He looks anywhere but at me, panicked and vulnerable. I run my fingers over my name as his skin goose-pimples underneath. He flinches. My deliberate, almost intrusive exploration of him goes against every fiber of his being. I can feel his heart beating. Quick, strong thumps under my hand. Under my name. John reaches his hand up and takes mine in his.

  “You go any further and I’m not going to be able to stop,” John says, a roguish curl to his mouth. I look up at him.

  “Right,” I agree, my hands now hovering just above his naked skin.

  “This isn’t quite where I envisioned our big reunion,” John says. Dad’s haunted office comes zooming back and immediately my face flushes. I feel monumentally embarrassed.

  He leans back, buttoning up his shirt, and continues, “Let’s just call this intermission.”

  “Intermission,” I repeat, tightening my hands in fists, hoping it’ll somehow trap the heat from John’s body.

  “Get the crucifix. I’ll get the bag,” John says.

  chapter seventeen

  I’m running down the hallway of the hospital with a giant crucifix in my hand. I must look like some kind of crazy, jogging exorcist.

  “Grace—slow down,” John says, his heavy footsteps just behind me as we make the final turn before the ICU nurse’s station. He’s acting like he can’t move faster than me, but I can see he’s hardly trying. And without the giant crucifix in his hand, he doesn’t pack quite the same visual punch as I do.

  “Almost there,” I say, my back to him.

  “We’re making quite an entrance,” John says as I set the giant crucifix on the counter of the final nurse’s station.

  I sign my name. The nurse passes me my name tag. I pat the HAWKES sticker onto the same hoodie I’m apparently going to die in and watch as John leans over and signs in after me. The bend of his back. The black hair cut sharply at the nape of his neck. The hint of the tattoo that looms just underneath his starched collar. Mine for the unearthing. I force myself to shake it off. Intermission. I pick up the crucifix and wait by the door. John pats his MOSS name tag onto the lapel of the custom-tailored suit jacket he put back on after almost being mauled by me in Dad’s office and apparently again right here at the nurse’s station.

  We walk into the sound of buzzing, whirring and urgent voices, and instead of my heart rate climbing, I calm down just a bit, knowing I’ve brought Dad something he wanted. I’ve done something useful. Leo and Huston are standing at Dad’s bedside while Abigail sits in the hospital chair against the far wall under the window. I like it like this. No Connie and Dennis. Just us. Offering Dad some sense of peace.

  I walk over to Dad’s bedside, next to Huston, and show Dad the crucifix.

  “Two. Two?” I ask, holding the crucifix so Dad can see it.

  Dad’s face immediately lights up. He raises his restrained hand and gives me a big thumbs-up.

  “Ha!” Huston laughs, clapping Dad on the shoulder. Dad barks out a cracking laugh and shrugs his shoulder for Huston.

  “I got it,” I say, still holding the cross over him. From the outside, it must look like some weird religious rite is going on in here.

  Dad gives me another thumbs-up and holds his hand out for me. I hand the crucifix to Huston as he steps aside to make room for me. Huston and John stand just behind me.

  “I got it,” I whisper again. Dad grabs my hand and tightens his grip, shaking my hand around a little. He launches into sentence after sentence of gibberish, which causes the whole room to go quiet. We had convinced ourselves he was getting better. But this torrent of nonsense reminds us that he’s still a stroke victim. He’s still sick. I smile down at Dad as he tightens his grip.

  “You said two. I understood,” I say, feeling bad. I don’t mean to be talking down to him, I just want to answer as broadly as I can, hoping he’ll know I heard. Dad stares up at me. The ice-blue eyes that I inherited. The face… that face. His face. I tilt my head and just take him in. He allows a wide, crooked smile. I inhale, taking in with the breath the stream of tears I’ve promised will stay away until later. It’s not the time.

  Say something, I think to myself. Stop talking about the damn crucifix and tell my dad I love him. Or I forgive him. Or I know he’ll pull through. Or something meaningful. A beautiful soliloquy that neatly conveys all my emotions. I open my mouth and take a breath, getting ready to say something meaningful, but then I stop. I don’t want him to think… I don’t want him to think he’s dying.

  “We were talking last night about when Abigail broke her leg,” I blurt. Huston perks up behind me as Abigail rolls her eyes.

  “She loves telling this story, Dad,” Abigail says, from the hospital chair against the far wall.

  “She hates when I tell it,” I say, winking down at Dad. “So Abigail is convinced that the cast is waterproof.”

  Abigail laughs. “The doctor told me it was!” Dad barks out another rumbly laugh and tightens his grip on my hand. I breathe in. Dad laughs again… rumbly and low. That cracking laugh I remember. Breathe.

  “The doctor said you could splash it by accident,” Huston adds, his face becoming blotchier.

  “So, we’re all swimming in the neighbors’ pool. The Woods’, you remember?” I ask. Dad nods yes. He nods yes to everything. Leo sniffles and Abigail hands him a tissue.

  “And she jumps in!” Huston says, coming up beside me, resting his hand on mine. Dad sm
iles wide and tries to turn his head to where Abigail is. She gathers herself, smiles wide and stands, joining Huston and me on Dad’s good side. Keep it together. For Dad.

  “Cast and all,” I add, my face as animated as if I were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the twins.

  “I thought it was waterproof!” Abigail says, her brow furrowed. Dad is watching us all. Taking us all in, smiling wide and laughing. Tightening my grip on his hand, I keep leaning over and smiling.

  I love you, I say inside my head. A thousand times, I love you.

  “She sunk right to the bottom,” I say, bringing my other hand from under Huston’s to mime right on down.

  “Right to the bottom,” Abigail adds, turning away for the briefest of seconds. She collects herself and turns back around.

  “Huston had to dive in and save her,” Leo adds, finally able to speak. He stands at the foot of Dad’s bed. Dad makes eye contact with him. The eleven-year-old boy he left. How grown-up Dad must think he is now. Leo smiles back at Dad. I see him make the effort to keep smiling and not crack. He stares at me and I offer him an easy smile. It soothes him and I see him take a deep breath.

  “She must have weighed close to seven hundred pounds,” Huston adds, his face reddening further.

  “I don’t think you’ve ever admitted you were wrong,” I say, laughing over at Abigail. She contorts a smile back.

  “Because I wasn’t wrong! My doctor said it was waterproof,” Abigail says, deftly wiping her nose on her sweater set.

  Dad shakes my hand around a bit and then lets go, reaching for Huston. I take a step back and focus on Huston as he steps in. I reach for John’s hand like I’m falling off a cliff. He takes it—closing his hand tightly around mine.

  “Can you believe that, Dad?” Huston says down to Dad, his voice singsongy and light, but I can see his entire body is tight and restrained. Focus. Dad reaches out for Abigail as Huston steps back next to me. He wraps his arm around me and brings me in close. His jaw clenches as he lets his head fall to his chest for the briefest of seconds. He squeezes my waist tightly as he looks back up, his eyes rimmed in red. Not a single tear. We’re here to make Dad feel better, not burden him with our sadness.

  “You had it handled, I know,” I whisper.

  “You did a good thing,” he whispers, as he pats my back.

  “He’s really laughing,” I say, trying to just get one deep breath. To my surprise, it works—I breathe, deeply. I look back down just as Dad reaches out for Leo. Abigail steps back. There is an awkward moment between Abigail and Huston. They don’t know quite how to comfort each other. They reach for each other’s hand, then shoulder, then waist. They know they need to hold each other, but they just don’t know how. In the end, Abigail lets herself fold into Huston and allows him to hold her. Leo takes Dad’s hand and comes in close to his face.

  “Jumped right in! Cast and all!” Leo laughs, his free hand a contorted mess just below the hospital bed. I can see Leo’s teardrops hit the metal safety bar on Dad’s bed, but his entire body is easy and his smile is clear and bright. Dad shakes his hand back and forth and speaks sentence after sentence of gibberish, his face animated and alive with determination. Leo hangs in there, trying to understand him, trying to answer back. But in the end he simply repeats, “I know… I know…” Over and over again. Dad calms down and his eyes begin to blink slowly. Tired again. Leo keeps saying “I know… I know…” as Dad slowly fades into sleep, finally letting go of Leo’s hand. Leo steadies himself on the now damp metal safety bar and turns around. Huston takes his arms from around Abigail and catches Leo as he falls into his arms, quietly crying.

  “I know… shhhhh… shhhh,” Huston whispers, patting his back.

  Leo quietly sniffles. “We really got him going, didn’t we?”

  “He was really laughing,” Huston soothes, pulling Leo close.

  The room falls silent as we all try to compose ourselves. Abigail is the first to speak. She has lists that need checking off.

  “We have to go,” she says, looking at Leo. I look past Huston and see Abigail and Leo make eye contact. She raises her eyebrows expectantly at him as if to imply, “Wrap this up.” We have work to do. We must take care of Dad, not sit around crying. Find a proper facility for him back in LA.

  “Okay… okay…” Leo says, wiping his face again. Abigail nods and takes his hand, giving him a quick squeeze.

  “I’ve made appointments at five places for this afternoon. We can get back down the 101 and at our first stop by eleven-thirty,” Abigail says, gathering her belongings. All business. Leo follows, sniffling and swiping at his face, holding Abigail’s hand like one of the twins. Dad’s rumbling breathing fills the room.

  “Are they all in South Pas?” Huston asks, smoothing his coat.

  “Three are in South Pas, one is in Pasadena and one is in Alhambra,” Abigail says.

  “And you’ll call when you’ve found a place?” Huston asks, turning to Abigail.

  “I’ll call when our first duck is officially in a row,” Abigail says, shifting up onto her tiptoes to give Huston a quick peck on the cheek as she walks out of Dad’s hospital room with Leo in tow.

  “Now, let’s get to those documents,” Huston says, turning to a very uncomfortable-looking John, who’s still holding my hand. Huston looks at us. Looks down at our hands and then back up at us. His face registers a flash of embarrassment, but then he just takes a deep breath as a smile breaks across his face.

  “They’re in John’s car,” I say, my face flushing.

  “Let’s get to it,” John says, squeezing my hand tighter.

  chapter eighteen

  Did you want the coffee with soy?” the woman behind the counter of the organic market asks John. We’ve just finished having dinner served up with a side of stilted, yet slightly suggestive, conversation.

  Where do we start? The beginning? All over again? Just after intermission?

  “Just black will be fine,” John answers, turning back to me, getting ready to speak.

  “Black?” The woman is confused. John turns back to her.

  “Plain. Black.” John’s voice rises just a bit.

  “Skim? Two percent? Whole? Raw?” the woman asks, becoming annoyed.

  “Black.” The woman begins to scrawl on John’s cup. He continues, “No milk. Just coffee.” The woman scratches out what she wrote. We both stifle a smile at her passion for dairy products.

  “And for you?” the woman asks me, noticeably annoyed.

  “Earl Grey?” I ask, scanning the menu.

  “We have chamomile, red rooibos and a really fantastic house tea called Eve’s Revenge,” the woman impatiently relays. John rolls his eyes, passes me a twenty and walks away.

  “I’ll have the chamomile,” I say, handing her the twenty.

  The woman hands me the change as I scan the market for the one person who doesn’t fit. Amidst the hemp-panted, Birkenstock-wearing clientele I find the one lone business suit, perusing an entire endcap loaded with hundreds of types of raw sugar.

  “Here you go,” the woman says, passing me the drinks. I take them and make my way back over to John.

  “I feel like some crotchety old square in here,” John says, taking the coffee.

  “I think using the word square suggests that you are,” I say.

  “Ten minutes to order a black coffee,” he mutters, taking a sip.

  “It’s a very complicated process,” I say, happy to be away from the hospital.

  “So…” John trails off as we walk out the automatic doors and onto the beautiful streets of Ojai.

  “So…” I repeat.

  “What’s Huston doing tonight?”

  “He said he was going to try and get some sleep. Big day tomorrow,” I say, feeling a pang of guilt that Huston’s by himself.

  “He can be such an old man sometimes.”

  “A square, if you will.”

  “Oh, you know I will.” John laughs. My face flushes.

 
; “Is Huston seeing anyone?” I pry, as I’ve done my whole life. Huston has always been a vault when it comes to his love life. Leo and I were notorious for whipping open Huston’s bedroom door at odd times, hoping to catch him “in the act” with whatever girl he had over at the time. We never caught him “in the act,” but we did get more Indian burns and noogies than were really deserved, in my opinion.

  “He was seeing this actress for a while,” John answers.

  “An actress?”

  “And then a few others. There was a vet.” John trails off.

  “Like a Vietnam vet?” I ask, crossing the street. John takes my hand as we navigate the traffic, nodding thank-you to a woman who allows us to cross. So normal.

  “Yeah, it was kind of a May/December thing,” John says, laughing. We stand in front of my bed-and-breakfast. He doesn’t let go of my hand.

  “You’re not going to tell me any hard facts, are you?” I ask.

  “No,” John answers simply, facing me.

  “You’re a good friend,” I say, looking up into the bed-and-breakfast.

  We are quiet. An elderly couple nods hello as they walk up the steps.

  “Is intermission over?” I blurt.

  “Hell yes,” John says, tugging on my hand as we climb the stairs.

  “This is the worst tea I’ve ever tasted,” I say, tossing my cup into the trash bin just inside the lobby.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but Jesus,” John says, tossing his cup in as well.

  “I’m up here,” I say, nervous and jittery.

  “Yeah, I got that,” John says, climbing the rickety staircase behind me.

  “Is… is this wrong?” I ask. John climbs the two steps that separate us. He backs me up against the railing. I can feel my face begin to redden—what would that elderly couple think of us now?

  “No,” John says, just before coming in for a deep, beautiful, warm, long kiss. Goodness.

  I curl my fingers around the wooden railing, trying to keep my balance, getting lost in him, in the jolt of comfort he offers. His body is hard against mine, his arm pressed against the wall just behind me, his leg now in between mine. I uncurl my fingers from around the wooden railing and wrap my arm around his waist, pulling him closer. Closer. I inch my hand up to his neck, his jaw, his face, his hair, and back around his head… closer, closer, closer.