“You told me he’s sick.”
“Which is why I need to get him back.”
“Can someone pick him up? Like his family?”
“Probably not. It’s complicated.”
“Let me text my roommate,” Peter says. “Maybe we can borrow his car.”
“I’m really sorry, Peter.”
She turns to look at her father shaking and wet in his chair in the hallway. “His name is David,” she tells Peter, realizing then that she probably shouldn’t have said this, that if anyone would recognize David Christie, even eighteen years after he fell off the radar, it would be a political junkie like Peter, and now he has a first name. Stupid, stupid, she thinks.
Peter walks into the hallway and stands near David’s chair. “Hi, I’m Peter,” he says.
“Peter what?” David whispers.
“Peter Swann.”
“That’s a good name,” David says. “Don’t ever ruin it.”
“Do you need anything?” Peter says to David, and when he doesn’t answer, Peter looks at Avery.
“Thanks,” Avery says, “but if you’re able to borrow your roommate’s car, that would be awesome.”
In her room, waiting for Peter to text her, Avery blow-dries her father’s hair. She hangs his raincoat to dry; his shirt and tie are damp, but not nearly as wet as his pants. She remembers that she still has the blue tie from the first time she visited her father. She gets it from her sock drawer, where it has been folded neatly for the past month. Carefully, she loosens the knot of the tie he’s wearing until it comes undone. After laying that tie on her desk to dry, she stands behind his wheelchair with the tie from her drawer. She flips up his shirt collar and on her first try ties a perfect knot. When she walks around to the front of the chair to look, she sees that her father’s eyes are closed. At first she wonders if he’s sleeping, but then he opens his eyes and looks at her. “So now you know,” he says, “how to tie a tie.” Avery pats the legs of her father’s pants with a towel, but this doesn’t dry them much. She takes off his shoes and socks and then wrings out his socks into a coffee mug. She drapes the socks over her desk chair and finds a pair of her own, gray wool socks, too small to fit her father well but better than putting the wet socks back on.
Avery looks at the bed, which she intentionally left unmade. The pencil Peter gave her lies on top of his note on her desk. Last night and even this morning seem very long ago.
She crouches beside her father and says, “We’ll get you back soon.”
“Don’t bring me back,” he whispers.
“Your family’s probably looking for you,” she says. “And for me.”
*
Peter helps her bring David inside. A young police officer, tall and trim, his uniform dripping wet, is standing at the nurses’ station. He and Peter are wearing the same horn-rimmed glasses.
As angry as the staff are, they’re also relieved to see David.
“You can’t just leave with someone,” the nurse with gray hair says. “You didn’t sign out. We had no idea where Mr. Christie was.”
Peter puts his hand on Avery’s back. “No one said anything,” she says. “We walked right out.”
“Who was at the front desk?” the nurse says.
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Avery says.
“I asked her to,” David whispers.
The nurse and police officer lean in closer to hear. “I wanted to go,” he says.
“I’m sorry about all this,” Avery says.
“You’re very loyal,” David says to her, and then the nurse pushes his wheelchair away.
“What’s your name?” the officer says.
“Avery.”
“Avery what?”
“Avery Modern.”
“What’s your relationship to Mr. Christie?”
“I visit him,” she says. “I keep him company.”
“Do you know how worried his family is?”
“I’m his family,” Avery says. Peter’s hand is still touching her back.
“You said your name’s Modern,” the officer says.
“No disrespect, Officer,” Peter says, “but some people don’t share their father’s last name.”
“Who are you?”
“Peter Swann,” Peter says. “I don’t use my father’s last name either.”
“Okay, but who are you?”
“I’m her friend.”
“Let me explain why I’m here,” the officer says. “A man who lives in this facility was unaccounted for, so they called the police, and now it’s my job to make sure the missing person is accounted for—check—and ascertain how he went missing—check—and why—check—and if any laws were broken.”
“Do you know who he is?” Peter says.
“Yes.”
“And do you understand who she is?”
“May we leave now?” Avery says.
“As soon as I receive word that no one wishes to press any charges.”
The officer asks Avery for identification, and she gives him her driver’s license. He writes a few things in his small notepad, then walks away to speak with the nurse and several other staff members.
“You recognized him,” Avery says.
“Yes,” Peter says.
“When I brought him to your room.”
“When you said his name.”
“Did you know then that he’s my father?”
“I searched Avery Modern and David Christie, and Google filled in the connection for me. A few more clicks and there you were.”
“Do you care?”
“Of course,” Peter says. “Wait, do you mean do I care who your father is?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Peter says. “I mean, I care, like I want to know about you, whatever you want to tell me, but—what I’m trying to say is that I give a shit and that you didn’t do anything wrong and you’re going to walk out of here with me and if for some stupid reason they don’t let you, I’ll stay, and if they haul your ass to jail, I’ll get myself arrested so I can keep you company.”
“That’s sweet,” Avery says, “but they probably wouldn’t put us in the same cell.”
“No one’s going to jail.” The officer is standing behind them. He gives Avery her license, looks at his notes, at his phone, and then at Avery. “You won’t be allowed here,” he tells her, “unless you contact Mr. Christie’s family to get their permission.”
“She’s his family,” Peter says.
“She’s not listed as such in any legal capacity when it comes to Mr. Christie’s health care.”
“She’s his daughter,” Peter says. “Legally, biologically.”
“That may be so, but—”
“That is so.”
The officer removes his glasses and stares hard at Peter. “Are you auditioning for the role of boyfriend?”
“He already got the part,” Avery says.
“It’s good to be protective,” the officer says, “but you’re not helping right now.”
He turns to Avery and his tone softens. “You can take this up with his family or with a lawyer, but in the meantime, please keep your distance.”
*
During Betsy’s drive through Buchanan to the nursing care facility—they called to let her know that her father is back—the rain stops so suddenly, after having poured down all day, that the silence seems louder than the rain and wind have been. Near Buchanan College, Betsy maneuvers around a downed tree limb and almost hits a delivery truck head-on. She presses on the car’s horn and swears, but immediately following this adrenaline rush is a surprising calm. An accident would be okay, she thinks, as long as no one’s seriously injured. It would be nice to be taken care of—physically. To be bandaged and X-rayed and splinted and sedated. But then she remembers Nick and thinks: How terrible to wish for an accident.
The nurse at the front desk explains to Betsy that her father is fine—wet, but safe. She gives Betsy a small piece of paper with a name wr
itten on it. “This is the name of the young woman,” she says. Betsy looks at the paper and nods.
She goes to her father’s room and knocks.
“Come in,” a woman says.
Betsy opens the door and sees her father in his wheelchair; he’s wearing a raincoat. He looks at her but doesn’t smile. She would like to be a child, to kneel beside her father’s chair, lay her head on his lap, and feel his hand, no longer shaking, on her head.
He whispers something she can’t hear; she moves closer.
“It was my idea.”
“It’s okay.”
“I told them it’s not your fault.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“My friend.”
“Your daughter,” she says.
He stares at her. “I know that,” he whispers, “but I don’t remember your name.”
“Betsy.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s all right.”
“Betsy, where is your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“He must be somewhere.”
“He must be,” Betsy says.
The nurse, a freckled woman in blue scrubs, pulls Betsy’s father’s arms free from his raincoat and then hangs it to dry.
“I can help,” Betsy says.
“That’s okay, hon. I’ve got it.”
“I’d like to.”
“You just sit and rest.”
She decides to help anyway. She undoes her father’s tie, unbuttons his shirt, and then pulls his arms out of the sleeves. She drapes the shirt on the back of a chair. The nurse lifts his undershirt over his head. Except for a small belly, he’s still thin, his chest hairless. Betsy unlaces and pulls off her father’s shoes; his socks—wool socks she doesn’t recognize—are dry, so she leaves them on. The nurse removes his pants and boxer shorts, and for a brief moment, before she puts on his pajamas, he is naked except for the socks.
Soon after the nurse moves Betsy’s father to his bed, he is asleep, his mouth slightly open.
Betsy asks the nurse if she can have a moment alone with her father.
“Of course, just call if you need anything.”
He looks older than the last time she saw him, at Christmas, his face thinner, drawn, and yet lying in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, he seems like a boy. Betsy moves a chair close to the bed and watches her father sleep. Then she closes her eyes and plays a game she used to play as a girl—or a version of it. In school, whenever she read about history—ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the American Revolution—she liked to close her eyes and pretend to be a girl who had traveled centuries through time to the present—the 1970s or 1980s—and then open her eyes and imagine how astounded she would be, how bewildered and curious and a little frightened, to see cars and TVs and Atari and sneakers and to hear rock and roll and pop music, and everything she encountered, as this girl from the past, filled her with wonder and seemed impossible, miraculous. Now, with her eyes closed beside her father’s bed, she imagines that she is the girl she used to be—seven or eight years old, maybe, before the accident—and has traveled forward in time to this moment. She opens her eyes: she is a grown woman, her father is old and sick, her mother is gone, her brother, gone. Those old feelings return—wonder, bewilderment, fear, the strange miracle of time passing, the relentless drive forward, the impossibility of reversal, what minute by minute, over years, becomes the stories of our lives.
*
Betsy drives to campus and parks near Stafford Hall. She takes the stairs to the third floor and sits in the hallway, her back against an office door. If she were younger, she might pass for a student waiting for an appointment with her professor. She turns and looks up at the nameplate. She remembers being ten and seeing Professor Danielle Christie on the door and wishing it just said Mom.
The elevator door, directly across from her mother’s old office, opens. A man with a white goatee and wearing a dark blue custodial uniform walks out of the elevator carrying a large black trash bag. He doesn’t see Betsy, he’s walking right at her, fingering a bulky key ring, and then he sees her and says, “Oh!” and steps back.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Are you locked out?”
“No, I was just waiting for someone.” She stands and steps aside.
“That’s okay, that’s okay,” he says. “No worries.”
He opens the door and goes inside. “Be right out of your way,” he says. He empties a small plastic wastebasket into the large black trash bag, and Betsy has just enough time to look up and see shelves filled with books that are not her mother’s, and as the man closes the door behind him he says, “Sorry, I have to lock the door,” and she says, “I was just leaving. The person I was looking for isn’t here,” and he says, “All right, then. You have a lovely night,” and she says, “You too.”
She walks across the quad to the library. She knows, because she’s been here with her mother, where the quietest places are. She takes the stairs down to the basement level. It’s past nine o’clock, and though the rest of the library is well lit and filled with students, down here it’s dark. She doesn’t see or hear another person. As soon as she walks into one of the literature aisles, motion-sensor lights come on. She scans the spines: James Baldwin, Arthur Miller, Sylvia Plath, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams. She finds Pet Sematary for her brother, All the King’s Men for her father, A Streetcar Named Desire for her mother, and her mother’s scholarly book, Fate and Choice in Modern Tragedy. She carries them to the cubicle closest to the fire exit, stacks them on the desktop just to have them near, lays her head on her crossed arms, and closes her eyes.
MARCH 16, 2010
The next morning, waterlogged Buchanan, Pennsylvania, slowly drips dry. Betsy drives from the hotel, where she spent the night, to the nursing care facility, making sure to move the car carefully through standing water stubbornly refusing to recede. She turns on the windshield wipers to clear rainwater blown from trees.
When she arrives, her father is at the window in his wheelchair, his back to her. He looks to be taking in the day, or daydreaming, but when she reaches him she sees that he’s sleeping: only in sleep is his body still. She sits in a chair beside the bed and waits. A nurse knocks and comes in to check on Betsy’s father. She tells Betsy that he is running a fever, so it’s not a surprise he’s asleep. “Call if you need anything,” the nurse says before she leaves.
Betsy can’t help but connect the fever with what happened yesterday—his being out in the storm and returning soaked and cold. But she knows that’s just a myth, something a doting grandmother might say: “Careful out there or you’ll catch your death of cold.”
Her father shakes suddenly, his hands jerking up from where they were at rest under a blanket on his lap. Maybe a bad dream. Maybe just the Parkinson’s. The blanket falls to the floor. Betsy picks it up, lays it over her father’s legs, tucks his hands under it, gently pushes back a lock of gray hair that has fallen over his eyes. You need a haircut, she thinks. But his hair a little longer makes him look younger; even now that he’s in his seventies, there’s still something boyish she can see in his face. Plus, why bother with a haircut at this point?
At this point.
She’s not sure what she meant by that. Mentally, she takes it back.
She can do this, she thinks. Sit with him, cover him, make sure he’s comfortable. Let him rest.
She will do whatever is required, because that’s what she has always done: what’s required.
Except the eighty-one days since Christmas, when she last saw him.
Except not telling Cal what she should have told him a month ago. So often the truth, which should be easy, is precisely what’s most difficult to say: “I’m pregnant, but scared. Sometimes I worry that all parents, to one degree or another, mess up their kids.”
She practices saying this in her mind.
She wants her father to wake and see her.
Or not wake,
not yet, but know she’s here.
During the first hour that her father sleeps, Betsy closes her own eyes but can’t sleep. She notices on her father’s bookshelf that only one book has its cover facing out; she knows the cover well. Her mother’s first edition of Streetcar. She takes it from the shelf and returns to her chair. The weight of the book on her lap, this book in particular, is comforting; she rests her hands on its cool plastic dust jacket. During the next two hours, as her father sleeps, she reads the play her mother loved best, one of the plays her father read over fifty years ago to impress her. But rather than read the play through from beginning to end, which she’s done three or four times before, she reads only Stanley’s lines, his first words to his last, from “Hey, there! Stella, Baby!” to “Now, now, love.” She wants to experience the play through only one perspective at a time. When she’s finished with Stanley, she reads only Stella’s lines, from “Don’t holler at me like that” to “Blanche! Blanche, Blanche!” Then only Blanche’s, from “They told me to take a street-car named Desire” to “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Each character’s narrative arc, Betsy finds, becomes clear from only his or her words. She imagines a life story told that way—every word a person has ever spoken. She imagines a transcription of every word Nick ever said, first to last. Or her parents. She remembers their late-night conversations and fights, some of which she could hear and some of which she could not, and wonders, if a person who didn’t know them could read only her father’s words between 1991 and 1993, and then only her mother’s from those same years, what story those words would tell.
Now she reads only the adverbial stage directions: finally, wearily, uncomprehendingly, defensively, carefully, suddenly, sincerely, vaguely, abruptly, reluctantly, sharply, dubiously, slowly, faintly, faintly, and she’s oddly moved by the sound of these words in succession, as if together they make a song, tell the whole story, create a feeling she hasn’t been able or willing to summon, a feeling for which there is no one name, only these adverbs, human sounds from a play she will always associate with her parents’ courtship, contrapuntally, uneasily, unsuccessfully, ominously, bitterly, angrily, airily, radiantly, lightly, fiercely, wildly, clumsily, contemptuously, impulsively, yearningly, tremblingly, lifelessly, helplessly, breathlessly, feverishly, gravely—
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