Going for the Record

by Julie A. Swanson

  “So you’ve got several options,” Heather says to Mom when they return. “If you can let me know what you decide by next week, that’d be great. Then I can give them an idea of where to put things before they come.”

  “Who’s them?” asks Dad. “What things?”

  “Typically, we begin by bringing in a hospital bed, and—”

  “A hospital bed?” Dad raises his voice. “What the hell! What’s wrong with my own bed? I don’t need a hospital bed!”

  Heather continues as if uninterrupted, “—a walker, and a wheelchair. You won’t need them right away, but they’ll be here for you when you do.”

  Dad’s red-in-the-face mad now. “I’m not going to waste money paying for equipment we don’t need!”

  “Don’t worry. Insurance picks up everything.”

  Dad snorts. “So that’s why insurance premiums are sky high!”

  “Pops,” I whisper, “settle down.”

  “Pete,” says Mom.

  Heather tilts her head and smiles at us, like, don’t worry, I can handle this, I’ve been here before.

  “Pete,” she says, touching Dad’s arm, “I know it’s hard to come to terms with what’s happening to you.”

  “Just say what you have to say,” he grumbles.

  “Are you a spiritual man, Pete?”

  Dad looks at Mom. Mom who reads her Bible every night, Mom who begs him to go on retreats with her. Mom doesn’t say anything. She lets Dad field this question on his own.

  “What do you mean by spiritual?” asks Dad.

  I don’t know if Dad’s spiritual or not. He goes to church on Sundays. He sings and recites all the prayers. He takes communion. He even goes to confession regularly. But I’m not sure if there’s anything behind it.

  Heather rephrases her question. “Are you religious? Do you have faith?”

  “Well, yes, I’d say so. I go to church, went to parochial schools as a kid.”

  “Okay, then. Stop and think about this over the next couple of days: Are there any wrongs you want to right, any people you want to reconcile with? Anything at all you need to do to put yourself at peace? Because if there is, now’s the time to do it. While you still can. While you’re still relatively healthy.”

  Geez, lady, give us a break!

  I can’t stand this. I’ve got to get out of here.

  Heather takes Dad’s blood pressure and heart rate. She listens to his lungs, checks his reflexes, feels his lymph nodes. She asks him about his sleeping habits, his appetite, his pain. “On a scale of one to five, five being the most unbearable pain imaginable, how would you rate your pain?”

  “I don’t know,” says Dad. “I wouldn’t say it’s ever been over a four.”

  I try to think how bad that must be—a four. Of all the injuries I’ve ever had, my sprained ankle was the worst. Would that have been a four? I don’t think so. I can imagine lots worse: getting scalped, having a limb amputated, blowing out a knee. Maybe my ankle was a three, if that. Poor Dad.

  Heather closes her notebook. “You’re quite jaundiced, Pete, but other than that your vital signs look very good.”

  She hands him some pamphlets. “I’ll leave these for you to look over. One explains our philosophy and the other talks about the physical and emotional stages you’re likely to go through.” She smiles and shakes each of our hands. “I’ll be back next week,” she says, “unless I hear from you before then.”

  “She seems pretty nice,” Dad says after Heather leaves.

  If I had dentures they’d fall out right out of my mouth.

  “Very nice,” says Mom.

  “Nice?” I cough in disbelief. “The woman is an iceberg! Didn’t you think she was rude? How could she have the nerve to—?”

  “Leah,” says Dad, “that’s her job.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Thursday, July 3

  I’m all packed for the Fourth of July tournament in Peoria, but Dad’s curled up in the fetal position on the couch. He’s been that way all morning.

  I think that hospice nurse put ideas into his head. Ever since she was here last Friday he’s been acting really weird. On the way home from my club match last Saturday he started wincing and doubling over the steering wheel.

  “Could you drive for me, Weez?” he finally asked. “I’m not feeling too well.”

  That was the day after Heather came and started all that talk about dying.

  So I knew. I knew a few days ago he might not be able to drive me.

  He hasn’t said we’re not going, though. All he’s said is, “Let me rest for a while. I might feel better.” But I have this feeling. It’s already ten o’clock, and we have to leave by noon at the very latest.

  “Weez?” Dad props himself up on one elbow. “I don’t think I’m up to driving. But there’s still time for your mom to get you down there to carpool with someone.”

  “No. If you’re not going, I’m not going.”

  “Come on, Weez. The team needs you. Don’t let them down.” He forces a smile. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  “Very funny, Dad, but no.”

  “Come on. I feel bad enough that I can’t drive you. Don’t make me feel guilty that I’m making you miss the tournament, too.”

  “Okay, if you really want me to.”

  Dad asks Mom to call the other club team parents. She nods, this mischievous look in her eye, and takes the cordless phone into the back hall.

  I press my ear against the back hall door. “It’ll be a spontaneous family reunion,” I hear Mom say. “Pete will be so surprised.”

  She’s on the phone all right, but not with club team parents. I’ll be darned if she isn’t calling Dad’s brothers and inviting them all for the weekend.

  I push open the door. “What are you doing, Mom? Two family reunions in one summer? Isn’t that a bit much? How’s everyone going to be able to get up here on such short notice?”

  “Honey, this may be the last time Dad and his brothers can all get together and have a good time. Everybody understands that.”

  “Do I have to stay home for it?”

  “You’ll have to decide for yourself what’s more important to you.”

  Gee, Mom has such a way with words. Now if I go I’ll feel like dirt.

  “But he wants me to go. You heard him.”

  “That because he doesn’t know everybody’s coming. And he wouldn’t tell you not to go, anyway. He knows how much soccer means to you.”

  “What are you going to tell him about why you’re not driving me down to Midland?”

  “We’ll tell him everyone left already. We were too late.”

  Friday, July 4th

  “How’s the soccer star?” Uncle Frank bellows. He gives me a big wet one right on the lips. Ugh. The uncles are such a smoochy bunch.

  “Hey, Pele! Get over here and give your uncle a kiss.” Uncle Keith is the worst. He has a beard, so his kisses are prickly as well as wet.

  “Score any goals for me lately?” Uncle Al always says the same thing.

  I wish they would quit mentioning soccer. All it does is reminds me of where I’m not.

  I don’t believe it. Less than twenty-four hours’ notice, and everyone’s here.

  Gram’s finally come out of her room and she’s in heaven.

  She takes over. “Rita, now don’t you go doing any cooking. We’ll have food brought over from the restaurant.”

  Mom nods. She knows better than to challenge Gram when she’s in her element. She smiles and winks at me. “See? Wasn’t this a good idea?”

  Whenever the uncles get together there’s lots of beer drinking, lots of big, stinky cigars, lots of gambling, and lots of loud voices. They’re large, meaty men with dark complexions and dark curly hair. You’d never know that they’re Polish. They look more like a Mafia clan.

  It’s only in comparison to my uncles that I notice how thin and pale Dad is.

  Nobody’s brought up the subject, though. We’re just sitting arou
nd the living room now, the uncles and me and the older cousins, watching a Tigers game. The women are outside on the deck, and the younger kids are playing down at the beach.

  I yawn, for the hundredth time today. I’m just sitting here, staring at the TV, hardly talking to anyone. I can’t get out of this funk. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I’m not supposed to be here.

  Right about now we’d be finishing our second round match. It’s been itching at me all day, knowing everybody’s out there improving while I’m sitting here going soft. The place is probably swarming with college coaches, too. Someone from North Carolina might even be there.

  The little ones come inside and suddenly the living room’s crowded and noisy. “When are we going to eat?” they all ask at once.

  “Go ask Grandma,” I tell them.

  Hard as we try to send them away, they keep coming back. There aren’t enough seats, and people are sitting against walls or other people’s knees. Dad’s lying on the floor with a couch pillow under his head. I’m straddling one arm of Uncle Frank’s recliner; my favorite cousin Cheryl—she’s seventeen, too—is perched on the other.

  Jared—he’s nine—comes up behind me and stands so close he’s breathing down my neck. “Is your dad going to die?” he whispers.

  “No,” I say quietly. “He hasn’t even had to start treatments yet.”

  “Good, because my dad’s afraid he’s going die.”

  “That’s silly,” I say, and mess up his hair.

  “How is your dad doing?” Cheryl asks.

  “See for yourself.”

  The little kids are jumping on him like he’s a trampoline, begging him for airplane rides. He’s tossing them around, wrestling them down, tickling them. Just like he always does. He hardly looks like a dying man to me.

  Cheryl screws up her mouth. “But what about his—?”

  “I don’t know anything more than you, Cheryl. Really. It’s all inside. You can’t tell how bad it is except by what he lets on.”

  I don’t think the little kids even know that Dad’s sick.

  Gram ordered Dad’s favorite meal from the restaurant—lamb chops, baked potatoes, corn-on-the-cob—but he doesn’t eat much. As soon as the tables are cleared, the adults set up for a card game. It’s a nighttime ritual at family gatherings. They play Sheep’s Head, dime a chip.

  They’re quite an event, these card games. Lots of whooping it up and good-natured ribbing. The uncles slip the little kids dimes to fetch them beers. I used to love that.

  Mom is famous for falling asleep while they’re playing. She sits there nodding, glasses sliding down her nose, this silly grin on her face. The person next to her has to nudge her when it’s her turn. She never knows what’s been played, and it drives Dad crazy.

  Gram divides the chips and passes them out. She shuffles the deck, gives her thumb a quick lick, and expertly flips the cards around the table.

  I feel better now that it’s nighttime and the games are over in Peoria.

  Mom’s right. This just might be the last time we can all get together like this. I sit back and pan around the table, soaking it all in.

  Aunt Evie’s cackle.

  The haze of smoke hanging over the table.

  The prune-ended stubs of cigars gathering in ashtrays.

  Green and brown and clear beer bottles crowding the table. Pabst, Old Milwaukee, Miller, Coors, Bud, Heineken. Everyone has a favorite brand.

  Uncle Al accusing Uncle Frank of cheating: “I can tell by that look on your face, Frank. I don’t trust you any further than I can throw you!”

  Aunt Sherry with a book in her lap, reading between turns.

  Little kids sitting on laps, building towers out of the piles of coins.

  Mom’s music swirling and floating in the background.

  Ever since I can remember it’s been this way. Except—my camera freezes—except tonight Dad’s the one dozing and Mom’s wide awake.

  “Hey, Petey,” says Uncle Joey, “wake up. It’s your turn.”

  Dad straightens up and shakes his head.

  “You’re worse than your wife!” teases Uncle Joey.

  “What the hell! I’m sick!” Dad barks at Uncle Joey. “What do you expect?”

  Nobody can believe it. Dad can always take a joke.

  Gram throws her cards in and stands up. “Time for fireworks,” she announces. “It’s plenty dark enough now.”

  The uncles build a bonfire on the beach, and everyone pulls up a chair or sits in the sand. Dad and Uncle Frank stand on the dock and launch the fireworks over the bay. Dad unwraps them and places them into position. Uncle Frank leans over, sucking hard on his cigar, and lights them with its glowing orange end.

  We’re not the only ones. Bonfires dot the peninsula shoreline, and the sky fizzles with crisscrossing fireworks. You can hear muted clapping and oohs and aahs coming from all along the bay.

  After the grand finale, Gram gets up from her chair. “We’d better call it a night,” she says. And her little automatons, all grown up into thick-waisted men, promptly obey her. “Aw, Ma,” they gripe. One by one they line up and give her a kiss. Even Dad. I haven’t seen him kiss Gram in a long time. She swats him gently on the bottom. “You rest well tonight, Petey.”

  As everyone’s settling in for the night, I steal out for a run. No one will even notice I’m gone.

  Saturday, July 5th

  This has been the slowest morning ever. It’s pure torture knowing my team is up and playing again in Peoria.

  Ten forty-five and Gram and her kitchen crew are still taking orders. It’s like we’ve been eating breakfast all morning, intentionally dragging it out so that when Dad wakes up he won’t realize how late it is.

  Finally, we just start clearing the breakfast stuff away, and it’s then that I hear my uncles and aunts whispering to each other.

  “He’s up. I saw Rita go into the bedroom with a tray.”

  Dad makes his first appearance round about lunchtime. He’s in his blue bathrobe, carrying a cup of coffee as he comes down the hall.

  “Morning, morning,” he says, nodding to everyone like he’s the mayor going through town.

  “Glad to see you got a good night’s sleep, Petey,” says Gram.

  Dad raises his eyebrows. Right.

  It’s obvious he’s not feeling well. His volume is down several notches, his movements slow and labored. He doesn’t bother to get dressed, just sits down and turns on the TV and starts watching some golf tournament.

  “I really want to see who wins this one,” he says. His way of announcing that this is what he’s going to do all day?

  And so our day-in-limbo continues, the hushed voices of the announcers practically lulling me asleep. It’s beautiful outside, and we’d all like to do something other than watch TV, I’m sure, but no one dares take the party elsewhere. The uncles hang around Dad.

  Mom’s worried, I can tell. “All this company is too much for him, don’t you think? Oh, well. They go home tomorrow.”

  I try my best, but I’m afraid I’m not much fun.

  They’re still playing in Peoria.

  Sunday, July 6

  “Take it easy, Pete.” Uncle Al shakes Dad’s hand and whacks him on the back.

  “Take it easy, Al.”

  “Take care of yourself, Petey.” That’s about as sentimental as anyone gets. The Weiczynkowskis are a pretty tough bunch.

  I wave, and my cousins hang out the windows waving back. Mom and my aunts exchange blown kisses. I’m relieved it’s nothing emotional, though, the pulling out of the Weiczynkowski caravan.

  We’re all about ready to collapse.

  “I think I’ll rest for a while,” says Gram. “I haven’t said my rosary all weekend.” She turns and shuffles down the hall, back to how she was before her boys came.

  Dad drags himself up out of his chair. “I better go out and take the tents down and bring in the sleeping bags. It’s supposed to rain tonight.”

  Mom and
I start to clean up, but we aren’t putting a dent in the mess. All those beer bottles, dirty ashtrays, dishes everywhere. Ugh.

  “Let’s finish what we’re doing so it doesn’t stink in here,” says Mom, “and then let’s just lie in the sun all afternoon.”

  Mom and I are walking down the woodchip path to the beach, our arms laden with magazines, pillows, towels, and snacks. Suddenly Mom drops her load. Just lets it fall.

  I look down at the mess in the woodchips—pretzels everywhere, the National Geographic splayed open with maps falling out, towels that will be full of slivers—and then I look at Mom. She’s frozen in place, eyes huge with fear.

  I follow her eyes through the tall, lacy ferns. An animal? A snake?

  I don’t see anything.

  “Pete! Oh, Pete!” Mom gasps, “Are you all right?”

  She flails through the ferns to the clearing where the tents lie collapsed on the ground.

  There he is, slumped up against a tree trunk, his cheek pressed against the rough bark.

  “Pete, are you all right?” Mom asks again.

  Dad nods, then shakes his head, his eyes pressed tightly shut.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  He holds up his hand—not now, I can’t. He’s trembling.

  I run over beside Mom. My heart’s about to beat right out of my chest.

  “What do I do?” Mom whispers to me.

  “Call an ambulance!” I shout.

  “No, you heard Heather. From now on Dad’s under hospice’s care.”

  I can’t believe it. We should be rushing him to the hospital! I run up to the house, rattling the windows as I stomp across the deck.

  I call the hospice number on the fridge. “I think my dad’s having an attack. Pete. Pete Weiczynkowski. Please, send somebody right away!”

  Gram comes scurrying down the hall. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Dad, Gram. He fell down outside.”

  Gram closes her eyes and crosses herself. “Hail Mary, full of grace …”

  CHAPTER 9

  Mom and Gram and I carry Dad into the house and lay him on the couch. By the time Heather arrives, he seems to be over the worst of it, but he’s so exhausted he can barely talk.