by Ruth Ozeki
The seed listings that followed were arranged alphabetically into major vegetable families and genera: the Allium, the Brassica, the Chenopodium. I flipped through them quickly, barely seeing, overwhelmed by the orderly force of my father’s opinions. Suddenly the room was full of him, and I remembered the way he would come in from the fields, and Momoko and I would be waiting, and the house would shrink and conform around his approbation. It made me queasy to think about. I stood up quickly and replaced the catalog on the pile of unanswered correspondence. I returned to the KITCHEN, rinsed my cup in the SINK, and climbed the stairs to my bedroom.
I used to close myself into this room, so I could think my thoughts alone. Now I lay down on my little bed and stared up at my starry ceiling, listening to my children breathe. Lloyd had raised these heavens for me—they were luminous decals that came in a kit. The Friendly Stars That Glow. The day he applied them, he stood in the middle of the mattress, my tall, rickety father, as I jumped up and down. He was trying to consult his map of the nighttime sky, something he could not do well with all my bouncing. He told me to hold still, so I lay down on my back to watch. He stood on his tiptoes and stretched across the heavens with Polaris balanced on his fingertip. I could feel the mattress tremble beneath his feet. With the North Star correctly affixed, he smiled, then moved south toward the next horizon.
I was excited at first but soon grew tired of the project. Order in the heavens didn’t matter much to me—I must have been about six or seven, Ocean’s age—and besides, it was still daytime. The stars were pale green and disappeared against the white ceiling, and I couldn’t even see them. Be still, Lloyd said. Be patient. But patience wasn’t in my nature. I fidgeted, and when he reprimanded me, I lay there, arms rigid against my sides like a plank, making a big show of being perfectly still, exactly like Ocean would do now. And just like Ocean, I soon got bored with this game, so I bounced my bottom just a little to see if he’d fall down. Yumi, I said that’s enough! But I already knew that, and I gave one last tremendous bounce off the mattress and ran out the door, leaving him stranded, tall and precarious, wobbling to keep his balance.
But that night, after Momoko had tucked me in and turned off the light, I opened my eyes and looked up to see the night sky come to life. Daddy! I cried, and Lloyd must have been waiting outside my door like a kid on Christmas because he was by my side in a heartbeat.
Look, Daddy! It’s heaven!
He chuckled with pleasure at my excitement. He sat down next to me, and I followed his finger as he pointed to the Dippers. I remember a deep, celestial bliss, a sense of galactic stability, which pretty well lasted until my nebula spun out of his control and a dark star crossed my firmament, eclipsing him entirely.
poppies
Lloyd spotted his wife immediately, sitting by herself at a table in the corner of the day room. She looked so small, curled over and concentrating, like a child at a task. On the floor by her feet was a brown paper bag, and she was taking things from it. As the nurse wheeled him closer, he could see they were seedpods, the size of plums with crowns at the top. She was doing Hens and Chicks, the pride of her ornamental poppies. She could no longer remember the names of these seeds, so she would need Lloyd to write the labels, but that would happen later on. For the time being she was intent on her work, poking the woody casing with the point of a pencil, making a hole, then shaking the minuscule seeds from the ovary onto a turquoise cafeteria tray that she was using as a work surface.
“Oidé yo, tané-chan!” she whispered. “Come here, little seeds. . . .”
When the nurse wheeled him over and parked him next to her, she looked up, surprised.
“Well, well!” the nurse said. “You’ve been busy, sitting here all by your lonesome!” She kicked the brakes into place and peered at Momoko. “What do you have there?”
Momoko smiled politely, then bent her head and rattled a pod. The seeds bounced across the turquoise surface like fleas. She tipped the tray, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of seeds massed and rolled together like something spreading and alive.
“Well,” the nurse continued, adjusting Lloyd’s collar. “You’ll be glad to hear that our boy did real good in physio today. He buttoned up his own pajama tops and walked to the potty all by himself.”
Lloyd groaned. “Nurse, please.”
“Even had a nice long bath, didn’t we?”
“Sheila! Please!”
The nurse made a big, pouty face. “Oooh, you’re hurting my feelings. Sheila was yesterday. I’m Shirley.”
“I’m sorry,” Lloyd said.
“That’s okay, I forgive you.” She turned to Momoko. “Aren’t you even going to say howdy to your honey?”
“Howdy,” Momoko said. Lloyd reached out and patted her hand.
“That’s more like it,” said Shirley. “Now, let’s get those meds down.”
Momoko stared at Lloyd’s hand, with their blunt, bluish-colored nails, then looked up at his face. “You so old man!” she said. “How you get so old?”
Shirley returned with a pitcher of water. “What a thing to say!”
“Shirley, please,” said Lloyd. “It’s okay. An old joke.”
“Oh, well, I guess it’s none of my business then.” She handed Lloyd his pills and a cup. “Drink up,” she said, tapping her foot and looking past him toward the TV in the corner of the room. Several patients and their visitors sat around it, watching a rerun of Rescue 911. Sirens screamed as the paramedics used the Jaws of Life to pry a family out from the wreckage of a sport-utility vehicle.
A choking sound from Lloyd made her look back down. “Lloyd? Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. He was staring at the doorway of the dayroom where a tall woman stood, anxiously scanning the patients’ faces. He shook his head to clear his vision. He was taking digitalis for his heart, which sometimes caused an oily film to form over the world and rainbows to leak from bright objects. The woman looked unbearably bright to him. The cup crumpled in his grip, and water dribbled down his wrist. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, to blink away the rainbows. He gulped for air. He started to gasp.
“Lloyd!” The nurse sounded urgent but far away. “Talk to me! Is it your heart?”
“My pocket . . .” He plucked at the front of his bathrobe with clumsy fingers. “My nitroglycerin . . .”
The nurse pried his hands away. He could feel her fumbling for the small vial in his breast pocket. He felt his mouth gaping open, jaws stretching wide. She dropped a tablet under his tongue. He shut his eyes, trying not to hear their voices. He breathed again.
“Dad?” It was her. She was standing close by now. “Oh, my God. Is he okay?”
The nurse checked his pulse. “He’ll be fine. Who are you?”
“I’m his daughter. I didn’t mean to shock him. I called ahead. I talked to Sheila. She was supposed to prepare him.”
“Oh, well, that’s just fine,” said Shirley. “She never told me anything. They weren’t expecting any relatives.”
“Dad?” the woman said.
Lloyd opened his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up. He looked at his wife instead. The expression on her face was distant and perplexed, but as he watched, it lit up like the hills when the sun broke out from a cloud. She rose to her feet.
“Yumi?”
His wife’s voice was unearthly. The dayroom fell silent, except for the odd whoop of an emergency vehicle on the television, as Momoko hurtled forward, into the woman’s open arms. Lloyd closed his eyes again.
“Mom?” The word sounded odd, choked and breathless. “Oh, Mom . . .” It was a sigh this time.
It was too much. “That’s enough,” Lloyd whispered. “Take me away.” He felt the nurse hesitate, and then she kicked off the brakes. “A lot of excitement for one morning,” she said, wheeling the chair around. “I think we’ll feel a whole lot better after a little rest.”
“No, wait!” Now the woman was standing in front of his chair. “I want t
o talk to my father.”
He covered his face with his hands. His knuckles were swollen, and his fingers were like plugs. “Let’s not make a scene . . .” he pleaded.
“Dad, please don’t do this . . .”
He recoiled farther into his chair, but she stood there, blocking his way, and it was like no one would ever move again or say another word. But then Momoko broke the silence.
“Damé!” she said. She picked up the turquoise cafeteria tray as though she were about to head off down a buffet line, but instead she flung it above her head. The air around her filled with a cloud of black seeds. He could feel them, raining down on top of him, like a tickling wind. He watched them bouncing crazily off the tabletops and skittering across the floor.
“My goodness!” the nurse said. “All these seeds!” She started brushing them from the folds of his bathrobe, then dabbing with her finger at the ones on his head.
“Stop it!” he said, jerking away. “Take me out of here!”
Shirley shrugged and gave his head a final swipe. “Too bad,” she said, swinging the chair around. “But who knows? Maybe they’ll grow.”
“Yes!” Momoko clapped her hands. Then, spotting the pitcher of water on the table, she picked it up and marched over to Lloyd.
“Poppy!” she said, peering down at his face. “Same like father. Get it? It is good joke. Ha, ha.” Then she poured the water onto the seed-speckled carpet at his feet. “Okay, poppy. Now you grow up!”
She walked behind the chair and elbowed the nurse out of the way. Gripping the handles, she wheeled the chair toward her daughter, stopping as the metal footrests bumped her shins.
“Say howdy,” she commanded her husband.
Lloyd groaned.
“Say howdy to her.”
Lloyd was defeated. He looked up at the variegated confusion of light that was his daughter and blinked his eyes.
“Howdy,” he whispered.
“Howdy,” Yumi echoed.
Momoko nodded. “Okeydokey.”
idaho winter
Children’s children are the crown of old men. . . .
Ocean whispered, “Is that him? Is that Tutu Lloyd?”
. . . and the glory of children are their fathers.
“Yes, but call him Grandpa.”
Phoenix pulled at my arm. “Forget it, Yummy. I mean, Mommy. He’s asleep. Let’s go.”
“No, look. He’s waking up.”
“Who’s there?” He opened his eyes, swimmingly. “Who are these children?”
I wanted to announce it with pride. “These are your grandchildren, Dad!” But my voice betrayed me, and my declaration sounded more like an apology. “My children,” I added unnecessarily.
He blinked. His eyes were the color of an icicle, a cold prong clinging to an eaves trough. He scanned my children’s faces. The kids were not used to the Idaho cold, and already they looked faded. Dehydrated by the central heating, Ocean had developed flaking rashes. Poo’s snot turned rock hard in his sinuses, and his curls lay flat. Phoenix had the coloring and temperament of moldy bread. They missed the humid clouds, the teeming seas. But this was good for them, I told myself. They needed to know that Mommy was not all about aloha. That she had cold, high desert in her blood.
“This is Phoenix. And this is Ocean. This is Barnabas, but we call him Poo.”
He studied their hair, their complexions. Comparing.
“Say hi to your grandpa, kids.”
He said gruffly, “What kind of names are those?”
“What do you mean, Dad?” Knowing full well what he was getting at, of course.
“What kind of children have names like that?”
“Well, your grandchildren. Kids, say howdy to your grandpa.”
“Howdy?” muttered Phoenix, turning away. “Like, I don’t think so.” But intrepid Ocean stepped up to the plate. “We’re good children,” she replied. “That’s what kind.” What a kid. No one deserves a kid like that.
He blinked at her and stared. She looked right back, met his ice with her sky blue—the color of cornflowers—until he recognized the sweet side of those Fuller eyes and melted a little for real.
“Come here,” he barked.
Ocean approached the wheelchair.
“What’s your name?”
“Ocean.”
“That’s not a proper name. An ocean is a thing, not a person.”
Ocean didn’t answer for a while. “I know what your name is,” she said finally. “It’s Tutu—I mean, it’s Grandpa Lloyd.”
“That’s right.”
“How come it doesn’t mean anything?” Ocean asked.
“Because it’s a proper name.”
“Actually, it does mean something,” I said. Lloyd and Ocean both turned to stare, and the resemblance was stunning. The stubborn blue eyes and the broad forehead. The set of the jaw. The same irritation at being interrupted.
“It means ‘gray-haired,’ ” I explained. “In Welsh. Or something.” I could see they were waiting for me to finish, but my nerves had turned me garrulous. “I looked it up in one of those baby-name books in the checkout line. At the supermarket. When I was pregnant with Phoenix and looking for a name. Of course, Phoenix wasn’t listed. . . .”
Phoenix groaned, and I stopped. Ocean turned back to contemplate her grandfather. “Lloyd is a good name for you,” she said.
“It is?” he asked. “Why?”
“Because you’re old.”
“Am I so old?”
“Yes,” Ocean explained. “That’s why you’re dying.”
That’s it, I thought. That’s the end of it.
But Lloyd was oddly patient. “Is that right?” he said.
“Yes. Mommy said we have to be nice to you because you’re dying, but I’m not going to.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I’m going to be nice to you because I like you instead.”
“Oh,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “That’s good.”
“You mean it’s good because you like me, too?” She was being coy now, a little too cocky.
“No,” he said, and if he registered the child’s disappointment, he ignored it. He looked over her head, straight at me. “Good, because despite your mother’s godlike authority over matters of life and death, I am most certainly not dying.”
“Of course he’s dying,” Cass said. “I don’t mean to be harsh, Yum, but that’s not even the question here. It’s just that it might take awhile, and what are you going to do for him until then?”
“Me?”
“Well, sure. Who else?”
It was a reasonable enough question, but it had never occurred to me. I’d made this odyssey for the children. I thought I owed it to them, to let them meet their grandparents. But Cass was clearly thinking along very different lines, and it filled me with panic.
“There must be health services or—”
“Yummy, I’ve been taking care of your parents for almost a year now, cooking and cleaning up after them—”
“I know, and they appreciate it. They really do. Mom was telling me how much Lloyd enjoys your pot roast.”
“I change his colostomy bag, Yum.”
“Oh. He wears one of those?”
“He needs to be changed twice a day.”
“Wow.” I watched her. She had taken over feeding Poo, and the older kids were eating in the living room. I really wanted a drink. I’d remembered to stop at the liquor store on the way back from the nursing home, but I had been too strung out for the supermarket. I knew there were some cans of soup in the cupboard and a bag of french fries in the freezer, and I figured I could feed the kids that, but when we pulled up to the house, the smell of cooking wafted across the yard from the kitchen. Phoenix and Ocean, sensing a hot meal, perked right up, and they tore across the snow, leaving me lugging the baby. As I approached the house, I had a sudden strong sense of how it used to feel to come home on a wintry night, in from the cold, and smell dinner in the oven.
Cass had a casserole heating. She took one look at my face and held out her arms for Poo, planted him in his high chair, then instructed the kids to take their dinners and eat in front of the TV. They hesitated, but when I didn’t object, they scampered off, delighted. I could hear them quarreling about the remote control, but finally they found some show about cops and settled down. Cass spooned macaroni into Poo’s mouth while I told her about the tender meeting between Lloyd and his grandchildren, and that’s when she’d casually sprung the subject of Lloyd’s care.
Now, thoroughly spooked, I poured whiskey for us both. I sat back down at the table, raised my glass, and glanced around the room. It felt so strange, to sit at my parents’ kitchen table drinking whiskey, that I had to laugh. Cass got it.
“I feel like we should hide it or something,” she said.
“Yeah, like we’ll get caught.” I took a long sip. It felt good. It could feel even better. “Hey, do me a favor. Smoke a cigarette so I can have a drag?”
“Have one of your own.”
“Can’t.” I glanced toward the living room, where a police siren wailed. Phoenix said something, and Ocean’s laughter peaked and faded like a whitecap on a wave. “They’re worse than parents.”
Cass nodded. “In my purse.”
The purse was a loaf-shaped thing, something her mother would have carried. I fumbled around, half expecting compacts and hairnets, and found the pack. Old Gold Filters. I lit up and inhaled, and when the nicotine hit, so did the feeling of being twelve or thirteen, getting high on the rush of another small rebellion. I passed the cigarette to Cass, and for a fleeting moment there she was, the girl I grew up with, who knew how a cigarette should be smoked and shared because I’d taught her.