by Paul Hina
to look out on the lake."
"They live on the lake?"
"Yeah, it's a real nice place, which is no surprise. They're both working professionals. They make good money."
"What's Susannah do?"
"She runs the area food banks."
"No kidding?"
"She's the real deal, Simon. She's a good person."
"And how young is she again?"
"Just over forty, I think. You'd never never know it to look at her, though. She looks at least ten years younger."
"And she stays out of your way for the most part?"
"She hovers a round a little for Dad's sake. He likes to have her around. Plus, there's very little privacy as it is. There's a hospice nurse on duty who pops in and out a lot. But it's actually nice to have Susannah around if I have a question, or if I need a diversion from Dad. Like I said, he's in and out a lot and there are moments when he doesn't seem to know what he's saying," Maggie says as she turns into a gravel driveway.
"I'm surprised Dad wanted to live out here. I knew he always liked the lake, but I always thought of him as more of a city person."
"It doesn't surprise me. I don't think we ever really knew what kind of person he was."
"That's true. I suppose I spent a lot of time filling in the gaps for myself," Simon says.
They make another turn in the driveway and the canopy of trees overhead opens up like a curtain to expose a big, brick house.
"Wow, that is nice," Simon says.
"Told you. Wait until you see the view of the lake," Maggie says as she parks in front of the garage.
"You think he'll be up?"
"I told her we were coming. It all depends on when he's taken his medication," she says. She takes a long breath, looks over at Simon. "You ready?"
"No, but we're here."
Maggie gets out of the car. Simon slowly follows her up the pea stone walkway to the house. They walk side by side up the stairs of the porch, and Simon takes a look around at the beautiful surroundings, listens for the water of the lake, tries to calm his racing heart. It's been nearly six years since he's last seen this man, and it'll be the first time he's met the woman that caused his family to break apart—even if it was a family in name only.
Maggie knocks on the door, and Simon remembers her words when he was about to knock on her door earlier, about how you only knock on the door of a stranger.
The door opens and there's no one behind it. It takes a second before a woman pops her head out from behind the door, "Hello. Come on in."
At first, Simon assumes this woman is Susannah, but once they move into the house, and he sees her colorful smock and name tag, he can see that she's a nurse.
"How are you, Claire?" Maggie asks, obviously familiar with her.
"Oh, I'm fine. Just getting things ready for the night shift before I go," Claire says. "Susannah is back with your dad. She'll be out in a second."
"How's he doing today?" Maggie asks.
"As good as can be expected, I'd say. He's not at his most comfortable right now. He's due for some more pain medication, but he wanted to see you guys with as clear a head as he could get."
They all stand there for a minute, not quite knowing what to do with themselves. The nurse smiles at them, and, seeing that there was not much else to say, disappears into another room.
Simon looks around the living room, trying to absorb his father's home. He looks for signs of his past, but doesn't see anything he remembers. There don't seem to be any traces from the old life here. The room is dark, even with the sun still brightly shining outside. There are a lot of nearby windows, but the curtains don't seem to be letting in a lot of the outside light. Also, the smell of sick and decay is faintly in the air, almost like the odor in certain areas of a hospital. It's obvious that the smell is stifled by care and cleaning, but it's still distinctly present.
Maggie turns toward Simon and smiles a comforting smile. She puts her hand on his arm and squeezes, sensing his nervousness. "You alright?"
"Yeah. It's just strange being here," he says.
"You think we should sit?" Maggie asks Simon, looking at the furniture in front of them. She looks as uncertain and uncomfortable as he feels. They seem even less at home than the nurse did.
Then a light shines from a hallway off the living room, cutting through the room's darkness. A distorted shadow moves into the light and moves down the hall. The footsteps come closer, and, for Simon, this all seems like it's happening in slow motion.
When Susannah finally appears, he's struck by her immediately. She really is quite beautiful. Her long, curvy hair is the perfect shade of auburn, and her face is stunningly pretty, almost silly in its symmetry. She has the perfect figure for a tall woman—slender, yet softly curved in all the right places. And the skirt she's wearing makes no attempt to hide her shape—happily shows off her hips and long legs. If Maggie was right that she's over forty, she's aged extraordinarily well.
She grabs at the wall when she sees them as if to steady herself. "God, you scared me. I didn't hear you come in," she says, flipping a switch on the wall, pouring light over the room.
As she moves toward them, her eyes grow wide as she gets a better look at Simon. She stops about six feet in front of him and stares for a beat… And then another. And he could swear that her eyes are suddenly sparkling with new tears.
"Everything alright, Susannah?" Maggie asks.
Susannah looks at Maggie, almost as if she's surprised to see her standing there. "Oh, sorry. It's just been a long day. I've not been sleeping well, and when I saw…," she says, but stopping to look at Simon again.
"How is he?" Maggie asks.
"He's excited to see you, but he's tired," she says, and then she looks at Maggie as if she's expecting her to say something.
"Oh, right," Maggie says. "Simon, this is Susannah. Susannah, Simon."
"It's nice to meet you," he says, reaching out his hand. She embraces it with both her hands.
"He's so happy that you're here, Simon. It means so much to him," she says, still staring at him. "I can hardly believe how much you look like him. I mean, I've seen photos, obviously, but seeing you now, it's… It's remarkable."
"That's what people say," he says.
"Can we see him?"
"He wants to see you alone for a few minutes," she says to Simon. "There's something he wants to talk to you about."
Simon looks at Maggie. Maggie gives him a kind of half-smile—a 'you're-on-your-own' smile.
"It's at the end of the hall?" Simon asks.
"Yeah, last room at the end," Susannah says.
Simon enters the hallway, stops and stares down at the empty room where his father is waiting for him. The smell of the house—that faint smell of death—is more prevalent now. As he moves down the hall, he feels himself pulling away from an integral fear—a self-preserving fear. It's almost as if he is pulling against the tension of some elastic band and, at any moment, he could just stop and fling himself back to where he was before this moment.
But he doesn't want to go back. He doesn't have anything to go back to.
Sy is lying in a hospital bed on the opposite side of the room, looking out the window next to his bed. He doesn't appear to have noticed that Simon is in the room.
Simon recognizes the profile of Sy's face, but it's different. He's older, yes, but his death mask has already attached itself to his skin. He's very thin—sickly thin. There is a hollowness and a darkness painted on that face.
Maggie was right to warn him about the room. It's completely empty, and the emptiness projects a sense of a life settling away from the material world. Simon's senses are confused by the starkness—the utter blankness—of the scene set in front of him. Other than the bed and a small wooden chair beside the bed, there is nothing else. There are no shelves, no books. There are no tables, no knick-knacks. There's not a single picture hanging on the brightly white walls—walls made brighter by the intense light filling the roo
m from the window. There's nowhere to hide.
"Dad?"
Sy turns and looks at Simon—not without effort—and a big smile opens up his sick, tired face.
When Simon sees his face in full for the first time, a crescendo rises from his gut to his head, and he can feel a wave of emotion pulling at his face as if a cry might pour out. He stifles it, tries hard to steady himself.
He can nearly feel the sickness written on that face—a variant of his own reflection. He can sense the pain. But as he approaches the bed, he is calmed by the pull he feels toward his dad, lets himself be warmed by his dad's smile.
"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Dad, but someone's come in and cleaned you out. There's nothing left in here but this bed and this chair."
Sy laughs a little—a courtesy laugh. He stops, winces, shakes it off and brings his smile back. "It's good to see you, Simon. Really good."
"It's good to see you, too."
"I'm sorry we haven't… You know," Sy says, and he's trying so hard to find the right words that Simon can almost see the gears in his head turning. "Things were difficult then."
"We don't need to talk about that, Dad."
"I need to," he says, clearly not wanting to waste any time. "It's important to me."
Simon nods and looks at him, stares into those same old, comforting eyes he remembers. They still sparkle in the same way, like there were thoughts constantly glimmering to life behind them.
"I didn't plan to leave your mother. It was never supposed to happen the way it did. It's true that I wasn't happy and hadn't been for a long time. And, lord knows, she wasn't happy. But when I met