The Rules of Inheritance

by Smith, Claire Bidwell

  Just like your mom, he said.

  I realize he’s right. I think about how my mom got on a plane with my father on the afternoon of their first date. I wonder if she felt like I do right now.

  I have this feeling like I’m altering the course of something. I’m supposed to be on my way back to Los Angeles right now. I have a party to go to tonight. My friend Lucy is in town from Atlanta. I’m graduating in two weeks from my master’s program.

  What am I doing on this plane to Chicago?

  At the very least, I think to myself, I’ll see a city I’ve never visited before. And if Greg is a total weirdo, then I only have to put up with him for sixteen hours. My return flight to LA is scheduled for eight tomorrow morning.

  As the plane rounds its way across the lake, I can see the city gleaming, curving around the lip of the water. We touch down before I can decide if any of this is a good idea. As the plane taxis to the gate I text Greg.

  Just landed.

  I’m in baggage claim, he writes back.

  I’m nervous.

  You’ll be fine.

  The seat-belt light clicks off and everyone stands up. I grab my only bag, a canvas one with my name embroidered on it—a bridesmaid’s gift from Liz—and make my way off the plane.

  I follow signs to baggage claim, my heart pounding. And then I’m riding the escalator down. In years to come I’ll walk by this very escalator a hundred times, and each time I’ll look at it in wonder, remembering the final moment before Greg and I really knew each other as it hovered on this moving, silver staircase.

  And then he’s walking toward me and all I can think is, It’s you.

  It’s you.

  The feeling is strange, if only because it is so simple.

  We embrace, and the heat from his body tempers my air-conditioning cooled skin. After that we ride the same escalator three times, both of us too nervous and too distracted to figure out how to get out of the airport.

  Once we finally make it to his car Greg drives us back to his apartment in Lakeview, where we stand in the kitchen and eat strawberries from a bowl. Greg cut them himself earlier that morning in preparation for my visit, and I can tell it is something he doesn’t normally do. The windows are open to let in the summer air, and during our silent moments we listen to the happy sounds of laughter filtering up from the bar across the street.

  We kiss for the first time, there in the kitchen, and I’ll always remember it for many reasons. One of them is because, for the first time in a long time, nothing about the kiss serves to fill a void.

  Again, it is much simpler than that.

  He is a boy and I am a girl, and we are standing in a kitchen on a warm summer day, the taste of strawberries sweet in our mouths.

  Sixteen hours later I get on an airplane back to Los Angeles. It will be another couple of weeks before I admit to having fallen in love, but as I stare out the window at the Chicago skyline growing distant beneath me, I remember something my mother wrote in a letter a few months before she died.

  You’ll meet so many men, will attract them like flies. You have that shy sweetness that men love. Don’t marry anyone because of money, name, class, need of any kind. Be so much in touch with who you are and what you really want—and then it will happen. Your complement will appear.

  Find yourself and you’ll find your other self. Give each other space and respect. There can be no nagging doubt. The Italians have a name for it, which I adore, but which I’ve forgotten. It’s likened to being struck by a lightning bolt.

  Accept nothing else.

  Chapter Fourteen

  2003, I’M TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD.

  IT’S A WARM California evening and I’m driving west on the 22 toward Garden Grove. My father is in the passenger seat beside me. I am taking him home from the hospital where he has been for six weeks, ever since his legs stopped working and we found out that the cancer had spread to his hips.

  Must be nice to be outside again, hmm?

  My dad doesn’t answer and I glance over at him. He’s staring out the window at the cars streaming by, at the brightly lit billboards on the side of the highway. He’s looking at the world like he’s never seen anything like it.

  Something inside of me crumples. Then I feel a snag of fear.

  My mother had the same look on her face in the weeks before she died.

  I look back at the road, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I am determined to get my father home. To nurse him back to health.

  Inside his condo complex I pull the car up alongside the curb. It’s about twenty-five feet to the front door. I shift into park and turn off the engine.

  I’m going to run in and get the walker, I say. You okay?

  Yup, my dad says.

  It’s early evening and there is still light in the sky. Inside the condo I flick on a few lights and grab my dad’s walker.

  Back outside I open the passenger side door.

  Okay, you ready?

  My dad nods but looks nervous.

  I help him to swing his legs out the door, making sure they’re planted firmly on the asphalt below. I position the walker in front of him, and he grips the handles on either side.

  Okay, Dad. One. Two. Three . . .

  I watch the muscles in his arms tense, see the tendons strain in his neck. But nothing happens. My father can’t stand up.

  I think I’m gonna need some help, kiddo.

  I lean forward, placing a hand beneath each of his arms.

  One. Two. Three . . . I pull upward but I’m not strong enough to lift him, and again nothing happens.

  Fear finds its way into my throat. I swallow it down, gulping.

  I can see that my dad is growing nervous too.

  It’s okay, Dad. I’ll figure this out.

  I run around and climb in through the driver’s side. I perch on my knees, wedging my hands underneath my dad’s butt. It’s an awkward position, and I already know that at this angle it isn’t going to be easy to utilize my strength.

  One. Two. Three . . .

  I try as hard as I can to push him upward. He rises out of the seat an inch or two. His arms are shaking. Mine are shaking. He drops back down.

  Oh fuck, Claire. What are we going to do?

  It’ll be okay, Dad. I promise.

  He exhales in a loud puff. Pfft.

  Yesterday I sat in a roomful of doctors and promised them all that I could handle this. A social worker tapped her pen skeptically and one of the doctors sighed audibly.

  I really think you should consider a skilled-care facility, he said.

  Before I could object, the social worker spoke up.

  I don’t think you realize what a big undertaking this is. It’s a lot for anyone, let alone a twenty-five-year-old on her own. Your father is very weak.

  I cleared my throat, swallowed the bubble of fear lodged there.

  I’m going to take him home, I said.

  My father looked up hopefully.

  I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

  I gritted my teeth and cleared my throat again, just to buy time. If I thought I could have gotten through it without breaking down I would have told them about my mom. About all the years that we’d all been through. About how I wasn’t there the night she died.

  I can do this, is all I managed to say instead.

  But now I’m not so sure. I haven’t even gotten my father inside the house and I’m already failing.

  Let me try again from the front, Dad.

  As I crawl out from behind the wheel and make my way around to the passenger side I have this sudden flash of myself. It’s like I’m watching all of this from another place, another time. I see myself at age twenty-five, on a warm June night in Southern California, trying to lift my dying eighty-three-year-old father from the passenger seat of his car.

  Tears are running down my cheeks now, but I swipe them away, push down the panic rising up into my chest.

  Okay, Dad. One. Two. Three.
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  I get a grip under each of his arms and pull as hard as I fucking can.

  Nothing.

  He’s breathing heavily now. He is shaking his head.

  It’s going to be okay, Dad. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. We just need to get you inside and everything will be okay. It’s going to be okay.

  I’m verging on hysterical and I know it.

  Wait here, I say.

  I take off down the sidewalk, rounding the side of the complex.

  Please, please, someone help me.

  I knock on the door of a neighbor. Please let this guy be home. Please, please, please.

  The unit belongs to a young couple, Mike and Melanie. They’re only a few years older than me, married with two little kids. My dad has always been friendly with them, and Mike has helped us out with a couple of things before.

  The door opens and it’s Mike. He’s a big guy and I immediately take in the muscles in his arms, the sturdiness of his shoulders.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  My throat is so tight that the words come in a whisper.

  Mike, can you help me?

  Back at the car my dad offers him a weak grin. Hey, Mike.

  Hi, Mr. Smith.

  In one fluid motion Mike has my dad on his feet.

  My father sighs in relief and leans heavily onto the walker. I can see his legs wobble and he’s still breathing in puffs.

  Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

  I wheel an office chair out onto the sidewalk, and we quickly get my dad settled in it. As Mike and I push him toward the front door I reflexively glance behind me. I have this feeling like I’m being watched. Like someone is just waiting for me to fuck up.

  Like I already have.

  I SPEND THE NEXT WEEK trying to get my dad back on his feet. I’m still convinced that he’ll get better now that he’s home, surrounded by his books and plants, by all the photos of my mom on the walls. I cook dinner every night, rent all his favorite movies.

  A physical therapist comes every day, and together we help him walk back and forth down the hallway. Watching him slowly place one foot in front of the other is excruciating. Time drips by. More than half the time, I realize, I’m holding my breath.

  Although I technically still live in Hollywood with Colin, I haven’t been home in days. My dad needs too much care to be left alone. Every night I run through a lengthy checklist of medications and comfort measures. I take a baby monitor to bed with me, awakening thickheaded at the sound of his calls at two in the morning.

  After a week at home he shows no improvement.

  Before he left the hospital the doctors brought up the possibility of hospice on more than one occasion. Each time I stiffened at the word, shook my head no.

  My father isn’t dying yet. He can’t be. I just need to get him home.

  He’ll get better. They’ll see.

  After a week of this, though, a tiny thorn of doubt is beginning to twist inside me.

  I’m so tired, Claire.

  I know, Dad.

  It’s Sunday night and we’re going through the nightly checklist, getting him ready for bed. He takes out his dentures, and I hold out a little dish for him to drop them into. He didn’t want to get out of bed today, so we ate dinner in his bedroom, Jeopardy! on the television, a napkin tucked into the collar of his pajamas.

  I walk into the bathroom and dump the dentures in the sink. I use two toothbrushes to scrub at them so I don’t have to touch them. At one point I look up at myself in the mirror, and it’s like I’ve forgotten what I look like.

  I stare at my reflection and wonder how long I can keep this up. As determined as I am, I’m also deeply afraid of what’s coming.

  I’m scared that I’ll disappear into this condominium in Southern California. I’m afraid that my friends will recede into the distance, that my budding career will vanish before my eyes. I’m afraid that I won’t know myself by the end of it all.

  I look away from my reflection and lock the dentures away in their case for the night.

  Better get some sleep tonight, I call out. You’ve got physical therapy in the morning.

  Honey?

  I can hear it in his voice before he says another word. I already know what’s coming next. I stand in the doorway looking at my father.

  I don’t want to do the physical therapy anymore.

  I walk into his room and sit down on the edge of his bed, picking at the sheets like a little girl.

  My dad takes my hand. Do you understand what I’m saying?

  I can’t think of a response. He squeezes my hand.

  I’ve lived a good life, sweetie. You know that. I’m eighty-three years old.

  My throat swells up.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I’m so fucking sick of crying.

  It happens anyway.

  You knew we didn’t have much time left, honey. We’ve made the best of it though, haven’t we? These last few years . . .

  He trails off and I look up.

  I nod at him.

  He nods back at me, like we’ve just made a deal.

  I MAKE THE CALL in the morning and a hospice nurse is sitting in our living room by early afternoon. She does a presentation that, years from now, I’ll be trained to do myself. She explains the daily care my father will receive from the hospice team, and she tells us that he’ll be able to stay at home now that he will have so much support caring for him.

  I nod at her, but inwardly I’m weeping with gratitude. The social worker at the hospital was right. This job is too big for me to do on my own.

  After signing on with hospice, my dad stops getting out of bed altogether.

  A nurse comes every few days. She checks my father’s vitals, goes over his medications, and schools me in the best ways to adjust his position in bed, how to empty his catheter bag, and where to check for bedsores.

  For the next two weeks my half siblings take turns coming out from the East Coast. Mike comes first, then Candy, and Eric comes last.

  They are solemn and careful with our dad. The joking, familiar pattern my father and I share seems startling in contrast, and I am reminded of the very different relationships we have with the same man.

  I take advantage of their presence to revisit my old life. For the first time in over a week I drive up to Hollywood and stay the night at home with Colin. Before I leave, I go over my dad’s medications with Mike, show him how to work the oxygen tank, explain the bedtime routine.

  My father looks on from his new mechanical hospital bed. His eyes are wide like a child’s.

  I’ll be back first thing in the morning, I remind him.