by Jane Porter
My mother always laughed when she was the dummy.
I loved her for that. I loved that she was so warm and easy. She had an ego, but it was about education and excellence and schools. Never herself.
Now Dad, partnered by the formidable Edie, is the dummy, but he doesn’t seem to mind. As the game progresses it’s obvious he’s fond of Edie, almost deferential. But then, he does like winning, and they are winning now. From the quiet, sporadic banter around the table, to the winning of tricks, it’s clear Dad and Edie are the team to beat.
Thirty minutes later the game finally ends, and Dad rises carefully, using a cane to assist him to his feet. Bob offered an arm but Dad wouldn’t accept the help.
Now Dad leads the way to lunch, walking slightly ahead of me, working the cane as if an aggressive sea captain on the deck of his ship.
He’s thinner than when I last saw him, noticeably thinner, but his mood is ebullient after the win. His voice isn’t steady but it’s impossible to miss his confidence. “Bob and Rose arrived in March and everybody started saying they were the best bridge players at the Estates. But that was before Edie and I started playing together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“That makes you happy.”
“It’s fun to win.”
“She seems a little bossy.”
“She’s almost ninety-five. She’s entitled to have a few opinions.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “You don’t like her.”
It’s a statement, not a question. I shrug. “I don’t know her. But she’s not exactly warm and friendly. Whenever she looked at me she seemed to be giving me the evil eye.”
“Oh, she was. She doesn’t tolerate stuff and nonsense—”
“I’m not stuff and nonsense.”
“But you were interrupting our game.”
“You told me to meet you for lunch. I was here at noon. That’s lunchtime.”
“She’s very smart, Edie. She was raised overseas, speaks a half-dozen languages, and could have worked for the State Department but chose to become a teacher instead. I enjoy her company a great deal. There aren’t a lot of women here like her. She reminds me of my aunt Mary. Mary was brilliant. She wanted to be a doctor but her father, my grandfather, wouldn’t hear of it.”
We’d reached the large dining room just off the entrance atrium. The dining room’s longest wall was lined with tall French doors overlooking Napa’s rolling hills covered in trellised grapes. It’s a picturesque view and the May sunlight spills into the room, streaking the hardwood floor and dappling the place settings.
The lunch hostess takes us to a table for two near the French doors. Dad is still leaning on his cane, but taking smaller steps to match his small talk with the hostess as she leads us to our table. I think the hostess isn’t there to seat us as much as to make sure Dad and the other seniors don’t topple over.
I’d been worried that Dad and I would have nothing to talk about but he’s cheerful as we study the menu, recommending the taco salad which comes in a big tortilla shell, shaped like a bowl. I consider his recommendations but end up ordering the Chinese chicken salad.
We have ice tea with our salads and I have to pretend it’s not difficult to watch Dad struggle with his meal, hand shaking, as it takes him two, three attempts to get lettuce and ground beef onto his fork. He shouldn’t have ordered something with ground beef. It doesn’t clump. The salad and cheese and beef fall off the tines before they reach his mouth.
“Need help?” I ask.
“Nope.”
Why did I know he’d say that? But his good mood wanes as he battles to get his lunch onto his fork and up to his mouth.
I feel a pang.
I haven’t seen him enough. Haven’t talked to him enough. The phone call every couple of weeks (is it even that often?) isn’t enough. I know it’s not enough. And more confusing is that I don’t know this Dad, not without Mom. Dad’s quiet. Never has been much of a talker. And now without Mom, we struggle to communicate.
“You look nice,” I tell him, trying to fill the silence.
He’s wearing a plaid shirt, blue and burgundy, and his thinning hair is combed neatly, the medium brown fading to gray, but I could see his scalp if I stood above him. I don’t want to see it. It makes my heart hurt. I wish Mom were here to take care of him. I’m not going to be able to give him the love he needs. I’m not able to do much other than make small talk and maybe play some cards and kill some time before I head back home. Unless he comes to live with me. And then I could be there every day. I could make dinner for us and plan outings . . . movies or a visit to a play or museum.
Not that he ever wanted to do any of those things.
What would he do in Arizona, living with me?
The thought is uncomfortable and I push it away.
“I should have ordered soup,” he says a few minutes later, dropping his fork and irritably tossing his napkin onto his plate. “Or pudding. Pudding would have at least stuck to the spoon.”
• • •
Dad seems tired by the end of lunch and we head to his “apartment” with its miniature living room, where we settle onto the small couch and Dad turns on the TV. For the next couple of hours we stare at the small flat-screen TV, watching a program neither of us cares about, letting the commercials and show fill the silence and provide entertainment.
I see Dad wince a couple times as he shifts position. “Are you hurting?”
“I’m fine.”
I lean forward, concerned, but can tell from his expression that he doesn’t want to be babied. Dad served in Korea before finishing school to become a veterinarian. I know he saw combat but he’s never talked about it. And I actually have no idea of what he did in Korea. Or what he was.
We watch the next show and when that ends I look at him. “Do you like it here, Dad?” I’m desperate to find something we can talk about, something to bridge this distance between us.
“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”
Good enough. “You don’t miss the house?”
“I don’t want to be there without your mom. And I can’t be there without her. I need assistance, and so here you go.”
I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. “You wouldn’t want to come live with me?”
“We talked about this already.”
“At Christmas, but it’s been a while and I thought maybe we should revisit the discussion.”
“No.”
“Don’t you want to be near me?”
“I’m a native Californian. I lived in Washington for a number of years, raised you there, but it was my dream—and your mom’s—to return to California one day. I have no desire to live in the desert.”
“But you’d be able to be near me.”
He shoots me an odd glance. Hard to decipher his expression. “You could always move here. Be a dentist here.”
I picture Dr. Morris and his sad eyes and his plans for Andrew. All those hopes and dreams.
I take a deep breath, dangerously close to tears. “I don’t know that I can leave Dr. Morris yet. I don’t know that he could continue his practice. Knowing him, he’d retire and sell the practice.”
“Maybe that would be the best thing for him.”
I frown. “Why? He loves his practice, loves his work.”
“Maybe he puts too much emphasis on his practice.”
Dad is very black and white. He doesn’t do ambiguous, but he’s being plenty ambiguous now. “What does that mean?”
“Everyone always talks about what Dr. Morris wants, and what’s best for him. But what about you? And what about Andrew? Was working in Scottsdale for his dad the best thing for him? I don’t think so.”
I suddenly can’t remain seated and jump up to cross the room to the sliding glass door. I look out the door onto a courtyard with a fountain surrounded by white roses, lavender, and neat green boxwood. It could be the courtyard of a hotel. Pretty and manicured but also very empty.
“Does anyone
ever go out there?” I ask, noting the stone benches that look terribly uncomfortable.
“No. But it’s a nice view.”
“Mmm.” I stand there another moment but I’m not looking at the roses. I’m thinking about what Dad said regarding Dr. Morris. “I like Dr. Morris. I love him. He’s like my other dad.” I turn to face my father. “And he’s a good dentist. A really good dentist.”
“Not saying he isn’t. And I think you were cut out to be a dentist. I don’t know that your Andrew was.”
My Andrew.
The heaviness in my chest is back. It’s a weight that never completely lifts, but sometimes bears down, relentless. Crushing. It feels crushing now.
And beneath the grief is anger. Terrible, terrible anger.
I keep my back to my dad so he can’t see how much his words hurt, and infuriate, me.
My Andrew was laughter and light and he made the world a beautiful place. A better place. What was he thinking leaving me here without him? What was he thinking taking the easy way out?
It’s hard to love.
It’s hard to live.
It’s hard to keep one’s courage and optimism . . . to keep believing when life slams into you, wave after wave of pain and disappointment. I know. I’ve been underwater for months here, and yet I just keep swimming and swimming even though my eyes and throat and nose burn with salt and the sharp tang of love lost. Love gone.
But how to stop swimming? How to give up?
There’s no part in me willing to accept defeat. Silence.
What kind of message would that be? What kind of woman would I be to quit now just because it’s hard?
Of course it’s hard! It’s life. It’s not a carnival ride. It’s not something one signs up for. It’s something you’re thrust into.
“He was a nice young man,” my dad says from behind me. “I liked him.”
I press my lips together and squeeze my eyes tight, holding all my emotions in. Dad means well. He’s trying to comfort me. He’s trying . . .
And yet it suddenly enrages me that he’s waited all these years to reach out to me. That all these months when I’m down in Scottsdale trying to carry on that he doesn’t feel any need to connect with me, or comfort me. He’s just assumed that I’m fine. He’s assumed I’ll manage.
And yes, I’m managing. But my God it hurts.
And I’m lonely. And scared.
Scared that I’ll always feel this way. Numb. Dead.
Angry.
I dig deep, bearing down on the anger, pressing it down, burying it where it can’t hurt me. Or Dad. I don’t want to be rude to Dad but I’m so confused. He’s spent his whole life immersed in his work and his thoughts and interests. He had thirty years to learn to love me and he never bothered to do it very well.
He could take care of all those animals but he couldn’t take care of me.
He couldn’t find time to spend with me.
But no sooner do I feel the anger, than I’m consumed by guilt.
I shouldn’t need more than I do. I shouldn’t need anything more than what I’ve got. I shouldn’t expect anything at all. I wasn’t raised with expectations. Neither my mother nor my father taught me that I was entitled to anything; every opportunity was to be seized, every advantage taken. And I have worked hard. Very, very hard.
“You’re angry,” Dad says now, breaking the silence that has stretched far too long.
I shrug and glance at him. His narrow face is weathered and deeply lined. He’s not a young man. I don’t know how resilient he really is. He says one thing but I can no longer trust that his words reflect reality. It would be easy to remain angry, but it’s not me. It never has been. I prefer moving forward. Not much of a fan of treading water or remaining in place.
“What was Mom’s secret for dealing with you?” I ask huskily, managing a faint wry smile.
“She liked me. And she knew my limitations.”
“I like you, and I’ve a good idea about your limitations. You enjoy your routine, you have no patience for idiots, and you don’t like small talk or cocktail party chatter.”
“I’m short on patience and have a quick temper.”
“Except when it comes to animals.”
He lifted a trembling hand. “They don’t talk.”
“And they can’t help themselves when hurt or injured.”
His head, with its steely strands of gray, nods. “Your mother never minded that I preferred animals to people.”
Clearly I’m nothing like my mother, because I do.
• • •
Leaving the retirement home, I go grocery shopping before driving back to the house on Poppy Lane.
The cream-colored house looks lavender and yellow in the twilight. Once upon a time the picket fence was bordered by cheerful perennials. The flowers are gone, replaced by some shrubby-looking hedge. I wonder who replaced the flowers. Probably the same gardener that mows twice a month.
There’s a big oak tree in the backyard and it’s home to a variety of birds. In the morning you hear the jays and mockingbirds. Now crows caw. I pause with the bags of groceries to watch a large black bird swoop from the gnarled tree limbs to a power line, joining the lineup. They screech a welcoming. Or perhaps a warning. The newcomer flaps his wings. He doesn’t care.
As I juggle the bags and unlock the front door I glance back at the car. The car and street are bathed in gold. The temperature is still warm. You can smell summer coming.
From the time I was a teenager, my parents talked about their retirement plans. They wanted to return to California, where both had been raised. They wanted a small town. They wanted charm. They wanted good weather. They discussed small beach towns like San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria, just north of Santa Barbara. They talked about going to the wine country: Sonoma . . . Calistoga . . . Napa. If they’d had a couple drinks, they’d dream bigger—maybe they could have both. Maybe they could split their time between the two: a small house on the coast and a place in the wine country, too.
It was the dream, the thing that kept them working and saving and looking forward. They’d raised me—their only child—in Tacoma, Washington. Dad had his own practice and Mom worked her way from being a teacher to a vice principal, and then a principal, bouncing around the Tacoma Unified School District, taking promotions and advancements when they came.
They both worked hard so they could be secure in their retirement.
They worked hard so they could be free.
Dad was the bigger earner. A good vet, and affordable, he had built a very loyal customer base, and even though he was ten years older than mom, he’d intended to work until she retired and then they’d pool their resources and move.
But Dad’s health changed. He developed tremors, couldn’t operate, nor did he trust himself during exams. He ended up selling his practice to a young veterinarian who’d been working with him for the past couple of years. The young vet was enthused. Dad suddenly found himself with far too much time on his hands.
It was this house on Poppy Lane that ultimately sold my parents on Napa.
They came to Napa for this house. They loved its history. They loved that it sat on a full acre, with most of the space stretching luxuriously in the back, the yard not filled with a pool but a small fruit orchard and a generous vegetable garden.
They loved the hundred-year-old house and Mom wanted the garden.
I was happy for them. I knew it was their dream, their house. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t ever meant to be mine. I was already dating Andrew, and in my second year of dental school. I’d already hitched my star to Andrew’s. Wherever he wanted to go, I’d follow, and I knew he planned on returning to Scottsdale after graduation to join his father’s dental practice. He was clear about that. He wanted to work with his dad. He wanted to be like his dad . . . a good dentist, and a great father.
I was on board.
My future was his family, people who had a little more energy, activity, and opportunity than I’d b
een raised with. My mom and dad were homebodies. Dr. and Mrs. Morris were active on the Scottsdale social scene; their large home host to numerous parties and high-profile events. It seemed like the ideal life to me. Dry desert winters and blistering summers where you worked in an adobe-tiled building and then cooled off after work and on weekends in your backyard swimming pool.
I didn’t need more. Didn’t want more. Work, home, family, that was enough for me. I am apparently too easily entertained and I’ve always found something to engage my mind . . . something to focus on.
School, studies, exams, career. Whatever I do, I do well and there is satisfaction in excellence. Success. I naturally assumed I’d be a good wife, a devoted mother. I didn’t see problems with the plan.
The plan.
The plan is gone.
• • •
I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and stare at nothing, heart pounding, skin clammy.
What is the plan now?
What do I do now?
I don’t know.
It’s been over a year since Andrew died and I still don’t know.
Will I ever know again?
• • •
It takes me forever to fall back asleep and I sleep heavily, waking to sunlight and the twittering of birds in the oak tree not far from the master bedroom.
I don’t get up right away. Everything is heavy inside me. Wet cement. A future I can’t see—
Not true. I can see it. Work, work, work. Possibly being promoted to Dr. Morris’ partner. Morris & McAdams Dentistry.
But suddenly I’m resistant. Suddenly the idea of sitting so still, mask firmly in place, staring down into open mouths for the rest of my life horrifies me.
Is this what Andrew had thought?
That he’d rather die than sit on that stool and gaze down into open mouths day after day after day?
Dentistry is a science, and an art. It’s about perfection. In dentistry, the work is exact. There is no room for error. The quest is for perfect, and perfection is how one is judged in dental school, and the standard continues into one’s practice.