The Beloved Son

by Jay Quinn

  “I had no idea,” Karl admitted. “I just know Mom is very fond of that desk.”

  “Sven says it’s worth a fortune,” Frank told him. “All that modernist crap is all the rage these days.”

  “Does Sven want it, then?” Karl asked.

  Frank finished his pie and took a sip of his iced tea. He pushed his chair back from the table and crossed his legs as if he were already at home in the formal dining room. “Your brother has been curiously quiet when asked what he wants. I don’t know if he wants everything for that shop of his—you know how much Swedish stuff we have—or if he’s sick of it all and wants nothing to do with it.”

  “That seems odd,” Karl admitted.

  “Not really,” Frank said easily. “You don’t see all the old stuff in our house on a regular basis. Sven does. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all become a burden, like some big shell on my back. I’m really looking forward to taking just a few things and moving here. Life is going to be simpler, lighter,” he said optimistically.

  “You’ll miss your trees and your flower beds and your study—I know you will,” Karl countered.

  Frank snorted and said, “No, I won’t. I’m tired of being responsible for all of it, and don’t even get me started on the property taxes.” He snorted again, then looked Karl in the eye and said, “Somehow, the house seems like it belongs to another time and place. Like losing my orange trees to old age—it’s too sad. As for my office, I bet I don’t spend fifteen minutes a week in there. I pay every bill the day it comes in and I’m out of there.”

  “So moving to Palladian Gardens is like starting on a new, exciting phase of your life,” Karl responded, his tone encouraging. Then he pressed further. “Do you think you’ll find more things to do here? More people to interact with?”

  Frank looked around the dining room and surveyed its occupants. Completing his survey at his son’s face, he said, “There are probably some interesting old farts around here, but I imagine I’ll do what I’ve been doing. Read my morning paper back to front, swim a little every day, and watch CNN and C-SPAN. Read a good Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum or James Patterson novel once a month. Hell, Son, at eighty you’re not looking for a lot of stimulation.”

  “You make it sound kind of boring to live to be eighty,” Karl replied curiously.

  “It is boring,” Frank admitted. “I wouldn’t have retired if they’d let me keep on working,” he said sadly. “That’s a man’s life. Work til you die—that way you’re useful.”

  Karl nodded. He himself had not even begun to comprehend retirement. He loved his job and felt no driving urge to give up the mental stimulation and routine he loved. That was one of the nice things about being a partner in the firm. He at least had a say about how he’d make his exit. IBM hadn’t been so kind to his father in that regard.

  “I guess if I’m going to be useless, I can at least enjoy it,” Frank said and chuckled. “After all these years, I’m looking forward to having someone else be responsible for all the bullshit. Here I don’t have to worry about even driving to mass. They have a chapel here, and a priest who comes in on Saturday night to hear confessions and say the mass.”

  “Won’t they miss you at your church?” Karl asked evenly. “You’ve been a parishioner for forty years at that place.”

  “I won’t miss paying for the refurbishment of the sanctuary,” Frank said truculently. “Hell, I helped pay for the first church and the school. Now they’re starting another building drive to completely update the sanctuary. They never stop with the funding drives. And then there was Sven’s parochial school tuition for twelve years on top of that. I’ve had it.”

  “That’s part of why I’m glad I don’t belong to a parish,” Karl admitted.

  His father looked at him disapprovingly. “So you don’t belong to any church up there in Gary?”

  “No. We stopped going after Melanie was confirmed,” Karl answered him carefully. “I promised you and Mom I’d raise her Catholic, even though Caro is—was—a Methodist. I kept my promise, now I’m done with it,” Karl finished decisively.

  “I felt that way when I was your age,” Frank admitted. “But your mother insisted we still attend mass, and Sven was being schooled in the church, so I went along with her. But I’ll be honest with you, Son. My faith has come to mean a lot to me as I’ve gotten older. One day you’ll find your way back to the church. It happens when you get closer to the end,” he added with authority.

  “Why would I do that, Dad?” Karl replied sarcastically. “Fire insurance?”

  Frank didn’t laugh at the joke, but studied his son’s face for a long moment and finally unfolded his legs and leaned in closer, his forearms resting on the table. “I’m not scared of hell, Karl. I just came to the realization that nothing in this world makes any kind of sense without something to believe in.”

  “I don’t believe anymore, Dad,” Karl told him gently. “I’m just not built to swallow all the rules and regulations, much less the willful ignorance it takes to be a believer. Yes, I believe there’s a God, but I long ago stopped thinking he had any interest in me personally. Life is what you make it yourself. I’m content with believing that,” Karl ended placidly.

  “You haven’t needed God for anything yet,” Frank said with certainty.

  “And you have?” Karl asked dismissively. “Your own hard work provided the wherewithal for you to spend your last years here, rather than in some nursing home that smells like pee and Pine-Sol. I don’t see God or your church writing you any checks.”

  Frank peered at his son from under the long, wild hairs of his aged brow and said, “I can’t tell you anything to convince you or change your mind, Karl. It’s about faith. I still have it, and I think one day you’ll find yours again. All I can tell you is the only thing that keeps me from putting a pistol in your mother’s mouth and then in mine is faith that somehow everything is going to be alright and that there’s a reason why things are the way they are right now. I can’t go on living without believing that with all my heart. It’s just too unbearable.”

  “Look, Dad, I don’t grudge you your faith, and as for hell, maybe you’re right—maybe someday I’ll find myself looking for some answers in church again. I just want you to not worry about me, okay?”

  “Oh, I don’t worry about you,” Frank said easily. “I’ve prayed for you every day of your life, and look at what you’ve become. I’m proud of you, you know that, right?”

  “I know, Dad,” Karl said, slightly embarrassed. “And I want you to know I appreciate your wisdom in taking care of yourself and Mom by moving into this place. You’re still on top of everything. I’ll say that for you,” Karl said stiffly. “You’re still looking out for all of us.”

  His father looked at him and nodded. “Thanks, Son. I do my best,” he said gruffly. “Now eat your pie. We need to be getting back to the house to check on your mother. I don’t like leaving her alone for so long.”

  Karl nodded and drew his dessert plate toward him, relieved at the chance to stop talking for a while. He was surprised to find that the pie was better than his lunch had been. As he ate, he was aware of his father watching him quietly. It made him self-conscious as he chewed and swallowed. Finally, he looked up and met his father’s gaze, and he was surprised by the love he saw there. It was obvious his father missed him as much as his mother had been better able to explain, but the look Karl found spoke volumes.

  “It’s good?” his father asked him softly.

  “It’s all good,” Karl said and smiled.

  8

  ON THE WAY back to his parents’ house, Karl endured his father’s driving, which alternated between being overly cautious and very aggressive. Even at midday, all of the streets were congested and the traffic was like the inside of a pinball machine, with other vehicles darting in and out of their lanes when his father deemed it necessary to drive the speed limit. When faced with anyone driving not to his liking, Frank would angrily switch lanes without
warning and then cut other drivers off to get back into the familiar lanes he knew led him most easily home. Karl was a nervous wreck as a result by the time they drove onto the street his parents lived on.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Frank said as he pulled up behind Sven’s Excursion parked in his drive. The big vehicle’s back end loomed into the windshield’s view and filled it with its broad-assed bulk, and Frank swerved the Buick hard to the left. Karl clung anxiously to his armrest as his father abruptly steered the car to the other side of the drive and came to a stop beside the SUV.

  Karl didn’t answer, but he felt a sense of unease grow steadily as he got out of the car and followed his father up the pathway to the front door. Though it was closed, Sven’s set of keys dangled from the outside lock. Frank pulled them out angrily and let himself in the door as he called out “Annike! Sven!”

  Karl followed his father into the foyer and shut the door quietly behind them. From the bedroom side of the house, he heard the sound of muffled song. As Frank strode toward the master bedroom, the song became recognizable: Sven and Annike were singing a lilting Swedish tune about springtime. It was familiar to Karl from his childhood. His mother would sing it to him, and later to Sven, to calm them as they lay down for their afternoon naps.

  Frank stormed through the bedroom and came to a sudden halt at the master bath’s door. Karl nearly ran into him. From over the top of his father’s head, Karl glimpsed his mother, nude in the tub with her knees drawn up to her chest, and Sven, kneeling by the tub’s edge, gently squeezing water from a washcloth onto his mother’s back. Sven stopped singing when he looked up and saw his father and brother, but Annike sang on, oblivious to their presence.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Frank bellowed.

  Annike looked up at him and started to cry. “Andreas, don’t låta honom spännvidd jag! Den var en olycksfall!” she cried in a small, high voice. Andreas, don’t let him spank me! It was an accident! “Behaga don’t spännvidd jag. JAG won’t gör den igen!” she pleaded. Please don’t spank me. I won’t do it again!

  “Sssssh,” Sven said soothingly, “It’s i orden, Annike. Han won’t disciplin du.” It’s alright, Annike. He won’t discipline you. Sven rubbed her back gently with the washcloth and looked his father in the eye. “Keep your voice down. You’re scaring her,” he said evenly.

  “You’d better tell me what’s going on,” Frank said urgently, in a much lower volume that still managed to communicate his strong disapproval.

  “I got a call from someone at Publix,” Sven began with a disarmingly calm and even voice. “Mom was shopping and got disoriented. She’d wet herself and couldn’t communicate with anyone. A nice lady at the front counter tried to calm her down, but she couldn’t understand anything Mom was trying to tell her. So she and a manager took her into the lunchroom and looked through her purse. She found the emergency card we put in Mom’s wallet and tried calling here. When she didn’t get an answer, she called me.”

  “Is she alright?” Frank demanded.

  “She’s slipped back further than she ever has before. She’s about four years old at the moment, and I’m just getting her calmed down,” Sven said wearily.

  “Do you know how inappropriate it is for you to be giving your mother a bath!” Frank seethed.

  With that, Annike started to cry once more.

  “What was I supposed to do?” Sven hissed. “Let her wander around in piss-wet clothes?”

  “You could have waited for me,” Frank said angrily.

  “You’re upsetting her again,” Sven said, with barely contained anger. “Why don’t you do something useful and go see if you can find the valet ticket in her purse? Karl and I have to go back and get her car once I get her dry and dressed.”

  Chagrined, Frank asked more softly, “Did you call the doctor?”

  “I called Dr. Kleinberg. He told me how to dose her medicine to try and break this fugue,” Sven told him evenly. “Dad, I checked her medicine box. She hasn’t taken any pills since lunch yesterday. Can’t I trust you to make sure she’s medicated?”

  “She told me she’d taken her medicine,” Frank said helplessly. “She slept through the night.”

  Soothed by Sven’s rhythmic strokes on her back, Annike ceased snuffling and started to sing softly to herself.

  “Whatever,” Sven said disgustedly. “Just please, go take care of the groceries in the kitchen. Once I get her in her nightgown and settled down for a nap, I’ll come get you and you can sit with her. She’s going to be pretty knocked out for the rest of the day.”

  “Fine, just take over,” Frank fumed.

  “Dad, I can deal with her or with you, but not both right now,” Sven said tiredly. “You can chew me out later, just let me handle this. Okay?”

  Without another word, Frank turned, and finding Karl still behind him, spared him a glare before striding toward the kitchen.

  “Are you okay?” Karl asked his brother gently.

  “Yeah,’’ Sven said and nodded before looking at his mother pityingly. “Give me about ten minutes and I’ll be out,” he assured him.

  Karl watched as he got stiffly off his knees and reached for a towel. Sven looked at him expectantly, and Karl got the point. He wanted to spare his mother’s compromised modesty. “I’ll go give Dad a hand,” Karl told him helplessly.

  “Thanks.” Sven opened the towel and bent down, saying, “Annike, it’s tid till få torka och tråka i din nightdress. Er du klar?” Annike, it’s time to get dry and get into your nightdress. Are you ready?

  “I’m sömnig,” she responded, I’m sleepy, and she started to stand.

  Karl turned away from the sight of his mother emerging from her bath and walked blindly out of the master bath and on to the kitchen. He found his father standing at the counter with an open fifth of scotch in one hand and a glass in the other.

  Frank poured himself a generous slug from the bottle and drained the glass in two gulps. He looked at Karl and then gestured around the counter, taking in the plastic bags of assorted groceries lying there. “The little bastard didn’t forget a thing, did he?”

  Karl stepped around the counter and reached for a bag.

  “Leave it!” Frank said instantly. “I’ll take care of it. You don’t know where all this shit goes anyway.”

  Karl stepped back and went to the breakfast table and sat down.

  “There are limits,” Frank told Karl angrily, but he didn’t go on.

  Karl only watched as his father poured a little less into his glass for the next round and tossed it back. As Karl sat in silence, Frank squared his shoulders and placed the glass in the dishwasher. He screwed the lid back on the bottle of scotch and returned it to the liquor cabinet. Then he concentrated on putting the groceries away, slowly and methodically. When he had finished, he picked up Annike’s purse, brought it to the table, and sat down opposite Karl. For a moment he just sat, both hands clutching the purse in his lap as he looked at it tenderly. Finally, he opened the purse and slowly sifted through its contents until he found the valet ticket for her car. Wordlessly, he slid it across the table to Karl.

  “Your Publix has gone upscale,” Karl commented. “Valet parking at the grocery store?”

  Frank gave a bitter chuckle. “Welcome to Boca Raton,” he said snidely. “When we moved here forty years ago, I had no idea the Jews were going to turn it into Beverly Hills.”

  Ignoring the hateful comment, Karl sat in silence for a moment before saying, “It’s a good thing Sven is so good with Mom. I couldn’t handle it.”

  Frank rubbed his eyes tiredly and said, “I know. I shouldn’t have flown off the handle, but sometimes I just want to wring his neck.”

  “Why, Dad?” Karl asked quietly.

  “Jealousy,” Frank said and laughed. “Resentment. Fear. You name it.”

  “Isn’t that a little crazy, Dad?” Karl pleaded. “I mean, he’s just taking care of her—and you.”

  “Did
it ever occur to you that I might resent having to be taken care of?” Frank asked honestly. “Do you know how bad I feel for not making sure she’d taken those damn pills, and for letting her get into such a state?”

  “Dad, don’t be so hard on yourself. Mom told you she took her medicine, and she seemed pretty together all morning,” Karl said soothingly. “Why would you doubt her?”

  “Because she’s not… because she’s not in her proper mind, Karl. I should have checked for myself, but it’s so hard to admit she’s slipping away from me so fast,” Frank said and slumped a little further down in his chair.

  Karl looked at his father, so sad and defeated, and tried to think how to comfort him. He was confounded to find he needed some comforting himself. It was truly disturbing to feel so helpless at the hard evidence of his mother’s precarious mental state. Knowing how unpredictably it could upset the even tone and steady routine of their days was not only frustrating, it was frightening.

  Karl thought about the wing of Palladian Gardens that had been pointed out to him, but into which he hadn’t been invited. Roberta had been very careful to explain that there was a separate wing just for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. It was set up to make sure they were safe and properly supervised, medicated, and controlled. He shuddered at the thought of his mother there, locked in a world where no one could understand her simplest requests, such as for water or warmth against the chill of the air-conditioning. When it got to the point that Swedish was the only language left available to her, she would be completely isolated and alone.