Odd Adventures with your Other Father

by Prentiss, Norman

  The car drove smooth and silent, one of those luxury sedans that absorbed every bump in the road. The radio was tuned to a country station, its volume low so Celia couldn’t distinguish the lyrics, yet the song’s mournful quality came through nonetheless. Her grandmother sniffled a bit, on the verge of tears, and all Celia could think to do was apologize.

  “I’m sorry”—the two words hoping to mean everything. I’m sorry this is still so painful. I’m sorry this happened to your son. I’m sorry for making you talk about it.

  She wanted to reach forward and touch her grandmother’s shoulder, to pat her knee as comfort. Would that be appropriate? Did they know each other well enough yet?

  “Oh, don’t apologize. That’s what didn’t happen, and that’s why I’m telling you. Jonathan would have kept us in the dark, thinking he was sparing our feelings. Shawn, bless him, told us right away—even before the second and third sets of tests came back confirming the same awful results. He told us the truth. And that’s what a parent needs to know, even when it’s bad. Especially when it’s bad.

  “I felt so close to Shawn then, we both did. That’s why I’m telling you this part. It’s proof. He’s a good man. I don’t want you to blame him for what happened later.”

  Celia felt dizzy. Carsick, for the first time in her life. Her grandmother was circling back to what had shocked her in the restaurant. Dad Shawn had done something horrible, according to them. Celia couldn’t believe it. When she’d asked, practically begged them to explain, Pop Pop had said, Not here. It’s complicated.

  “I offered,” her grandmother said again. “Our home, anytime they wanted it. And my skills.”

  She placed an odd inflection on the word skills. Celia thought about a witch, and how she might refer to her spells. In that brief instant, her grandparents were necromancers. They had potions and charms that would have saved their son’s life—at some cost, of course. There’s always a sacrifice. Livelihood. A working limb. A soul. An innocent child . . .

  “Charlotte’s a nurse,” her grandfather said, cutting off her fanciful speculations. “She offered to quit work to care for Jack.”

  “Whatever it took. However long they needed me. I’d cared for a lot of hospital patients in my day, and did some freelance work in private homes. I knew what equipment I’d need, how to set up a room in the house. I could give him the best possible care.

  “Well, at this point Jonathan knew Shawn had told us about his condition. They both thanked me for the offer, but they were a little insulted, too. As though I’d implied a mother’s love and care were stronger than the bond they shared. I hadn’t meant that at all, of course, but that’s how they heard it.

  “I can’t remember which of them said it, but the message was clear: Their life was together. I had to respect that.

  “I thought I had. After all, I’d invited them both to stay with us.”

  “That’s right.” her grandfather said. Celia sensed a glint of his eyes in the rearview mirror; the tuft of her grandmother’s hair turned toward her, the left ear expectant. Celia nodded, then made a vague affirmative sound.

  “We smoothed that over,” her grandmother said. “Or at least I thought we had. We drove up to visit—only our second visit to Baltimore. It was a sad time, but we kept our cheer the best we could—for our sake, but also for you, Celia. You were only four years old. Nobody wanted you to feel upset. To even sense what was going on.

  “And it worked. You were such a sweet, happy child.”

  “Still are,” Pop Pop added.

  “We wanted to visit again soon, offered to help in any way they’d let us. As delicately as I could, I mentioned our home again, offered to be Jonathan’s nurse.

  “They declined again. They’d get their own nurse, when that step became necessary.

  “The consolation was that Shawn kept us informed at every stage. After every doctor visit, he’d call with a full report. Sometimes Jonathan was resting and didn’t come to the phone, but Shawn always conveyed a message of love from our son.

  “Shawn was taking good care of him. We knew he was. He always told us the full truth.”

  The smooth ride continued. Streetlights strobed past on either side of the highway, mediating the night. Another green sign counted down the miles until Atlanta and Athens. People traveled this road all the time—the traffic sometimes heavy, sometimes not so—but always a straightforward, predictable distance. You knew where you were headed.

  Celia wanted the car to stop. She wanted to open the door and jump out, to run into the dark woods beyond the lighted roadway. Keep running. Anything to escape the rest of the story her grandmother was telling.

  Dad Shawn had shared some of the adventures he’d had with her other father. Odd things happened in those stories, terrible and impossible things, and as much as she believed them all, they never truly frightened her. The stories were ultimately about love, about the bond between two people.

  Three. In telling Celia these adventures, Dad Shawn brought all three of them together again.

  They weren’t horror stories. Not at all.

  But this new story—the one she’d begged her grandparents to tell, the one she’d planned a camp visit around, orchestrated through secret emails and phone calls—this new story was different.

  It was about her other father’s death, of course. She expected that.

  But there was something worse. She knew it.

  Worse, even, than her own imagined stories about grandparents turning into necromancers or bloodthirsty werewolves.

  #

  Shawn had always told us the full truth (her grandmother repeated, then continued). That’s what we thought. But then he called me at work one day. At first the line was silent, and I thought it was a wrong number. He didn’t identify himself, and when he did speak, his voice was so cracked—I guess he’d been crying—that I barely recognized him. He only said a few words: “I can’t. I can’t anymore. Come get him.”

  That was it. I asked what was wrong, what I could do, but he’d already hung up. I called back, used work and home and cell numbers, but all I ever got was a recording.

  You can imagine what I thought. Come get him. We hadn’t spoken to Jonathan in over a week. Would he be there—alive, I mean—when we arrived in Maryland? Or were we just coming to pick up our son’s body?

  And for Shawn to say I can’t anymore. That wasn’t like him at all. He was always so strong—such a fighter. That part of his message . . . Well, it almost sounded like a suicide note. Of course, I thought that was impossible. But when I couldn’t reach him again by phone, the idea began to seem more plausible.

  I called Edward in a panic, told him to drop everything. We needed to do what Shawn asked: go get our son.

  Oh, I was in such a state. Edward drove the whole way, because my hands were shaking too much. I fretted about what to do, worried him with questions he couldn’t answer. What do you think happened? Could it have been . . . ? And he’d reply, I don’t know, we’ll find out when we get there—cool as that. I tell you, it helps if someone remains calm while you’re falling apart—but it’s infuriating, too.

  Of course, I dialed Shawn’s numbers again: home, cell phone, work. Voicemail every time, and the messages I left were more desperate each time, I can tell you. If Shawn ever listened to them, he probably heard Edward’s voice in the background once or twice, telling me to calm down.

  It occurred to me that I might call the police. A few officers could check on things, report back to us. Edward said no. They might cause a commotion at Shawn’s job; might show up at their house, sirens wailing, neighbors lined around the property straining their necks. Shawn’s a levelheaded guy, he told me. He wouldn’t do anything foolish.

  Yes, Edward, I wanted to say, but you hadn’t heard him on the phone.

  Then he mentioned you, Celia. Shawn would be there for you, no matter what. And if we called in the police, it might create problems with custody. They might take you away.

&nb
sp; Still, I asked him again and again: are we doing the right thing? It was a long ride.

  A long time, not to know what happened.

  But as my husband said, we’d find out when we got there. Deal with it then. No use worrying.

  It’s about a ten hour drive, if you don’t stop. I guess you know, Celia—similar to the same distance you drove to camp last weekend.

  We made it in eight.

  It was 7:30 at night when Edward pulled our car into their driveway. Shawn’s car was gone. The autumn sun had set, and the porch light was off.

  Right away, I was certain something terrible had happened.

  #

  (Her grandmother took a deep breath. Clearly, she relived each moment as she spoke. It was the only way she could tell the story.)

  #

  In the faint moonlight (she continued), I could see the front lawn was overgrown. Perfectly understandable when a loved one is ill. The usual upkeep slips away. Priorities change.

  The house itself was dark. The curtains and blinds of the front rooms were open, but none of the inside lights were on.

  I let Edward walk in front of me as we approached the porch. I think I almost hid behind him.

  Edward knocked on the door. We waited, and he knocked again. There was no note taped to the door. No key under the welcome mat or at the top edge of the doorframe. Edward tried the knob, and it turned. He pushed the door open, and we stepped into the dark house.

  Edward found the switch, and the light should have helped. But I’m a nurse. I’m used to the smell of tubes and machines and adhesive tape, ointments and rubbing alcohol and pine disinfectant. The smell of bodies fighting for health, and the smell of bodies that have given up.

  The smell of death. That’s what I smelled. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, a catch in my throat. I’d known it was coming for a while, and I’d worried about it during that long, agonizing drive. Now that the time was here, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to mourn my son.

  Edward called out Shawn’s name. Then Jack. Jonathan. We’re here.

  No answer.

  Your name, too, Celia. Where were you?

  Edward walked farther into the house and I followed. I pulled a Kleenex out of my purse and tightened my fist around it.

  Another light switch, in the den. The room was a mess. The sofa bed was pulled out, and sheets and blankets lay bunched at the bottom. Wrappers and cups and dirty plates were on both endtables, and on the floor. Newspapers and books were splayed in different places, where they’d apparently been thrown. A ceramic mug was broken, and a crystal vase had shattered into sharp pieces.

  There was a small cot next to the couch, too—neatly made, in contrast to the rest of the room. Other than that, it was like a tornado had struck. Shawn would never have let their house get like this. He was always after Jonathan to keep things clean.

  There were smudges on the wall—hand and fingerprints smeared into the paint. They looked like blood, but might have been food stains, too.

  Edward pointed at the sofa bed, said Look at the sheets.

  A dark stain there as well, in one clump of the white blanket. Then I realized Edward meant something more, his finger tracing a shape in the air over the bunched fabric.

  The way it was gathered, it looked like an adult body lay beneath it. The dark stain was where the head would be. One leg bent toward the torso and the other stretched toward the side window.

  There was no medical equipment in the den, so this couldn’t be where Jonathan stayed. Shawn must have slept here, to be near his partner in the downstairs bedroom. The cot was for you, Celia.

  I was sure it was Shawn under there. His body.

  Edward reached for the blanket. He touched what would have been the shoulder, shook it.

  Then he grabbed a knot of the fabric and pulled it up, shaking it. He pulled the blanket and sheet apart—and I shouldn’t repeat this, but I got a strange shiver, as if Shawn himself was being pulled apart.

  But there was nothing there. No one, I mean. He shook the fabric. A small pillow fell out, and one of those black eye-masks people use for travel.

  Nothing more, thank God.

  But that was enough suspense for me. I didn’t wait for Edward anymore. I charged ahead to the downstairs bedroom, crushing an empty cereal box beneath my foot along the way but I didn’t care; I called for my son, hand against the wall slapping for the door frame, looking for the light switch.

  The bedroom was bright and perfectly spotless. There were monitors to the side of the bed, and two separate intravenous lines: one for nutrition, another to drip medications.

  Jonathan lay in a standard issue hospital bed, the mattress raised slightly at the head. The ironed sheets were white and clean. One arm lay on top of them: the needle placements were precise and taped correctly. He was getting very good care.

  His eyes were closed, but a quiet steady beep on the heart monitor assured me he was alive. My Jonathan. Always so tall and full of life—too long for this standard bed, with his blanketed feet sticking partly off the end. He’d grown much thinner and had lost a lot of hair. The skin of his face was tight and pale, his cheekbones poking up and his lips purple like a bruise. Of course, a mother’s still going to recognize her son . . . but I almost didn’t want to.

  I stepped closer.

  His eyes snapped open.

  Shawn, he whispered. Shawn. His arm lifted in a kind of searching panic, and for a moment I thought he’d gone blind.

  Edward stepped into the room and stood next to me. His hand found the center of my back and rubbed a gentle circle. Hello, son, he said, and I spoke Jonathan’s name.

  From the change in our son’s eyes, we knew he recognized us.

  Then his eyes closed again.

  #

  “That’s when he died,” Celia said, because her grandmother had stopped speaking.

  “I’m sorry, no.” She cleared her throat. “It’s just an emotional moment for me, remembering it. Can you imagine how relieved we were to find him?”

  Pop Pop turned his head toward Celia in the backseat. “If your grandmother tells you Jack was getting good care, you can believe it. She knows her stuff.”

  “Thank you. Where was I . . .? Oh: Jonathan’s eyes closed again—and that’s usual for a patient deep in stage four. They go in and out of consciousness from the drugs, and are just weak overall. I saw that frequently over the next weeks.”

  The car grew silent for a moment.

  “What about Dad Shawn?” Celia eventually asked. “What about me?”

  “Well, after the mess we found, even Edward considered calling the police. We tried Shawn one last time, and he finally answered his cell. He said you were fine, said he had to get away for a while. ‘You offered to be Jack’s nurse,’ he said. ‘I need you to do that now. Take him with you.’ He put you on for a minute, Celia, and you said Hello to me, and said Pop Pop, the way you used to. Remember?”

  Celia didn’t remember, but she didn’t want to hurt her grandparents’ feelings.

  “His voice sounded better, like he’d calmed down, but he didn’t want to talk. He said he’d call later.” The next thing, as her grandmother explained, was to transfer their son to the car, along with the equipment and medications he’d need for the journey. She called ahead to the hospital where she worked, taking time off and arranging for more evaluations, equipment, and medicines to make his final days easier. When Celia asked what happened to Shawn, her grandmother offered her best guess: “He was focused on two things. First, being the best father possible under the circumstances, protecting his daughter from the worst of what was happening. Second, keeping his partner’s room sanitary, giving him perfect care, every possible minute. He let himself go, though, the housework falling behind—because that wasn’t life-critical, was it? And then he lost it one day, everything was too much, and he broke some things in the den and hurt himself. That’s when he called me for help. I think it was the right thing to do.”

&n
bsp; This was what her grandmother believed. And she tried to speak well of Dad Shawn, after her fashion. “He always had Jonathan’s best interests at heart,” she added. “And yours.”

  But the story didn’t fit what Celia knew about Dad Shawn. He never would have abandoned her other father like that. He was kind and caring.

  Celia knew other things, as well. She knew all about their adventures, the creatures and other-worldly forces they’d faced together.

  She realized what must have happened. Something from their past caught up with them. It tracked Dads Shawn and Jack to their home, forced its way inside, and it laughed to see one of its enemies already near defeat, an illness claiming victory. But Dad Shawn would not escape the creature’s wrath. There was a terrible fight. Some of the blood was her father’s, some of it belonged to that creature—an angry Blemmy, a Struldbrug, a vampire or reanimated corpse. Her father defeated it, but had to consider his next move . . . because this could be merely the first wave of attack. He had to make a difficult choice, between his partner and his daughter—and he chose Celia, since he knew Dad Jack’s parents could nurse their son in his waning days.

  They went into hiding for a while. On the road, with no forwarding address.

  Too fanciful? A story that only an immature girl would believe? Well, it was more believable than the version her grandmother offered, with Dad Shawn running away like a coward.

  Celia’s fanciful version fit with her grandmother’s account of later events. Dad Shawn sent a few postcards and even a letter containing a smiling picture of Celia: proof that she was doing fine.

  Although Dad Shawn didn’t answer his cell, Grandmother Pruett left voicemail updates about her son’s status.

  When he passed away, she left a message, too. “I begged him to call back,” her grandmother said. “Family should be together during difficult times. But he didn’t contact us, and didn’t come to Jonathan’s funeral, either. I was upset at the time, we both were, but we’ve learned to understand. People grieve in different ways. We know he loved our son. They were lucky to have each other.”