by Ruth Madison
***
Stewart woke to the sound of his cell phone ringing. Bleary eyed, he felt around beside the couch until he found his empty wheelchair and grabbed the phone out of the pouch.
“Hello?” he said.
“Stewart, this is Ellen,” his step-mother said. Her voice sounded tight.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“It's your father. He's had a stroke.”
“Oh my God.”
“And I just don't know what to do. He's going to be okay, they say, but it'll be a long recovery. They'll send him home in a few days and I can't deal with him all by myself.”
“I'm sorry,” Stewart said.
“You've got to come. He doesn't listen to me, but I know you can get through to him.”
“I can’t even get into the house, how am I going to help?”
“I’ll have a ramp put in. Please, Stewart. He needs you.”
“He doesn’t need me, he hates me. He’s been trying to pretend I don’t exist for the past twenty years.” Stewart pinched the bridge of his nose. “He's going to be furious when he finds out you invited me.”
“Does that mean you'll come?”
Stewart sighed. “Yeah, it does.”
Stewart hung up and put the phone back, then rubbed his eyes and groaned. It was too late to go back to sleep. He had to get up for teaching.
In the afternoon Stewart began to gather his things back into his duffel bag. He'd just gotten his toothbrush from the bathroom when Leah burst through the door.
“Beat it, Jeff,” she said.
“Hey!” Jeff responded from the kitchen, “This is my apartment.”
Leah turned and fixed him with a stare, raising one eyebrow and he slunk into the hallway.
“What happened to you last night?” Leah demanded, turning on Stewart. One hand was on her hip.
“You passed out,” Stewart said, “I went home.”
“I don't get you, Stewart.” She walked over to the couch where he had been spending his nights and sat down with her legs wide.
“What's not to get?”
“Stop packing for a minute and talk to me. You weren't even going to tell me you were moving?”
“I'm just going to my dad's.” He put his duffel bag on the floor and stopped moving, facing her.
“Why do you keep putting me off?”
“Come on, Leah, I know you don't really want washed up old me.”
“You must have a pretty low opinion of me if you think that I can’t deal with you being in a wheelchair.”
“Be honest with me and be honest with yourself.”
“You act like you’re totally comfortable and secure with your disability, but maybe you’re the one who needs to be honest with themselves. I swear to God, when I look at you I just see Stewart. The same Stewart I loved as a kid. The changes are just details.”
“I wish I could believe that, but I know the kind of men you date and it’s not me.”
“Sure,” Leah said, snorting. “You know everything. Clearly my pattern is jerks.” And she left the apartment, pulling the door shut behind her with as much force as her lean, muscular arms could manage. The entire apartment seemed to shake.
The door opened slowly and Jeff gingerly walked back in. “What the hell did you say to her?”
Stewart glared at him. “I don't want to talk about it.” He continued to pack his things into his duffel bag.
“You’re about to explode,” Jeff said.
“I’m fine.”
“Look, I understand, it’s more than you expected. After hiding away from all us lunatics, it’s got to be difficult to come back and deal with us again.”
“You’re cool,” Stewart said, a smile creeping onto his face, “I got no problem with you. The others I can handle. I’ve had plenty of people in South Carolina and Massachusetts wanting things from me too. I have it under control.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah,” Stewart said, not at all convinced himself.
He threw his bag into the back of his car and pulled his body into the driver's seat. While he disassembled his chair and put it on the seat beside him, he wondered what he would find at his father's house. He had to admit he was curious to see the inside of the house again, to see how it had changed and whether it still felt the same or not. He called Ellen and let her know he was on his way.
She had done as she said and there was an aluminum ramp over the stairs. It was steep and it creaked and shook as Stewart wheeled up, but it worked. When the door opened Stewart saw the two girls standing in front of him. They just stared at first.
“Hey,” he said. “Remember me?”
They were eerily similar, both tall and thin with long blonde hair, both wearing tight jeans and layers of different colored t-shirts. Both nodded at him. One was slightly taller than the other. Stewart tried addressing her. “You're Samantha, right?” he said.
“Yes,” the shorter one said. “And I'm Sylvia.”
“You were this tall when I left,” Stewart said, holding his hand out flat at the same level as the top of his wheel.
“Mom said you were coming back,” Samantha said, her voice much softer than her younger sister.
“And you didn't believe her, did you?” Stewart said.
“I did at first,” Sylvia said. “But you didn't and you didn't and you didn't.”
Stewart nodded. “I'm sorry about that,” he said. They were all quiet for a moment, then Stewart said, “So, has Dad been behaving himself?”
The girls giggled.
“I'll take that as a no. Lead the way.”
They stepped back and Stewart pulled up on his wheels to get over the edge of the doorway. He followed the two girls down the hall. He wheeled slowly while he looked around. A lot was different: new paint color on the wall, new pictures hanging, new types of decorations. He wouldn't have known it was the same house.
“He's in there,” Sylvia whispered, indicating the back den. The girls backed away. They didn't seem to want to go anywhere near their father. Stewart rolled to the doorway and gently nudged the door open with his knees.
Inside, the room was dim. A single tall lamp in the corner cast an orange glow across a circle of the floor. The room was set up as a study, but there was now a twin bed with white sheets blocking the rust colored couch. It didn't look like it belonged. Beside the bed was a large, boxy wheelchair with stickers on it indicating the hospital it came from.
His father was laying on his side on the bed. Richard's face hadn't been shaved in several days and his clothes were stained. He looked like a vagrant Ellen had found on the side of the road more than he looked like Stewart's father. The face of the man didn't move much, but his eyes were staring at Stewart with rage and hatred. To the side, Ellen was kneeling on the ground and trying to change Richard's socks.
She stopped as Stewart came in and the look on her face was gratitude and relief.
“What are you doing here?” Richard said and Stewart was startled by the way the words ran together even though he knew that his father's speech could easily have been affected by the stroke.
“I'm an expert on 'can't move',” Stewart said. He rolled farther into the room.
Richard grunted and moved his eyes down to the carpet. Ellen stood and lightly ran over to Stewart. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said. “Can I talk to you out in the hall?”
Stewart nodded and backed up out of the room. Ellen closed the door gently behind her.
“He needs help with everything and he yells about it,” she whispered. “I'm so frazzled.”
“It's okay,” Stewart said. “I can handle him.” He knew that Ellen wasn't used to seeing the angry side of Richard. He reserved that for the people he didn't respect. “So what's his situation?” Stewart asked.
“He's needing to relearn a lot of motion and he is weak on his left side. We have a physical therapist com
ing to the house each day, but a lot of the time it's just me and I have to go to work. Will you be able to stay with him?”
Stewart nodded. “Student teaching ends next week and then I'll be free.”
Ellen looked down at the floor and said even more softly, “You still have money from your mother?”
Stewart swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.”
“We'll pay for your food and you living here and all that, of course.”
“Sure. It's no problem. Go on now,” Stewart said, nodding to the rest of the house. “Let me take care of it.”
Ellen smiled and leaned down to take his hands from his lap and squeeze them. “Bless you,” she said.
Stewart went into the room again, this time alone. Richard's eyes were closed and he didn't respond when Stewart came back in. Stewart assessed the room and decided he needed to get the rug out of the way. It was a thick, patterned rug and Stewart could tell just by looking at it that he wouldn't be able to wheel over it. While his father lay quietly, Stewart leaned over and rolled the rug, pushing it with his feet until it was against the far wall.
“What are you doing here?” Richard groaned from the bed.
Stewart looked at him. “Helping,” he said.
“I don't need you.”
“Sure,” Stewart said. “Why don't we get you up so I can change those sheets?”
Richard snorted and didn't move. Stewart grabbed hold of the ugly, shiny wheelchair that was so different from his own. He pulled it to the side of the bed and set the brake. Then he pulled himself as close to the bed as he could get and set his own brake.
Stewart leaned over, one hand on the edge of his chair to keep his balance, the other getting under his father's good arm. “Okay, here we go.” Thank goodness for the core muscles he still had. “Are you going to help or what?”
“What's the point?” Richard said.
Stewart ignored him and dragged his father into the chair without help. He gave it a solid push to get it out of the way and went to find the sheets. Richard slumped and watched as Stewart fixed up the bed.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” Stewart asked.
Richard glared at him.
“Right,” Stewart muttered. He turned his father towards the bathroom, then got behind him and nestled his knees against the canvas back of the other chair. His arms burned with the effort of pushing both of them, but it worked. In the bathroom there was a seat over the toilet and Stewart helped his father onto it. Then he backed out of the room to give him privacy.
When Stewart came back in Richard said, “Is this what you do? With this stupid thing?” He rolled his head at the raised toilet seat with handles.
“No,” Stewart said while getting Richard back in the other wheelchair.
Richard made a skeptical sound. Stewart said, “You don't need to worry about how I use the bathroom, okay?”
Before getting his father back into bed, Stewart finished changing the socks that Ellen had been trying to do. He bent down and when he was finished, he pushed his body back up by gripping his own knees and pushing up with his arms.
He got Richard back into bed and covered him with a blanket, then left him alone.