Our Father

by Marilyn French

  I can’t bear letting them go.

  Love for them mixed with terror, knowing the vulnerability of flesh and spirit, seared her heart.

  But they have left me. Are lost to me.

  Then David stepped in and smiled at her and reached out his arms and she stepped into them and rested her head on his chest. Samuel and Lilian stood behind him, hovering, ready to protect him from any danger. All this she had, this richness, this connection, but it could be snatched away tomorrow. She could lose it. …

  Then Mother smiled from across the room, looking like a woman never touched by mystery or wonder, like some sweet little middle-aged woman who was a secretary all her life, who had a happy marriage, a good daughter, grandchildren, a woman who has fulfilled all she set out to become. Yet she is full of mystery and she stands silent. I hate that. I hate her for that.

  Terror. That’s what Thanksgiving’s really about, she decided, superstition. So you can thank fate: I’m grateful, I’m grateful! Look, I’m saying I’m grateful so don’t take it away, take them away. Let me go on having them. Yet every minute someone died and left someone and if they live they’re always changing. Melly gazing at her with those distant eyes (who are you?); Stevie treating her as if she was irrelevant. When once upon a time, she had been the sun that lighted their mornings, they stretched their little arms out to her from their cribs like tree branches to sunlight, their bodies reached to her like tides to the moon. Her love and care had been everything to them, kept them alive. When did that change?

  And she too, changing. Her head on David’s chest, his arms around her no longer made her feel safe, why was that? She no longer felt endangered, she felt strong. And David seemed different too, why was that? Always so steady, a stalwart bolster, with Sam and Lilian behind him. But they were old now, Sam a bit feeble since his stroke, Lilian worn out taking care of him those years. Can’t protect David so much anymore. Need him now. And he didn’t need support so much, he was stronger too, like her. But also weaker. Just a man, a human being, not a pillar. Sweet David.

  And while the sunrise went on being glorious, sunset a moment when the world stood still, trees leafing, unleafing, gardens blooming and drying up, people being born and dying, the suffering went on and on. Eternally endures, only that endures. Two kinds of pain: that caused by nature and that caused by man. The first eternal. But not the second. So there was something worth doing. The only thing worth doing: ease the pain that could be eased: but how? A stupid woman like me.

  Alex opened her eyes. The others were looking at her. No one spoke or moved for a moment, then they all turned and started back to the house. Without a word, without any sudden motion, they fell into a row and someone—could it really have been Ronnie?—put her arm around Alex, who embraced her and put her arm around Elizabeth, who embraced her and put her arm around Mary, who burst into song:

  Four little maids from school are we,

  Pert as a schoolgirl well can be,

  Filled to the brim with girlish glee

  Four little maids from school. …

  The others did not know the lyrics, but chimed in on the refrain, “Four little maids from school,” as Mary sang on. Laughing they went back to the house where they were greeted by the wonderful aroma of roasting turkey (“So much better than the taste,” Elizabeth pointed out). Dinner preparations began in earnest, even the non-cooks pressed into service (“Mary, anyone can peel potatoes,” Alex insisted, and Ronnie ordered Elizabeth to stir, stir, stir, that’s all, stirring will reduce it). They were hungry and started to eat the guacamole in the kitchen as they worked, but when Mary heard the turkey had another hour to go, she insisted they abandon the kitchen and have a civilized cocktail hour in the sitting room.

  Alex put the food on a low heat or in a warming oven, Ronnie built a fire, Mary carried the guacamole and corn chips into the sitting room, Elizabeth poured the wine. They all had wine this evening. They sat around the fire, glowing with pleasure in themselves.

  Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, her glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “You know my first memory of this house? I was four, wearing a little white dress with a full skirt and a floppy white hat that fell down over my eyes, and a lot of people were here—I don’t know who, I don’t know what the occasion was. I remember what I was wearing because there’s a photograph of me that day, with Father and Aunt Pru and Uncle Samuel behind me. And whoever it was, they all made a fuss over me, said how cute I was, smiled at me, laughed at me. I don’t know why. Maybe I looked funny in the hat. But for years afterwards I remembered that day with joy. I kept waiting for it to happen again. It never did.”

  “I remember Mama taking me into the pool,” Mary said in a soft thick voice. “I was about four, too. And she held me and moved her arms, showing me how to swim.” She sipped her drink.

  “And?” Elizabeth prompted her.

  She shrugged. “Well, it’s just that Mama never held me like that before. The day was radiated with joy for me.” She caught Elizabeth’s eye and grimaced. “Yes, I waited for it to happen again. For years. It didn’t.”

  Alex remembered Father bringing home a puppy and saying his name was Charlie because he had a little dark mark over his mouth like Charlie Chaplin’s mustache. And the puppy was so little he fit in the crook between Alex’s head and shoulder, and sat there shaking while Alex stroked him, sensing his terror, trying to calm him. And Father watched her smiling, with love.

  No, she admitted under questioning, she did not recall any other occasion on which Father had smiled at her with love. But surely if there was one occasion, there were others? At which Elizabeth announced with some portentousness that to them that had would be given. Always.

  They had to prod Ronnie to admit that she had ever had a happy experience in this house, prod her with NEVER NEVER NEVER RONNIE?, to the point of laughter, until she dredged up something. She always helped Momma plant the peppers and cucumbers and lettuces and tomatoes—of course, she was just a baby and probably not really any help. Then one spring when she was about seven, she begged Momma for a garden of her own where she could grow flowers. And Momma didn’t say yes or no, but she had Simpson—the head gardener then—dig up a patch about four by three and she bought some seeds—zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, and cornflowers, Ronnie remembered. And she gave the plot and the seeds to Ronnie. Ronnie read the directions and planted them all by herself and watered them every day and waited in great anxiety for them to sprout, afraid to weed them, unsure of what was weed, what flower. Only some of the seeds came up but when there were a few dozen blossoms, she picked them and carried them indoors.

  “These are for you, Momma,” she said, full of self-importance at being able to give her mother something. And Momma exclaimed at their beauty, their health, and kissed Ronnie and put the flowers in a glass with water on the kitchen table.

  Yes, it happened again. Every year after that. But it was never as wonderful as that first time, when it was a miracle.

  The discussion at the dinner table grew more animated with more wine. Even Mary had to admit there was a laughable amount of white food on the menu—turkey, rice, and a puree of potatoes, leeks, celeriac, and turnips. Mary decided beans were all right despite their redness. “They’re a different red from meat. It’s blood that’s appalling,” she concluded. By the end of the meal, they were all pink-faced with heat and food and wine and were talking together without fighting.

  Then the telephone rang.

  It was Edna Thompson. “Ms. Upton, you asked me to let you know if your father became more responsive. Well, I think he’s waking up. He’s sleeping right now, but he was awake for a while earlier and he was moving his left hand. You and your sisters have a real reason for Thanksgiving now!”

  Elizabeth returned to the dining room. She stood at the head of the table and faced them: “Father’s coming to.”

  They merely stared at her. Mary threw down her napkin. “Do we really have to clean up this mess? Can’t we l
eave it for Browning to do tomorrow?”

  “Let’s,” Elizabeth agreed tiredly

  Neither Alex nor Ronnie argued. They picked up their wine glasses and went into the sitting room. The fire was nearly dead.

  “You feel like building that fire up again, Ron?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Not really.”

  They sat in silence.

  “What did you tell her?” Mary asked after a while.

  “That we’d be in tomorrow at the usual time.”

  “So what does this mean to us?” Ronnie mused. “Each of us. Because it probably means something different to each of us.”

  “Depends. If he recovers completely. …” Elizabeth stopped. “Why then, we go back to where we came from and go on with our lives.”

  “But we’re changed,” Alex said. “We have each other now.”

  Elizabeth looked at Alex’s thin clean profile, noble in the soft lamplight. “Yes. We do,” she said softly.

  Elizabeth loves me!

  “Does that include me?” Mary asked in a tremulous voice.

  Elizabeth looked at her intensely. “Of course, poor Mary.”

  Mary’s mouth trembled, her eyes looked damp. “I feel … it’s almost as if … we can’t have each other and him. I don’t know why I feel that.”

  “As he recovers—we dwindle,” Ronnie said, puzzled.

  “But maybe he won’t recover completely,” Alex said matter-of-factly, a tone none of them was used to in her. “You know, he was paralyzed on one side, he may remain so. And the part of the brain that controls his right side and language functions has sustained permanent damage. He probably won’t be able to speak.”

  They all gazed at her in shock.

  “I’ve been taking courses for the last few years—nothing very advanced, just basic medical knowledge. I wanted to help Lilian—my mother-in-law—after Sam had his stroke. And I thought it might help in my volunteer work,” she explained.

  “Well, you sound very … authoritative,” Elizabeth said.

  “Really?” She turned pink, trying not to smile in her delight.

  “So what are the possibilities?” Elizabeth asked her.

  Elizabeth asked me!

  She ticked them off on her fingers. “He could recover completely, but the fact that he’s been in a coma for almost three weeks makes that unlikely. He could regain the use of his left hand and leg and recover some function in his right side. Then he would probably go to a rehab center for therapy. But it’s unlikely they would accept him if he remains totally paralyzed on his right side and without speech. So he would have to go to a nursing home for full-time care.”

  “Father in a nursing home!” Mary cried. “No!”

  “He’d hate that,” Elizabeth muttered.

  “Yes. He’d probably die soon,” Alex said calmly. Not adding: if that’s what you want.

  “We could take care of him,” Ronnie said, “the way I took care of Momma. A nurse came once a day and I did everything else.”

  “That could mean taking care of him for years,” Elizabeth said.

  Silence.

  “I could give up my apartment in New York,” Mary offered finally. “I could move up here permanently.”

  “I’m not willing to give up the rest of my life to him,” Ronnie said.

  “Nor I,” said Elizabeth.

  “No,” said Alex vaguely.

  “Do you really want to spend years of your life taking care of a sick bitter old man?—because he will be bitter, you can be sure of that, Mare,” Elizabeth said.

  Mary considered.

  Elizabeth stood up. “We can’t decide anything tonight, we don’t know what shape he’s in. I’m going to bed.”

  Mary rose then and walked over to Elizabeth and held out her arms. Elizabeth stiffened, but allowed Mary to embrace her, and even put her hand up and patted her sister on the back. Mary warmly kissed her cheek, Elizabeth lightly kissed Mary’s.

  Faint kiss.

  Alex hovered near them. Elizabeth saw her and opened her arm and Alex walked into it and embraced them both. The three of them stood that way for a moment, then Alex yelled, “Oh hell, come on, Ronnie!”

  But Ronnie stood stiffly aside until Elizabeth reached out and grabbed her. Then Ronnie melted in and the four of them stood together in an embrace. Ronnie’s eyes closed as if she were praying.

  Part II

  The Father

  10

  A SOBER DR. STAMP met them Friday morning. “I hear Nurse Thompson called you,” he said. “I have to admit that I was hoping he’d just drift off.” He was leading them to Stephen’s room in the ICU when he stopped. “Of course, life is life, after all. But Mr. Upton has clearly suffered a serious permanent deficit. You must be prepared for that. He isn’t his old self. But he is awake, alive.”

  They looked at him, said nothing. He could not name what he felt in them, something strange, powerful, like the high tension you picked up in parents with desperately ill small children, in young lovers, newlyweds, people with intense connections, connections they feel are crucial to their survival. Were they that attached to him? At their ages, his age? Amazing. Whatever it was, it was something he decidedly did not want to be part of. He was a scientist, emotions were not his terrain. He stopped again and waved them ahead of him into the room. “I’ll let you welcome him back to life alone,” he said and returned down the hall.

  Stephen was sitting up in bed. His eyes, huge and ice-cold, stared at them, took in the four of them, together. They froze in the doorway. Mary knew he saw.

  Elizabeth stepped forward. “Hello, Father.” She walked to him, bent and kissed his forehead.

  Mary stepped forward, a nervous smile playing on her lips. “Oh, welcome back to life, Father,” she gushed, “we’re so glad you’re awake! We’ve been coming every day ever since it happened, visiting you loyally, hoping for this moment!” She rushed to him, sat beside him on the bed, kissed his forehead, ruffled his hair, took his hand. “How do you feel?”

  He frowned, gesturing with his left hand, and Mary dropped his right one and stood up. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Father, of course, that must be uncomfortable!”

  He was staring at Alex and Ronnie, who remained where they were. Finally, Alex approached him shyly.

  “Hello, Father, it’s Alex. How are you?” She bent and kissed his forehead.

  He stared at Ronnie. She nodded at him. “How ar’ya feeling?”

  Was he glowering, or was that expression normal for someone in his condition?

  Mary fussed with his bedcovers, folding the top sheet more neatly, smoothing it out. She cried out, “Oh, you need more water, poor baby!” and filled his glass. She looked wildly around for something else to do. “You haven’t seen the flowers, Father, they don’t allow them in here, but thousands of people have sent flowers, wonderful flowers! The president sent a huge bouquet, and the secretary of state, and”—she turned to Elizabeth—“who else, Lizzie?”

  Elizabeth recited the list of names in strict order of protocol, as if she had memorized it.

  “We sent them to other people, dear, people who don’t get flowers, they don’t allow them in intensive care you know. But as soon as they move you, we’ll bring flowers to cheer you up, so that when you wake up the first thing you’ll see are fresh flowers!”

  He kept glowering.

  “Can you talk, Father?” Elizabeth asked in a businesslike tone.

  He glowered.

  “If you can’t, for the time being maybe we could set up a signal system. You could move your left hand once for yes, twice for no. Or nod your head. You can nod your head? Is there anything you’d like us to do?”

  He did not move.

  “Are you in any pain?” Alex asked timidly.

  He shook his head from side to side.

  “Are you happy to see us?” Mary whispered, an edge of whine in her voice.

  No response.

  “Would you like me to leave?” Ronnie asked coldly.

/>   He glared directly at her.

  “I’m outa here,” she said to the others, and turned and left the room.

  “Is that better, Father?” Mary pleaded.

  The doctor knocked on the door frame and entered smiling. “Well, sir, how do you feel? Your lovely daughters have been in here every day for the last three weeks, good to see that, some coma patients get abandoned, a shame … helps a patient recover, I believe,” he told Mary. “Studies seem to suggest that having visitors, being talked to, assist recovery even if the patient seems unaware.” He turned to Stephen. “So you can thank your daughters for at least part of your recovery.”

  Stephen glared at him.

  He moved to Stephen, and called to the nurse for information on pulse and blood pressure. The nurse ran in, crowding the small room, and Elizabeth said, “We’ll wait outside, Dr. Stamp.” She bent to kiss Stephen’s head again. “Good-bye, Father, we’ll be back tomorrow and if you can think of anything you want, figure out some way to tell us, okay?” she smiled.

  Dutifully, Mary, then Alex, bent to kiss his forehead and say goodbye.

  They ate lunch in a state of shock, hardly able to speak or look at each other, and after lunch, they avoided even the sight of each other, each going her own way as if the others did not exist. Elizabeth and Ronnie went to work in their studies; Alex went off on her bicycle; Mary had Aldo drive her to Concord and bought an exercise tape. She brought it back and played it on the VCR in the old playroom, exercising until she was soaked. Then she bathed and dressed for dinner and opened the piano and played for several hours. She was starting to sound pretty good, Ronnie noticed. Elizabeth didn’t even slam her study door.

  His study door.

  Ronnie lay on her bed trying to read a pamphlet on Thallophyta, but she kept seeing the white ICU room, Stephen’s face, her sisters’ backs stiff with shock. One thing for Him to look that way at me—He never saw me as a daughter, never by glance, word, or deed acknowledged I was the fruit of His filthy sperm. Momma never spilled out the past until she was dying. Course I never asked till then. How she didn’t realize she was pregnant until after Stephen had gone back to New York. How she pondered about what to do, a single woman, a servant without money, only a few hundred dollars she’d managed to save living rent-free in the Lincoln house. Abortion illegal then, but she had kept her Latino friends in Boston from her days cleaning offices, she still saw them on her days off, some of them married and with large families, working at home, some women who like her had risen and now cleaned houses instead of offices and so also had days off during the week instead of at weekends. They knew people who would do it for a couple of hundred dollars. She could get to Boston easily enough—she took the bus and then the T—amazing how she found her way around, illiterate as she was—and went to their houses and had tea and pastries. So she could get to an abortionist. But would she be able to come back the same day? Suppose she was sick, bleeding? Alone here except for Simpson. But the day maid might help her if she needed it.