don’t respond, but I can feel her watching me as I sort everything into the plastic tray in the drawer. She takes the basket from me and hugs it to her chest. “I’m so sorry you have to go through all this.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m sorry the rug rats keep trashing the house.”
She smiles.
“Where did you go?”
“The families we adopted picked up their holiday bags today. I was going to miss it, but they were shorthanded and since your aunt Whitney was here—is that pee on the floor?”
“Apple juice,” I say, grabbing the earlier abandoned paper towels. “At least I hope it’s apple juice.”
Mom sighs and rubs her eyes. “What else happened while I was gone?”
You don’t want to know.
Later, I haul the Scotch pine and the boxes of decorations into the house, and as we decorate the tree together, I fill her in anyway.
I can’t sleep. Even though the volume is fairly low, I can still hear the TV in my parents’ room. And then there’s another noise, like Dad is fumbling around for something on his bedside table. It’s always this way. I don’t know how Mom gets any sleep.
It’s been two days since Dad had his last MRI, since his neurologist confirmed what we all suspected—the cancer is out of control. Dad pushed for more chemo, more radiation, bone-rattling, anything. When the doctor told him no, he’d gotten irate, and when Mom tried to calm him down, he’d turned on her. She called me at school, and Ms. Lincoln sent me home early. Aunt Whitney and Aunt Olivia were already here, crying with Dad in his room, assuring him they would take care of him. And Mom, she was furiously cleaning the baseboards in the kitchen.
He’s going to die at home. It’s what he wants. A hospice nurse is coming tomorrow. Aunt Whitney says they’ll do whatever they have to to keep him comfortable until the end.
I wonder if there’s a hospice for the family.
A goddammit sets my heart pounding. The clock reads two AM. I lie still and listen and piece together what happened.
Mom, yelling: “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Dad, crying: “I’m sorry.”
Mom, more calmly: “Just stop. I’ll get it. I’ll get it. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
Dad: Incoherent.
Mom: “Oh, for God’s sake. Please. Just lie down. I’ll—”
Dad: “Leave me the fuck alone!”
Mom: Nothing.
I hear the hallway closet door open, then close, the kitchen faucet turn on, then shut off. A few minutes later the steam cleaner is roaring in their room. And then I get it—Dad has knocked over his urinal again.
When it shuts off, I get up. “I’ll put it away, Mom,” I tell her, taking the steam cleaner from her in the hallway. “Go back to bed.”
She’s on the verge of tears as she bends over to wrap the power cord around the hooks. “It’s okay, baby. I’m already up. You’ve got school tomorrow. Try to get some sleep, okay?”
I let her take the steam cleaner back from me. “I’m sorry,” I say.
She smiles wanly and shoos me back to my room.
I don’t sleep a lot, but I do sleep. In the morning it’s not my alarm that wakes me; it’s Dad clanging this infernal bell Aunt Olivia gave him to summon us when he needs something. Aunt Whitney took his power scooter away weeks ago; yesterday she put his wheelchair in the garage so he won’t attempt to use it alone. I don’t really understand why they’re trying to protect him anymore. A concussion seems like a pretty attractive alternative at this point. He’s used the bell only a couple of times, but I have a feeling that’s just changed.
When he’s still clanging it a minute later, I get up and pad into the room to see what he needs. The running shower explains why Mom didn’t heed his call.
The carpet is wet under my feet, and I’m suddenly reminded of last night. “What do you need, Dad?”
He pinches his face up when he speaks. “I need you to help me with the urinal.”
At least he asked, but I don’t want to do this. I really don’t.
He unsuccessfully tries to untangle himself from the sheet, and eventually I have to help him. With his good hand, he grips the side rail that Mom had me install a year ago, but he doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up. I grab his other arm at the elbow and help him into a sitting position. When he’s stable, I swing his legs around to the side of the bed. He’s nude under the sheet, his skin an odd color, slack, bruised, his useless left leg thinner than the other by half and completely lacking in definition. I support him, then avert my eyes as he releases the rail and positions the urinal. It takes a while for him to get started.
When he’s done, he hands the plastic container to me. He’s got the handle, so I’m forced to take it by the main body before I can make the switch. It’s warm, and the instant aversion I feel makes my skin crawl. He reaches for a tissue to catch the drip, then hands me that too. I help him back into bed, then dump the foaming urine and the tissue in my bathroom toilet, resisting the urge to gag.
I’m not remotely cut out for this kind of intimacy with my dad.
So when Mom hands me an external catheter as I’m getting ready to head out half an hour later and asks me to roll it on Dad’s shriveled penis, I just can’t. Apparently Dad made a pity call to Aunt Whitney in the middle of the night and told her what happened, so she stopped by on her way to the clinic, before I woke up, and dropped off the catheter.
“Can’t the hospice nurse do this?”
“No, she can’t. She’s not even going to be here until this afternoon.”
“Mom, please don’t ask me to do this.” I hold it back out to her.
She looks at me with a mixture of anger, frustration, and sympathy, then snatches the plastic bag out of my hand and rips it open. Tubing and something that looks like a condom with a funnel on one end spill onto the kitchen floor.
“I can’t do this anymore, Robert,” she says through clenched teeth. She kicks the catheter out into the dining room with her bare foot, then kicks it again into the living room, then again into the hallway.
“Mom.” I get out in front of her and pick up the catheter and coil the tubing. I’m pretty sure it’s no longer sterile, but I don’t think anybody much cares anymore. I hold it out to her. “I can’t do this either, Mom.”
She wipes her eyes on her robe, and I hate myself that I can’t do more to help her. She snatches the catheter from my hand and fires off a string of curses. I wince at the onslaught. Then she composes herself and heads to her room. I grab my backpack and get the hell out of there.
Chapter 3
Andrew
