afternoon.
CHAPTER THREE
D avid and I are standing in the garage by his workbench. After I hung up with Jan, I called him and explained that I need to go back to New Mexico. He didn’t say much except we’d talk when he got home.
I cleaned house all morning to keep busy then packed and repacked my suitcase. I kept changing my mind on what I should take, folding different jeans, T-shirts and sweaters then hanging them back up. After I finally got packed, I spent three hours in the kitchen, making dinner—Paprika Chicken, David’s favorite and chicken stew. When I heard the garage door open, I rushed through the house to meet him.
The garage door is still open and a crisp winter wind blows brown leaves under our cars.
“Why do you have to go back there so soon?” he asks.
“I told you, Dad’s condo has some problems, and Jan said he’s depressed. Maybe I can cheer him up.” I stop, realize I’m breathless. “She said he feels better when I am there.”
David rubs his left eye with the back of his hand. He looks tired, and I feel awful for not even letting him come into the house before I started telling him about this.
“I’d be depressed, too, if I had an ex-wife taking care of me. Hasn’t that woman ever heard of a repairman? If she can’t handle the house, how is she going to help your father?”
“I had a feeling Jan taking care of Dad wasn’t going to be that easy. She says he won’t eat, doesn’t want any more radiation treatments. Maybe they need some moral support.” I shrug. “What else can I do?”
“She couldn’t leave you alone for a few more days? We just got back. I don’t think it’s a good idea to run there every time she calls. What did Stan say?”
“He won’t come to the phone.” I hug myself. “You’d do the same for your mother.” This isn’t true. David would send money, call—but he wouldn’t worry like I have. Most men are different that way, and maybe they’re better off.
“No, my sister would do it. And what about your sister?”
I laugh, shake my head at his question. David knows how my sister Lena is. She won’t fly, won’t take car trips. She’s a barrel of anxieties, lives on disability and borrows money from Dad. She still tries to get money from me, and I used to lend it to her until I realized she was never going to pay us back.
“You know how my sister is.”
“Yeah.”
Whenever I bad-mouth my sister to my father, he always explains what a hard beginning Lena had, before my parents adopted her. My mother was told she might not be able to get pregnant and she wanted a child desperately. They adopted Lena when she was six months old. She only weighed nine pounds. Her fourteen-year-old mother had left her with relatives who’d neglected her.
Every time Dad tells me she had a rough beginning, I know he’s right, until the next time Lena tries to hit me up for five hundred dollars. And even though she’s four years older than I am, most of my life I have felt like the older sister.
“So how long do you think you’ll stay?” David moves a screwdriver with a yellow handle from one side of his workbench to the other.
“Not long. I’ll just get the condo straightened out, cheer Dad up, come back as soon as I can. I figure three days will be enough to get the repairs done.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“I got an airline ticket for tomorrow. I was looking online and it was such a good deal, I was afraid I’d lose it. You could come with me if you want to. Dad was better when you were there.”
“I’ve got too many projects. Besides, with Jan there, your father’s condo is too crowded. I’ll hold the fort down here.”
He walks to the remote button, hits it hard and the garage door rumbles shut.
We are in bed. I have the TV on, and David is lying on his back waiting for me to turn off the TV so he can go to sleep. The gray-and-white light from “Leave It to Beaver” illuminates our bedroom. June is talking to Ward in their spotless kitchen, but I have the set on mute so I have no idea what problem they’re solving.
“Isn’t it wonderful I got a good deal on an airline ticket,” I say, although this isn’t true.
“What airline again?” He yawns and so do I.
“American.”
“How much?”
I close my eyes, continue to shade the truth. “One ninety-eight.” The ticket actually cost almost three hundred dollars. I put it on a credit card I have that David doesn’t know about—one I got when I was teaching. I don’t like doing this, but sometimes I don’t tell the truth about money just to avoid a fight. David has always worried about our finances. I’m sure it’s because his father died when he was eight and their family struggled financially after that. He’s explained how they never had enough and he wouldn’t have been able to go to college if he hadn’t gotten an academic scholarship. I guess our childhoods follow us around whether we want them to or not.
“That price isn’t bad,” he says.
I relax a little, wet my lips. “While I’m gone you’ll have plenty to eat. There’s the leftover Paprika Chicken, and the stew I made this afternoon.” I felt good as I neatly stacked food in the fridge—knew David would have home-cooked meals until I come home.
But now guilt slides up my spine, hitting each vertebra. I’m spending too much money and then lying about it, leaving my husband to fend for himself, and I’m sure the food won’t last for long.
“Great.” He turns to me, reaches out and musses my hair. “We’d better go to sleep. We both have long days in front of us.”
I turn off the TV, lean over, kiss his cheek. His skin is warm.
When David begins to snore softly, I quietly get out of bed and walk through the house. Icy winter moonlight illuminates each room and the tile floor feels cold against my feet. In the breakfast nook, I look out to the yard and the oak tree. The full moon is dousing the earth with cold glassy light. The tree branches, the grass and pansies are the same color as June and Ward.
I’m sitting on the edge of my father’s king-size bed, holding a large glass of water. He has been in here most of the day. A little while ago in the kitchen I put a red plastic straw in the glass, hoping he would drink more water.
Dad’s eyes are closed, but I know he’s not asleep. Gina, his home health care nurse, who left thirty minutes ago, told me he’s dehydrated and needs to drink water. So for the last thirty minutes I’ve been urging him to take sips of water. He did drink some, but a moment ago he said he’d had enough.
This morning I drove him to the radiation clinic. After I got to Las Cruces, I convinced him to continue with the treatments. All I did was sit next to him on the couch, tell him I thought it would be best that he go back to the radiation center. He nodded his head, said he would. Then I explained I thought everything was going to be okay. A moment later he got up and went back to bed.
When
