A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents (23 page)

We walk into the sound of buzzing, whirring and urgent voices, and instead of my heart rate climbing, I calm down just a bit,
knowing I’ve brought Dad something he wanted. I’ve done something useful. Leo and Huston are standing at Dad’s bedside while
Abigail sits in the hospital chair against the far wall under the window. I like it like this. No Connie and Dennis. Just
us. Offering Dad some sense of peace.

I walk over to Dad’s bedside, next to Huston, and show Dad the crucifix.

“Two. Two?” I ask, holding the crucifix so Dad can see it.

Dad’s face immediately lights up. He raises his restrained hand and gives me a big thumbs-up.

“Ha!” Huston laughs, clapping Dad on the shoulder. Dad barks out a cracking laugh and shrugs his shoulder for Huston.

“I got it,” I say, still holding the cross over him. From the outside, it must look like some weird religious rite is going
on in here.

Dad gives me another thumbs-up and holds his hand out for me. I hand the crucifix to Huston as he steps aside to make room
for me. Huston and John stand just behind me.

“I got it,” I whisper again. Dad grabs my hand and tightens his grip, shaking my hand around a little. He launches into sentence
after sentence of gibberish, which causes the whole room to go quiet. We had convinced ourselves he was getting better. But
this torrent of nonsense reminds us that he’s still a stroke victim. He’s still sick. I smile down at Dad as he tightens his
grip.

“You said two. I understood,” I say, feeling bad. I don’t mean to be talking down to him, I just want to answer as broadly
as I can, hoping he’ll know I heard. Dad stares up at me. The ice-blue eyes that I inherited. The face… that face. His face.
I tilt my head and just take him in. He allows a wide, crooked smile. I inhale, taking in with the breath the stream of tears
I’ve promised will stay away until later. It’s not the time.

Say something,
I think to myself. Stop talking about the damn crucifix and tell my dad I love him. Or I forgive him. Or I know he’ll pull
through. Or something meaningful. A beautiful soliloquy that neatly conveys all my emotions. I open my mouth and take a breath,
getting ready to say something meaningful, but then I stop. I don’t want him to think… I don’t want him to think he’s dying.

“We were talking last night about when Abigail broke her leg,” I blurt. Huston perks up behind me as Abigail rolls her eyes.

“She loves telling this story, Dad,” Abigail says, from the hospital chair against the far wall.

“She hates when I tell it,” I say, winking down at Dad. “So Abigail is convinced that the cast is waterproof.”

Abigail laughs. “The doctor told me it was!” Dad barks out another rumbly laugh and tightens his grip on my hand. I breathe
in. Dad laughs again… rumbly and low. That cracking laugh I remember. Breathe.

“The doctor said you could
splash
it by accident,” Huston adds, his face becoming blotchier.

“So, we’re all swimming in the neighbors’ pool. The Woods’, you remember?” I ask. Dad nods yes. He nods yes to everything.
Leo sniffles and Abigail hands him a tissue.

“And she jumps in!” Huston says, coming up beside me, resting his hand on mine. Dad smiles wide and tries to turn his head
to where Abigail is. She gathers herself, smiles wide and stands, joining Huston and me on Dad’s good side. Keep it together.
For Dad.

“Cast and all,” I add, my face as animated as if I were reading
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
to the twins.

“I thought it was waterproof!” Abigail says, her brow furrowed. Dad is watching us all. Taking us all in, smiling wide and
laughing. Tightening my grip on his hand, I keep leaning over and smiling.

I love you
, I say inside my head.
A thousand times, I love you
.

“She sunk right to the bottom,” I say, bringing my other hand from under Huston’s to mime
right on down
.

“Right to the bottom,” Abigail adds, turning away for the briefest of seconds. She collects herself and turns back around.

“Huston had to dive in and save her,” Leo adds, finally able to speak. He stands at the foot of Dad’s bed. Dad makes eye contact
with him. The eleven-year-old boy he left. How grown-up Dad must think he is now. Leo smiles back at Dad. I see him make the
effort to keep smiling and not crack. He stares at me and I offer him an easy smile. It soothes him and I see him take a deep
breath.

“She must have weighed close to seven hundred pounds,” Huston adds, his face reddening further.

“I don’t think you’ve ever admitted you were wrong,” I say, laughing over at Abigail. She contorts a smile back.

“Because I wasn’t wrong! My doctor said it was waterproof,” Abigail says, deftly wiping her nose on her sweater set.

Dad shakes my hand around a bit and then lets go, reaching for Huston. I take a step back and focus on Huston as he steps
in. I reach for John’s hand like I’m falling off a cliff. He takes it—closing his hand tightly around mine.

“Can you believe that, Dad?” Huston says down to Dad, his voice singsongy and light, but I can see his entire body is tight
and restrained. Focus. Dad reaches out for Abigail as Huston steps back next to me. He wraps his arm around me and brings
me in close. His jaw clenches as he lets his head fall to his chest for the briefest of seconds. He squeezes my waist tightly
as he looks back up, his eyes rimmed in red. Not a single tear. We’re here to make Dad feel better, not burden him with our
sadness.

“You had it handled, I know,” I whisper.

“You did a good thing,” he whispers, as he pats my back.

“He’s really laughing,” I say, trying to just get one deep breath. To my surprise, it works—I breathe, deeply. I look back
down just as Dad reaches out for Leo. Abigail steps back. There is an awkward moment between Abigail and Huston. They don’t
know quite how to comfort each other. They reach for each other’s hand, then shoulder, then waist. They know they need to
hold each other, but they just don’t know how. In the end, Abigail lets herself fold into Huston and allows him to hold her.
Leo takes Dad’s hand and comes in close to his face.

“Jumped right in! Cast and all!” Leo laughs, his free hand a contorted mess just below the hospital bed. I can see Leo’s teardrops
hit the metal safety bar on Dad’s bed, but his entire body is easy and his smile is clear and bright. Dad shakes his hand
back and forth and speaks sentence after sentence of gibberish, his face animated and alive with determination. Leo hangs
in there, trying to understand him, trying to answer back. But in the end he simply repeats, “I know… I know…” Over and over
again. Dad calms down and his eyes begin to blink slowly. Tired again. Leo keeps saying “I know… I know…” as Dad slowly fades
into sleep, finally letting go of Leo’s hand. Leo steadies himself on the now damp metal safety bar and turns around. Huston
takes his arms from around Abigail and catches Leo as he falls into his arms, quietly crying.

“I know… shhhhh… shhhh,” Huston whispers, patting his back.

Leo quietly sniffles. “We really got him going, didn’t we?”

“He was really laughing,” Huston soothes, pulling Leo close.

The room falls silent as we all try to compose ourselves. Abigail is the first to speak. She has lists that need checking
off.

“We have to go,” she says, looking at Leo. I look past Huston and see Abigail and Leo make eye contact. She raises her eyebrows
expectantly at him as if to imply, “Wrap this up.” We have work to do. We must take care of Dad, not sit around crying. Find
a proper facility for him back in LA.

“Okay… okay…” Leo says, wiping his face again. Abigail nods and takes his hand, giving him a quick squeeze.

“I’ve made appointments at five places for this afternoon. We can get back down the 101 and at our first stop by eleven-thirty,”
Abigail says, gathering her belongings. All business. Leo follows, sniffling and swiping at his face, holding Abigail’s hand
like one of the twins. Dad’s rumbling breathing fills the room.

“Are they all in South Pas?” Huston asks, smoothing his coat.

“Three are in South Pas, one is in Pasadena and one is in Alhambra,” Abigail says.

“And you’ll call when you’ve found a place?” Huston asks, turning to Abigail.

“I’ll call when our first duck is officially in a row,” Abigail says, shifting up onto her tiptoes to give Huston a quick
peck on the cheek as she walks out of Dad’s hospital room with Leo in tow.

“Now, let’s get to those documents,” Huston says, turning to a very uncomfortable-looking John, who’s still holding my hand.
Huston looks at us. Looks down at our hands and then back up at us. His face registers a flash of embarrassment, but then
he just takes a deep breath as a smile breaks across his face.

“They’re in John’s car,” I say, my face flushing.

“Let’s get to it,” John says, squeezing my hand tighter.

D
id you want the coffee with soy?” the woman behind the counter of the organic market asks John. We’ve just finished having
dinner served up with a side of stilted, yet slightly suggestive, conversation.

Where do we start? The beginning? All over again? Just after
intermission
?

“Just black will be fine,” John answers, turning back to me, getting ready to speak.

“Black?” The woman is confused. John turns back to her.

“Plain. Black.” John’s voice rises just a bit.

“Skim? Two percent? Whole? Raw?” the woman asks, becoming annoyed.

“Black.” The woman begins to scrawl on John’s cup. He continues, “No milk. Just coffee.” The woman scratches out what she
wrote. We both stifle a smile at her passion for dairy products.

“And for you?” the woman asks me, noticeably annoyed.

“Earl Grey?” I ask, scanning the menu.

“We have chamomile, red rooibos and a really fantastic house tea called Eve’s Revenge,” the woman impatiently relays. John
rolls his eyes, passes me a twenty and walks away.

“I’ll have the chamomile,” I say, handing her the twenty.

The woman hands me the change as I scan the market for the one person who doesn’t fit. Amidst the hemp-panted, Birkenstock-wearing
clientele I find the one lone business suit, perusing an entire endcap loaded with hundreds of types of raw sugar.

“Here you go,” the woman says, passing me the drinks. I take them and make my way back over to John.

“I feel like some crotchety old square in here,” John says, taking the coffee.

“I think using the word
square
suggests that you are,” I say.

“Ten minutes to order a black coffee,” he mutters, taking a sip.

“It’s a very complicated process,” I say, happy to be away from the hospital.

“So…” John trails off as we walk out the automatic doors and onto the beautiful streets of Ojai.

“So…” I repeat.

“What’s Huston doing tonight?”

“He said he was going to try and get some sleep. Big day tomorrow,” I say, feeling a pang of guilt that Huston’s by himself.

“He can be such an old man sometimes.”

“A square, if you will.”

“Oh, you know I will.” John laughs. My face flushes.

“Is Huston seeing anyone?” I pry, as I’ve done my whole life. Huston has always been a vault when it comes to his love life.
Leo and I were notorious for whipping open Huston’s bedroom door at odd times, hoping to catch him “in the act” with whatever
girl he had over at the time. We never caught him “in the act,” but we did get more Indian burns and noogies than were really
deserved, in my opinion.

“He was seeing this actress for a while,” John answers.

“An actress?”

“And then a few others. There was a vet.” John trails off.

“Like a Vietnam vet?” I ask, crossing the street. John takes my hand as we navigate the traffic, nodding thank-you to a woman
who allows us to cross. So normal.

“Yeah, it was kind of a May/December thing,” John says, laughing. We stand in front of my bed-and-breakfast. He doesn’t let
go of my hand.

“You’re not going to tell me any hard facts, are you?” I ask.

“No,” John answers simply, facing me.

“You’re a good friend,” I say, looking up into the bed-and-breakfast.

We are quiet. An elderly couple nods hello as they walk up the steps.

“Is intermission over?” I blurt.

“Hell yes,” John says, tugging on my hand as we climb the stairs.

“This is the worst tea I’ve ever tasted,” I say, tossing my cup into the trash bin just inside the lobby.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but
Jesus
,” John says, tossing his cup in as well.

“I’m up here,” I say, nervous and jittery.

“Yeah, I got that,” John says, climbing the rickety staircase behind me.

“Is… is this wrong?” I ask. John climbs the two steps that separate us. He backs me up against the railing. I can feel my face
begin to redden—what would that elderly couple think of us now?

“No,” John says, just before coming in for a deep, beautiful, warm, long kiss. Goodness.

I curl my fingers around the wooden railing, trying to keep my balance, getting lost in him, in the jolt of comfort he offers.
His body is hard against mine, his arm pressed against the wall just behind me, his leg now in between mine. I uncurl my fingers
from around the wooden railing and wrap my arm around his waist, pulling him closer. Closer. I inch my hand up to his neck,
his jaw, his face, his hair, and back around his head… closer, closer, closer.

“Where’s your room again?” John breathlessly asks.

“Here. This… just…” I stutter, taking his hand once again and leading him down the narrow hallway to my room. As I fiddle with
the old-fashioned key that was probably adorable to the innkeepers, but just serves as a temporary chastity belt for me, John
kisses the back of my neck. The key finally clicks over and I push the door open.

I slam the door behind us.

Quiet.

And then we’re on each other again. Untucking shirts. Kissing. Kicking off shoes. My hands in that thick, black hair. Unbuttoning
shirts. His mouth. Opening his shirt, pulling it off. I close my eyes as my shirt is pulled up and off and we fall back on
the bed.