Childless: A Novel (12 page)

The stream
of unwelcome light inched its way across Matthew’s eyelids but failed to rouse him, his aching lump clinging to the much needed haven of slumber. It was a different interruption that finally forced motion, the creaking swing of the door hinge followed by a gentle thump and high-pitched breathing. Someone had entered his room.

Matthew rolled over with great effort. He opened one eye, then the other. To his disorienting surprise he saw a ponytailed intruder sitting Indian-style beside his bed, looking up at his disheveled head with childlike wonder.

“Hello sir,” she said, extending a hand and standing. “I’m Isabelle Gale. What’s your name?” She looked no more than five or six years old. Her cheeks retained a pudgy cuteness left over from toddlerhood. But her mannered diction gave off an air of confident authority, like that of the de facto leader of her kindergarten reading circle.

Maneuvering his aching back and stiff legs, Matthew managed to achieve a sitting position on the edge of the bed. “Matthew,” he answered over the sandpaper sounds of a chin-scratch. “Matthew Adams.” He cleared his throat of morning phlegm before accepting her offered hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Gale.”

She giggled. Whether at the respectful title or Matthew’s disheveled appearance was unclear.

Out of the corner of Matthew’s eye he noticed movement near the foot of the bed. He turned to see a small forehead peering over the rumpled pile of blankets spilling off the edge onto the floor.

“And who’s this?” he asked.

“That’s Peter.”

“Your little brother?”

“My older brother,” Isabelle corrected.

“Really?” Matthew took a second look. Peter appeared timid. No, more than timid. Weak. And frightened.

“Hi there, Peter,” he said to calm the boy’s qualms. “Nice to meet you.”

The boy froze, glaring at Matthew’s extended hand as if it were an aimed rifle. Matthew pulled it back.

“He doesn’t talk,” Isabelle explained.

“How old is Peter?” Matthew didn’t know whether to look at the boy or his proxy.

“Six and a half. Same as me. We’re twins.”

“You don’t say.”

“I was born two minutes after Peter. That’s why Mommy calls him my big brother even though I’m taller by almost an inch.”

“I see—” Matthew began before an adult voice interrupted the conversation.

“Isabelle!” Mom appeared flustered, and embarrassed. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea they were in here. I’m Marissa, Hugh Gale’s daughter. I was distracted helping Dad with his oxygen tank. I apologize if they woke you.”

“No worries,” Matthew said to allay concern. “I’m Matthew Adams. We were just getting acquainted.”

“You two come into the kitchen this instant,” Marissa ordered as four little feet scurried obediently.

“Bye, Matthew,” Isabelle said from the doorway.

“Mr. Adams,” Marissa corrected, prompting another girlish giggle.

Five minutes later Matthew entered the kitchen to find Isabelle and Peter sitting at the counter. A scrumptious aroma told him they were eating some sort of toasted pastry. Both pairs of lips sipped from tiny straws protruding out of half-collapsed apple juice boxes. The table held several bags of groceries patiently awaiting their promotion to the pantry and refrigerator.

“Hi guys. Where’s your mom?” Matthew asked.

“In there,” Isabelle said after swallowing. She pointed toward the front room. “With Reverend Grandpa.”

“Reverend Grandpa?”

“That’s what we call him.”

“Interesting,” Matthew said, moving toward the doorway. He paused to take a deep breath before entering.

Father and daughter sat in silence. Marissa Gale was perched on the edge of the sofa with legs crossed at the ankle, her folded hands resting on her lap in polite impatience. She shot to her feet like a three-tour soldier noticing the arrival of her replacement. “Mr. Adams.”

“Call me Matthew,” he replied, stepping into the room.

“Matthew then. I don’t believe you’ve met my father.”

To Matthew’s relief the man appeared modestly robust, his stout frame reclining comfortably in the chair Matthew had occupied twelve hours earlier. Hugh Gale looked more like a recently retired trucker than the death-courting skeleton Matthew had imagined. His forearms were particularly impressive, suggesting Hugh Gale had lifted weights in earlier life. It wasn’t until Matthew repositioned himself in front of the man’s seat that he noticed signs of disability: mechanical braces on his legs and a tiny oxygen tube protruding from his lower neck.

Matthew extended his hand. “Hello, Hugh. Pleased to meet you.”

The man scowled. “Hugh?”

Matthew looked to the daughter to confirm he had heard the name correctly. Her eyes said he had, but that he had blundered nonetheless.

“Did I say you could call me Hugh?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Matthew backpedaled. “Mr. Gale then.”

Another scowl. “Mr. Gale?”

“My father prefers to be called
Reverend
.” Marissa appeared embarrassed by the expectation.

“Reverend Grandpa!” the old man insisted.

Matthew searched the man’s face. Was he testing Matthew’s sense of humor or revealing an idiosyncrasy requiring careful navigation?

“Reverend Grandpa it is then,” he decreed good-naturedly. “But only if you tell me where you got the title.”

“I don’t negotiate,” Reverend Grandpa barked.

“Neither do I,” Matthew said without blinking. Then held his breath.

The man slapped the armrest of his chair with a laugh. “Ha! I like this kid.” A slight wheezing sound overtook his breathing before he continued. “Take no guff! That’s always been my motto too.”

Matthew and the daughter shared a sigh of relief.

“I got the title from little Pete.”

“Peter,” Marissa corrected. “How many times do I need to tell you, he wants to be called Peter?”

“You want to call him Peter. He prefers little Pete!”

Marissa shook her head. She seemed exasperated, as if she had lost this same argument on countless previous occasions.

“You mean the Peter sitting in the kitchen with Isabelle?” Matthew asked.

“One and the same. My favorite grandson!”

“Do you have other grandkids?”

“No sir,” Reverend Grandpa said through a faint chuckle. “Just the twins.”

“So he does talk?”

Marissa shot a surprised look at Matthew. “No, he doesn’t speak. Hasn’t said a word in the three years since his father died. But how did you know about that?”

“Isabelle told me. I’m sorry about your partner…or was it husband?”

“They weren’t married,” Reverend Grandpa said disapprovingly.

Marissa smiled dismissively at her father’s quaint reaction.

“Thank you,” she said to Matthew. “We were partners for three years. It was hard. I’m doing fine, but I worry about Peter since—”

“Little Pete will be just fine,” Reverend Grandpa interrupted.

Matthew looked back toward his client. “So if he doesn’t talk, when did he give you the title?”

The old man raised a hushing finger to his lips, then winked a smile at his new caregiver. Clearly the answer involved some secret grandpa/grandson pact.

“My father was a minister,” Marissa explained.

“I’m still a minister!” came the gruff correction.

“A priest?” Matthew wondered aloud. He had never met a Father who was also a dad.

“Heaven forbid! Do you see me wearing a dog collar?” Reverend Grandpa touched the edge of his open-necked shirt. “I’m a Baptist preacher. I rely on this here book. I don’t submit to some Roman pope!”

Matthew didn’t know much about Baptist preachers, but it sounded as if Reverend Grandpa shared his own aversion to Catholic dogma. “Me neither,” he said.

“That’s good.” The old man caressed the classic Bible Matthew had been admiring the prior evening. “We don’t need a bunch of highbrow traditions or creeds. We have the word of God right here in black and white!”

Marissa rolled her eyes. “How about if we hit the pause button right there. I’ve heard this sermon before. You two can get acquainted later. I need to talk Matthew through instructions and then get Isabelle and Peter to school. I open today, so my shift starts in about an hour.”

Reverend Grandpa raised a hand in surrender to his daughter’s wishes while she moved toward the kitchen.

“I look forward to talking to you about religion, Reverend Grandpa,” Matthew said as he started to trail Marissa. “I’ve been studying spirituality at college. We can compare notes.”

“Anytime, my boy. Anytime.”

Matthew helped organize the groceries before joining Marissa at the kitchen table to run through her list of instructions. They quickly covered mundane matters like emergency and doctor phone numbers. Then she told him which foods not to prepare “no matter how much he shouts.” He smiled at the daughter’s attempts to change the diet of a man who must have spent all eighty-two of his years eating pretty much whatever he liked.

“Got it,” Matthew said deferentially.

The most important instructions centered around managing and changing the oxygen tanks she called “vital to his daily survival.”

“What happened?” Matthew asked. “I mean, your dad appears to be in pretty good shape. Why so much trouble breathing?”

“He had what should have been a mild heart attack a few years back. The old fool tried driving himself to the hospital. He got into an accident on the way. Ran off the road. No seat belt. His legs slammed into the dash pretty hard.”

“I noticed the braces.”

“They don’t work as well as he had hoped. They help him stand, but he still needs the walker to get anywhere.”

“No wheelchair?”

“I put it in the garage. Be warned. He hates it. Only lets us take it to places like the zoo or airport. You know, long-distance uses only. He says it makes him feel like an invalid.”

“But he—”

Marissa raised her hand to interrupt. “I know, I know. But being an invalid and seeing yourself as one are two different things. You’ll soon find out what I mean.”

Matthew nodded, appreciating the heads-up.

“Anyway, the real damage of the accident was pulmonary. The extra strain on his heart from the internal bleeding and the time it took to move him caused some pretty serious damage. His ticker only pumps in first gear now. He needs more oxygen per red blood cell than his lungs can generate.”

“Wow.”

“That’s why he needs someone around most of the time. A few minutes without oxygen and his system will start shutting down.”

Matthew looked down at the list of instructions to confirm every detail.

Marissa placed her hand on Matthew’s and said, “I want to thank you for accepting this job.”

Looking into her eyes, Matthew tried to hide any of the discomfort he felt over the unexpected attention from a woman ten years his senior. Was her touch the affirming pat of a grateful daughter or the suggestive advance of a lonely woman?

“You bet,” he said guardedly while trying to think of something to change the subject. “So the senior center didn’t work out?”

She removed her hand. “A minor disaster!”

“Why? What happened?”

“In less than a month he had set a facility record for complaints from residents and staff.”

“Anything I should know about?”

“You’ve already had a taste.”

“The preacher stuff?”

“He figured God had placed him in the senior facility to rescue every lost soul from eternal damnation.”

“I see.”

“The straw that broke the camel’s back happened last week. Dad decided to pull the fire alarm in the middle of afternoon naps as an illustration of Jesus’s second coming.”

Matthew flashed a quizzical look. “I don’t follow.”

“He thinks Jesus is going to blow a trumpet at any moment and come back to redeem his chosen people.”

“Ah. So the fire alarm was—?”

“The closest thing he could find to a trumpet in order to wake unsuspecting heathens.”

Matthew laughed at the image of Reverend Grandpa watching an unnerved crew of attendants frantically wheel groggy residents into the nursing home parking lot.

“I’ll be sure to hide my trumpet.”

Marissa joined Matthew’s smile at an incident she seemed to find amusing now that a solution to her father’s care had been found. “You’ll have your hands full, that’s for sure,” she said.

“We’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly. “Now you better get moving. I don’t want to make you late for work.”

Matthew finally closed the door to his bedroom ten hours later. Other than a few relatively harmless verbal jousts while he served meals to his client and helped him change into his bedclothes, the two hadn’t talked much. Reverend Grandpa seemed eager to enjoy his freedom from sterile smells and white walls with the simple pleasures of a good book and a long siesta. So, refusing to become the stereotype, Matthew kept himself busy with a list of self-assigned chores like watering dying grass and familiarizing himself with appliance dials.

As he crawled into bed he felt a surprising sense of usefulness. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to sink into a well-earned sleep after a particularly exhausting day caring for his mother. Despite resenting the work, he had always relished the satisfaction.

Just before turning out the light he remembered that it had been several days since he’d last checked his anonymous forum. He typed in a twelve-character pass-code to access what he hoped would be a thoughtful response from Judge Victor Santiago agreeing to dialogue on the NEXT appeal. But the forum listed no messages.

Then he heard the ping of a new message. He quickly tapped the bouncing icon.

Matthew stood, clasping his hands tightly together while pacing the tiny space between the bed and closet door. He moved back toward the tablet lying on top of the disheveled covers and reread the message. He spent the next thirty minutes suppressing an overwhelming urge to say a prayer of thanks.