Drowning in You (6 page)

“
See? I was
right. I’m a dud.”

Quickly, I kiss him on the
cheek. His mouth is sort of hanging open when I pull back. I walk
away with my feet weighing the same as they once did before, with
my stomach calm, and my mind rational. I’m bummed I haven’t fallen
head-over-heels for this guy or walked away as if I were floating
or ecstatic, but maybe that stuff only happen in movies. This is
the real world, after all.

I sling my bag handles over my
shoulder and walk away.

“…
your
number?” I hear him call, but I only answer with a wave.

* * *

Dad’s skin is still yellow.
There’s another machine by his bed hooked up to him as I sink into
the nearby chair. By the time on the wall clock, it seems no one
will be in to check on Dad or do any tests for a while. This
comfort of being alone by my dad creates this itch inside me, a
pressure that’s fighting to keep my feelings down. More loved ones
have come by while I was out because the bedside table and wall
bench have been restocked with flowers that brighten the color and
aura of this room. It smells a little less hospital-ish today.

Dad says, “Oh, Charlee, you
came,” sometime between me being deep in thought and later, head
sunken in my palms.

“
Dad!” I say,
wiping down my face with my sleeve even though the tears have
crusted up.

When Dad takes in what must be
my red and blotchy face, he stops saying whatever he was going to
say, and reaches out. I scoot my chair in and plonk my chin in his
hand. He caresses my chin, which might sound weird, but it’s so
easy. Just easy. I sigh, releasing weight from my shoulders.

“
Oh, hon,” he
says, and his voice sounds as though it’s being rubbed in
gravel.

“
I’m just a
sook. Don’t worry,” I say. “Really.”

“
Maybe it’s
time we talk?”

“
I really,
really know I look like I’m falling apart, but it’s fine. Just a
hard day.”

He lets go of me and it’s worse
like this—Dad not comforting me because I realize how old and
responsible I should be, and how I realize I’m not like this at
all. I’m a Daddy’s girl and I was always so embarrassed to say that
until now. It occurs to me that I might not be able to say that for
too much longer.

“
Do you want
to talk about me?”

“
Naw, how
about I get you a chocolate bar from downstairs? I know they’re
double or triple the price than they are at the supermarket but we
so need one. I think I’ll get one,” I say, making up my
mind.

I’m out of his room in a flash,
fumbling for money. I have zero change when I reach the counter so
I have to grab a pack of gummy candies too, and some sour straps
just to make the bank-card limit. This makes me feel like a kid
again. I’d kill to be Darcy’s age. I just—I want to be ten again
rather than twenty and not have to act like I’m in control and—oh,
how I hate that “R” word—responsible. I’m so useless.

I begin shaking while waiting
for the elevator. A girl with nasal tubes, a balding head and
see-through skin rides with me. When I leave, she smiles and tells
me everything will work out. I just nod, unable to say a word.

“
Weeks to
months.”

That’s what Dad says as I drop
my handful of goodies on the table by his bed.

My mouth is parched when I
swallow so I must look like a fish on dry land. “Anyway,” I point
to the spoils I’ve just set down. “Which would you like? Oh, wait,
we can share the gummy candy. The sour straps are a bit too much
for you.”

“
No, hon,
Charlee, baby.” He tries to clear his throat but begins a violent
cough. I don’t know how his body is in one piece because that cough
is a knife slashing through his insides, heaving him into painful
fits. He wipes his mouth with a tissue when he’s done, and my hands
are ripping at the bag of gummy candies while he does this. It
won’t open until finally it does and they rain down on the floor of
Dad’s hospital room. I crouch down, before Dad can say anything or
before I can see what color the tissue is.

“
Oh, my God.
Dad, I’m so—”

“
Get up,
please.”

I look up and he has tears in
his eyes. This makes me wobble on my haunches. I take a breath,
which feels like nothing at all, and push my body up by the railing
on his bed. I lower the railings, sit on the edge and lean on to
him.

“
Weeks to
months is how long they think I have, Charlee. If I get the
transplants I need soon enough, I might be right for decades to
come but it’s all about timing and my health. Oh, God—” and Dad is
coughing, spluttering.

“
Why are
you…”
telling me this?
Tears choke off my voice. My mouth continues to open and shut
but the weight of the sadness in my throat is impossible to speak
over.

Dad waggles his fingers at me.
I lie by his side and he drapes his arm over my waist and hugs me.
Hard as I’ve tried to be strong, this moment and the last month and
a half have been the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, and now my
dying father is the strong one because my mind goes like this:

How dare you? How dare you
leave me? I need you, Dad. Dad? Stay here and be my dad. What’ll
happen after a couple of years when I don’t have a reason to say
your name anymore? When you’ll only pop up in conversations when we
talk about the guy who saved the Australian car industry with
Roycroft Engines? I don’t want you to be a memory, Dad. I need to
you live your life with mine, concurrent, so we can go on together.
What will I do when your life stops and mine continues the next
second, minute, day, year? How do I go on when you’re not there to
share my life?

Some time
passes with Dad
shhing
me and rubbing my arm and mostly saying soothing things
through that gravel-rubbed voice again because he doesn’t have the
physical strength to do much else.

“
Can you sit
up?”

Yes, I’ll do
anything.
I sit up, not bothering to wipe
my face this time although tears streak down my cheeks and land in
my lap.

“
I don’t want
to hurt you, but I believe in you, Charlee. You’re my big girl.
You’re my gorgeous, beautiful young lady. I just needed to talk to
someone about these things, but I get it. I can’t imagine what this
is like for you, hon. I’m sorry.”

“
Daddy, no…”
How insensitive am I? Who’s the sick one here? Guilt feels so much
worse when it eats up your mind and thoughts. In a memory, guilt
seems bad, but in the midst of experiencing it, it’s entwined with
unstoppable regret that I cannot hold, and so it crushes my
everything.

“
Tell me. I
was distracted and silly and…tell me. Dad, tell me because I need
to know and I want
you
to tell me.”

But I’m lying.

He nods. “I’ll need those gummy
teeth first.” I bend to the floor and hand him the gummy teeth
candy. He shakes his head. “A whole set, if I may.” I hand him the
other one.

Dad sets them in between his
top and bottom gums and the inside of both lips. Attempts a smile
but they fall out of his grin.

We laugh, in a real and raw
way, which reminds me of Elliot and walking away from him with
pride and resolution. I take a breath and I’m better. Not fine, but
okay.

“
My kidneys
haven’t worked since the accident, Charlee. I’m sleeping fourteen
hours a day. They say the dialysis can cause fatigue. The blood
poisoning has caused irreversible damage to my heart and liver,
too.”

My mouth hangs open. I don’t
know what to say because I’ve made sure I hadn’t heard the
seriousness of Dad’s state for a reason. I don’t know why I was
worried. I’m not crying. Everything is dreamy. This room doesn’t
feel real. I pinch my skin and it doesn’t hurt all too much. Maybe
this will still work out.

“
I want to
tell you so you can prepare Darcy. Now we don’t have to go talking
wills or other drastic things, but they’ve always been in place so
don’t you worry about the superficial stuff, okay?”

Dad continues talking so maybe
I nodded to him. “I don’t want Darcy hating me for the rest of his
life because I thought he was too young. I don’t want the last
things I say to him to be promises I can’t keep. That would be the
most cowardly act of all and I don’t want either of my children to
remember me like that.”

“
A-are you
scared?” I say. As soon as the question is out I regret even
thinking it, let alone saying it aloud. Insensitive, silly, bad
choice.

“
More
disappointed than anything.”

“
Oh?”

“
I planned to
walk you down the aisle. You are going to get married, right?” I
nod. “Good. I planned to embarrass the hell out of Darcy at his
twenty-first, like Mel and I wanted to do to you.” Dad grins with
glistening eyes. “I planned to have your mom fetch me a scotch and
Coke every time I watched a documentary. You see, I make a lot of
plans. I’m just terribly—” Dad usually does this thing where his
face gets pink while he tries to appear in control but in this
state he looks like nothing. My dad just looks like a slate of
nothing while his mind is worlds away. “I’m quite peeved they won’t
happen.”

This question has been on my
mind for so long but now feels like the right time to ask. “So
you’re ready to die?”

“
What?” Dad
shakes his head fast, which gives me hope his reactions are
improving—his comprehension and all those types of measures—which
is a good sign. “I’m going to fight death while I’m dead.” Dad
looks at me funny then says, “So all this time you thought…no. Of
course not. I’d never leave you and Darce, but sometimes things
happen and I just need to know you’re prepared because it’d kill me
to die and leave you unprepared.”

“
You do
realize how embarrassing you are saying that stuff about ‘it’d kill
you to die’ because you’re too old to make jokes.”

“
I’m
forty-nine!”

“
Right.
Old.”

“
Just not old
enough to die?”

“
Right again,”
I say.

“
All right, be
honest. I get the feeling I look like a Simpson these
days.”

I have to recover from an epic
giggling fit. I savor the air, let it fill me up, and it calms me.
“You’re not that bad.”

I move back to my chair after
that and we talk about some technical stuff which is so unemotional
even a wreck like me can handle it, and then we just go on to
recent news, how Nana and Pa are, how my swimming and teaching is
going and Darcy’s training, and it’s easy again. Being with my dad
is so easy.

If he ever leaves me…

7. Making Mistakes

Dexter

My sugar must have been low
before to warrant the type of hypoglycemic attack where I craved
everything that had a high-sugar content. Half-dazed, I opened the
pantry, seeing a week-old package of cookies lying open, a bag of
potato chips, and some chocolate. After eating half of all of them,
I wobbled away, realizing I’d have to work all week at the gym to
get my shape back.

I pick up my guitar, strumming
chords after a few minutes of abusing myself for being so careless
with my cravings. Sure, a hypo made any diabetic hunger-craved but
that was no excuse. I’m better than that.

So for the
next half hour, I practice the sheet music I bought for Maroon 5’s
classics,
Sweetest Goodbye, She Will Be
Loved
and
Harder
To Breathe
.

Everyone’s gotta be worth
something, be the best in this world at something and that, for me,
is music. This afternoon, I play some simple chords to start with
because my muscles are lethargic from the hypo. Even more so, it’s
drained my brain. And comfortable is easy because I don’t need to
look at music. I close my eyes, hum, and don’t even remember the
fingerings. The millisecond before my fingers press the strings is
the first time I remember what I should press. I think the melody
is ingrained in my muscle memory—not my mind.

After the three Maroon 5 songs
I need another task. Maybe I should go to the gym after all. When
my muscles burn and my lungs are hungry for oxygen, I can’t wonder
about Charz.

And that’s what I do.

I strip to my boxers and then
change those for briefs, for, you know, less bounce. I pull out my
shorts and white tank and sneakers.

As I pass the bathroom, I look
back in the mirror. Two symbols stamp my left inner forearm for a
person I’ll never forget, Jack. I hate my last memories of him,
though, because it isn’t his devilish ability to win over our mom’s
heart for favors. It’s his car, flattened against a tree, with two
perfect zigzagged lines where the wheels lead up to the wreck.

The other
forearm is an ugly forest strangling things like a thorned heart, a
jellybean, and the death reaper’s scythe with the letter “J” on the
stem. Girls either love them or hate them.
Would Charz hate this, my body?
As
soon as I’ve wondered that I vow never to think any more girly
things like that again.

Dad’s voice interrupts my dash
to the laundry for clean clothes. He’s on the phone to someone from
what I can hear of the one-sided conversation behind the shut
door.

Mom and Tahny aren’t home, so,
ear pressed to the door, I reach my bag around the corner and drop
it out of the way. Dad’s tones are clipped, making his voice
ridiculously hard to hear, which also makes me realize how
vulnerable my position is. I’d have no way to talk or run my way
out of this one.