Home Is Burning (10 page)

Part of me was hoping coming home this time would be the same as always.

But when I rolled Big Sexy into our cracked driveway, I was shocked to see our house. It was now fully buried in construction work. They had started building the elevator shaft and redoing a few of the bathrooms while widening some hallways. My mom figured that since we were already doing work on the house, she'd also have the kitchen and a couple of other bathrooms updated. The whole place had that ugly midproject look to it: tarps, tools, planks of wood scattered about. Construction workers streamed in and out as if they lived there. There was no
WELCOME HOME DAN THE MAN
sign. There was no wine. The dogs didn't even run out to greet me. Instead, a cat I'd never seen before and my now bald-from-chemo mother—who wore an old-lady nightgown that made her look like the Ghost of Cancer Past—stood waiting for me at the front door. I hugged my mom's fragile, diseased body as the stranger cat rubbed up against me, getting its germs and hair all over my spoiled white leg.

“Whose fucking cat is this?” I asked, kicking it away.

“His name is Pierre … or maybe this one is Pongo … I can't remember. It's Tiffany's. Her boyfriend is allergic. Her cats stay here now.”

“Where's Dad?” I asked. “I was thinking we'd have a glass of wine.”

“He's hooked to his BiPAP machine. He doesn't drink anymore. He gets his food and water from his feeding tube. Remember?” she said.

“Well, fuck me. The house looks like shit,” I said.

“Yeah, well, everything is going to hell. Welcome home.” She glided away to go lie down.

Henry and Aria pulled up in my Subaru. I had somehow beaten them back despite Big Sexy's size. Henry got out, took one look at the scene in front of him, and said, “Whoa, what happened to the Marshall House of Fun?”

*   *   *

So there I was. Back in Utah. Back in my once happy childhood home, now haunted by a pair of terminally ill parents, construction workers, and strange cats. All my siblings, except Tiffany, were back living in the house, but it wasn't the safe, relaxing nest it once was. It was now a hectic place where it was impossible to get a moment alone. Every morning at six thirty, Jessica and Chelsea would get up for school. Jessica drove herself, but Chelsea was part of a morning car pool the Mormon neighbors had organized. Then my dad and mom would get up. My mom was off to chemo, but my dad needed to be showered, dressed, fed, and looked after for the whole day. He could still walk and would leave the house every day to go to his office or run errands. But when he was home, he was mainly hooked up to his BiPAP machine.

It seemed as though someone was always coming or going. In addition to all the construction workers, visitors would pop by at all hours to check on my mom and dad. Every night, a Mormon neighbor would bring over a meal—usually lasagna. It was strange to suddenly be basking in the glow of neighborly love. Before this our neighbors had wanted nothing to do with us. In fact, when we first moved in, none of the children our age were allowed to play with us; they thought we were bad kids simply because we didn't have the same religious beliefs. But now they were feeding us and driving Chelsea to school? Why? Did they actually feel sorry for us? Or were they using us to win points with Jesus?

I felt as if my life path had somehow jumped off course and was heading into a dark, depressing, alcohol-filled ditch. I was actually doing this. I was really home. My parents were really sick. The playpen that had been my life was closed.

Stana—who seemed to always be hanging around even when it wasn't her day to work—put it best: “Danny, this is you new home. No like old home.”

But I tried to remain positive and decided that I was going to work as hard as I could to make things better. I didn't come home to relax and play tennis this time. I came home to help my parents. This was, after all, my new job. I started in.

*   *   *

Like anyone at any new job, I was horrible at it my first few days. I didn't know how to do anything, and even the simplest tasks seemed impossibly hard. I needed a trainer. At first, I thought it'd be my mom. But soon it became clear that she really couldn't care for my dad anymore. The chemo was ruining her as it battled the cancer. Through all the years of watching her go through treatment, I had never seen her this bad. She had already dropped tons of weight. She could barely keep any food down. She could hardly do anything but sleep. She was just a giant lump on her bed hidden beneath her comforter. She needed someone to care for her, too.

Tiffany had started her M.B.A. at Westminster College in Salt Lake. She'd decided to go the business route instead of becoming a lawyer. BCB had opted to stick with the lawyer junk, so he'd packed his bags and was off to the University of Maine in Portland. They'd be doing the long-distance thing. Tiff had a full schedule between her M.B.A., work, and visiting BCB in Maine, so she wasn't around much. Plus, we were still at each other's throats. Ever since the cruise, every encounter between us would spark a fight.

“Finally made it back, huh?” she said as she stopped by to check in one afternoon between work and class.

“Heard your new boyfriend loves you so much he disappeared to Maine,” I said, already going into attack mode.

“So when are you going back to California?”

“So who do you think BCB's fucking behind your back in Maine?” I fired back.

Pretty soon after I arrived, Tiffany stopped coming around as frequently. Our contemptuous relationship kept her away. She had too much going on for me to make her feel like shit every time she came home.

Jessica and Chelsea were at school most of the day. When they were around, they didn't help with my parents. They were too young, too confused to really do anything anyway.

“So you don't do anything around here, do you?” I asked Chelsea one night.

“Nope. That's not my job,” she proclaimed.

“What is your job?” I asked.

“School, dance, and farting,” she joked as she danced off to do her homework.

With my mom, Tiffany, and the little girls mostly out of the picture, I turned to Greg. Once my mom had started fading into her chemo daze, Greg had taken over the caregiving and house-management duties. He had been home for a few months and was doing a great job, but he was already a little burned out—which was understandable. He was only twenty-two. He should've been back in Chicago nailing dudes he met at gay bars. But instead, he was home wiping our dad's ass.

Greg and I had always been close—brothers but also best friends. We were only two years apart, and grew up with our rooms right across the hall from each other. As a kid, I had an iguana named Oozy, who escaped his cage, bit my finger, and took over my room. I was terrified of him. So for a long stretch while we figured out what to do about Oozy, I slept in Greg's
Wizard of Oz–
decorated room. We'd stay up late talking about life, tennis, the Jazz, movies, our fucked-up family, etc. Even when we finally caught Oozy and gave him away to a pet store, we still had our brother sleepovers. We did everything together. We wore the same clothes. Fuck, we even had matching Speedos, which we once mistakenly wore to a popular Utah water park called Seven Peaks. “Hey look, it's the Speedo brothers,” one bully yelled at us. We retired the Speedos shortly thereafter. No matter what was going on with our family—with the world—Greg and I still had each other.

But Greg was angry with me for taking so long to come home while he trudged through this bullshit alone. He had thought it was going to be more of a team effort. We'd usually talk endlessly, but he was sort of ignoring me, acting a little bitchy and standoffish. After a few days of tension, we finally had a heart-to-heart. I was unpacking a few books and clothes. I decided to set my bed up in the front dining room of our house because it was the only available room that wasn't torn apart by the construction.

“Settling in?” Greg asked, sticking his head in the doorway.

“Yep, there's construction shit all over the room in the basement, and Jess has my old room, so I figured I'd set up shop here.”

“Yeah, Jesus, this house used to be so fun. It's a shitshow now,” he said.

“Remember the epic Nerf wars?” I asked.

“Oh, man, those were the best,” he said. “And
American Gladiators
.” In the summer of '93, Greg and I had gotten obsessed with the TV show
American Gladiators
. Greg even called me when I was away at John Stockton's basketball camp to tell me who had won. We were so in love with it that we set up our basement to replicate the
Gladiator
events and would invite our friends over to compete against us.

“I loved
American Gladiators
. You were better than Nitro,” I said.

“Though not as gay,” he said. “God, all those men in spandex banging into each other, no wonder I loved it.” We smiled at each other. It was nice to remember when it was good, when our house had been in its prime.

“Oh, how's your pubic lice, by the way?” I asked.

“Completely gone. I beat it. Only took two months!” he said.

“Atta boy, Gregor.” I gave him a big high five and pulled him in for a congratulatory hug. We laughed. I looked at my old pal.

“Sorry it took so long to get home,” I said, getting more serious.

“Well, we didn't know it would go this fast with Dad.”

“Yeah, really hit the poor guy hard. Fucking Christ. Who knew?” I said.

“It's only going to get worse. God, I sort of hope he doesn't go on the respirator,” he said.

“You know Mom's going to hook the fucking thing to his throat herself if she has to,” I said.

“Yeah, that's true. Fuck, it's going to suck.” Greg shook his head. “Well, glad you're back to help.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said.

And just like that, we were best pals again—a couple of American Gladiators ready to face this thing together.

My mom was pretty self-sufficient. She had had cancer for long enough to know how to manage it. She had shaved her head, partially for effect and to shout out to the world, “Look at me. I have cancer,” but mainly so she didn't have to go through the process of watching her hair fall out, piece by piece. Several of her friends had agreed to drive her up to chemo and sit with her at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. She'd get ready in the morning, they'd pick her up, and then they'd drop her back at home in the afternoon. She would march up to her bedroom and settle into a long, deep cancer sleep. She had, at some point, become absolutely addicted to yogurt. It was all she was eating, all she could really keep down. All we had to do for her was make sure we always had yogurt in the fridge. But that was it.

Taking care of my mom was easy, but she did suffer from something we called “chemo brain.” Chemo brain resulted from her still being a little out of it from the cocktail of lymphoma-fighting drugs they'd given her. Basically she was just really scatterbrained and would say crazy shit. For example, she was really pushing for me to ask for Abby's hand in marriage, even though this was probably the worst time for that. One night while I was watching HBO, she stumbled down to grab a yogurt and started chatting with me.

“So you know how you love Pez?” she said. When I was a teenager, I started a Pez collection to ensure that I would never get laid.

“Yeah, I mean, that was like ten years ago,” I said.

“I was thinking you could put an engagement ring in a Pez dispenser and ask Abby that way,” she suggested.

“Wow. That'd be an awesome way to scare her away for good,” I replied.

“No. She'd love it. You'd just ask her if she wants a Pez, she'd say yes, then the ring would pop out. She'd be so surprised,” she said.

“And what if she doesn't want a Pez?” I asked.

“What kind of monster turns down a Pez.”

“Okay, great suggestion. I'll go pick out a ring and Pez dispenser tomorrow,” I said sarcastically.

“Great!” My mom then floated away with her yogurt.

We were always on the lookout for chemo brain and would warn each other when she had it. “Watch out, Mom has chemo brain,” we'd say. We'd know to ignore anything she said at that point.

The main focus was on my dad. His arms were gone. Well, not really gone—they were still attached to his body; he just couldn't use them. His diaphragm was getting weaker and weaker by the day, making breathing very difficult. He needed to nap while hooked to his BiPAP machine at least a few times a day. He couldn't dress himself. His speech was slow and labored, his voice so soft you could barely hear him. He required three feedings a day. He was done with regular food. Just water and cans of Promote, all injected into his stomach through his G-tube. Once his breathing got bad enough, he'd go on the respirator, at which point he would be permanently hooked to a machine and bound to a wheelchair or bed.

There was very little talk of hiring an aide to help with some of my dad's more intimate care. My mom insisted that we just do it. I brought it up only once.

“Shouldn't we hire some asshole to at least get Dad ready in the morning and handle some of the bathroom bullshit?” I asked my mom just before she left for chemo one morning.

“No, it's not that bad. God forbid you lazy kids actually do something around here. A little hard work won't kill you,” she said.

“But a little hard work also wouldn't kill a hired aide,” I said.

“Shut up. Your dad doesn't want some ugly aide touching his penis and watching him shit. You kids can do it. He's your father,” she said, slamming the door and ending the discussion.

It was official. We would provide all the care. And my mom was right. A little hard work wouldn't kill us. We were unemployed. We could handle it. It was time to roll up our sleeves and just fucking deal with this. So Greg and I became our dad's little helper monkeys—Greg taking the lead as head helper monkey.