It's You (4 page)

My
Andrew.

The heaviness in my chest is back. It’s a weight that never completely lifts, but sometimes bears down, relentless. Crushing. It feels crushing now.

And beneath the grief is anger. Terrible, terrible anger.

I keep my back to my dad so he can’t see how much his words hurt, and infuriate, me.

My Andrew was laughter and light and he made the world a beautiful place. A better place. What was he thinking leaving me here without him? What was he thinking taking the easy way out?

It’s hard to love.

It’s hard to live.

It’s hard to keep one’s courage and optimism . . . to keep believing when life slams into you, wave after wave of pain and disappointment. I know. I’ve been underwater for months here, and yet I just keep swimming and swimming even though my eyes and throat and nose burn with salt and the sharp tang of love lost. Love gone.

But how to stop swimming? How to give up?

There’s no part in me willing to accept defeat. Silence.

What kind of message would that be? What kind of woman would I be to quit now just because it’s hard?

Of course it’s hard! It’s life. It’s not a carnival ride. It’s not something one signs up for. It’s something you’re thrust into.

“He was a nice young man,” my dad says from behind me. “I liked him.”

I press my lips together and squeeze my eyes tight, holding all my emotions in. Dad means well. He’s trying to comfort me. He’s trying . . .

And yet it suddenly enrages me that he’s waited all these years
to reach out to me. That all these months when I’m down in Scottsdale trying to carry on that he doesn’t feel any need to connect with me, or comfort me. He’s just assumed that I’m fine. He’s assumed I’ll manage.

And yes, I’m managing. But my God it hurts.

And I’m lonely. And scared.

Scared that I’ll always feel this way. Numb. Dead.

Angry.

I dig deep, bearing down on the anger, pressing it down, burying it where it can’t hurt me. Or Dad. I don’t want to be rude to Dad but I’m so confused. He’s spent his whole life immersed in his work and his thoughts and interests. He had thirty years to learn to love me and he never bothered to do it very well.

He could take care of all those animals but he couldn’t take care of me.

He couldn’t find time to spend with
me
.

But no sooner do I feel the anger, than I’m consumed by guilt.

I shouldn’t need more than I do. I shouldn’t need anything more than what I’ve got. I shouldn’t expect anything at all. I wasn’t raised with expectations. Neither my mother nor my father taught me that I was entitled to anything; every opportunity was to be seized, every advantage taken. And I have worked hard. Very, very hard.

“You’re angry,” Dad says now, breaking the silence that has stretched far too long.

I shrug and glance at him. His narrow face is weathered and deeply lined. He’s not a young man. I don’t know how resilient he really is. He says one thing but I can no longer trust that his words reflect reality. It would be easy to remain angry, but it’s not me. It never has been. I prefer moving forward. Not much of a fan of treading water or remaining in place.

“What was Mom’s secret for dealing with you?” I ask huskily, managing a faint wry smile.

“She liked me. And she knew my limitations.”

“I like you, and I’ve a good idea about your limitations. You enjoy your routine, you have no patience for idiots, and you don’t like small talk or cocktail party chatter.”

“I’m short on patience and have a quick temper.”

“Except when it comes to animals.”

He lifted a trembling hand. “They don’t talk.”

“And they can’t help themselves when hurt or injured.”

His head, with its steely strands of gray, nods. “Your mother never minded that I preferred animals to people.”

Clearly I’m nothing like my mother, because I do.

• • •

L
eaving the retirement home, I go grocery shopping before driving back to the house on Poppy Lane.

The cream-colored house looks lavender and yellow in the twilight. Once upon a time the picket fence was bordered by cheerful perennials. The flowers are gone, replaced by some shrubby-looking hedge. I wonder who replaced the flowers. Probably the same gardener that mows twice a month.

There’s a big oak tree in the backyard and it’s home to a variety of birds. In the morning you hear the jays and mockingbirds. Now crows caw. I pause with the bags of groceries to watch a large black bird swoop from the gnarled tree limbs to a power line, joining the lineup. They screech a welcoming. Or perhaps a warning. The newcomer flaps his wings. He doesn’t care.

As I juggle the bags and unlock the front door I glance back at the car. The car and street are bathed in gold. The temperature is still warm. You can smell summer coming.

From the time I was a teenager, my parents talked about their retirement plans. They wanted to return to California, where both had been raised. They wanted a small town. They wanted charm.
They wanted good weather. They discussed small beach towns like San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria, just north of Santa Barbara. They talked about going to the wine country: Sonoma . . . Calistoga . . . Napa. If they’d had a couple drinks, they’d dream bigger—maybe they could have both. Maybe they could split their time between the two: a small house on the coast and a place in the wine country, too.

It was the dream, the thing that kept them working and saving and looking forward. They’d raised me—their only child—in Tacoma, Washington. Dad had his own practice and Mom worked her way from being a teacher to a vice principal, and then a principal, bouncing around the Tacoma Unified School District, taking promotions and advancements when they came.

They both worked hard so they could be secure in their retirement.

They worked hard so they could be free.

Dad was the bigger earner. A good vet, and affordable, he had built a very loyal customer base, and even though he was ten years older than mom, he’d intended to work until she retired and then they’d pool their resources and move.

But Dad’s health changed. He developed tremors, couldn’t operate, nor did he trust himself during exams. He ended up selling his practice to a young veterinarian who’d been working with him for the past couple of years. The young vet was enthused. Dad suddenly found himself with far too much time on his hands.

It was this house on Poppy Lane that ultimately sold my parents on Napa.

They came to Napa for this house. They loved its history. They loved that it sat on a full acre, with most of the space stretching luxuriously in the back, the yard not filled with a pool but a small fruit orchard and a generous vegetable garden.

They loved the hundred-year-old house and Mom wanted the garden.

I was happy for them. I knew it was their dream, their house. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t ever meant to be mine. I was already dating Andrew, and in my second year of dental school. I’d already hitched my star to Andrew’s. Wherever he wanted to go, I’d follow, and I knew he planned on returning to Scottsdale after graduation to join his father’s dental practice. He was clear about that. He wanted to work with his dad. He wanted to be like his dad . . . a good dentist, and a great father.

I was on board.

My future was his family, people who had a little more energy, activity, and opportunity than I’d been raised with. My mom and dad were homebodies. Dr. and Mrs. Morris were active on the Scottsdale social scene; their large home host to numerous parties and high-profile events. It seemed like the ideal life to me. Dry desert winters and blistering summers where you worked in an adobe-tiled building and then cooled off after work and on weekends in your backyard swimming pool.

I didn’t need more. Didn’t want more. Work, home, family, that was enough for me. I am apparently too easily entertained and I’ve always found something to engage my mind . . . something to focus on.

School, studies, exams, career. Whatever I do, I do well and there is satisfaction in excellence. Success. I naturally assumed I’d be a good wife, a devoted mother. I didn’t see problems with the plan.

The plan.

The plan is gone.

• • •

I
wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and stare at nothing, heart pounding, skin clammy.

What is the plan now?

What do I do now?

I don’t know.

It’s been over a year since Andrew died and I still don’t know.

Will I ever know again?

• • •

I
t takes me forever to fall back asleep and I sleep heavily, waking to sunlight and the twittering of birds in the oak tree not far from the master bedroom.

I don’t get up right away. Everything is heavy inside me. Wet cement. A future I can’t see—

Not true. I can see it. Work, work, work. Possibly being promoted to Dr. Morris’ partner. Morris & McAdams Dentistry.

But suddenly I’m resistant. Suddenly the idea of sitting so still, mask firmly in place, staring down into open mouths for the rest of my life horrifies me.

Is this what Andrew had thought?

That he’d rather die than sit on that stool and gaze down into open mouths day after day after day?

Dentistry is a science, and an art. It’s about perfection. In dentistry, the work is exact. There is no room for error. The quest is for perfect, and perfection is how one is judged in dental school, and the standard continues into one’s practice.

I don’t even mind the intense focus. At least, I used to like the focus. Now I can’t focus on any one thing. I don’t know that I can focus on anything. The future is as impossible as the past. It’s beyond my control.

I don’t know what I want.

I don’t know where to go.

Something has to give.

I just don’t want it to be me.

I
reluctantly park at Napa Estates, and even more reluctantly walk to the entrance, feeling like a horrible human being for dreading spending the day there.

I don’t want to spend the day here today.

I want Dad, not the retirement home. It’s depressing being surrounded by so much old age and decay. Not that Napa Estates smells like decay, but you see it in the older seniors’ faces and bodies, the ones whose bodies have shrunk, the frail seniors who are in danger of disappearing.

Dad’s waiting for me in the main hall. He’s sitting in a winged arm chair, holding court with a half-dozen men and a lone woman.

I watch him for a moment, astounded. Dad, the introvert, suddenly seems to be an extrovert. I know he’d told me yesterday that he takes all of his meals in the dining room with everyone else, but it’s jarring seeing him surrounded by people. Dad and Mom weren’t social. Dad and Mom pretty much just stuck together.

I greet Dad and he introduces me to his circle—Harold Zuss and Bill Malone. Walter Jordan and Graham Durkee. There’s a
Floyd and maybe a George, and the woman, LuAnne somebody. I thought I was doing all right with the names in the beginning but by the end, I know I won’t keep them straight.

Then as Dad gets to his feet, he invites everyone to join us for lunch.

I blink, shocked.

He’s not the dad I know, which makes me wonder if I ever knew him. Was Mom perhaps the introvert? Would Dad have enjoyed more social activities when they were married?

I walk next to him into the dining room. It’s open seating. He chooses a round table set for ten and as we take our seats he leans towards me and says under his breath, “A couple of the guys are having a hard time. This is good for them. They need to belong.”

I nod and sit, thinking, since I obviously don’t know him, perhaps it’s time I did.

• • •

I
return for dinner and “game night.” Apparently we’re playing bingo later. Dinner is another group date. Harold and Walter join us. So does George. But Graham is having a real “dinner date” with Eleanor Babcock, and Bill Malone was rushed to the hospital earlier in the day. He had a heart attack and is in ICU now. The men are subdued. We have quite a few seats empty but then others slowly fill in, always asking,
Can I join you? Is this seat
free?

The meal is relatively quiet. Everyone has Bill on their mind. They’re worried about him, but there is nothing they can do.

“It’s where we are,” Walter says gruffly. “This is what happens.”

The others nod, solemn, resigned.

This is what happens when you age, I think. You accept your mortality. You acknowledge one’s lack of control.

I’m just not there yet. I’m still fighting for what I want and need.

To distract myself, I turn to the man on my left. He was one of those who arrived after we were seated. “You said your name is Jerry?” I ask, wanting to draw him out as he’s been mostly silent throughout the meal, listening to the others.

“Yes. Gerald or Jerry. It’s all the same to me.”

I hear an accent. He’s not a native Californian but I can’t place where he’s from. “Where were you raised?”

He smiles. “Philadelphia. But after the war, I worked in Detroit, and then ended up here in California twenty years ago with my Betty.”

There was something in the way he said
my Betty
that made my chest tighten. “Is she here?”

“She died six months ago. First Christmas and Easter without her.” He looked me in the eye. “Had fifty-eight years together. I consider myself a lucky man.”

“Sounds like you were happy.”

“She was a catch.”

Again, that tug of emotion. I like him, this Jerry. “Where was she from?”

“Met her in Michigan. She had dark red hair, and legs. Amazing legs. And she could dance. Boy, could she dance.” His smile faded. “I miss her.”

Dad leans in. “But the girls here won’t leave Jerry alone. They’re shameless. They chase him like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What?” I glance from Dad to Jerry and back again. “The ladies chase you?”

“He’s fresh meat. He’s only been here a few months—how long, Gerald? Two months? Three?”

“Almost four. Moved in January.” He nodded and folded his napkin neatly, setting it by his plate. “Sometimes seems longer than that. Time is different without her. Can’t keep track of it the way I used to.”

After dinner, as I walk with Dad back to his apartment, I
mention Jerry and what Dad had said during the meal, about Jerry being fresh meat.

“Do women chase you, Dad?”

“Yes. All the time.”

“But the ladies here seem so old . . .”

“Not all of them. There are quite a few young ones here, women my age. Phyllis. Linda. Sheila. Dinah. Just to name a few. But they’re not hanging around the dining room at lunch. They’re out playing golf or tennis or off shopping. We have a courtesy van that takes the ladies downtown.” He reaches into his pocket for his room key. “But I’m not interested and they know it.”

I wait for him to unlock the door and push it open. “But you might be. One day.”

“I might be,” he agrees calmly. “Or I might not. I’m not there yet, and even if I was, I’d never marry again, and most of the ladies would like a proposal, and a ring.”

“Seriously?”

“You wanted a proposal and a ring.”

“Because I’d never been married or had kids—”

“The proposal and ring isn’t about kids. It’s about the commitment.” He closes the door behind us and it shuts with a bang.