Second Chance Summer (44 page)

“It came with the cake,” she said. “Henry insisted. He said it would bring out the flavor. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

“Yes,” I said, as I took the piece she gave me, which happened to have the
T
of my name, feeling the lump in my throat. “It really was.”

chapter thirty-five

T
IME WAS RUNNING OUT
. T
HIS WAS CLEAR NOT ONLY IN HOW EACH
day got a just a little shorter but also in what was happening to my dad. He was a little more confused every day, and his stretches of wakefulness and awareness of what was going on were getting shorter and shorter. It became difficult for him to talk, and somehow this was the hardest for me to see—my dad, who I’d watched command courtrooms with his deep, booming voice. Now, he struggled to speak, and to find the words he wanted to use.

We’d started taking turns spending time with him while he had his lucid periods. My sister talked a mile a minute, like she was trying to tell him everything she was ever going to want to, all at once. My brother would sit by his bedside and they would talk about, from what I could overhear, famous law cases, swapping their favorite facts, my brother usually talking more than my dad. My grandfather would sit next to him and read the paper out loud, usually the human interest section. His voice, so like my dad’s had been, could be heard across the house, as he’d say, “Now, you’ll like
this, Robin. Listen to what happened yesterday in Harrisburg.”

My mother didn’t say much when they were together. Sometimes I’d hear them talking about financial things, making arrangements, plans. But mostly, she held his hand and just looked at his face, studying it, like she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to see it soon.

When it was my turn with my dad, we played our question game that had taken us through so many breakfasts. But now he didn’t seem to want to talk about himself. Now he seemed to want to know everything about me, while he still could. “Tell me,” he’d say, his voice as scratched as one of his old records, “my Taylor. When have you been the happiest?” And I’d try my best to answer, attempting to deflect the question, but he’d always have another one lined up. What was I thinking about in terms of college majors? Where were places I wanted to visit? What did I want to do with my life? What was the best meal I’d ever had?

Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to answer; I’d break down crying, and that’s when we’d listen to his records. I knew them all by now—Jackson Browne, Charlie Rich, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles—a lot of shaggy-haired guys that my grandfather still didn’t like, if his reaction when he came into the room and heard them was any indication. And the music, and the questions, would continue on, as I’d try to tell my father who I was and who I hoped to be, while we still had time.

Throughout all of this, the dog refused to leave his spot under
my dad’s bed. We finally had to move his food and water bowl under there, even though Roberto, who was the most by-the-rules of the nurses, worried about germs. Davy still came by twice a day, and the dog let himself be pulled out from under the bed and taken for a very quick walk. But aside from that, he didn’t move from his spot.

I had finally given up and claimed the trundle bed as mine, since I was barely sleeping anyway. The night nurses were used to it by now, just giving me a nod as I crept out to the porch. Sometimes my grandfather was awake, and would sit with me while I looked up at the stars, needing to see something fixed and permanent while everything else in my life seemed to be breaking apart. When he was in bed, he left the telescope out and in position for me. There was a meteor shower that was expected at the end of the month, and according to my grandfather, things tended to get very interesting, stargazing-wise, before a meteor shower, so I was keeping an eye out.

The nights when my grandfather wasn’t there were the nights I cried. I was no longer even trying to stop myself. We were all more or less trying to keep it together for my dad and one another. But at night, alone, with all the moments of the day finally hitting me, I would let myself just sob, out on the porch. And though I knew it was a stupid, pointless reaction to what was happening, I also realized it was all I could do. I cried, I tried to think of puns that might make my father laugh one more time, and I looked at the stars.

I had just come in from a night without my grandfather, a night I’d finally found Sirius on my own, when I saw Paul standing over my dad. It felt like my heart stopped for a moment before it started beating much faster, in a panic. “Is he okay?” I whispered, looking down at my dad, suddenly more scared than I’d ever been in my entire life.

“He’s okay,” Paul said quietly back to me, and I could feel my panic start to recede. “He’s just having a hard night. Poor guy.”

I looked down at the hospital bed that now seemed like it had always been part of our living room. My dad, thin to the point of being emaciated, his skin yellowed and leathery-looking, was sleeping, his mouth open, looking so small in the big expanse of white bed. His breaths were labored and rasping, and I found myself listening for each one, then waiting for the next one.

It seemed wrong, somehow, to just go back to my own room and sleep my easy sleep. So I curled on the couch that was nearest to the hospital bed, and looked at my dad sleeping in the shaft of moonlight that was coming through the windows, falling across his face. As I listened to his breathing, my heart starting to pound whenever there was a pause, a break in the rhythm, I realized that this was what he had done for me, years ago, when I was a baby.

I wished that there was something I could do to make it better. But all I could do was to lie there and listen for each labored, rasping breath, counting them. I was aware that he didn’t have that
many left, and somehow, to not pay attention to each one seemed like the worst kind of indifference. And so I lay there, just listening, knowing that each breath was another moment he was still here and, simultaneously, that meant that he had just moved a little closer to being gone.

I heard a door hinge squeak, and looked up to see Gelsey standing in the hallway. She was wearing an ancient, much-washed nightshirt that had once been mine. “You weren’t in bed,” she whispered. “Is everything okay?” I nodded, and then, without knowing I was going to, motioned her closer.

I expected her to go to one of the other couches, but she came right to mine, curling up against me. And I put my arms around my sister, smoothing back her soft, curly hair, and we lay there together in the dark, not speaking, just listening to our father breathe.

I thought about Henry, of course. During one of our talks, my father had even brought him up. I had evaded the question, but I still found myself turning over our time together in my head. Usually I was pretty sure I’d made the right decision. But sometimes—like when Wendy stopped by and was sitting with Warren on the porch, and I’d watch her lean her head against his shoulder, comforting him, and my brother let himself be comforted—I wondered if I actually had done the right thing by ending it with Henry. There was a part of me that was afraid that I’d dressed it up and called it a new name,
but that it was my same flaw, rearing its ugly head once again. I was still running when things got too real—I’d just learned how to do it, at last, by staying in the same place.

Even though I knew when the meteor shower was coming—that morning’s
Pocono Record
had even done a special feature on the best time to try and catch it—it still took me by surprise. Since it was predicted to arrive an hour before dawn—when even I had usually gone to sleep for the night—I’d set my alarm. When the alarm beeped four thirty, waking me but not Gelsey, I’d switched it off and contemplated just going back to sleep. But my grandfather had promised it would be something extraordinary, and I felt like I’d put in enough time that summer looking up at the stars—I might as well see them deliver.

I pulled on my sweatshirt and tiptoed out of the room, even though I’d learned by now that my sister was one of the world’s deepest sleepers. I headed into the hallway and nodded at Paul, who was on duty, who gave me a small wave back. My dad was sleeping, his breath rattling in his throat. I looked at him for a long moment, and Paul met my eyes and gave me a sympathetic smile before turning back to his book. Things had gotten much worse in the last two days. We’d stopped talking about my father’s condition, how he was doing. We were mostly just trying to get through each day. And though my father was still with us, the last coherent conversation
he’d been able to have was several days ago—and that had been just a moment with my mother before he got confused again.

I headed outside to the porch, looked up at the sky, and gasped.

The whole night sky above me was filled with streaks of light. I had never seen a single falling star before, and they were whizzing across the vast expanse of sky—one, then another, then two at once. The stars had never seemed quite so bright, and it was like they were surrounding me, much closer than I’d ever seen them, and a few of them were just on a joyride across the sky. And as I watched it unfolding, I knew that I didn’t want to be watching it alone.

I hurried back inside, not sure how long meteor showers lasted and not wanting him to miss any of it. “Paul,” I said quietly, and he looked up from his book and raised his eyebrows at me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“There’s a meteor shower outside,” I said. “It’s going on right now.”

“Oh, yeah,” Paul said, yawning and picking up his book again. “I think I read something about that in the paper.”

“The thing is… ,” I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot. I could practically feel my anxiety building. I felt like time was running out, right in front of me, and that I needed to get my father outside as fast as possible. “I want my dad to see it.” Paul looked up at me again, frowning. “Would that be possible?”

“Taylor,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t think it makes much sense.”

“I know,” I said, surprising myself—and Paul, by the look on his face. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. Just for a moment or two. You can carry him outside, or I can wake Warren up. I just…” My voice trailed off. I had no idea why I thought this was so crucial. It’s not like I believed that meteor showers had some magic healing properties. I just wanted my dad to see something so extraordinary. I hated that all he saw, every day, was our living room. I wanted him to breathe in, labored or not, some of that pine-scented night air. I was searching for the words to express this, when Paul stood up.

“For five minutes,” he said. “And there’s no guarantee that he’ll even wake up.”

“I know,” I said. “Thank you.” Paul got up and unfolded the wheelchair, while I crossed over to my father’s bedside, standing right by his head. His breathing was still labored, with a rattling to it that had shown up in the last two days, and which terrified me. It made every breath he was taking seem painful, and I hated to hear it. “Daddy,” I whispered, touching his shoulder through the blanket, shocked by how bony it felt, how fragile he seemed. “Rise and shine. Up and Adam.”

There was a hitch in his breathing, and for a moment I panicked, but then my dad’s eyes opened, those blue eyes he’d given to only me. He looked at me, but he’d been looking at us, unseeing, lately, so I didn’t know if this meant anything. But then his eyes focused on my face and one corner of his mouth pulled up in a tiny smile.
“Tayl,” he said, his voice thick and slurred. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then said, his eyes starting to drift closed again. “Hi, kid. Whas news?”

I smiled even as I could feel tears prickling my eyes. “Want to see some stars?” I asked him. I looked over and saw that Paul was standing by with the wheelchair. I nodded at him and stepped away. With practiced skill, Paul lifted my father from the bed as though he weighed nothing and settled him into the chair. I grabbed the blanket from the bed and tucked it around him, and then Paul pushed him out to the front porch. I followed, and was thrilled to see that the falling stars were still falling. That this event, which happened for a brief window just a few times a year, hadn’t passed us by.

Paul stopped my dad’s chair in the center of the porch and put the brake on, then looked up himself. “Wow,” he murmured. “I see what you mean.”

I sat down next to my dad’s chair and touched his shoulder. “Look,” I said, pointing up. His head was resting on the back of the chair, but his eyes opened and looked up.

I watched him watching the stars above, as streaks of light flew past. His eyes were focused, following one as it cut its path across the huge, dark canvas of the sky. “Stars,” he said in a voice that was clearer than he’d yet used that night, a voice that was laced with wonder.

I nodded, and moved closer to him. His breath was rattling
again, and I could feel Paul standing nearby, waiting to bring my dad inside. But I picked up my dad’s hand where it was hanging over the wheel and took it in mine. It was too bony, but it was still huge, engulfing my own. The hand that had taught me to tie my shoes and hold a pencil correctly and had held mine carefully when we were crossing the street, making sure to keep me safe.