Taking Charge (4 page)

“Brad’s an officer in the police department now,” Pam
said.

“I know. In fact, you remind me every time I call,”
Robyn answered.

“He was dating Michelle Diamond for a long time…” Pam
started.

“Yeah, I know. Aren’t they still together?” Robyn
asked.

“No, didn’t I tell you? She went off with Randy
Dennis,” Pam said.

“No way!”

She remembered Randy Dennis. He had been the ugliest
kid in school. He’d had ears the size of plates, glasses with
lenses two inches thick, and a body odor issue.

“He had plastic surgery on his ears and laser eye
surgery,” Pam informed as if reading her mind.

“When did that happen?” Robyn asked.

“The ears?”

“No, when did Michelle leave Brad?”

“About six months ago now. He took it really badly,
almost got kicked off the force. He drank a lot, tried to start
fights, and the whole town got pretty pissed at him,” Pam
explained.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Well, you always spend longer talking to Bob about
the hockey than you do to me. And you haven’t called for three
months. I left messages, but you never called back…until the one I
left about your dad,” Pam said.

“It hasn’t been that long,” Robyn insisted. She hid
her eyes from her aunt.

Three months was nothing. She hadn’t spoken to her
friend Sarah for almost a year. She was ashamed about that, but she
would call her now that she was home. There were a lot of reasons
she hadn’t returned her friend’s calls, but the main one was she
didn’t want to hear what was going on in Portage because it made
her ache not to be there. Sarah would describe the weather and the
lake and places they used to go and, despite the mixed feelings she
had for the town, the feeling that overrode all the others was
longing. Her dad getting ill had somehow given her the courage to
return. It was a reason she had long been looking for.

“Well, anyway, you’re here now aren’t you?’ Pam said
hastily.

“So what happened? With Brad?” Robyn asked, desperate
to take the spotlight off her lack of communication.

“Your dad happened. He gave him a focus, made him
captain of the Panthers, and it turned him around,” Pam said,
turning down another corridor.

“Well, Dad always did want a son,” Robyn
answered.

“Brad visits too, at least once a week, and he’s been
holding the Panthers together. Results haven’t been great, but
they’re hanging in there,” Pam said, coming to a halt outside one
of the doors.

Robyn suddenly felt the urge to vomit. It was either
the sudden smell of antibacterial gel and urine or the realization
that she was about to see the father she hadn’t set eyes on in nine
years. She gagged and put her hand to her mouth, trying to stifle
the feeling.

“Are you okay, honey? If this is too much, we can
just turn around and go back to the car. We don’t have to do this
now,” Pam reassured her.

“I’m okay. This it?” Robyn said, indicating the door
in front of them.

“Yes. Should I go in first? Let him know you’re here?
It will be a shock and…” Pam suggested.

“No.” Robyn shook her head. “Listen, why don’t you go
and wait with Bob and the girls? I think I’d like to do this on my
own,” Robyn said.

“Are you sure, honey?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Robyn said a bit more forcefully
than she had meant to.

Her aunt looked like a wounded puppy. She opened her
mouth to apologize, but before she could, the door of Eddie’s room
opened, and a nurse came bustling out with a tray. On it were the
remains of a McDonald’s meal.

“Excuse me, are you here to visit?” the nurse
inquired.

“Yes, Eddie Matthers,” Robyn replied.

“Good luck. He has a bad attitude right now because I
confiscated this,” the nurse said, indicating the leftover
takeaway.

“Can I have it?” Robyn asked, putting her hands on
the tray.

“You hungry? Because I’m pretty sure he’s bitten into
everything,” the nurse responded.

“I’m starving,” Robyn insisted, taking a firm grip
and pulling the tray away from the nurse.

She gave Robyn a funny look and raised her eyes at
Pam. She finally relinquished the tray and carried on down the
corridor.

“He’s in the bed by the window. A guy named Max is in
there with him. He has bad lungs and coughs all the time,” Pam
informed her.

Robyn didn’t listen to anything else. She pushed open
the door and entered.

In the first bed, a man was sitting up in bed
reading. He had wild tufts of gray hair on his head and thick
glasses that sat halfway down his nose. He put his newspaper down
and looked at Robyn with suspicion.

“You a nurse?” he barked in a thick Brooklyn
accent.

“No,” Robyn answered.

“What you want?”

“World peace. You?” Robyn retorted.

“Very funny. Hey Eddie, we got ourselves a comedian
here,” the patient called out before succumbing to a fit of
coughing.

Robyn moved forward to the bed nearest the window. It
was then she saw him.

Eddie only vaguely looked like the dad she remembered
saying goodbye to. With less hair on his head and more hair on his
face, he looked older. His beard was shabby and flecked with gray,
and his pallor didn’t look right at all. Eyes that were ringed and
heavy bulged from his face and he was fatter than ever. He looked
like someone who could advertise the long term damage of a high
cholesterol diet. Propped up in bed, Red Wings ice hockey shirt on
over his hospital gown, remote control for the TV in one hand, the
other vigorously picking from a bag of peanuts…there he was, her
dad.

Robyn just stared at him from the end of his bed,
trying to take it all in. This was what nine years had done to him.
It looked like nine years of neglect, and she was suddenly pricked
with a feeling of guilt. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left. Maybe if
she had stayed he wouldn’t be in this situation. Had leaving him
been selfish? She could have stayed, she could have confronted
things—she might have found the strength from somewhere.

Eddie looked away from the television and noticed
Robyn for the first time.

“What the Hell?” he exclaimed, clutching at his chest
and knocking the bag of peanuts onto the floor.

“Hello, Dad,” Robyn greeted, putting the tray of food
down.

‘Hello dad?! Hello dad?! You can’t just come waltzing
in here and say ‘hello dad’ after ten years,” Eddie exclaimed,
sitting up and wiping his peanut sullied hands on his sheets.

“Nine years, actually. What do you want me to say?”
Robyn asked him.

“I don’t want you to say anything. What are you doing
here? What d’you want? You need money? If you need money, ask your
mother,” Eddie continued, adjusting the tube under his nose.

“I don’t need money,” Robyn answered, staring at
him.

“Then what d’you want?”

“I brought this back for you. That Hitler of a nurse
said she took it from you. Well, I know what the food’s like around
here. Here, it’s all yours,” Robyn said, pushing the McDonald’s
food nearer to him.

Eddie eyed her suspiciously, then his gaze fell to
the paper bags on the table in front of him.

“Go on, it’s your favorite, isn’t it? Big Mac with
extra cheese?” Robyn guessed.

“Why don’t you talk right any more? I thought it was
just the telephone, but here you are, talking like that right in
front of me. You didn’t speak like that when you left. You don’t
sound right,” Eddie said as he grabbed the bag and his hand
ferreted inside for the burger.

“England’s ruined me. I’m actually halfway to
becoming the Queen,” Robyn replied, watching him.

“Where’s your mother? She ain’t here, is she?” Eddie
asked, sinking his teeth into the food.

“Dunno. Wales? Blackpool? Vegas? Got married to a
magician called Des. I’ve told you all this before. He can saw her
in half,” Robyn answered.

“I wouldn’t mind a go at that myself,” Eddie
replied.

“So, how are things with you? The house in such a
state you needed to move in here?” Robyn questioned.

“Very funny,” Eddie responded, concentrating on
eating.

“Auntie Pam says you need a bypass,” Robyn
continued.

“So they say. You know the clever guys with the funny
white coats and the glasses. They all wear glasses round here. I
don’t know if they need them, I think they just wear them to look
smart,” Eddie answered, spitting pieces of meat into his beard.

“They say you can’t have the operation unless you
lose some weight and start eating properly,” Robyn carried on.

“Yeah, they say that too. Don’t know what their
problem is. McDonald’s has been the staple diet of Americans for
years and we’re all—” Eddie began.

“Dying of heart disease caused by obesity. Enjoying
the food?” Robyn interjected.

“Yeah, beats the green pasta stuff they tried to
force-feed me at lunchtime. It had bits in it. I don’t like bits,”
Eddie said, shaking his head and breathing in through his nose as
he devoured the burger.

“That’s a shame because I spit all over that Big Mac,
pretty sure there’ll be bits,” Robyn informed him matter of
factly.

Eddie clutched at his throat, turned bright red, and
began to regurgitate what he had just eaten, doubling over and
retching.

Robyn took the paper bags from the table, screwed
them into a ball and, in one quick move, threw them in the
hazardous waste bin.

“Jeez! You’re sick! What’s wrong with you? You trying
to kill me?! Get me a nurse! Nurse!” Eddie yelled as he began to
splutter and gasp for breath.

“I don’t need to try and kill you; you’re doing that
all by yourself, eating this crap and not getting up and about. If
you don’t do as the doctors say, they’re not going to give you the
operation because they don’t think you’ll survive it,” Robyn
blasted, looking at her father with fury in her eyes.

“Who cares? I don’t want an operation! They’re the
ones who want me to have an operation. Do you think I want to be in
here? Get me some water! I want this taste off my tongue!” Eddie
ordered, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“So you’re just going to lie here, eating shit and
watching TV? What about the roadhouse? What about the Panthers?”
Robyn questioned.

“Oh, what about them? Roadhouse has been going
downhill for years, the same with the Panthers. No one cares any
more, why should I?”

“Oh, I see, you want sympathy for the sorry ass state
you’re in, do you? Well too bad, because you’re getting none of
that from me,” Robyn told him.

“No one asked you to come.”

“Actually, they did. Auntie Pam begged me to
come.”

“She always was an interfering…” Eddie began, wiping
his tongue with the tissue.

“You think I want to be here? You think I wanted to
leave England and travel nine hours across the Atlantic? I have a
great job and a place and a life back there. Here I’ve got Auntie
Pam and twin cousins who look like they belong in a remake of The
Omen. And then there’s you. A fat, ungrateful, angry old man who
wants to fester in a hospital bed when he has what could be a
profitable business and what could be a successful ice hockey team
sitting in his lap. Stop behaving like an idiot. You have no idea
what it’s like for me to come back here!” Robyn yelled at him.

“How dare you speak to your father like that? You
always were stubborn, you get that from your…” Eddie began.

“From you, Dad. I get it from you. Now listen to me,
if I hear that any more fat-loaded meals have passed your lips, I
will come in here and see to it that the doctor with the best
glasses wires your jaw shut,” Robyn threatened.

Eddie glared at her.

“I’m going to get the roadhouse back on track, I’m
going to manage the Panthers, and I’m going to get the house ready
for you for when you come home,” Robyn told him.

“You can’t…”

“I can, Dad. Don’t underestimate me,” Robyn said. Her
eyes flashed.

Eddie just continued to glare at her, still wiping at
his mouth.

“So, did you want that water?” Robyn asked, putting a
smile on her face and picking up the pitcher.

It was good to arrive at Pam and Bob’s ranch-style
home. It hadn’t changed a bit. The American flag still hung from a
pole by the porch, Bob’s fishing boots stood on the step, and the
tubs of flowers bordering the front of the house were still in
bloom, just like they had been when she’d left.

Once inside, there was the familiar scent of
home-cooking and the chintz decor practically enveloped you in
old-fashioned charm.

“I made brownies. Girls, can you get changed for bed,
it’s late,” Pam ordered as everyone entered the house.

“Oh Mom, you have to be kidding! It’s like not even
ten,” Sierra complained straight away.

“It’s like only nine thirty! Taylor’s mom lets her
stay up ‘til eleven,” Sienna joined in, stamping her foot and
glaring at Pam.

“Not on a school night. Shoo!” Pam said.

“This is not fair! This is because she’s here!”
Sierra shouted, fixing Robyn with a stare.

“Hey, leave me out of this,” Robyn begged.

“She doesn’t have to go to bed,” Sierra
continued.

“I’m twenty-five,” Robyn answered.

“So?” Sierra replied, looking at her cousin with
defiance in her eyes like the Gingerbread Boy.

“Remember what I said at the restaurant about life
expectancy? If I were you, I’d take those braids out before you
close your eyes tonight,” Robyn said, slight threat to her
tone.

“Girls, I can hear everything you’re saying. Now you
apologize for being rude to Robyn and do as your mom tells you,”
Bob spoke sternly as he came out of the garage with Robyn’s
case.

Sierra let out an agitated sigh and folded her arms
across her chest.

“Sierra, I’m warning you,” Bob threatened.