Chapter 13
Robert
Mom’s asleep on the couch when I get home, the TV on low. I turn it off.
From the hallway, I see Aunt Olivia in my parents’ bedroom, sitting on the chaise, thumbing through a box of photos that Mom keeps on a shelf in her closet. She takes one out and lays it on one of the stacks she’s made all around her.
Then, sensing my presence, I suppose, she looks up and motions me in.
Aunt Whitney is on the bed next to Dad. Her soft snoring and the constant hum of the oxygen compressor are the only sounds in the room. Dad seems to be asleep, too, but more likely he’s unconscious, or in a drug-induced coma. The pressure in his head makes it impossible for his eyes to fully close, and I find looking at him to be increasingly disconcerting.
As I turn away, my eyes light briefly on the small notebook still lying on the bedside table.
“Your mom said you went to a band dance,” Aunt Olivia says quietly.
Her question doesn’t sound like an accusation, so I sit at the card table at the end of Mom and Dad’s bed. The puzzle is almost complete. Immediately my eyes focus on a piece. There is the tiniest sliver of brown on the otherwise blue background. I place it in the puzzle to complete the cat’s whiskers.
“Did you have fun?” she asks.
Best night of my life. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
“How’s Dad?”
She pauses in her photo search and looks up at him. “He’s calm. I don’t think he’s in any pain. The hospice nurse gave him a sponge bath today. And he’s home.” Her face contorts like she might cry, but instead she drops her eyes to the box of photos.
I look at the notebook again. I can’t help wondering what Dad has written on those pages. Did he feel pressured to do it? Did they give him the words to say? Are they warm words of love? Or are they cold words of indifference? And why do I care? I turn my attention back to the table and fit another piece into the puzzle.
Aunt Olivia studies the photo she’s holding. “You look so much like him when he was your age. Look at this one.” She grips the box to her chest and shifts forward on the chaise to hand it to me, being careful not to knock the other photos off.
I take it. I’m a year old, maybe, lying on a quilt on the living room floor. Dad’s got his T-shirt pulled up over his head like Corn-holio in the Beavis and Butt-head cartoon. I’m looking up at him and laughing. I smile a little and hand the photo back and pick up another one from the pile—a photo of my dad and another man kneeling on the shore of a lake, holding up their catch.
“I recognize that cap he’s wearing.”
She smiles. “He loved that cap. He never went camping without it.”
“He liked camping, didn’t he?”
“Loved it.”
“Who’s he with?”
She tips the photo so she can see it better. “That’s Patrick O’Kelley,” she says, smiling nostalgically. “He’s an old college friend of your dad’s.”
There’s a boy kneeling between the two men. Grown-ups only, Robert. I feel a lump form in my throat. “Who’s the kid?”
“That’s Patrick’s son. Sammy, I think. You met him a long time ago, remember? You’re about the same age. I’m surprised you’re not in the photo. Didn’t you go on that trip?”
“No.” I hand the photo back. “Are there any pictures of my mom in there?”
“Hmm,” she says, curiously. “I haven’t really seen any.”
“Why is that? I mean, there are photos of Dad all over the house, but there aren’t any of Mom.”
I’m thinking about the photos Andrew showed me in the parking lot, the way his face beamed with pride as he shuffled from one to the next. There was even a photo of his ex-wife. His ex-wife. I still find it odd that he even has an ex-wife.
Aunt Olivia seems surprised by my question. “I don’t know. I guess your mom doesn’t like to have her picture taken.”
That isn’t true. I’ve never once heard Mom protest when someone turned a camera on her; maybe that’s because no one, in my memory, ever has. On the other hand, there are hundreds of photos of my dad around the house—framed, in albums, in drawers, even in magnet-backed sleeves on the refrigerator door. Photos of me too. But not one of Mom.
When I tell Aunt Olivia that I don’t believe that to be true, she sighs. “She was always the one with the camera. She took the photos. That’s just the way it was.”
“You know, I can’t help thinking that if it were Mom dying, I wouldn’t have any photos of her after she’s gone. Nothing. Well, maybe one or two that my teacher took of us when I graduated from kindergarten and her old wedding photos.”
“But your mom’s not dying, is she? Your dad is. You can take all the photos of your mom you want after he’s gone.”
Her tone is sharp, unexpected, and it cuts at me. She’s missed the point entirely. I sweep the puzzle off the table and leave, ignoring the shocked look on her face.
The rug rats have completely taken over my room. They’re sacked out on the floor in this one amorphous bed that someone has created from assorted quilts and blankets. But one of them has made his way into my bed. The guest room is empty, but it’s clear from the bags tossed up on the bed that this is where Aunt Olivia plans to spend the night.
I fold myself into the love seat in the living room and pull a throw over me. It’s uncomfortable, but I hardly notice. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted.
I drift off to sleep thinking, Andrew, and wonder at how easily his first name plays on my lips now.
Andrew
I adjust the headphones snugly over my ears, drop the cord down my shirt, then fish it out the bottom and plug it into my iPod.
I don’t want to sleep; I want to dance.