Chapter Seventeen
Tyler
“I’m going to visit Dad this morning; do you two want to come?” I yelled from the kitchen toward my mother and sister who were at the dining room table.
“I’ll be up later this morning; I have a hair appointment,” my mother said.
“I can’t come until tonight,” Maryanne added.
It was a relief that neither of them was coming; I really did want to spend some alone with my father. Even if he couldn’t talk, even if I did all the talking and he only lay there sleeping, I had so much I wanted to ask him about.
Up until recently, my life had gone on with no real goal for an end result. I just put all my time and effort into running my business and figured things would work out the way they were supposed to. I worked hard, had money, and plenty of women to keep me busy. But there wasn’t an end date for my work and women. I hadn’t decided to give up that lifestyle or pick a different lifestyle until I came home.
Now I was spending all of my time with Kelsi. I was thinking about things that actually made me happy and making plans for ideas that would keep making me happy. It wasn’t like me at all, and I needed someone to listen to me and tell me if I was crazy. I could talk to my mother; I knew she loved me and would tell me what I wanted to hear. But my father, he was good at telling me what I needed to hear. I was going to miss that so much.
When I arrived at the hospice house, it was eerily quiet throughout the main room. The large family who had been gathering there on my previous visits was gone; my stomach sunk. There was only one reason that family wouldn’t be at the hospice house, and it had to be that their loved one had passed away.
“It’s quiet in here,” I said to the nurse as I walked by.
“Yes,” she responded with tears in her eyes.
I couldn’t bring myself to say any more, and I went straight to my father’s room. He was asleep, but his nurse was changing the towels out and putting fresh medical supplies in the drawers.
“You must be an angel,” I said to her. “So much sadness. How do you deal with it all the time?”
“I don’t think of it as sadness. I think about how much good I bring to people’s lives at the end. God gave me a gift of being able to deal with death; not many people can handle it on a daily basis. It’s my responsibility to give these people the best days they can possibly have. But even I can get sad when a little one dies.”
“A little one?”
“Yes, we had a young three-year-old boy with cancer who passed away last night. It’s always hardest when the young ones die.”
“Three,” I said as I started to tear up. “Oh, my God, that’s horrible.”
“You never know when your time is up,” my father said softly as he started to wake up. “Now, doesn’t it seem like a gift that I got to be here on earth for 68 years?”
“I’ll leave you two alone for a bit; just holler if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” my father and I both said at the same time.
“I saw that little boy's family in the sitting room every time I have come. There were so many of them. That is really sad,” I said as tears formed.
The tears were for that little boy and his family but also for me and my father. I had spent so much time taking for granted how precious my family was. I left them and only saw them a couple times a year when I could have seen them every week if I really wanted to.
“His name was Cole,” my father said. “He was too far gone by the time he arrived here, so I never got to talk to him. But I sat next to him late one night and told him I’d see him soon when we could both run and play together.”
“Oh, Dad, don’t say that.”
“Come on now, it’s the truth, and we are lucky enough to know it’s coming so we can say a proper goodbye.”
“Dad,” I said as I started to cry and fell into his arms. “I’m not ready. I need you. I’m not all that good at life yet; I need your advice and your love. I need you around.”
“I’ll always be with you; just close your eyes and ask for me. I’ll come down to you from wherever I am and give you the guidance you need.”
“If only it were that simple,” I said as I tried not to let my crying turn into ugly sobbing.
I hated that my father was there soothing me while he was the one dying. I should have been strong for him. It should have been me who was comforting him, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at him for a moment and stayed wrapped up in his hug as we sat there in silence.
When I finally gathered myself, I sat back up in the chair and he opened his eyes so we could talk for a few minutes.”
“What’s on your mind, son?”
“Kelsi. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got all sorts of feelings for her, but I’m not sure if they are real or not.”
My father didn’t move and just slightly shook his head. He waited for a whole minute before he finally started to respond to me.
“You know how you can tell if you love a girl?” my father said with a grin on his face. “If she makes you smile even when she’s mad at you.”
“Really? Does Mom do that?” I said as I held his hand.
“Oh, yeah. She would get so mad at me and be yelling and saying all sorts of things, but all I could think about was how damn beautiful she was. One time, I had gone to the store and forgotten everything on the list she had given me. I came home with all sorts of other items. Her face was red, and she was yelling. She couldn’t understand how I had gone all the way to the store and not even looked at her list. But she had flour all in her hair, and I started laughing as I realized there was also a big chunk of cookie dough in her hair, too. Boy, did she get even madder at me.” He laughed.
“Kelsi and I haven’t gotten angry…oh, wait,” I said as I remembered showing up at the restaurant.
“Yep, there it is,” my father said as he lifted his finger and pointed at my face. “That’s the face of a man in love.”
“Well, I don’t know about all that. How can I really know?”
“You’ll know.”
“But how? I’m an analytic guy, Dad. I look at facts.”
My father seemed like he was getting tired again as he closed his eyes and I felt his grip on my hand lighten. For a minute, I thought he might have passed away, but then I saw his chest still rising and falling.
“You’ll think about living your life without her, and it will seem the like second best option,” my father said softly as he drifted in and out of sleep. “The best version of the life you dream about will always have her in it, that’s how you’ll know you’re in love.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said softly as I lay my head back down next to him. “Go ahead and rest now; I’m going to stay here for a little bit.”
“I love you, Tyler.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
I closed my eyes and fell asleep next to my father for what seemed like hours and hours. When my sister and mother woke me up, it was getting dark outside and I had a sinking feeling we weren’t going to have my dad around for very much longer.
“You two sit here; I’ll grab a chair and pull up on the other side,” I said quietly so I wouldn’t wake him up.
“How long have you two been sleeping?” my mother asked.
“Mr. Pace was up about an hour ago,” the nurse said as she walked in. “But you were sound asleep, so he made me come back later when you woke up.”
“Ah, man, I’m sorry. I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately. You take care of Dad, don’t worry about me at all.”
I moved out of the way and sat with my mom and sister while the nurse checked Dad’s vital signs and did all the things she had to. She took such great care of my dad; it was a relief to have him in a facility that truly took care of him.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Kelsi,” my mother said as she smiled at me.
“He’s sleeping with her,” Maryanne blurted out.
“Great, nice job, Maryanne,” I growled.
“Oh, come on, everyone knows.”
My mother just shook her head and smiled as she squeezed my father’s hand. Knowing about something and wanting to talk about it were two totally different things. I absolutely did not want to talk about my sex life with my mother.
“I heard they were losing their ranch,” my mother said softly. “That’s very sad.”
“What? Why is it sad, Mom?” I asked out of total confusion. “You and Dad are losing yours, too.”
“We are not losing ours. I’m making the decision to sell it so I don’t have to be burdened by the workload. There is a big difference.”
“It’s my understanding that they are doing the same thing,” I said as I tried to cover up what I really knew about Kelsi’s family ranch. “Her parents want to retire and are tired of worrying about the ranch. They are selling it, and I think Kelsi might even buy it and turn it into something pretty amazing.”
“Well now, wouldn’t that be the greatest turn of events?” my mother said kindly. Although from the look in her eyes, I was pretty sure she knew the truth about what was going on over at Kelsi’s house. “Are you going to head back home?”
“No, I think I’ll stick around for a little bit tonight. Should I order a pizza for us and we can all hang out with Dad tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s awesome,” Maryanne said as she was scrolling through her phone. I wasn’t really sure if she was responding to me or whatever was on her phone.
“That sounds perfect. A nice family night,” my mother said as she reached for my hand. “I’ve been waiting for a night with all of us together for a long time.”