When Naomi at last arrived at Sunrise Villa, she rushed up the corridor to see two burly orderlies pinning down her father to administer a shot. He was bellowing unintelligibly, bucking with all the force left in his failing body.
Judging by the state of the room, he still had a considerable amount of strength left. The lunch tray had been knocked over, a comet of green Jell-O painting the wall above the TV. A bedpan lay upside down on the floor. In the corner Amanaki applied a Band-Aid to the finger of an angry male nurse.
Naomi stood in the doorway and let the orderlies do their job. The Versed finally took effect, and her father ceased thrashing, though he looked far from subdued.
She eased into the room. “I’m sorry about this.”
Amanaki said, “Nothing you need to apologize for. He’s just been more … agitated than usual.”
The male nurse said, “He bit my finger.”
“However bad it is for you,” Amanaki said, “it’s worse for him.”
Gripping his hand, the nurse exited.
Naomi turned to face her father. “You can’t keep doing this.”
She felt Amanaki’s hand, cool on her arm. “He’s confused, honey,” she said. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” She said to the orderlies, “He’ll be fine now. Thank you, gentlemen. Let’s give them some time.”
They departed, leaving Naomi alone with her dad.
His eyes looked sunken, dark hollows in a skull. In his face she could see the waiting grave.
“Where are my boys?” he said, his hoarse voice laced with accusation.
“They’re not … They can’t make it, Dad.”
“They’d talk to these people, get me taken care of.”
“You are being taken care of.”
He glared around the room, his pale arms twitching on the sheets. He looked so goddamned frail in that hospital gown, like a plucked bird.
“Is that what you call this?” he said. “Jason and Robbie, they would never stand for it.”
She felt a rise in temperature, a flush creeping up her neck. “This is a nice place. The staff does a lot for you, dad. I do a lot for you.”
“My boys would never let me be treated like this.”
Something in her chest broke, spilling heat through her insides. “Goddamn it, Dad! Jason can’t be bothered to see you, okay?” Her face was wet now, the room blurring. “And Robbie, Robbie doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. They mail their checks so they don’t have to bother with you.”
She wiped angrily at her eyes.
Her father lay there, stunned. His lips, framed with gray stubble, wobbled disconcertingly.
Remorse crushed in on her, chased with guilt so intense she felt it as a swirling void in the pit of her gut.
For a moment she thought she might die.
She tried to breathe, but the black hole in her stomach snatched the oxygen away like a cry in the wind. It took a few seconds for her to force her gaze up to her dad again.
“I’m sorry you feel so alone,” she said, and now she was crying, really crying. “I tried. I tried my hardest. And it still didn’t matter.”
Standing there dumbly by the foot of the bed, she cried for a while. When she was done, her father was staring at her, the same expression frozen on his face.
“You know the best part of being an adult?” he said. “It teaches you to forgive yourself.”
She snatched a tissue from a box angrily. “Well, that’s great, Dad. I’m glad you can forgive yourself.”
But she was shocked to see his grizzled cheeks glittering.
“No,” he said. “Not like that. Because I had to. Because I couldn’t get it right. Not with my boys. And not … not with my daughter.”
She stared at him, spellbound. This language, the language of emotion, of regret, was not how her father talked.
“I was in the Secret Service,” he told her. “I always had to control everything. Every variable. Every outcome. That was my job. But a baby girl?” He shook his head, overcome. “When they were little, their mother carpeted every surface. No sharp edges. She carpeted over the hearth, wrapped the pillars in the living room, everything. I remember that. I remember…”
He trailed off, losing the thread. Balanced on the razor’s edge, Naomi waited to see if he’d find it again or if fate and illness would deny her this one last story as well.
“The problem is…” He cleared his throat. “The problem is, the world’s full of sharp edges. It was fine for the boys, but when my baby girl came along, I tore all that padding out. Her mom and I, we had a good row about that. And I told her, I told her the world would let the boys figure it out later. But a girl? My girl?” His face hardened, wiry brows lowering over a suddenly adamant stare. “I wanted her to learn. I needed her to learn. So she’d never get caught off guard. So she’d never get surprised.” His mouth trembled. He bit down on his grief, firmed his jaw. “So she’d never get hurt.”
She blinked, freeing fresh tears. “That’s not possible, Dad. Everyone gets hurt.”
“I know.” His Adam’s apple jerked in the wattle of his neck. “But when you have a daughter, you don’t care about what’s possible.”
His head lifted weakly from the pillow. For an instant he seemed to recognize her, but then his eyes lost focus. He sank back onto the pillow, his voice growing weaker as the benzo worked its way through his bloodstream, blurring the words together. “I had to be hard on her … harder than on the boys, harder than on anyone. And if I didn’t figure out how to try to forgive myself for that, I woulda … woulda been taken to pieces long ago. Even worse than this.”
The monitors bleeped and hummed. His blinks grew longer.
She sat on the bed next to him and then leaned to put her head on his chest. She listened to the breath rattling through him, so fragile, so resolute.
With great effort he lifted a hand trailing tubes and stroked her hair.