Page 11 of Shame

I don’t want to ask. Asking will ruin this. I’ll take this from him for as long as I can. It’s rare for him to have lucid days. They hardly come at all. I remember when it was the crazy days that were far and few between. Now his lucid days are enough to be considered rare. With another squeeze, I go to the table and clear spots for us to sit and eat.

When the food is done, he makes us each a plate and we eat in silence. I keep sneaking glances at him, so happy to see that gleam in his eye. Every time I look at him lately, there’s nothing there. It’s like looking into the eyes of someone I don’t know. Someone without a soul.

Breakfast is calm—and so perfect. I can’t remember the last time I had a meal with my father like this. Usually it’s me force-feeding him because his doctor told me if he lost more weight from not eating, he was getting a tube in his stomach to feed him through. Something I didn’t even want to think about. So, forcing him to eat is what I do instead. Probably not the nicest thing, but is putting an unhealthy sixty-seven-year-old man through surgery any better? Not likely. I don’t care how routine or simple it is. There are risks with everything. And the way he freaks out some days? Who’s to say he won’t pull the damn tube out thinking it’s an alien worm or something?

When I was a little girl, I never expected my father’s age difference from other fathers to be an issue. But while myfriendsare enjoying their parents, having fun; their relationships turning from parent/child to more friendly, I’m taking my father to appointments, dealing with him calling me an alien, making sure he doesn’t escape in the middle of the night and set the house on fire before he does. It’s not the life I thought I’d have, but here we are.

When our plates are empty, Dad gets up with a smile.

“Go on and get ready for school, sweetie. I’ll drop you off.”

My smile falls as my father turns his back to go to the sink. Everything in my body gets cold. I can’t breathe.

I knew this wouldn’t last, but damn, I thought I’d get more than a quick breakfast.

He thinks I’m in high school. So, what? He thinks this is ten years ago? Fifteen? Thirty? Does he know how old I am? How old he is? Does he even know where we are?

I get up, swallowing hard. “There’s no school today, Dad,” I say, guilt and shame working their way up my throat.

He looks at me over his shoulder, frowning. “No? How come?”

“It’s Saturday. Did you forget?” I try as hard as I can to make it a joke, but it comes out strained. So does my smile.

His frown deepens, but then he smiles and shakes his head. “Yeah, must have forgotten.” He chuckles to himself and continues washing the dishes.

Though he’s older than all myfriends’parents, Calvin Davies has always been a handsome man. A magnetic personality. Full of life and energy. Until one day… he just wasn’t. Sure, he still has his great looks. The man has been mistaken for Tom Sellek multiple times in his life. Of course, not so much now that his skin is pale, his face is gaunt, and you see some of his ribs. He’s not dangerously underweight, but you can tell heshouldbe eating more. A few more pounds lost and we’re in the danger-zone.

Maybe Irene is right. Maybe he doesn’t belong here. Maybe he should be in a home.

But… then I’ll never have another day like this. Those rare, lucid days will be non-existent. I can’t risk that.

When the dishes are done, I’m still standing in place, staring at my father like a creep.

I have no idea how we got here. One day, everything was great, it was perfect. We were laughing and watching movies together. He’d go to work, I’d go to work, we’d make dinner together. At least once a week we’d find a new recipe to try, and we always mucked it up. We’d go for walks around the pond, sometimes go fishing, though we never caught anything. And now… now we’re here. A chaotic, crazy mess.

I have the sudden urge to cry, and he must sense it because he hurries over and hugs me. He did always have a sixth sense when it came to me…

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” he asks in that gentle tone of his I haven’t heard in years.Years!It makes me cry harder. He runs his hand over my head, softly shushing me, gently rocking us.Every little thing he does to make me feel better only makes me sadder.

What if this is the last time I get this from him?

Maybe it’s smart to stop thinking tomorrow will be better and realize how bad things are now. Tomorrow won’t be better. In fact, it’s probably going to be worse.

I get ten hours a day of care for my father. Ten hours. It may seem like a lot; it’s almost half the day. But trust me, those ten hours go by super-fast when I work eight-hour shifts. Those ten hours give me enough time to get ready and get to and from work. One good thing about the diner is that it’s only open until eight at night. It’s nice getting home at a decent hour.

Days like today, when I’m not working and doing things for myself—though I’m not sure I can consider figuring out my car something for myself—the guilt is overwhelming.

The car can wait. Grocery shopping can wait. Laundry can wait—because I still haven’t gotten around to looking at the damn washer and why it leaks everywhere, so I’m stuck going back and forth to the laundromat to get laundry done. Everything can wait because Ishouldbe with Dad. I should be the one taking care of him, not paid nurses, because he always took care of me.

He didn’t want to be a father. Never wanted kids at all. So, imagine his surprise when he found out he was having a child at forty-one. Now double that shock, hell, triple it, because my mom passed away during childbirth, making him a single dad. He never hid his thoughts about it from me. Yet, at the same time, he never made me feel like I wasn’t wanted.

No, he didn’t want me at first, but once he had me, he never let me go and never wanted to be without me. That’s the most important thing I remember about that story. It’s what he made sure I knew.

He never let me go. Never. No matter how hard it got, he didn’t give up on me. There was no one to help him or give him a break, and if there was, I doubt they’d have handled me for long because I was a terror with a capital T. I think back on the crazy things I did and wonder if I was possessed or something.

I was brought home in a cop car more than once. Got into fights often. Skipped school. Shoplifted. I don’t even know why I did any of it. I guess I was just trying to have some fun? Fit in? Do what everyone else was doing? Moving out of the city was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not sure where I would be if we had stayed. My dad did right by me every step of the way.

Guess him being like this now is karma. Not that either of us could help it. I couldn’t help the way I was as a kid any more than he can help the way he is now. It’s just life.

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