Page 98 of Friend Me

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Summerswhen he wasn’t teaching, Dad worked construction, and sometimes, he’d taken me with him to his jobs. Too little to help, I sat on the toolbox in the bed of his pickup, read books, and watched him. He hefted piles of two-by-fours on his shoulder and carried them around the jobsite like they weighed nothing. Even burdened with a tool belt and lugging a nail gun, he climbed scaffolding, nimble as an acrobat. His muscles strained as he levered cast-iron tubs into place. And six days after his fall, broken leg and all, it took two brawny nurse assistants to wrestle him into a wheelchair to take him to physical therapy. He wasn’t called Will for nothing.

When he returned, I waited, ready for battle. The late-afternoon sun cast golden beams across his hospital bed. His eyes were sharper that day, and he’d called me Maggie only a couple of times.

“I have good news for you.” The tubes were gone, replaced by yellow-green bruises and a bandage, and I held his hand. “They’re releasing you tomorrow.”

His face brightened. “We’re going home! I can eat decent food again. Will you make your mother’s meatloaf?”

Biting my lip to stop its trembling, I cleared my throat. “You’re not going home, Dad. You’re going to a new place. Bayside Gardens. They’ll help you rehab your leg.”

His face fell, but then he nodded. “I’ll go home after my leg’s better. The doctor said six or eight weeks.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m selling the house. I’m moving into an apartment, and you’re going to stay at Bayside. Permanently.” I squeezed his hand, willing him to understand and not hate me. “They’re going to take better care of you than I can. They have art programs and concerts. Bayside even has a library and a telescope you can use.”

“You’re putting me in ahome?I’m only fifty-three!” His face flamed red. I was glad they’d removed the heart monitors; he’d have set off an alarm.

“Dad—” I covered his hand with mine, but he snatched it away and crossed his arms. “Dad, you have Alzheimer’s Disease. I can’t give you the care you need at home.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Everyone forgets things.”

My chest constricted. MaybeIneeded the heart monitor. “You’re fine today, but you’ve had some pretty bad days lately. You were having a bad day when you fell, and I couldn’t take care of you. I’m afraid your health is going to get worse, and I need to keep you safe.”

He looked toward the window. “I don’t want that. I want to live in my house and sit in my recliner.”

I wanted that, too. More than anything. But I was done lying to myself, and I certainly wouldn’t lie to Dad.

“I’m sorry. I wish you could. But this is the right thing for you. For both of us.”

He was silent for a minute. Then, still looking away from me, he said, “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep now.”

Chills ran over my skin. I stood, willing myself to keep it together for another minute. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He said nothing, but a tear glinted golden on his cheek.

* * *

The next afternoon,I started packing up our lives.

Dad and I both cried that morning when they wheeled him into the ambulance to go to Bayside Gardens. Although he kept asking where they were taking him, he remembered he was angry aboutsomethingand it was my fault.

His tears were frustrated anger. Mine were liquid guilt.

The nurses told me to wait a few days before visiting him to allow him to settle into a routine. Since I was too much of a mess to go to work, I vowed to be productive at home.

The real estate agent I’d spoken with had practically salivated over listing our house. The next neighborhood over had become increasingly gentrified, and she was convinced that our neighborhood was next. My eyes had widened at the price she’d tossed out. Properly invested, it would cover whatever part of Dad’s care the aid programs and his savings didn’t.

So I packed up our home. I’d already finished the kitchen; most of it would be going with me to my new place near the office. I’d cleaned out the shed, including the Christmas lights he never got to hang.

Then I started on Dad’s room. I’d already taken his clothes and his favorite photographs to Bayside Gardens. But a ton of photos of him and my mother remained, and each one stabbed my heart. I wrapped them in newspaper and nestled them into a box with the photo albums. One day I might be ready to look at them again.

Even worse was the secret stash of my mother’s things I found in the corner of his closet. The twenty-five-year-old clothes and shoes went into a bag for a thrift shop. Her hairbrush, still holding a few golden-brown threads, went into the trash. We’d both been obsessed with my mother for too long; I couldn’t let those memories weigh me down in my new future.

A local charity would cart off Dad’s bedroom furniture, along with his threadbare recliner. I’d probably have to slip the guys a fifty to haul it away. I couldn’t imagine that even Oakland’s poor would want it.

I’d hoped my room would be easier on me than his.

My books had all gone into a box for donation to a local literacy group. I vowed that from that day on, I’d read more realistic stories. I’d join Alicia’s book club that read only horrifying domestic suspense and depressing family dramas. That was real life, not the romantic, rosy world of my former favorites.

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