Page 34 of The Progressions

“It’s a good place. They’ll help him,” he reassured me, and I nodded. “Are you going back tomorrow?”

“As soon as visiting hours start,” I answered. “Do you want to meet him, too?”

“We’ll see,” he told me, which meant that he did not. I’d gotten him to the hardware store to buy garden supplies, but now it hadbeen fifteen days since he’d left the house. “Don’t you have to work?”

“I’ll do that, too. First, I need to keep looking for stupid Dominic, and then I’ll make sure that everything at her house is ok.” I already knew that it wasn’t because Iva had been crying and saying that her water broke on the floor, and she was sure there would be ants. I had promised to clean it for her. I would look into the process of transferring property, too, so that if I ever got in touch with stupid Dominic, maybe I could convince him to give her that house since he couldn’t take care of it himself. It was hard to pay property taxes if you didn’t have an income, besides what you could steal from your girlfriend.

There were a lot of things to think about that night after I helped my dad into bed and as I tried to get comfortable myself. Over the years, the springs in my mattress had gotten pokier, or maybe now I felt them more. I hoped that Iva was able to sleep in the hospital—I never had, when they’d let me stay in a chair in my dad’s room. It had been a big argument, since I had been a minor at the time and he was my only parent, and because (like Iva) we didn’t have family to step in.

I got up and crept over to his door, where I stood for a moment to listen to his steady breaths. Then I walked to the sliding door that led outside and held up the handle as I opened it, so that it wouldn’t squeak when it moved. That was why I avoided the ramp, too, and when I was in the cool air, I stopped and rolled my head back and forth. I hadn’t mentioned to Dad how I’d backed into the pole. I had hurt myself a little in that accident and now I was sore in my neck and my chest, but I certainlywasn’t as hurt as the car. I’d taped some pieces back on before I’d left the condo complex, and now would be a good time to find some wire and make it more secure.

I used my phone to light my way to the shed, and that was when I saw that I had new messages. They weren’t the mean kind, either, and they weren’t from Iva because something had gone wrong. It was Tyler asking me about her and the baby, and saying my car must have survived because he’d seen that it was gone from the parking lot. Or had I towed it?

“Everything is fine,” I answered him. “Is your mom here?”

“She’s here and she likes the room a lot,” he said. “Ramp worked well.”

Good. I wrote that I was glad to hear it.

“She thinks I’m a dumbass for renting a place this big.”

“Your mom called you a dumbass?” I asked.

“It was implied,” he told me. “She said, ‘4 BRs? Ty, why did you think you needed this much space? Bless your heart.’ The place in California had 6 of them.”

It was certainly a lot of unneeded space and also, that was the nicest way I’d ever heard of calling someone a dumbass. “Is she in pain?”

“Not too bad. She doesn’t like to take the pills they gave her.”

I read that and nodded, thinking it was a smart plan. It was a bad idea to take too many pain pills but I didn’t want to discuss it anymore. “I’m going to bed,” I wrote as I found the twist of wireI’d been hunting for. I’d go to bed after I’d lashed my car back together.

“I forgot, grandma hours,” he said. “I got tickets for you for Saturday.”

“Tickets for what?”

“You really can’t guess? Bless your heart,” Tyler responded.

And now I knew what that meant. “Hey!” I protested.

“Tickets to the Woodsmen game, Kasia. I’ll pay you to escort my mom. I got one for your dad, too.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” I said, although my heart had leapt up with excitement when I’d read his words. “I can’t push two people in wheelchairs.”

“Hers is motorized.”

“Then why do you need me?” I asked.

“You don’t want the money?”

“I do!” And I wanted to go to the game, too. I just had to convince my father to come—I couldn’t go without him, I wrote.

“Tell him it would be a favor to me and my mom,” he suggested. “Good night, grandma.” I thought for a moment but something scuttled in a corner of the shed, so I left fast.

“It would be a favor,” I told my dad the next morning, borrowing Tyler’s language. “A favor to me, and to Iva. She needs people.” She knew my dad because I’d driven him to the condo complex a few times, and she’d come over to our house, too.

“Poor girl,” he said, and in the end, he did agree to do me this favor and go to the hospital. In our driveway, I directed him around the front of the car so that he wouldn’t see what had happened in the back, because it would only make him worry. I’d get it fixed, eventually, but the wire holding the bumper and the license plate was fine for now. I helped him into the seat and the trunk did open to hold his wheelchair, which he would use once we were in the hospital. Getting it to close and latch was a little more difficult but luckily, there had been a lot of wire in the shed and I used more now.

“I’ll never forget yesterday, not ever,” I mentioned as we started to bump toward the main road. “You know how organized Iva is, and she had the birth plan all worked out, almost down to the minute. Nothing went like she wanted. She was in so much pain, too, and then…there he was. He’s so tiny, Daddy, and at first, he didn’t make any noise at all. It was probably only a few seconds but it felt like hours before he cried.”

---