Page 15 of This Life and All the Rest
Take a little time.
I don’t want to know.
Then, I plaster on a smile I know he won’t see, and I step through the door. The curtain is pulled shut, just like last time, and I slip through the opening and take a seat in the chair beside the bed.
“Good morning, Daddy.” I force myself to smile, taking his limp hand in mine. “I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you know I’m here.” My words are mumbled and unsure. Awkward. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do,” I confess, “but I want to be around you. I hope that’s okay.”
I furrow my brow and try to push past the feeling that I’m talking to myself. Or worse. A corpse. I didn’t really talk to him when I got here yesterday. I just cried, then fell asleep in the chair next to him. It’s different now in the daylight. Everything feels more real, which is so much worse than the nightmare I was in last night.
The beeping of monitors is so constant and steady that it fades into the background, making my voice the loudest sound in the room. My heartbeat is the loudest one in my head, my thoughts a close second.
I haven’t been the best daughter. I’ve barely seen my dad, a video chat maybe once a month. I’ve seen Andrea even less. I skip most holidays. I came back to Virginia for five days one month after Evelyn was born. Five days. I didn’t even give him a week.
I take a deep breath and sit up straighter, keeping my eyes on our joined hands instead of his face or body.
“I saw Evie this morning,” I continue, and I can’t mask the sadness in my tone. “She’s beautiful. And so big already.” I pause and purse my lips before admitting, “and she’s afraid of me.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek as I relive this morning’s encounter. See her tiny, chubby fingers grip on to Macon’s shirt. Watch her whimper and hide her face in his chest.
“It’s my own fault,” I whisper. “Macon is right. I’ve only seen her once, and she was just an infant. Of course, she doesn’t know me. But...”
I shrug and rub my thumb over the back of Dad’s hand. It’s colder than normal.
“I guess I didn’t think it through. I wasn’t thinking it would hurt. I don’t know. I hate that she doesn’t know me. Is she walking yet? I heard her say Mama.”
My lips curve into a faint smile. Her little voice was so adorable. She was so happy. It was such a needed contrast to the gloom and doom that’s clouding all of us right now. I wanted to go back into the kitchen just to hear it some more, to soak up more of her little baby magic, but I needed to get away from Macon, so I ran back upstairs to my old room.
“Andrea set me up in the guest room. It was nice of her. I was going to just stay at Sam’s, but I’m glad I get to be around Evie and Andrea.”
I take a deep breath.
I miss them.
I don’t want to admit it, and when I’m busy in Paris with art and Franco and my new life, I can ignore it. I can almost forget another life existed at all before Paris. But here and now, I can’t deny the longing in my chest. I miss them.
Being in my old room just makes it worse, which is one of the reasons I only stayed for five days last time. The purpose of the bedrooms has changed, but the feelings are still there. The memories are absorbed into the walls.
My old room is now the guest room, Macon’s old room has been turned into Evie’s nursery, and Claire’s old room is Dad’s office, which they put in once he retired from field service with the Navy. He still does something, some sort of government contract work, but none of us really know what.
“I brought us a book to read,” I say, changing the subject. I drop his hand to pull the paperback out of my purse. “I got it from your bookshelf.”
I study the book. It’s worn, like it’s been read before, probably more than once. I’ve never heard of it, but reading hasn’t been one of my hobbies lately. I flip through the pages, finding a bookmark about halfway through.
“Oh...Do you want to just pick up where you left off?” I roll my eyes at myself, asking a comatose man a question. “Never mind. We’ll start from the beginning.”
I lay the book on the side of the bed and open it to the first page, making sure I can flip pages before taking his hand back in mine.
“Okay. I guess this is chapter one. You ready?” I pause a moment, then I start reading. “‘What the? What about a teakettle?...’”
I’man hour into the book when there’s a knock on the doorframe.
I look toward the sound, but the curtain is still closed, so I can’t see who is at the door. I pause my reading and stand.
“Yes?” I say, and I hear soft footsteps moments before the curtain is slowly pulled open, revealing two older men. Clipboards, white coats, slacks. Doctors? I give them a confused smile. “Hi.”
“Ms. Washington?” one of them says. He’s shorter and paler with graying hair. I nod.
“Yes, hi. Capri.” I wince and shake my head slightly. “Well, Lennon, but I go by Capri.”
