The Whys Have It Page 10

  “Turn here.” Sam’s arm shoots to the left, blocking my vision.

  I brush her arm aside and cut the wheel a sharp left. “Warn me next time. Plus we’ve already driven this way twice.”

  “Do it again. I have a feeling he’s close.”

  He isn’t close. Nothing is close except a gas station and a tattoo parlor. “You’ve said the same thing down every street we’ve driven. There’s no one here, unless your dad had a sudden need to ink a skull and crossbones on his forearm.”

  The finger she’s gnawing on drops into her lap. “Is that supposed to be funny? Because right now nothing is funny to me, Cory.”

  “No, it isn’t supposed to be funny. I just think circling the block over and over is a waste of time.”

  She nails me with a glare, one of many in the last few minutes. “What would you have me do, give up? We have to find him before…” A threat of tears chokes her words, and she leans her head back. “God, I’m so sick of crying. How much more do I have to take?” She whispers that last part like a frustrated prayer, then looks out the passenger window.

  I swallow, feeling like the jerk that I am. Charm is my fallback, the kneejerk reaction of living too long in the spotlight. It always works, without fail. Flip a switch and light up the room with a grin, and people do what I want.

  It always works.

  Landing hard on my butt in the normal world of middle-America isn’t something I’m prepared for. There was a time, but that day is passed. Time to remember some things.

  “I promise you don’t have to take any more from me, especially not the crap I keep dishing out. Sorry, it’s a side effect of—” Just then a blue city bus parked down the street catches my attention. There’s nothing abnormal about it, a common sight for anyone who lives around here and finds himself either close to the university or the local mall. But I can’t escape the feeling that hits me, the feeling when you know you’re right about something with no valid reason to believe it. It grips my gut and twists around. So I pull to a stop behind it just as the doors close and it edges away from the curb.

  Sam glances at me, drying her eyes with the back of a hand. “What are you doing? You’re going the wrong way.”

  I stare straight ahead and attempt to ignore her. There’s a theory formulating here, and I don’t need her to distract me from it. Plus, I’ve wronged her in about a thousand ways and this time I really need to be right.

  “Turn around. My dad isn’t going to be on that bus.”

  My eyes roll before I can stop them. “Oh, but the tattoo parlor made sense to you. We’ve been driving in circles with no luck, I’ve been letting you direct us the whole time, and now it’s my turn. I’m going this way for a minute. Besides, I didn’t say he would be on that bus.” I also didn’t say he wouldn’t.

  “Turn around,” she says. “We’re headed out of town.”

  “I’ll turn around in a minute.” I swallow a sigh. Since I haven’t seen my mother in years and the rest of my family in even longer, I haven’t argued with a woman in a long time. I start biting on a fingernail because good lord she’s making me nervous. “It would help if you’d stop glaring at me and start looking out the window. He’s not in this car, so maybe you should be searching outside of it.”

  I sound confident, cocky even. But in truth I’m trying not to sweat. I’ve never looked for a wayward father before, and I can’t afford to make a mistake. What if she’s right and I’m wasting her time? I won’t be able to live with myself if something happens to someone else she loves. Not if it happens while I’m driving the wrong way.

  I feel her icy stare but refuse to meet her gaze. Despite her protests, I can’t shake the feeling I’m onto something. I dismissed that feeling once before years ago, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. If only I had gone with my gut back then.

  I run a hand through my hair. Better to leave the past where it belongs. You might not be able to run a paintbrush over unpleasant memories, but you can certainly cover them in a black cloth and pretend they don’t exist.

  The bus passes a car dealership and turns right, and now I remember where we are. Sam’s right; her father isn’t on that bus, but one runs this same route every half-hour and I have a feeling he was on it. We’re approaching our last turn when her phone rings. I’m grateful for the sound, mainly because for a minute anyway, it will keep her from talking to me.

  “You found him?” she says into the receiver. “But how did he get there? How did he even know where it was?” She nods, pinching the space between her eyebrows. “Okay, we’re not far. Tell them we’ll be right there.” She ends the call lowers the phone to her lap. Holding it there, she keeps her eyes closed for a second.

  “They found him. The police are with him, waiting on us to get there.” Her voice is so quiet, I have to lean in to hear it.

  “Get where?” I know what she’s going to say before the words come.

  “He’s at the cemetery.” She looks at me, out the window. “I don’t understand how he…” Her voice trails off as we pull up next to it and park. “You knew?”

  We’re here. The cemetery. I have no idea how I knew. Sometimes you just have a feeling, and that feeling hasn’t failed me yet, even when I often fail it.

  “I had a feeling. Not sure why.” Sam studies me while I purposely take in the scene in front of us.

  Two police cars are parked in front of us. Across the grass, two men in uniform are standing next to a frail, elderly man who is hunched a bit at the waist. He’s wearing wrinkled khaki pants and a plaid button up like the quintessential Midwestern man wears, and his hands are shaking back and forth; I can see them from here. He looks older than seventy four, but I guess that’s what they say about the mind. A strong one keeps you young. A weak one…

  He looks much older than seventy-four.

  A tear rolls down Sam’s cheek. I see it before she steps out of the car. Unsure of my place, I remain behind the wheel, taking in the scene with a knot of admiration growing in my core. This woman seems to take care of everything and everyone. She faces the challenges that life keeps delivering her, and she does it all alone.

  But who takes care of Sam? The question rolls through my mind as I watch her bend eye-level with her father, speaking to him in a way that draws him in.

  I watch as he nods and turns away, then pats his hands together.

  I watch as he grows agitated and tries to walk the other direction.

  I watch as both policemen work to guide him back around, then begin to lead him down the hill toward the car.

  I watch as she takes over, wrapping an arm around his shoulder like a mother might do for a child.

  I watch her hand come up to catch another tear, then move to the other side to swipe at one running down the other cheek.

  I watch the way her shoulders sag as though the weight of the entire world rests on them, and maybe it does. And that’s when I know. No one takes care of Sam, because there’s no one left in her world to step into the position. There’s a wide open vacancy and no one clamoring for the job. So I think. And think. And continue to watch.

  I watch for what seems like hours, though only minutes pass. It hurts, this scene. So much so that I feel my own emotion welling up and demanding a way out. It’s been a long time since I cried, so I force it back down where it belongs, thinking all the while that Sam’s father has Alzheimers. He’s frail. He probably won’t remember this day. He probably won’t remember Sam and he sure as heck won’t remember me. That’s enough to depress anyone. No wonder I’m emotional.

  Not that it matters.

  None of it matters.

  The only thing that matters is that Sam’s father is right here in front of me, and he doesn’t know who she is. Time is running out on them, while my own father is healthy and happy and living a normal life in my childhood home. I pushed him away nearly a decade ago, along with my mother and brother. Every year my mother tries to get me home for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries.
I’ve put her off every time, blaming a work schedule that’s never been quite as busy as I claim. Consequently, I haven’t seen my family in a decade, and suddenly it seems like the most foolish thing in the world.

  Especially because as I watch Sam hug her own father, I can no longer remember why.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sam

  Cory hasn’t said a word since shaking hands with the police officers and helping my dad into the back seat of his car. I like silence. I’ve always been a big fan of silence. But it was the way he helped my father fasten his seat belt, then place his hand over my dad’s hand and give it a squeeze before shutting the door…the kindness he displayed. Those things have filled my head with a dozen questions that internally scream with the need to be released.

  Why are you so nice?

  Why did you help me?

  Why are you caring for a man you don’t even know?

  Why aren’t you in France?

  Why are you here?

  Instead, I don’t say a thing. Not until we round the last street corner, slow to a crawl, and pull into the parking lot at the nursing home.

  “You can just drop us off at the front door if you want to,” I say, unfastening my seat belt and reaching for my bag. I practically shove the door open before we’ve stopped, but the faster I get my father inside, the faster I can quiet my mind and be done with this whole afternoon. First the funeral, then the restaurant, then the photographers, and now the cemetery. It might be funny if I didn’t feel so helpless and sad. There’s barely any sunlight left, just a half-moon resting low in the sky. Another half hour and night will be fully on us. By then, I want the blankets of my bed to be fully on me. Then, and only then, will I allow the tears collected in the storm drains behind my eyes to shed the water they’ve spent all afternoon collecting.

  I open the back car door and reach for my father’s hand.

  “How will you get back to your car? Here, let me help you get him inside.” Cory hops out of his seat to take my dad by the elbow, using extra care to help him to the sidewalk.

  “I’ll ask Phyllis to take me after she gets off work.”

  “Oh sweet saints in heaven, you found him!” As though she had been summoned, Phyllis rushes out with a wheelchair, one hand gripping the handle and the other pressed against her heart. “Mr. Dalton, you gave us quite a scare. You just can’t go running off like that!” She makes a clucking sound with her tongue as she guides my father into a sitting position.

  Of course he doesn’t respond to her. No one expects him to. He stares at his hands, marveling at the way they turn over and under and back again, as if he doesn’t spend a good part of everyday mimicking the motion. I stare at him for a moment, thinking just once. Just once I wish there was a way to climb inside his head to see how the wheels of his brain were spinning. To see if they were spinning at all. Maybe then I could re-route them; oil them or tighten a screw, anything to make them head the direction it needs to take to get back to me. With all the advances in medicine, you would think someone could invent a way to keep a person’s mind in semi-functioning shape. But no, my father’s has deteriorated at the same time women are getting Botox injections to keep frown lines at bay. Not that I’m opposed to Botox. Give me a decade and I might fill my schedule with regular appointments. But still.

  Thank God for medical brilliance.

  “Whatever possessed him to go the cemetery?” Phyllis asks me on our way into the building. “It don’t make sense for him to travel so far, and by bus of all things! It’s a good thing you were so close by. I’d hate to think of this poor man having to ride in a police car all that way back here like a common criminal. Mr. Dalton doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

  A blanket slips from my dad’s shoulder, and I pull it up around him, fighting a smile at the image of my father being whisked away in a police car as though his escape had been a national emergency. But Phyllis was right about one thing—it had been a relief to be so close by. I still have no idea what possessed Cory to—

  Cory. In the rush to get my father inside, I forgot all about him. From our spot in the lobby, I turn to head back outside and catch a glimpse of his SUV pulling away from curb. I don’t know what to think, so I watch it disappear for a moment, red taillights fading from view as I process what it means. A sense of loss settles around me, but it isn’t from sadness as much as resignation. Things end. They end and there’s never a good way to stop it from happening. More and more lately, the end of the road is the one I’m stuck on. Like everything else, my time with Cory just concluded without warning or the chance to say goodbye.

  I stare at nothingness for a moment longer and breathe through something that feels a little like pain. That’s the thing about pain, it doesn’t need a reason to make an appearance and often it makes no sense. But it’s there, knotting my heart in a futile wish that things had been different. Under any other circumstance, Cory and I might have been friends. As it stands, our commonality just came to a halt and receded in fading taillights.

  With one last look, I sigh and head down the hallway toward my dad’s room.

  By the time I push the door open, Phyllis is settling him in bed.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” I say, reaching for my father and lifting him under the arms the way she taught me months ago. The smell of antiseptic and bleach is especially strong tonight, as though someone left a bottle open or just finished dousing the room to disguise the stench of urine. It doesn’t quite work.

  “Dad? Are you comfortable?” He doesn’t answer me, but I fluff his pillows anyway, taking care to prop one on each side of his head. The likelihood of him falling over and hitting one of the side rails is slim, but the extra cushion makes me feel a little better about his living conditions. When I adjust a pillow, he slaps at my hand, then rattles off a few curse words aimed directly at me. When his hand shoots up again, I duck and nearly avoid a blow to the face. This is normal, his action and my reaction. The tears I used to cry were spent long ago. Now I see it for what it is; a normal response made by someone with a very abnormal disease.

  “Stop hitting at your daughter, Mr. Dalton.” His violence doesn’t faze Phyllis either, because it never inflicts pain. Not physical, at least. She winks over at me, and for the first time today I smile. It feels good. It also feels foreign.

  “Thank you for all you’re doing for him,” I say to her. Soon my father is snoring. I step back and look down at him, a fresh wave of sadness descending like a black quilt on my already heavy shoulders. The burden of responsibility has made itself so comfortable that it now feels like an old friend, the kind of friend that overstayed its welcome long ago but is currently unpacking a suitcase and filling dresser drawers with next season’s outfits. “It means a lot to me.”

  “Oh child, it’s my pleasure.” She rolls her neck, working out a stiff muscle. “Even if they quit paying me to be here, I suspect I’d stop by every day to see your daddy anyway. He’s a special man, and you’re a special girl. Everything will get better, you know. Just give it time, you’ll see. Me and the man upstairs?” She points up to the ceiling. “We made a deal. He’s going to work everything out for you, and I’m going to stick around and watch it happen.”

  I can’t help a small smile. I’m not so sure about the man upstairs, but it means a lot to me that she has faith enough for both of us.

  “Thank you Phyllis. Truly.” I reach for my dad’s water glass and fill it for him. Sometimes he needs a drink late at night. He can’t think for himself, but he hasn’t yet lost the ability to be somewhat self-sufficient. He’ll reach for the glass in the middle of the night and won’t know what to do if nothing is available; I don’t want him disturbing a nurse for something I can help with now.

  “You just wait and see. He has a plan you for even in all your suffering. I’m sure of it.” She collects a few stray linens from the recliner and shoves them into a bag, then readjusts my father’s bed one last time before giving him a pat on the head
and heading for the door.

  “Phyllis?” I say just before she walks out. She stops and half-turns to face me. “Will you call me if he needs anything? I think I’m going to head home now instead of waiting until visiting hours are over. I’ll be back tomorrow.” And I will. I’ll always come back tomorrow, even when it feels like too much to handle.

  “Oh take the day off, child. If anything unusual happens, I’ll let you know.” She points to me, giving a knowing look. “Spend a little time doing something just for you. I’ll take care of your dad.”

  The offer is tempting, more than I want to admit. “We’ll see.” It’s all I can say, all I can commit to.

  “I’ll settle for that. See you soon, Sam.” And with that she walks out, leaving me alone in the quiet room. For a long moment I focus on my dad, on the peaceful way he sleeps. He is sick, yes. But he doesn’t know it. The rest of the world might feel pity if they could see him now, but he doesn’t suffer from it. It helps a little to know that I might be alone in this world, but he is blissfully unaware.

  With one last look, I close the door behind me and dig my phone of out the bottom of my purse, then search for Hannah’s number. She answers on the first ring.

  “Did you find him?” she asks. “Is he alright?” My stomach drops at the question. I forgot that in my initial panic, I had called her.

  “He’s fine. Back in bed like nothing ever happened. But hey, can you come pick me up at the—”

  I stop talking the moment I enter the lobby. Because there, in a cracked vinyl chair pushed up against the wall, sits Cory. His head is tilted back as though he’s resting, but his eyes are open and staring at the ceiling. He sits up straight when he sees me. All I can do is stare back; I can’t believe he’s been waiting here the whole time. It’s weird seeing a rock star waiting inside a nursing home, especially when that rock star is waiting for you.

  “Sam, are you there?” There’s a voice talking to me on the other end of the line. It takes work to focus on Hannah’s voice through the clouds of thought crowding my brain, but I manage. “Sam?”