Driving With Dead People (15 page)

“How do you manage to pick the most inopportune time to come up with this shit?” she yelled.

“I don’t try to,” I told her. The truth was, I was frightened. I’d never felt so ill and it wasn’t a familiar feeling. It wasn’t the flu or a bad cold. It was worse.

Julie stepped in. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Peterson. I’ll call my mom and she can take Monica to the emergency room.”

Mom was furious. “Right. I’m going to make Joan drive all the way out here and then wait in the emergency room with her.” She turned her back, let out an aggravated sigh, grabbed the phone off its cradle, and dialed.

“Jim? Listen, Monica is sick or something so I guess I’m stuck here for a while.” She slammed down the receiver and turned to me.

“Get in the car.”

I sat in the backseat with Julie. We dropped her off at her house and drove to the hospital.

In the emergency room they took my temperature and a urine sample. I was lying on a gurney when the doctor came in.

“You have a temperature of a hundred and five and a kidney infection,” he said. “I’m going to do an examination. Let me know if you feel any pain where I’m touching.”

He pushed into my back. I flinched. “Why’d you punch me?” I asked, shocked.

“I didn’t punch you. I placed my hand over your right kidney and it hurt so much, you thought I punched you. That’s not good.”

He walked over to the nurses’ station, picked up a white phone, and said, “I need a bed.” He looked over at me. “You’re staying.”

I was in the most pain of my life but happy to finally be in someone’s care. I was relieved. Relieved there was something wrong. Relieved I finally felt as rotten physically as I did emotionally. The physical part could be monitored, controlled, and healed. Unlike my depression and feelings of being completely on my own or in the way, a kidney infection was obvious. Not a secret.

I wished there had been obvious signs of destruction on all of us kids: bruises or burn marks, something that indicated how violent our house was, but words and neglect don’t leave visible marks. And that confuses even the person who knows better.

That night Mom hated me for needing her, and I hated her for the exact same reason.

The next morning while I was lying in bed on an IV drip, a nurse came in and asked me who my guardian was.

“What?” I asked.

“Who is responsible for you?” That was a very good question. When I didn’t answer right away, she rephrased it. “Who takes care of your insurance?”

“My dad,” I said.

“We’re going to need to call him,” she said. “Can you give me his number?”

I didn’t want to, but she insisted.

I turned my head toward the wall. Dad was going to be furious.

I needed to figure out a way to get by financially until I graduated the following year, but I felt too rotten to think about it. I would try to sleep and think of a plan tomorrow.

The following week when I was feeling better, I drove to Dad’s store on my lunch break from school. I parked in the alley until I saw him leave for lunch, then jumped out of the Mustang and walked inside.

Doug Miller worked the tool counter when Dad was out, and he was staring right at me.

“Hi, Doug,” I said.

“Your dad’s not here,” he said, ready for a fight. Doug had been there when I’d peeled out and scattered rocks at the window. I smiled.

“I just have to use the bathroom,” I lied, and walked over to the beige door. I could feel Doug staring at my back. I waited inside until I heard a customer come in. As soon as Doug went into the back to retrieve whatever piece of hardware the guy needed, I walked up front and swiped the divorce papers from under the counter.

I quickly drove to the public library, where I made copies for myself at ten cents a page. When I drove back to Dad’s store, no one was at the counter. I could hear Doug running water in the bathroom, so I furtively returned the papers and ran out to my car. I’d made it.

That night I studied those papers line by line. I sat on my bed with my little green lamp directed right at them. After all I’d been through, the papers seemed benign—no wrath or fury. There was nothing about Dad throwing furniture or Mom stealing money from Dad’s truck. Instead, it was dull and wordy, full of phrases I could barely negotiate my way through. I did understand two things: He was required to pay for my college education and my medical bills.

After that I made sure I needed money only for medical purposes. A doctor’s appointment usually cost around seventy-five dollars, so after asking for that, I didn’t need money for at least a month. Then I needed money to get my teeth cleaned. That was fifty dollars and lasted a while.

I didn’t go to the doctor or get my teeth cleaned, but I had money to live on. I didn’t ask too often or for more than I needed.

Julie and I had just picked up Kimberly Sanders from the airport in the hearse. She was only two years older than us, but had died of cancer anyway. She flew in from Phoenix in a Carrington cherry wood casket with eggshell crepe interior. It was the fanciest (and most expensive) coffin Julie and I had ever seen.

Kimberly had always had curly red hair, but when they opened the casket to check her and removed the ten-by-ten swab of cotton from her face, she had no hair and no eyebrows. Only freckles.

We were driving the hearse up and down Main Street, when I saw my dad in the Valley Inn Restaurant. He was sitting at the counter alone, his head bent over a bowl of chili. His shoulders were rounded and his glasses had slid halfway down his nose. Earlier at the store I’d overheard him say he had a dinner at the Elks Club. I wondered why he wasn’t there.

We drove by at least four more times, thinking Kimberly might enjoy one last night of cruising Main Street, and Dad was still sitting there, drinking a cup of coffee and looking around.

We unloaded the hearse and parked it at the mortuary. After throwing Lowell the keys, I drove Julie to her house in the Mustang. On my way home I drove through town. Dad’s truck wasn’t at the restaurant, so I decided to stop by the Elks Club just to see if he’d ended up there. I ran into a couple in the parking lot who’d known Mom and Dad when they were married.

“Hi, Monica,” the woman said.

“Oh, hi.” I didn’t know what to say so I said, “I’m looking for my dad.”

“Oh, we don’t see much of him anymore,” the woman said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“He tends to overstay his welcome, if you know what I mean.” She smiled.

“No kidding,” I said, not understanding.

“Your father is funny for about five minutes, until you realize he’s all surface, no depth.”

I hated my dad, but I could have punched this woman. Her husband took her arm and said to me, “I’m sorry, she’s had a few too many.” As he was escorting her away, she turned and said, “What I’m trying to say is, your father doesn’t wear well, does he?”

They wandered to their car and I stayed put. Maybe Dad wasn’t such a big shot after all. Maybe people had him figured out.

When I got home, I was hungry so I poured a bowl of Rice Krispies and sat down at the kitchen table. I caught my reflection in the small-paned windows. There I was, head down, shoulders rounded, eating a bowl of cereal alone. Dad and I looked nothing alike physically, but our lives were similar. I ate alone, I exaggerated stories, and I didn’t let people see the depth in me. Maybe
I
didn’t “wear well” either.

I pushed the cereal down into the milk with the back of my spoon and thought back to the day when Dad was a good guy.

I stood up from the kitchen table and put my cereal bowl in the sink.

The phone rang. It was almost eleven o’clock. It had to be Mom. I walked over and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Monica?”

“Yes.”

“It’s JoAnn. Were you sleeping?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I just got home.” I pulled the phone cord around the corner so I could sit on a kitchen chair. “How’s it goin’?” I asked, tucking my feet up under my butt.

“I was just making sure you were home and eating,” she said.

“I just had a bowl of cereal,” I told her. “I’m eating.”

“The last time I saw you, you looked really thin,” she said. “How much do you weigh?”

“I have no idea,” I said. I’d never actually weighed myself except when the doctor did it.

“Make sure you eat,” she said.

“Okay. Is that why you called?” I asked.

She laughed. “That’s why I called.”

I slept better that night knowing JoAnn was thinking about me.

That Thanksgiving, I asked Dad where he was going for dinner. He grunted something about staying home since Mammaw and Papaw were in Florida on vacation.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind that Dad was eating alone on a family holiday—that no one had invited him to their house. I kept picturing him eating that bowl of chili.

Maybe it was because he gave me the “medical” money without a fight, or maybe it was because I knew how sad it felt to be alone, but I fixed a big plate of food from Thanksgiving dinner at Mom’s and drove it eighteen miles down to Lake Hiawatha. He was surprised to see me, and I was surprised to be there.

“I brought a plate of food,” I offered, shrugging. “I thought you might be alone.”

“Well, thanks,” he said awkwardly. I half-expected him to smack it out of my hand and call me an idiot, but instead he smiled. I saw his teeth for the first time in years.

We walked into the dining room, where he set the plate down on a plastic woven brown-and-orange place mat.

“White and dark meat, dressing, mashed potatoes,” I said. “It might not be warm anymore.”

“Mmmm,” he said, “this looks pretty darn good.”

I sat across from him while he ate. We didn’t say anything. It was awkward and oddly rewarding. It was the first time in my life I had offered something to my dad. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d never thought to bring him anything before. I’d treated him like Mom had—he gave, we took.

Looking around, I saw for the first time the home Dad had set up for himself. I noticed a large green macramé plant holder hanging from a hook in the living room ceiling, and a clock made from a shellacked cross section of a cypress tree trunk, placed over the stair-well. There was a plaid upholstered recliner right in front of the television and enormous lamps with seashells plastered on their stems and bases. Dad’s decor would have sent Mom into a coma, but I was fascinated.

Here was who Dad really was. Mom’s cherrywood dining room set and gorgeous slip-covered couches had nothing to do with him. His rust-colored wraparound couch and wagon-wheel coffee table were just his style. I didn’t know he’d had it in him to create such a cozy home. His kitchen was fully stocked with pots and pans hanging from a square wooden frame over the sink, and matching plates and silverware. The house was spotless.

The music playing on his stereo was soft country. Mom hated country music. I had never heard it in our house.

Taking in the place, I felt sorry for Dad because I realized none of us had ever really known him. Part of the reason was his cruelty, but part of the reason was that Mom had obliterated everything in the house that Dad would have liked, as if she were ashamed of him.

Glancing over at Dad, his white paper napkin spread across his lap and his head bent over his plate, I decided I would try to be nice to this monster. I would try to understand him a little; after all, soon I would be at college and gone forever.