It's You (3 page)

He wasn’t in college and had no desire to go anywhere for “the holidays.” I was welcome to join him for meals and activities at Napa Estates, but there wasn’t going to be this cozy family Christmas. He had no desire for a family Christmas. Not without Mom.

I cried in secret. I was hurt. And confused.

Dad wasn’t the only one who’d lost Mom. I’d lost her, too. And Andrew. I’d lost two people and now it seemed as if I’d lost Dad as well. He didn’t feel any need to be a family with me. He didn’t want or need the traditions. He didn’t want or need the past. I didn’t like his idea of the future . . . not for us.

I still don’t.

As I park at Napa Estates today, it reminds me all over again of a sprawling, swanky country club in the South. The green lawn flanking the columned main “house” is so perfect I’m tempted to see if it’s real. The building’s glossy white paint and pale cedar shingles contrast nicely with the sparkling large multi-paned windows that show the elegant, gleaming lobby, with its high ceiling and pale, low-pile carpet—suitable for both wheelchairs and walkers.

Mom and Dad had looked at a lot of retirement homes in Sonoma County before choosing Napa Estates as their future home. They liked that the facility had a couple tennis courts and a large swimming pool even though they never played tennis and rarely swam. It was the idea of having the facilities there, just as they liked Napa Estates’ dining room, large gym, library, and movie theater, plus the monthly meetings for Bridge Club and Book Club and Wine Club.

Napa Estates wasn’t just a “place” for seniors, but a community. Their brochure boasts that they create a “microcosm of society
that brings successful, mature adults together, recognizing their strengths and gifts.” I think the language of the brochure is a little overwritten but back in December I was impressed with how the retirement home has been designed to cater to all stages of senior living—independent living, assisted living, and memory care—with its focus on healthy living. I admire their goal to keep seniors fit, active, and independent for as long as possible. Of course there’s a financial impetus—healthy seniors’ expenses are less than those of seniors with chronic conditions—but there’s also the quality of life issue. Healthy seniors are happier.

Dad is in the independent wing, with a one-bedroom apartment. He has several friends who have two-bedroom apartments so that guests can stay over. Dad didn’t want that. Said he had no one he’d want to stay. I refused to have hurt feelings. Because I’m not sure
I’d
want to stay over. Dad is fine in three-or four-hour increments, but beyond that, he gets short and sharp. I love him, but don’t enjoy his company when he gets snappy.

Fortunately, despite Parkinson’s, Dad has been able to stay in the independent living wing, but now that he’s had a fall and needs more help, I’m wondering when the staff will want him to move. Where he is now he gets to live with his own furniture, but apparently that changes in assisted living. I don’t know the specifics. I only know that this morning, in an empty turn-of-the-century farmhouse, I became determined to convince my father that he should move to Arizona to be with me.

• • •

I
t takes me ten minutes to find Dad after arriving at Napa Estates. It’s a big place and he’s not in his apartment, or the Game Room, or the restaurant. I eventually track him down in the Reading Room where he’s not reading but playing bridge with another gentleman and two ladies. Dad is resting his hand of cards on his
splint, using a Scrabble tile holder to keep the cards from sliding down, and drawing and discarding cards with his good hand.

I knew he’d figure out how to play one-handed. He’s always enjoyed bridge, but he’s become very serious and competitive since arriving here, playing two to three days a week now.

In between deals he introduces me to Edie Stephens, his partner; they are playing against Bob and Rose Dearborn, a married couple.

I’ve barely been introduced before Edie raps the cards against the table. She’s not happy with the interruption. The game isn’t over.

Everyone quickly quiets and focuses on the game as Bob deals the next hand.

I don’t remember any of these people from Christmas, although Edie looks familiar. Or maybe it’s just because she’s very old and has that dour look of older women in early photography. Unsmiling, pursed lips, flat stare.

She glances up from her cards, and her gaze meets mine. Her eyes narrow ever so slightly and her expression makes me feel as if I haven’t quite measured up somehow. I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back. And perhaps it’s impudent, but I just keep smiling. There’s no reason for her to be so unfriendly. It’s my father after all, and I’ve just dropped everything to rush up here and be with him.

But she’s already dismissed me and is focused on her cards.

I get a chair and pull it towards the table, sitting just behind Dad so I can see his cards and follow the game.

Edie shoots me another sharp look as I settle into my seat, her eyes bright blue against her pale, thin skin. Her wispy white hair is twisted back in a severe knot. She must be in her late eighties, but as I soon discover, she plays a mean game of bridge, making calls coolly, crisply, not a hint of a quaver in her voice.

I started to learn bridge years ago when Andrew and I were in dental school so we could play with my parents, giving us a pleasant way to spend time together, but Andrew didn’t enjoy the
game—it’s not a game you learn overnight if you want to play well—so we stopped our lessons. But I’d grown up listening to my parents play on weekends with their friends—card tables up in the living room, the clink of ice in cocktail glasses, and the murmur of voices as they made their bids. And even though I don’t know how to really play myself, just sitting in one of the club chairs behind Dad, flipping through a magazine, I am lulled by the sound and rhythm of the game. The dealer, the opener, the responder . . .

My mother always laughed when she was the dummy.

I loved her for that. I loved that she was so warm and easy. She had an ego, but it was about education and excellence and schools. Never herself.

Now Dad, partnered by the formidable Edie, is the dummy, but he doesn’t seem to mind. As the game progresses it’s obvious he’s fond of Edie, almost deferential. But then, he does like winning, and they are winning now. From the quiet, sporadic banter around the table, to the winning of tricks, it’s clear Dad and Edie are the team to beat.

Thirty minutes later the game finally ends, and Dad rises carefully, using a cane to assist him to his feet. Bob offered an arm but Dad wouldn’t accept the help.

Now Dad leads the way to lunch, walking slightly ahead of me, working the cane as if an aggressive sea captain on the deck of his ship.

He’s thinner than when I last saw him, noticeably thinner, but his mood is ebullient after the win. His voice isn’t steady but it’s impossible to miss his confidence. “Bob and Rose arrived in March and everybody started saying they were the best bridge players at the Estates. But that was before Edie and I started playing together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“That makes you happy.”

“It’s fun to win.”

“She seems a little bossy.”

“She’s almost ninety-five. She’s entitled to have a few opinions.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “You don’t like her.”

It’s a statement, not a question. I shrug. “I don’t know her. But she’s not exactly warm and friendly. Whenever she looked at me she seemed to be giving me the evil eye.”

“Oh, she was. She doesn’t tolerate stuff and nonsense—”

“I’m not stuff and nonsense.”

“But you were interrupting our game.”

“You told me to meet you for lunch. I was here at noon. That’s lunchtime.”

“She’s very smart, Edie. She was raised overseas, speaks a half-dozen languages, and could have worked for the State Department but chose to become a teacher instead. I enjoy her company a great deal. There aren’t a lot of women here like her. She reminds me of my aunt Mary. Mary was brilliant. She wanted to be a doctor but her father, my grandfather, wouldn’t hear of it.”

We’d reached the large dining room just off the entrance atrium. The dining room’s longest wall was lined with tall French doors overlooking Napa’s rolling hills covered in trellised grapes. It’s a picturesque view and the May sunlight spills into the room, streaking the hardwood floor and dappling the place settings.

The lunch hostess takes us to a table for two near the French doors. Dad is still leaning on his cane, but taking smaller steps to match his small talk with the hostess as she leads us to our table. I think the hostess isn’t there to seat us as much as to make sure Dad and the other seniors don’t topple over.

I’d been worried that Dad and I would have nothing to talk about but he’s cheerful as we study the menu, recommending the taco salad which comes in a big tortilla shell, shaped like a bowl. I consider his recommendations but end up ordering the Chinese chicken salad.

We have ice tea with our salads and I have to pretend it’s not
difficult to watch Dad struggle with his meal, hand shaking, as it takes him two, three attempts to get lettuce and ground beef onto his fork. He shouldn’t have ordered something with ground beef. It doesn’t clump. The salad and cheese and beef fall off the tines before they reach his mouth.

“Need help?” I ask.

“Nope.”

Why did I know he’d say that? But his good mood wanes as he battles to get his lunch onto his fork and up to his mouth.

I feel a pang.

I haven’t seen him enough. Haven’t talked to him enough. The phone call every couple of weeks (is it even that often?) isn’t enough. I know it’s not enough. And more confusing is that I don’t know this Dad, not without Mom. Dad’s quiet. Never has been much of a talker. And now without Mom, we struggle to communicate.

“You look nice,” I tell him, trying to fill the silence.

He’s wearing a plaid shirt, blue and burgundy, and his thinning hair is combed neatly, the medium brown fading to gray, but I could see his scalp if I stood above him. I don’t want to see it. It makes my heart hurt. I wish Mom were here to take care of him. I’m not going to be able to give him the love he needs. I’m not able to do much other than make small talk and maybe play some cards and kill some time before I head back home. Unless he comes to live with me. And then I could be there every day. I could make dinner for us and plan outings . . . movies or a visit to a play or museum.

Not that he ever wanted to do any of those things.

What would he do in Arizona, living with me?

The thought is uncomfortable and I push it away.

“I should have ordered soup,” he says a few minutes later, dropping his fork and irritably tossing his napkin onto his plate. “Or pudding. Pudding would have at least stuck to the spoon.”

• • •

D
ad seems tired by the end of lunch and we head to his “apartment” with its miniature living room, where we settle onto the small couch and Dad turns on the TV. For the next couple of hours we stare at the small flat-screen TV, watching a program neither of us cares about, letting the commercials and show fill the silence and provide entertainment.

I see Dad wince a couple times as he shifts position. “Are you hurting?”

“I’m fine.”

I lean forward, concerned, but can tell from his expression that he doesn’t want to be babied. Dad served in Korea before finishing school to become a veterinarian. I know he saw combat but he’s never talked about it. And I actually have no idea of what he did in Korea. Or what he was.

We watch the next show and when that ends I look at him. “Do you like it here, Dad?” I’m desperate to find something we can talk about, something to bridge this distance between us.

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”

Good enough. “You don’t miss the house?”

“I don’t want to be there without your mom. And I can’t be there without her. I need assistance, and so here you go.”

I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. “You wouldn’t want to come live with me?”

“We talked about this already.”

“At Christmas, but it’s been a while and I thought maybe we should revisit the discussion.”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to be near me?”

“I’m a native Californian. I lived in Washington for a number of
years, raised you there, but it was my dream—and your mom’s—to return to California one day. I have no desire to live in the desert.”

“But you’d be able to be near me.”

He shoots me an odd glance. Hard to decipher his expression. “You could always move here. Be a dentist here.”

I picture Dr. Morris and his sad eyes and his plans for Andrew. All those hopes and dreams.

I take a deep breath, dangerously close to tears. “I don’t know that I can leave Dr. Morris yet. I don’t know that he could continue his practice. Knowing him, he’d retire and sell the practice.”

“Maybe that would be the best thing for him.”

I frown. “Why? He loves his practice, loves his work.”

“Maybe he puts too much emphasis on his practice.”

Dad is very black and white. He doesn’t do ambiguous, but he’s being plenty ambiguous now. “What does that mean?”

“Everyone always talks about what Dr. Morris wants, and what’s best for him. But what about you? And what about Andrew? Was working in Scottsdale for his dad the best thing for him? I don’t think so.”

I suddenly can’t remain seated and jump up to cross the room to the sliding glass door. I look out the door onto a courtyard with a fountain surrounded by white roses, lavender, and neat green boxwood. It could be the courtyard of a hotel. Pretty and manicured but also very empty.

“Does anyone ever go out there?” I ask, noting the stone benches that look terribly uncomfortable.

“No. But it’s a nice view.”

“Mmm.” I stand there another moment but I’m not looking at the roses. I’m thinking about what Dad said regarding Dr. Morris. “I like Dr. Morris. I love him. He’s like my other dad.” I turn to face my father. “And he’s a good dentist. A really good dentist.”

“Not saying he isn’t. And I think you were cut out to be a dentist. I don’t know that your Andrew was.”