See What I See (13 page)

Adam calls to ask me out, but I explain I have to take care of my father, who is sick. I don't tell him who my father is. He says he's going home for the holidays and will call me when he gets back.

For the next few days Dad mostly sleeps while I struggle to hold off Morgan, who wants Dad in New York. I no longer have the excuse of Dad working to get his paintings ready for the show. Everything has been sent.

“He has a little cold,” I tell Morgan.

“What are you doing for it? Are you giving him vitamin C? And there's that stuff you rub in your nose.”

“I'm letting him get a lot of rest.”

“I think you should get a doctor. The show's only a couple of weeks away. He needs to be here. I heard the
New York Times
is holding space in their Sunday paper for a review of the show. We'll sell out. I feel it. Your father is going to be a rich man.”

When I tell Dad, he gives a bitter laugh. “You can buy me an expensive coffin.”

Talk like that destroys me. I don't want to think about what's going to happen. I'm practically killing
myself
to keep him alive.

It's three days before Christmas. At the market I buy a small tree, a real one that's potted to plant afterward. I bruise the needles to get the piney scent on my hands. It smells like home. I put the tree in the studio and trim it with paper chains I've made from printing out Morgan's emails. I don't remember much about the holidays when Mom and Dad were together, except for one time when Dad cut us a Christmas tree in the woods. He maneuvered it into the house and got it set up in the stand before we noticed a wasp nest between the branches. I mention it to Dad. He looks surprised, as if he hadn't thought I would remember. I also remember a Christmas Eve when he didn't turn up until long after I was in bed. When he finally came home that night, there were angry voices. I don't mention this memory.

I want to make Dad a special Christmas dinner. Erlita told me they have fresh turkeys at the Eastern Market, so I go and get one. Up north there are lots of turkey farms. A few days before Thanksgiving and Christmas you can see the turkeys lining up behind the slaughterhouse to wait their turn. I'm hoping this turkey will be as fresh.

There's a big Christmas present from Morgan. It's a check for five hundred thousand dollars. I can't believe all those zeros. I have to read the check three times. The accompanying letter says, “Here is a little advance. I have competing bids from the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney for two of your paintings. You can leave your exile there at once and rent a decent loft or studio here in civilization. You'll need a place to see the critics who'll want to interview you. There's a terrific photographer lined up to do a portrait for the show's catalog. I'll look for you next week, and be sure to bring your daughter along for the opening. You won't want her in the loft, but my secretary here has a place in New Jersey and she would look after Kate for a day or two.”

“Dad,” I say, “we've got to tell Morgan the truth. He's arranging all this stuff because he thinks you'll be there.”

“He loves doing it. No need to disappoint him. Let him have his fun. I'll try to make a timely exit so my obituary gets in the
New York Times
just before the show opens. Terrific publicity.”

“That's an awful thing to say.” I'm shaken and feel my eyes burning, but Dad only laughs.

Dad has a lawyer, Mr. Krull, come over, and they talk behind closed doors. I can tell from the way Mr. Krull's voice goes up and down that he has a lot of questions about what Dad wants to do. After he leaves, Dad tells me Mr. Krull will deposit several thousand dollars in an account at the bank in both Dad's name and mine. Grocery money, he says, and tells me to use some of it to buy myself clothes. I don't buy any clothes, but I do splurge on a fancy Christmas cake from the Polish bakery.

On Christmas morning I run to the window, hoping the weatherman was wrong and that there is fresh snow. Instead it's a typical Detroit winter day, overcast, with leftover mushy snow on the ground in shades of Portland gray medium and Portland gray dark. I brave Dad's protests and get him dressed up in his best sport shirt. For a Christmas present I've painted a portrait of Dad, but I'm afraid to give it to him. I'm afraid he'll say how amateurish it is.

He tells me he has something for me and it's in the front closet. I find a big package all wrapped in Christmas paper. Erlita must have done it for him. He watches me unwrap it. It's his pallet and paint box. I throw my arms around him and kiss him on the cheek. It's the first time I've done that, and we're both embarrassed. Feeling bold, I run upstairs and get the portrait. His hands are shaking as he holds it, and he looks at it for a long time. “Not bad,” he says.

At dinner, which Dad hardly eats in spite of how tender the turkey is, I try to get him talking about his own Christmases as a boy. The thing about having your parents separated is that you lose half your family stories. I want to catch up. “What was it like when you were a kid?” I ask, meaning Christmas, but that isn't what he talks about.

“My mother used to call me her changeling,” he says. “You know what a changeling is? A child who has been substituted for the real child. I didn't care about what my dad and my brother cared about, fooling around with cars, hunting and fishing, never missing a high school basketball game on Friday nights. I mean, I did all those things and I was even good at some of them, but I didn't enjoy them. I was the best marksman in the family, but I hated the killing. I hated seeing the gutted bodies of the deer strung up in town on opening day.”

I want to tell him I do too, but he doesn't give me a chance. Once he starts, he doesn't want to stop.

“I married your mother because everyone else was getting married.”

I stared at him. “That's why you married Mom?”

“I know how that sounds, and it wasn't the only reason. I loved your mother, and I tried to put the two parts of my life together. The normal guy and the artist. It just didn't work. I'm not proud of what happened to our marriage. I know I've hurt people, but that's the way I am. What I care about is my work.”

All he cares about is his work?
That's the way I am
. That's his excuse for hurting Mom and me? I've never been able to express how I feel about Dad's paintings, but now in my anger and disappointment it all comes out. “You're like your paintings,” I say. “They're like a slap in everyone's face. They shock you with their ugliness, but they don't give you anything back.” I remember van Gogh's ugly painting of the poor man and woman, and how you felt not only the ugliness but pity too. “There's no pity in your paintings.”

“Pity is for weaklings. If I'd been a bleeding heart, I'd never have been the painter I am. I know what you're asking: Did I miss seeing you growing up? Of course I did. Would I rather have been a good father than a great artist? The answer is no.”

I scream at him, “Why couldn't you be both, and why do you have to tell me these things? Just shut up!”

When Mom calls later in the evening, I say, “I'm coming home.”

T
he next day I call Erlita. “Honey, someone has to stay with your daddy twenty-four hours a day. That's three nurse's aides, and that's a lot of money. And then there's the weekend. That's extra. Maybe you should be thinking about a nursing home.”

“Money's not a problem.” I call Mr. Krull.

“There is certainly more than enough money for nursing help,” he tells me. “Actually I think it's an excellent idea. I told your father when I was there the other day that I felt strongly that caring for him is too much responsibility for a young girl. I don't think he realized how much of a burden it is for you. I pointed out that it's only going to get more difficult.”

I thought about how when I told Dad I was going home, he just nodded and even looked a little relieved. I was upset at his reaction. After all I'd done for him, after I'd given up school, he was glad to get rid of me? But after talking with Mr. Krull I wonder . . . His wanting to get rid of me doesn't make a lot of sense. Was Dad saying those heartless things to me on purpose? Did he know it was the only way he could make me leave?

I stay the week, helping Dad get used to the new arrangement. At first he resents having strangers care for him and won't talk to the nurse's aides, but he can't get out of bed and knows he needs them. I'm afraid the aides will be intimidated by Dad's shouting and his demands, but even the shyest of the three seems used to abuse. Maybe they know that Dad isn't fighting them; he's fighting his illness and his death. They just happen to be in the middle of the battle.

I go to the store to say good-bye to Emmanuel, hoping Thomas will be there, but he isn't.

“He and Mary went to a movie,” Emmanuel says. “I'll tell him you stopped by. Who's going to take care of your father now?”

It's more than a question, it's an accusation. In their community, where family is everything, it would be unthinkable to leave a father, never mind what kind of father he is. Are they right? I don't know.

Late at night my guilt gets the better of me, taking over my sleep. I prowl around the kitchen, getting a glass of milk and a peanut-butter-and-crackers fix. Anita, the night aide, is there having a cup of tea. She's tall and slim and bony, with a rounded cap of closely cut hair and large eyes with faint brownish purple circles underneath. Each night she brings a small framed picture of a little boy and sets it up in the kitchen. It's like she's saying,
I'm sitting here all night for you, son. This money is going to make a difference in your life.

“Your dad's sleeping like a baby,” she reassures me. “I expect you'll be anxious to get home to your mama. A man sick as your dad is a handful for a young girl like you.”

I'm relieved to have a sympathetic ear. “I don't know if I should leave him, but he wants me to go, so what else can I do?”

“I can see your dad is a proud man. Nothing's as hard as having to depend on someone else. And maybe he doesn't want you to see him at the end.”

I consider what Anita says, and it makes sense. Dad wants me to remember him as he was, still in charge. Maybe he's worried I'll love him less when he's weak and helpless. Perhaps I should stay, but that would take away his ability to manage his life, and I can't do that. It has to be what he wants and not what I want.

In the morning it's time for the last thing on my list before I leave: telling Morgan the truth. Morgan's emails and phone calls are coming thick and fast. Interviews are scheduled. The famous 92nd Street Y wants Dad to give a talk. Dad has said nothing, wanting to let the interest and publicity swell, waiting until the last possible moment.

Dad calls me into the studio and directs me to get Morgan on his cell. I see him listening to Morgan, to what is probably Morgan's insistence on wanting details of Dad's arrival. Finally Dad says, “I'm not coming to New York, not now or ever. I can't even get out of bed.”

I can hear Morgan shouting. Dad waits impatiently and then says, “If you just shut up, what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm dying. No! I'm not drunk. I'm not crazy. Just a minute.” He hands me his cell.

We figured this would be how Morgan would take it. “It's true,” I say. “Dad has cirrhosis of the liver. He tried to get a liver transplant, but he also has something called dilated congestive cardiomyopathy.” And then I say, “He's very sick.” I choke up.

Maybe it was Dad's voice, which is not much more than a whisper, maybe it's my listing the medical names of the terrible things that are happening to Dad, or maybe it's the way I lose it at the end, but Morgan believes me.

“What am I supposed to do?” Morgan says. He pulls himself together. “That's terrible. I'm really sorry. What a lousy break. This show is going to put him back on the map. It could have changed his life.” There is a pause; then he adds, “Of course as soon as people know there won't be any more paintings by Quinn, the prices are bound to go up.”

I punch the End key. Immediately the phone rings again.

“Don't answer,” Dad says. He wants to know what Morgan said.

“He said how sorry he was.”

I take off for the Tergiversate. I'm leaving three of my paintings at the gallery. “Where are you going?” Diane asks.

“Up north.”

“That's the end of the world.”

“It's the best part of the world. I'll send more paintings down to convince you.”

I go to see Lila next. She takes my hand and pulls me up the stairway to show me a couple of empty rooms. “Auntie's rented the rooms, and this summer we're moving up there to live. All the downstairs is going to be her alterations and my shop. I've designed a blouse in a lot of fabrics and colors. It is so neat and it's selling.”

When I tell her about Dad and how I'll be going home she says, “I feel so sorry for your father. It must be hard taking care of him, but I hate to see you go. Promise you'll come back to school.”