Double Trouble

  “Dad…” I reached out to touch him, sensing the storm, but he sat up, outraged.

  “It was not fair!” he shouted with surprising volume. “It was not right!” He was crying openly as he bellowed at the injustice. “My Mary Anne was kind and sweet and loving, as good as an angel. I was the troublemaker, I was the rough one, I was the one careless with his words, the one who hurt others and never looked back. It was not fair that she should be the one to suffer so.”

  His voice broke on the memory that still tore me up as well. I took his hand and he clung to mine. “And oh, how she suffered! It ate her away from the inside, that evil disease. She told me once that she could feel it, gnawing away at her.”

  My father took a deep gulping breath, shaking his head when I might have interrupted him. “And there was not a thing I could do about it. Not a thing. Me, the man of the household, the one she relied upon. I could not do a thing. Even my prayers were insufficient to save her, so great a sinner was I.”

  “Dad, I don’t think…”

  “And was that the worst of it? No! I even denied her the only thing she asked of me in the end.” He shook his head. “I was not even here when she died, Mary Elizabeth. I did not even have the grace to hold her hand while she slipped away, even knowing as I did that she was afraid.”

  He shook his head and his tears fell on his hospital gown. “I failed her in every conceivable way. What kind of gratitude is that for all the gifts she brought me? No, I was never fit to be her man. I was never good enough. I failed your mother as I had no right to fail her.”

  “Dad, she was in a coma at the end. And you had to sleep. She couldn’t have known…”

  “Oh, she knew, upon that you can rely. But as always she did, your mother forgave me. She was a far better person than I could ever have been. That’s why she’s here, to tell me that she’s forgiven me. She’s waiting for me, to help me, because she knows that I am not as strong as she. I never was.”

  He took a ragged breath. “And the shame of it is that still I know the truth. I know that in her place, I could never be so gracious. I could never forgive someone who denied me something so simple, something so clearly within their power.” He looked at me, his gaze clear. “What have I learned in this life, Mary Elizabeth? What kind of sinner am I that I learned nothing from such a woman, nothing from such a tragedy?”

  “Dad…” I reached out and touched his shoulder. He was shaking.

  My touch seemed to make him crumble. He buried his face in his hands, looking smaller and more frail than ever before.

  It terrified me.

  “I’m afraid to die, Mary Elizabeth,” he whispered through his fingers. “I am afraid to die and face an accounting of all I have done. And I’m just as afraid to die in this soulless place as your mother was.” His voice broke. “I don’t want to live alone any more. I don’t want to die alone.”

  Then my father, for the first time in my experience, wept like a child.

  Without another thought, I caught him in the hug that he seemed to need so desperately. He sobbed, the tears coming from deep within him in great shaking gulps. It was as if something had torn free within him and was being spewed out. He clung to me. I’d never seen my father so devastated.

  In fact, I remembered how stoic he had been at my mother’s funeral. He hadn’t shed a single tear and for a long time, I had thought it evidence that he did not care. There had been a time when I had hated him for that.

  But now, I finally understood. He’d been afraid to begin to weep because he hadn’t known whether he’d be able to stop.

  You would have thought that I of all people would have got that.

  I rocked him and I whispered to him and I wondered what the hell I was going to do. After a few moments, he composed himself and pushed me away slightly, though he still kept a grip on my sleeves. “Where have you been?”

  “You sent me away. I did what I was told.” I smiled at him. “That must be why it confused you.”

  He didn’t smile. “What is this?”

  “You told me to leave.”

  He blinked, uncertain. “I did?”

  “Just after we came here. You called out and I came and you thought I was Marcia.” My voice hardened. “You said to tell Mary Elizabeth to leave.”

  His brow knotted in confusion. “No, Marcia is not here. She hasn’t been here at all. She has left us all.” His gaze brightened as he looked at me. “I did tell your mother to send you home. She was here to take care of me, and you needed your sleep.”

  I stared at him and my own tears rose. He’d thought I was my mother.

  I shook my head. “I don’t look like Mom.”

  “No, no, but there’s an expression you get that is the very image of her. You have it now again. Stop it!” He spoke gruffly, embarrassed by his mistake, and fiddled with the sheets.

  Crisis over, I moved to the visitor’s chair, an orange vinyl confection of considerable vintage. I knew my moving away would make both of us more comfortable.

  My father cleared his throat eventually and frowned at the floor. “Marcia phoned me yesterday.” He grimaced then, his disapproval clear. “From wherever she is with her lover. What need has a married woman of a lover, Mary Elizabeth?”

  You can bet I wasn’t going there. Because the corollary is that a married man doesn’t need one either. I shrugged.

  “None, none is the truth of it.” My father took a deep breath and straightened, annoyance, as always, billowing his sails. “What right has she to take a lover, to leave her children and her husband, to run away who knows where? I would have thought her incapable of such selfishness.” My father watched me, his gaze shrewd. “You’ve nothing to say about this. It’s not like you.”

  “It’s not my business.”

  He almost smiled. “That has never stopped you before.”

  An aide came sailing into the room then, carrying a tray. “Are you hungry, Mr. O’Reilly?” The music of the Caribbean was in her voice.

  “Of course I’m hungry!” My father harumphed. I guessed that this woman had served him before and he liked her. “How can a man not be hungry when all he’s given to eat is broth and Jell-O?”

  She smiled, untroubled by his attitude. It was mutual then. “You didn’t finish your breakfast, so you can’t be that hungry.”

  “It was too salty! I thought this was a hospital. Why, for the love of God, must everything be so filled with salt? Have you empty spaces in the cardiac ward to fill?”

  She laughed and pushed the wheeled table towards the bed. “Oh, Mr. O’Reilly, I’ll bet you charm all the girls.” She winked at him, which startled him to silence long enough for her to leave.

  My father lifted the dish over the entree and poked at it, his expression grim. “What have they done to this excuse for a meal?” he muttered with disgust. “And Jell-O for dessert. Again.”

  “Looks like chicken pot pie.”

  “You always were the imaginative one.”

  “It’ll be worse cold. You’d better get at it.”

  He muttered a complaint and dug in, doing it enough justice that it couldn’t have been that bad. He insisted, of course, that starvation would drive a man to eat near anything.

  I was just happy to see him back in fighting form. If he was scrappy enough to complain, then he was probably going to be okay.

  This time. That little truth made me doubly determined to do what he’d asked, preferably without James’ help.

  * * *

  Subject: a hearing

  Dear Aunt Mary -

  She’s turned me down flat, but I know she’s just playing hard to get.

  Should I send roses?

  A singing telegram?

  James

  –-

  I sat back, astounded. I’d just been pinged.

  By James, of all people.

  Just fyi, when you don’t know whether a remote server is online or not, you send it a test message and see whether it responds. That’s call
ed a ping.

  It was Wednesday, almost a week after the meeting of the Ariadne’s and clearly he wanted to know whether I was dead or alive.

  I’d show him.

  I got on the phone to Tracy, she who almost went for comparative mythology, and begged a favor. The girl ante’d up in spades.

  * * *

  Subject: re: a listening

  Give it up, Jimbo. Knowing “what she really wants” has been the rationalization of every stalker and rapist since Zeus nailed Leda. You’ll recall that Leda ended up as a mute swan.

  A *gentleman* knows that no means no.

  Aunt Mary

  ***

  Uncertain? Confused? Ask Aunt Mary!

  Your one stop shop for netiquette and advice:

  http://www.ask-aunt-mary.com

  * * *

  I had about five seconds to be proud of my classical mythology reference before the reply boinged onto the board.

  * * *

  Subject: re: not listening

  Dear Aunt Mary -

  Fat chance. Persistence is the key to success - and if you knew the lady in question, you’d know that she talks tougher than she is.

  “Jimbo”

  * * *

  It was really odd to know that James was online at the same time as me. I logged off quick, and got back to the work at hand, fending off the warm fuzzies.

  I hadn’t had a whole lot of luck, either restoring my schedule to match my circadian rhythms, or finding a solution for my dad. He needed to be on or near his own turf - I mean, he’d lived in that house for the better part of fifty years - so I started there every day.

  It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do. Work all night, nap a few hours, go play Primary Caregiver. Each morning at the house, I cleaned out the junk mail and the flyers, put the real mail in the kitchen - there wasn’t a lot of that, other than a few bills - then combed the neighborhood, taking a different direction each time. At noon, I chucked it in.

  There are some scary nursing homes out in the world, you know? Oh, there are good ones too, I’m sure, but I just had to picture my dad there to know he’d run screaming out of each and every place. I visited my dad at lunch before going home for a bite, a nap and more work - he accused me of only stopping by to ensure that he was eating, which was partly true - and updated him on the hunt. He had a few suggestions and a lot more opinions.

  Even the comparatively nice ones were emotionally desolate places. It was depressing just to cross the threshold and see the vacant-eyed souls just sitting where they had been left. The nurses seemed resolutely chipper in those places and I was always glad to escape.

  My dad wouldn’t be able to escape though. That gave me the creeps.

  I found a couple of hospices, or group homes, that were vigilantly homey. There seemed to be a real lack of privacy in these places with their determination to be one big happy family. Or to avoid the liability of someone hurting themselves while they weren’t supervised. I don’t know, but I figured my dad would go bonkers in about a week. It would be going from one extreme to the other.

  I was running out of options. My dad had insisted that he wasn’t going to live here, which made it easier for me to defend my sense that it wouldn’t be a good fit. James had made good points about that, too.

  Besides, I was crazy busy. Not only had the client signed James’ amendment to the contract but the job had spiraled into a thousand smaller add-ons. Of course the deadline stayed the same. Phyllis called it “scope creep”, but I didn’t much care. I had work to do and not enough time to do it, and even less time to bring someone else in and train them to do some of it. I kept my nose to the keyboard.

  James was persistent in his reminders, though. I was developing a shell collection, and if you don’t think that’s seductive, then you don’t know beans.

  Besides, there’s something really male about knowing what you want and going for it. Um hmm. Very sexy.

  And he had surrendered the chinos.

  His email message left me yearning. It was, for those you with your minds in the gutter, as much for the great sex as for that wonderful feeling of not facing the entire world alone. I could trust James, with some things at least, and I knew my dad’s welfare was one of them.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still a commitment-a-phobe intending to die with my shields up, but a little human contact once in a while isn’t all bad.

  Let’s be blunt. Sex would be good right now. Really good.

  Besides, James had said that he had a possible solution for my dad’s living arrangements. That was all the excuse I needed.

  I was ready to make a deal. Sex for the paternal solution. I’ll take door number three. Cue Monty Hall and the screaming masses in their wild costumes. Another rationalization, we all know that, but I was there. I snagged my fake leopard swing coat, the address off the fridge and sailed out the door.

  I’d dressed with some care, but then you expected as much, didn’t you? Suede slim pants as soft as butter and the color of caramel. A butterscotch sweater with a turtleneck that came up to my chin and clung to all my curves. Movie star shades, of course, and cowboy boots with pointy toes of alligator hide - or something that looked like it.

  I’ve got to tell you that this was one hot look, especially now that my hair was jet black. Red lipstick, red lace bra and I wished like heck I’d had time to paint my nails red too.

  Sex was seriously on my agenda and I wanted no mixed messages as to why I’d come. Stress-busting was something I could use big time.

  And no, you can’t get from needing something big time to BigMistake.com. You just can’t get there from here. Understood?

  * * *

  The new Casa Coxwell was the oddball on the block, the last clapboard one to be seen. The area had been reborn a couple of times since this place had been built. It looked to be a hundred years old or so, its farmhouse style a definite eye-catcher. On either side of it were post-war brick bungalows, resolutely similar except where they had been demolished and replaced with three story upscale joints that went from lot line to lot line.

  James’ house was not upscale. In fact, it ran closer to ramshackle, but had a certain charm all the same. The fence was in rough shape and due for replacement, the porch was big but sagging on the south side.

  ‘Handyman’s special’ was practically written over the front door. I’d never pictured James as a fix-it kind of guy, but maybe he intended to learn. The bell didn’t ring audibly so I opened the storm door and pounded my fist on the wooden door.

  Jimmy answered, complete with a whopper of a black eye, and immediately looked disappointed that it was just me.

  “Expecting someone else?”

  “Pizza,” he said sullenly and turned away to leave me on the doorstep.

  Undaunted, I stepped in to the lion’s lair. “Nice shiner.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Oh, got an attitude upgrade, did you?”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes and stalked away. I remembered being the bad kid a bit too well to let him win that easily.

  “Used to be you couldn’t act like that until you were officially a teenager,” I shouted after him, then slung my coat over the newel post as just about everyone else seemed to have done. Cocky? You bet. I was looking forward to this. There was a definite spring in my step. “Used to be that thirteen was the magic number.”

  “Yeah, well, sh—stuff changes, doesn’t it?”

  “‘Bout time you figured that out.” I got a glare for my trouble, then he slouched off toward the tinkle of activity from further down the hall.

  I strolled after him, taking a good look on the way. The house had a casual layout, the bedrooms clearly up the massive staircase on the right. The living room was full of small boxes. The bookshelves from James’ study at the old house stood empty against the far wall and the couch and chair from the old family room were parked in the middle of the floor. The smallest of their many former televisions held the place of honor,
the VCR light and time indicating that essentials - as defined by males - had been wired up.

  What must have been the dining room was devoid of furniture, empty boxes and packing materials from elsewhere littering the floor. But then, that solid mahogany dining room suite would have fetched a good buck, even used. Marcia’s cleaning lady had polished it religiously and it was a good-looking ensemble.

  Not that I care about such things. Really. I can think of better things to do with twenty or thirty thousand bills.

  The kitchen was enormous, real farmhouse style. I liked it a lot, despite the avocado green and harvest gold color scheme. It screamed ‘Welcome to 1974’, not a real selling point, but there were good bones behind that. Besides I love vintage and this was vintage squared.

  There were miles of counter space and a Dutch door led to a porch along the back side of the house. The cupboards were those old wooden ones with vertical lines of beading. It had high wainscots and enough room for a huge slab of a table by the back door. Some of the upper cupboards were open, presumably to display preserves and such, though they were empty now.

  All of the cabinets and wainscotting had been painted Ghastly Gold, and was grimy too, but I bet it was real wood underneath. Solid as new stuff never was. It might be worth stripping. There was truly hideous carpeting on the floor, also very dirty, though it can’t have been attractive in the first place. It reminded me of one afternoon that I had been foolish enough to baby-sit newborn Jimmy - as soon as his parents were out the door, he had promptly barfed up his pureed turnip and peas.

  You can bet that I didn’t get suckered into doing that again. Just the memory made me shudder. Yet, here I was, hunting down a man and prepared to jump his bones, despite the presence of two small adults in his life.