“There are ways to slow it down.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Not to live longer?”
He shakes his head. “Not happening.”
“Living longer? It can. If drugs slow it down and then a cure is found—”
“It’s too late for me.”
“How do you know that? Listen to you now. You are totally coherent.”
His breathing is starting to level. He knows enough to give it a minute more, pulling air in and blowing it out. With the last, longer exhalation comes sadness. A tragic smile shapes his mouth, but it does nothing to cushion the words. “It comes and goes. Sometimes I’m good, other times I put a shoe on the wrong, uh, uh, side. I know it feels wrong, but I don’t know why.” He darts a look around, as if someone is listening, and speaks in a more confidential tone. “I can be at Anne’s and not know anyone there. It’s a foreign place. I can’t remember names.” He gives a humorless laugh. “Always that. Names are hard.”
“You knew Howard and Don.”
“You did. I repeated you.”
“You know about bluff retreat.”
“I do not. I know about law, and the law in this case is clear. The law dictates,” he declares, “that planting can only be done within twenty feet of a public building. For anything else, you petition the state for a variance. Do you have one of those?”
“Uh… uh…”
His voice lowers again. “Now you’re angry.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to follow. It’s a lot to take in.” Afraid that he’s leaving me, I scramble for more. “Does Anne know about this?”
“About what?”
I tap my head.
His hand cuts a no.
“What about your doctor?”
He repeats the motion, but is suddenly up from the stairs and walking toward the ocean end of the house. I feel a moment’s panic, imagining him going down and walking into the sea, farther and farther, until it swallows him up.
Rather than head for the stairway, though, he rounds the house and enters the backyard. Friends were always amazed that we had one, since, technically, the ocean was our backyard. But not every day was a beach day, and we were kids. We used to have a swing set here, though it fared worse than the gnarled scrub pine on the road. The Hartleys would have to sand it each year when they groomed the paths.
Shrubs still bordered the house in beds that my mother carved out. They were salt-tolerant ones, like blue juniper, dark green holly, and silver thorn, and aside from the occasional large-scale replacement, when she stood over the Hartleys telling them exactly what to put where, the shrub beds were all hers. She also planted daisies, black-eyed Susans, and varieties of lilies and irises that could live near the sea.
Early mornings, late afternoons, mid-days when Dad was home and we were in each other’s hair, she escaped to the potting shed. Itwas her refuge. In the years since we left, especially since she died, I’ve often pictured her here.
I remember her humming as she unpotted new accent plants and repotted old ones. I remember how she would smile as she watched the sky lighten the windows in the greenhouse nook, and how she would gather us all in the backyard to oooh and ahhh over the fruits of her labor. I remember the pride Dad took in the landscaping when we had friends, colleagues, even clients here for cookouts.
Actually, no. I don’t. Remember, that is. These are wish-it-were memories, meaning, likely not true. My mother couldn’t hold a tune, she had us digging and lifting more than ooohing and ahhhing, and as for Dad showing pride? I do not recall that.
Yet here he is now, striding over the grass to the potting shed. It is small, little more than eight by ten feet, its wood frame a sea-worn gray and roughened by age, its windows streaked with sand. The greenhouse nook is a wall of glass that curves into the roof facing south for the most sun. The other walls have normal windows, albeit small ones to allow for storage inside. Even then, Dad complained that all the glass made the shed more vulnerable in high winds, but other than one hurricane when several broke, Mom’s guardian angel kept them safe.
This was her happy place. No wish-it-were memory this one. She may not have smiled at the sun or sung to her plants, but the potting shed was her domain. Dad did not step foot in it.
He doesn’t now, simply opens the full Dutch door, which moves with surprising ease given the neglect of the rest, and, holding himself straight, looks inside. What little I can see past him doesn’t appear to have been touched in years. But there is nothing warped about that door.
He’s been here before, I realize and feel a pang of sentiment. Missing my mother? I picture him standing here talking with her, asking about the iris she just planted or the loam she uses to bolster the soil. But of course, he didn’t do either.
Annoyed by that, I ask, “Why have you told me this, Dad?”
