CHAPTER 23

THE STEAM OF THE BATH AND THE SCENT of allspice and jasmine soap rose around them. Adele focused on the tufts of grey at her father’s temple. She didn’t let her gaze fall below his waist. On her knees beside the tub, she ran a cloth along her father’s back until he whispered, “Thank you, Adele.” Sobs escaped his throat. “I know I should be a man and stop crying, but…”

Adele interjected. “It’s all right, Babba.”

He wiped his eyes, then nose. “I feel like a child again.”

Adele bit her lower lip before scooping some water in a plastic container and slowly pouring it over her father’s body.

For the next few weeks, Adele and her father settled in a routine. She’d help her mother by bathing her father, dressing him, and trying to feed him, though his stomach always refused food. Then Adele cleaned the remnants of the meal her mother had carefully prepared from a bucket beside the bed. Oftentimes, she simply sat at his bedside and listened to him tell her stories.

“I felt so disloyal to my heritage for abandoning my birth country, my mother. I should’ve stayed in Lebanon but now it’s too late. I thought the only way I could preserve my culture was through my children. I wanted you to speak Arabic, eat our foods, learn our customs and traditions. I wanted you to embrace it fully—be fully Lebanese, not half. What kind of life did I have here?” He shuddered and sank further under the covers.

She had often wondered what it was like for her parents to have left their homeland for a country so new, so different. Were they as scared as she had been when she left her family? Now she knew. She gave her father a gentle smile and said, “You raised a family here. You did pretty well for someone who didn’t know the language. You should feel proud. It was no small thing to pack up and leave and start fresh in a foreign country. You succeeded, Babba. You should feel proud.”

Youssef frowned. “I was like my father.”

“It’s okay, Babba. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He shook his head, tears on his face too. “I made you feel less than what you really are—a kind, beautiful person.”

“It’s okay,” she mumbled.

“It’s that easy, Adele? Can you forgive so easily?”

No, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. He was dying.

“You’re an amazing daughter,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.

She laid her head on his flattened belly and began to weep all over again. She felt her father’s hand weakly smoothing her curls.

“Did you know that I had another sister, Adele?” Youssef said to Adele while she changed his socks.

“Besides Aunt Nabiha?”

“Imagine that! My sister Nabiha thinks she’s the one and only sometimes, eh?” Youssef laughed until he began to retch. Adele quickly picked up the bucket beside his bed and held it under her father’s mouth. Afterwards, she walked into the bathroom and emptied the vomit into the toilet then headed into her father’s bedroom again.

They picked up the conversation as if nothing unusual had happened. “Aunt Nabiha means well, I suppose,” Adele said.

“Well, my mother had another daughter before Nabiha was born. Her name was Hanan and she was a beautiful baby. My mother loved her dearly. But one day Hanan just stopped breathing. I remember poking her while she was in the crib and she wouldn’t wake up, so I ran to my mother and when my mother picked her up, Hanan was a lifeless doll in her arms. I will always remember the anguished wails that came out of my Mama’s mouth, such a sad song for my baby sister.”

Adele slumped on the chair across from her father’s bed. “I never heard about this.” She looked down at her hands, rubbed them together, realizing she knew little about her father.

“I didn’t tell anyone but your mother. I pushed it out of my memory but now my thoughts are turning to Hanan, that precious angel baby.”

“Sito must have been devastated.”

“Yes, she couldn’t even attend Hanan’s funeral. I had to carry her tiny body into the crypt. My aunts had wrapped Hanan in a white cloth as if she were being baptized. I had to carry her into the burial place because neither one of them would do it. I was afraid and I didn’t want to do it either, but they said, Youssef, you must be a man and carry your little sister to her final resting place. Don’t look at the other bodies, just place her in an empty spot and come back out, okay? I didn’t want to but I had no choice. The crypt was so small and smelled of rot like the way vegetables do when you let them get too old. There was so much dust too. I thought I was going to be blinded by the haze, but I couldn’t rub my eyes because I had Hanan in my arms. And as quickly as I entered, I found a place and left her next to a body that must have been there for several years because spiders were crawling on the old yellowed cloth. When I emerged outside, my aunts ran to me and hugged me tightly while kissing my cheeks. They kept telling me that I was a brave boy but I wasn’t so brave, I had wet my pants. When my father saw the stain, he pulled me out of my aunts’ embraces and slapped me across the face. You’re nothing but a kalb. Worse than a dog, because even a kalb knows how to raise his leg without pissing himself. I remember running away to the river where I cleaned myself and wished it had been me that had died and not my sister Hanan.”

Adele got up and stood in front of her father. “I’m sorry, Babba.”

“Don’t be, babba. We all have our hardships. These times make us stronger, don’t they?”

“Do you really believe that?” Adele asked, her voice rising.

“I have to. How else can I explain why I treated you so badly?”

Breathing deeply, Adele left the room and headed downstairs; she needed a break.

Two days later, Adele sat on the edge of her father’s bed and held a glass of water against his dry lips. He hadn’t eaten much in several days but on this day, he requested a small glass of water. He took slow, forced sips, most of the water slipping down his chin. Adele’s long fingers wiped his chin with efficiency. She had learned over the past weeks about the work of a nurse or caregiver. By the end of each day, she was exhausted and saddened. She’d crawl into her bed and fall into a deep sleep. Each morning she mustered the strength to get out of bed, shower, dress, eat breakfast, and begin the whole process of taking care of her ailing father once more. Where she found the courage, she didn’t know, but every day she felt more determined to help her father die in a peaceful and dignified way.

She smiled as she held the glass against her father’s thin, chapped lips and remembered all the times he had done so for her when she was too young to hold a glass by herself. There were good memories; they were just buried deeper in her mind, hidden by the negativity that sat at the top. Slowly, every day, the daily routine she had developed with her father helped each beautiful memory to ripen like the grapes on the vines of the homemade trellis her father had built years ago in their front yard for Samira’s grape leaves.

Adele placed the glass on the bedside table then wiped the leftover drops of saliva and water around her father’s mouth. His frail fingers reached up and encircled her wrist. “Thank you,” he said in a hoarse voice. When he dropped his hand, Adele got up and sat on the chair across from his bed. With a sinking heart, she contemplated her father’s gaunt body. She used to tease him about the roundness of his belly by saying, “so when is the baby due?” She touched her wrist and felt the coldness his flesh had left on her skin. His ankles were now as thin as her wrists, she realized, staring at the shape of his legs under the blanket. She watched the rapid rise of his chest. Each breath was a struggle. Suddenly Youssef closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow. She moved closer and gently stroked his face. Youssef opened his eyes again and smiled weakly.

Adele finally spoke the words she had always wanted to say but hadn’t known how to, ashamed to show to this man who had hurt her in so many ways, how much she needed him. “I love you, Babba.”

Youssef smiled again, his eyes shiny and wet. His breathing became shallow and his eyes opened and closed as if fighting an oncoming, urgent sleep. “I love you too. Remember that. Remember how much I love you. Take care of your mother.” He paused, licked his lips.

Adele called out, turning her head in the direction of the hallway, “Mama! Hurry! Come quick!”

Youssef smiled again. “You’re a good daughter. Promise me you’ll remember me. Promise me … remember me.”

“You’re my father. How can I ever forget you? We still have time. Don’t close your eyes, Babba. Stay awake,” she said, stroking his forehead, then resting her head on his chest. She listened to his rapid heartbeat. “We still have so much to say, so much … stay,” she pleaded.

Youssef grew silent. He closed his eyes, a small smile lifted his mouth.

Adele buried her face in his chest. She didn’t hear her mother’s quickening footsteps, only Samira’s wailing.