Three

 

Henry had his tape measure out and was measuring the length of the living room when Chandra walked in. "Ten feet." He said a random measurement out loud as she entered. He hadn't actually looked at the tape measure at all.

"What you doing, Dad?" Age had already begun creeping across Chandra's face. The fat cheeks she always had as a youth were sallow now. Slight wrinkles began to appear under her eyes. She looked like a drawn version of her mother at that age. He wished she had her mother's enthusiasm for life.

Henry let the tape measure zing back into its red plastic case. It had a kick as it coiled up that jerked his hand slightly. "Just measuring the room."

"What for?" She hung her keys on the hook beside the door.

"I was thinking about getting carpet installed."

"Carpet? What's wrong with the tile?" She walked over to the sofa and sank into it.

"It's cold and hard on my feet."

"You need to measure again because I think that wall's longer than ten feet." She looked around the house as if looking for something. "What've you been doing today?"

"Measuring ... getting prices for carpets," Henry lied. He hoped she wouldn't ask him how much it would cost to get carpet installed because he really didn't know. "I went for a walk. Rosa dropped some old clothes off for me," he nodded toward the bag of clothes still sitting by the door, "and brought me soup later because she thought I looked sick."

"Were you still in your pajamas?"

"No," he lied again. He set the tape measure on the table and sat down on the window seat across from the sofa.

"Did you eat the soup?"

"I'll eat it tomorrow."

Chandra slumped back on the sofa. "I should make dinner."

"You seem so tired. How about we order pizza?" Henry said with forced excitement. "We haven't had pizza in a long time."

"That's fine. I don't feel like cooking anyway." She stood up slowly. "I'm going to change." She walked down the hall to her room.

Chandra was always so tired when she got home from work. Most of the time she tried to hide it, but Henry knew, and the last thing he wanted was to make her think she had to take care of him too. The problem was that he just couldn't manage to figure out how to take care of himself. He didn't remember when they switched roles. One day she was standing in the kitchen making dinner and he was watching the news. It happened like that every other day after.

Henry closed his eyes for a moment. With his eyes closed, all of his other senses were more acute. The air conditioner clicked on. Its cold wind blew directly on him making the hairs on his arms raise up. The refrigerator was running. He heard the thump thump of a bass-laden car passing on the street. The tile floor felt cold and unyielding against his stocking feet.

Before he knew it, Chandra was standing in front of him again. She wore a pair of gray exercise pants and an oversized pink panther T-shirt. She looked at him accusingly. "Don't worry. I'll call."

"What?"

"The pizza place. Did you call yet?"

"Not yet." Henry stood up. "I'll do it."

"It's no problem, Dad. I can do it." She beat him to the phone, so he let her do it.

Normally, Chandra would've offered to make a salad. Like her mother, she always insisted that they had vegetables with dinner. Sometimes Henry complained, but, secretly, he liked that. It made him feel healthy. When she didn't offer to make a salad, Henry wandered into the kitchen and pulled a wilted head of lettuce out of the crisper. The naked leaves hung limply in his hand. Their top edges were brown and shriveled. After examining it for a minute, he determined that it was unfit for consumption and stashed it back in the crisper.

"I think the lettuce needs to be put out. We'll never use it," Chandra called from the living room. She was sitting on the couch watching the news and filing her nails with a neon orange emery board. "I think we can just skip the salad today. One day without salad won't kill us, right? I got lots of veggie toppings on the pizza to make up for it."

"Sounds good." Henry opened the refrigerator again, pulled out the wilted head of lettuce and chucked it in the trash. He hated wasting food, but she was right, they weren't going to eat it.

They ate slices of pizza from paper towels. Henry put on the news. He kept the volume turned down low so Chandra could talk to him if she wanted. He watched her more than the television. She chewed slowly. She held the piece of pizza up balanced on her fingertips the entire time she was eating it, discarding the crust.

She had stopped eating the crust when she was twelve. One day she simply announced that she no longer liked it. That's exactly what she said. "I no longer like crust." She dropped the gnawed dough on her plate with bits of cheese and sauce still clinging to one end. She was fickle with food. She constantly changed her mind about what she would and wouldn't eat.

Ava used to complain about it all the time. She would make a meal especially for Chandra, and she'd sit at the dinner table and turn her nose up at it. "I no longer eat fish," she'd say. It wasn't a big deal to Henry, but to Ava, it was.

"It's no big deal," Henry would say. He'd squeeze Ava's soft shoulders reassuringly before disappearing into their bedroom to sort through files from work. How he regretted that now. He should've helped out more. At the time, he thought that housework was woman's work, and Ava had never asked for help. Henry spent all his free time trying to accomplish his financial goals. He thought he had all the time in the world to spend with his family. If only he'd known.

"You okay, Dad?" Chandra had finished her second slice of pizza and was getting up from the table.

"Ah ... yeah ... fine."

"Aren't you hungry?" She nodded toward the slice of pizza sitting untouched on his paper towel, puddles of grease forming on the cheese.

"I guess. I was just lost in thought."

"Umm." Chandra folded her paper towel in half and took it to the kitchen.

Henry heard the rustling of the garbage bag. "I'll take the trash out." He looked toward the blank wall that separated the dining area from the kitchen as he talked.

"Don't worry about it. I'll do it, Dad." She disappeared out the door with the trash bag before Henry could even get up.

"I'll put the pizza away when I'm done," Henry said when she came back in.

"Thanks." As Chandra passed him, she patted his back. "I'm exhausted tonight. I'm just going to do some reading and go to bed."

"Okay." He watched her walk down the hall and disappear behind her bedroom door.

Usually, Chandra would sit in the living room with him watching crime dramas or maybe an old movie if there was a good one on. They'd chat during commercials. It was never the life conversations Henry thought he should be having with his daughter. Instead, they talked about celebrity gossip and world news. Henry knew what his daughter thought about Middle Eastern conflicts and the latest pop star meltdown, but he had no idea what she wanted from her life. He didn't know who her friends were, or if she even had friends. He was hoping that she'd open up to him, but when you aren't used to confiding in someone it's hard to start.

Henry picked up the remote and turned up the television. There was a health segment about heart disease on. He took a bite of his lukewarm pizza. The cheese had already started to congeal. He felt the grease coating the inside of his mouth. As he chewed, his stomach started to churn. He dropped the pizza back onto his plate.

Henry waited until the news was over before cleaning up. Chandra came out of her room once to use the bathroom before disappearing behind her bedroom door again.

He put the leftover pizza in the refrigerator. Only three slices were eaten. This pizza would provide him with meals for the next couple days. He watched a crime drama on television. At about ten, he started dozing on the couch. His head hung forward. A stream of drool bridged the space between his mouth and his chest.

Chandra squeezed his shoulder. "Maybe you should go to bed."

Henry's head popped up. The stream of drool broke apart and clung to his chin. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. "I was sleeping."

"I know. You should get in bed." She took the remote from his lap and switched off the television.

"You're right."

Since retiring, it had become much easier for Henry to sleep on the couch. Without the distractions of work, Ava's absence was even more apparent to him. Without her, his bed just didn't seem to make sense anymore. The pillow always seemed too hard and the sheet tucked in too tightly. As soon as his head hit the pillow, his bladder started working overtime. In between bathroom visits, he'd lie on the hard pillow and stare at the ceiling. He never remembered actually getting any sleep.