Chapter Twenty-Six

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Thursday, October 5, 1995

 

Knowing the time was shortening before his surgery, Lillianna’s father seemed more urgent and told her story after story. Each morning when she entered his room, she was repeatedly surprised by his honesty. She hadn’t known how candid he could be. But it took a lot out of him, and he was always exhausted by the end of the day. He was nearly asleep when Greg and Sarah appeared in the doorway on Thursday night.

“What are you doing here?” Lillianna asked. She hadn’t expected them until tomorrow or Saturday.

“We did a lot of catching up last weekend, so we figured we’d come a day early and give you some time off.”

Lillianna was surprised by her disappointment. When she’d first arrived, the days passed so slowly she thought she’d be committed to a psychiatric facility if Greg and Sarah didn’t get there soon. But something had changed.

Greg turned to their father. “Hey, Pop. You look tuckered out. She been making you jog or something?” He stepped over to the bed and kissed the old man’s cheek, ruffled his hair. As always, the affection between the two of them seemed so easy.

Their father threw his head ack and laughed. “Nah. She’s been making me talk, though. Says she’s gonna write a book about me. Can you beat that?”

“I think it’s great. Are you telling her the truth or a pack of lies?”

“Gospel, son. Every word of it. Gospel.”

Sarah wore blue jeans, and a red turtleneck tucked in at her narrow waist. Her hair and eyes were as dark as Lillianna’s. And when they were young, people sometimes mistook them for sisters, something they both enjoyed as neither had one. She dropped two colorfully-wrapped presents with huge red bows on the tray beside his bed, then threw her arms around Lillianna.

“How you doing, sis? Long time no see. You look great. Is this old fart driving you crazy?” She glanced over at her father-in-law and winked.

Lillianna had always loved her brother’s wife. “You look pretty good yourself, Sarah. I like your haircut. And no, we’re doing great. If anyone’s steering the other toward the nut hut, it’s me driving him crazy with all my questions.”

Knowing they had adjoining rooms at the hotel, they didn’t spend much time with small talk. There would be plenty of chances for that later. Sarah sat on the edge of the bed, held Calvin’s face in the palms of her hands and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

He glanced at the gifts. “What’s this all about? It’s not my birthday, is it?”

“No, Pop. These are 'just because we miss you' presents. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“You miss me dropping in for supper, huh?”

“Greg’s getting sick of leftovers. When you’re around, we never have any. I do miss you, Pop.”

Sarah got up and crossed the room, where she stood looking at Calvin. Slowly, he turned his head and gazed back at her. His eyes suddenly sad, his mouth slackened, and his shoulders slumped.

“How’re you really doing, Pop?” Sarah asked. “Are you scared?”

At the question, his eyes expanded with tears, and he opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t make any words come. He shook his head. His lips pursed as he shut his eyes.

Sarah hurried back, pulled a tissue from the flat box on the tray, and wiped at the corners of his closed eyes. Then she embraced him, stroked his paper-white hair as if he were her child.

“I’m scared they’ll chop off my leg once they get me into surgery.”

“They can’t do that without your consent. But I know, Pop... I know how scared you must be.” Her voice was a murmur, low and comforting. “It’s real scary. Greg and I are scared, too, but you’re going to be all right. You’ve got one of the best surgeons in the world. You’ll be fine. I know it.”

Greg moved closer to the bed. “Pop, if you’re really scared, why not reconsider the amputation? It would give you the best chance. Be almost routine, Willingham says…”

Her father’s eyes shot open. “I don’t give a damn what he says. I’m not gonna let him cut off my leg. And that’s final! If I die, I die the way I lived, with both my legs. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

He patted the old man’s shoulder. “Okay. Okay, Pop. Don’t get so excited. Nobody’s going to make you do anything.”

“You better believe they won’t.”

Sarah put her arms around him again. Then suddenly Greg was beside her, and he wrapped his large arms around both of them, enclosing their father and the woman he loved. He held the old man he would take care of from now on and the woman who would help him do it.

When they untangled themselves, her father smiled at Greg and Sarah. To Lillianna’s surprise, a wave of jealousy rose at the easy rapport and intimacy among the three of them, the playful bickering and her father’s willingness to show them his fear. But what did she expect? Sarah had been more like a daughter to him during the last eighteen years than Lillianna.

Something happened to Lillianna in the witnessing of a love that seemed so strong and almost innocent. It made her feel small—like something mean, unworthy, and ashamed. How had her brother managed to come to that place where he seemed able to love their father without condition? Maybe Greg needed to rewrite their history and mold it in a way that became something he could not only live with but could love.

Or was it something else? Something unforgiving about Lillianna’s nature? Had she needed to hold on to the anger, hurt and resentment? Had it given her an excuse for her own dysfunction? One thing was certain, the river of rage inside her had changed its course and flowed in an entirely different direction now. She wanted what her brother and sister-in-law had with her father.

“I’m sorry, Pop. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Greg said.

“It’s okay, son. I know you’re only trying to help me.”

Greg turned to Sarah and Lillianna. “I think we should let him get some rest. He seems tired, and he’s got a big day tomorrow—a family reunion. His sisters and his brother are all coming. They plan to stay with Aunt Pam and Uncle Joel until the surgery. Do you think this hospital is ready for the whole Miller clan, Pop?”

Greg tried to lighten the mood, but their father wasn’t ready. “They must be thinking I’m gonna die, or they wouldn’t all be rushing over here like this.”

“You know how your family is, Pop.” He busied himself with the stack of get well cards on their father’s bedside table.

“I reckon it’s because we spent so much time separated as kids. It made us closer, somehow.”

Sarah placed the two wrapped packages on the windowsill. “Underwear and socks. You can never have enough.”

After saying goodnight, the three of them walked back to the hotel. The cool shock of autumn, the smell of leaves and damp earth, stung the night air and made Lillianna a little nostalgic. But somehow she enjoyed the uncomplicated clarity of the sensation. A huge, polished moon hung amber in the sky, with a single star, offset harmoniously like a jewel—the time of night that could promise a miracle.

“The harvest moon. Isn’t it spectacular?” Lillianna directed the question at her brother. “Remember when we were little, and Dad told us about the stars?”

“Yeah. Sober and in a good mood, he’d rattle off the names of constellations, then test our memories. That’s Venus under the moon tonight.”

“That was our father at his very best, all right,” Lillianna said. “Did you know he learned that stuff from his mother?”

“Yeah. He told me. He bought a star book for Kathy and Tyler when they were little.”

Why had Greg known these things about their father Lillianna hadn’t? The answer was simple: she’d never asked or taken the time to listen.

The three of them shared a light dinner in the hotel restaurant, said goodnight and closed the doors to their rooms.

Lillianna was exhausted. She turned on the bathtub water, threw in some hotel bubble bath, then called Steve as she did every night. They didn’t talk long. Steve understood how preoccupied she’d become with her father. And in the morning, she’d face Miller aunts and uncles she hadn’t seen since her mother’s death.

She flipped the radio to a classical station, folded a towel behind her head for a pillow, sank into the hot foaming water, and closed her eyes. The bubbles exploded on the surface of her skin like tiny pinpricks, and she allowed herself to enjoy the sensation. As the music lifted her into a state of flawless tranquility, away from her dark core of conflicting emotions, Lillianna suddenly realized she guarded these days with her father now, the way she’d once done with her mother.

To her surprise, she didn’t want all those other family members to come. She knew it was selfish, but she’d become territorial. Lillianna wanted those times all to herself—small bits of time where the father she’d denied for so long provided a mirror into both of them. He’d become a clear, still pond, into whose surface she could gaze for a glimpse of herself. A place where nothing else moved and their two lives aligned themselves and moved closer together.

The music shifted into a long, somber movement, chaotic and lacking harmony. It led her to a deeper, more intuitive place, no longer peaceful, but deserving her ear, if she could learn to listen.

She crawled into bed, having discovered the real story wasn’t about their attempts as human beings to blame each other, or even to rescue themselves from a past gone sour. Old indictments about his alcohol and abuse wouldn’t change anything. What remained for Lillianna, and her father was listening to each other in the new life that would spread itself out on the other side of that aortic transplant.

That realization arrived precisely as she finally stripped herself of her illusions about hating her father. She could no longer sidestep her grief at all the years together they’d lost through that pretense.

Inescapably resigned to the truth now, its arrival was unmarked by tears, but rather by clarity. The future deserved her concentration. As she drifted off to sleep, she had a quiet confidence and faith she and her father would be all right. Somehow, they’d find the heart and willingness to move past their mutual grief and continue. Lillianna was glad for that new confidence, glad because tomorrow the search for a donor would begin. And if all went well, he should have the surgery on Monday.