7

ON THE RIDE BACK from the police station, the conversation with Johnson played over and over in my mind. The guy was friendly enough, but he seemed to be making it clear that neither his friendship with my father nor my professional past was going to gain me any privileges. I understood and respected that. What I didn’t get was why he was putting his two cents in when it came to my relationship with my father. He was almost as bad as Greenleaf.

I was halfway back to the office when my cell rang.

“Mr. DeSantis, this is Maryann Fena, the Care Coordinator at The Palms. Your father’s carrying on is causing a problem. What you need to do is come in.”

“How did you get this number?”

“From Mrs. Greenleaf at The Blue Palmetto Detective Agency, if it makes a difference. Can I expect you in, say, a half hour?” I didn’t need more stress right then. “I need the address.”

She told me and I punched it in to my GPS as she gave it to me. Then I hung up and headed toward Savannah. To my surprise, the voice in the little box was not bringing me on the same road that I had taken to the police station. Instead it brought me east, toward the Atlantic side of the island and a bridge closer to the mouth of the river. It wasn’t a nice low drawbridge as the one I had used to come on to the island the day I arrived. This one was high enough to allow a sailboat to pass under it, but certainly nowhere near as high or long as the bridge up by Savannah. I gave it a shot, but the minute I drove onto the span and lost sight of the horizon I began to sweat and tighten my grip on the wheel. It passed as soon as I was over the crest and I could see a park below where the bridge met the mainland.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to The Palms Skilled Nursing Facility out by the Hunter Army Airfield. The place looked like a country club, a southern colonial brick building on manicured lawns surrounded by trees. When I was buzzed in, I entered a lobby that would do justice to a 5-star hotel. Leave it to my father to set himself up in style for his old age. The charge nurse didn’t know who I was, so she put me through the third degree. Eventually, she sent me to Maryann Fena’s office. Fena was a dour little woman with tiny wrinkles on her face to commemorate every cigarette she had ever smoked, including the one in her hand. The office smelled like she had stock in R. J. Reynolds. She was on the phone when I appeared at her open door. She waved me in to take a seat and ended her call. Then she crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray and hid it away in a desk drawer.

She exhaled heavily, sending out a lungful of smoke. She got right to the point.

“Your father is becoming a problem. He wanders the halls and he refuses to take his meds. He yelled at me today and told me to go to hell because he was going outside whether I liked it or not. He doesn’t have to like me, but he does have to follow the rules.”

I don’t like to make snap judgements, but there was something about her manner that I didn’t like either. It’s nice to know my father and I agreed on something.

“I’m told he has Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t all of that go with the territory?”

She pulled back her shoulders and gave a little shake as if she were startled that I should be so impertinent. “I was afraid that he might strike me.”

“Did he?”

“No, but the potential is there. I don’t trust Italian men.”

“Maybe the problem is with you then. Besides, he’s an American.” Like me.

“But he upsets the other guests.”

“He’s a guest, as you call them, too. I believe you knew he had dementia when he was admitted here.”

“Well then, bless your heart Mr. DeSantis, I hope that you will visit often. Visitations from family often help keep a patient under control. It’s nice to see a man take an interest in his father’s well-being. Usually we deal with daughters.”

What did she mean by that?

“Bring me to him.”

Reunion time. Twenty-eight freakin’ years later. Whoop-de-do. Let’s get this over with.

She directed me to the solarium where about a dozen ‘guests’ were seated as if waiting for a bus that would never come. A nurse pointed out a guy sitting in a wheelchair by the window. He wore a khaki bush hat with the brim raised on one side.

“That’s your dad over there,” she said.

“So that’s him. I expected him to look much older.”

“He is comparatively younger than most of our guests.” She was staring at me. “Is there something wrong?”

It took me a while to realize that she was talking to me.

“No. I’m fine. It’s been twenty-eight years. That’s all.” I had expected to feel a lot more than I did. Should I have been angry? Happy? Something… but what? For years whenever I needed him, I had practiced a hate-filled diatribe for when this day came. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Say what’s in your heart,” the nurse said.

“That might not be a good idea. He’s in a wheelchair. I didn’t realize he can’t walk.”

“He can walk. He’s just a little unsteady sometimes. We find it easier if we can keep the guests in wheelchairs.”

Skilled nursing facility, my ass. It was nothing more than an expensive convalescent home. And keeping the people in wheelchairs sounded like a control thing to me. I was willing to bet that they were all sedated. I was going to question her, but before I could Big Al started acting up.

“Go! Go!” He was tapping the window with a fancy walking stick and shouting at a squirrel that was raiding a bird feeder outside. “Damned monkeys!” he yelled.

“He’s not what I expected,” I said. “At least not with the bush hat and the walking stick.”

“He knows what he likes,” the nurse said. “He always wears the hat. As for the stick, he refused to use a walker or even a cane. Finally, his secretary bought him that stick a few weeks ago. It was a good idea. The alligator handle and brass tip don’t make it look so orthopedic. It meets regulations, so we allow it. But Ms. Fena’s warned us if he falls, it’s on our heads.”

‘He knows what he likes’ was her way of saying he always wanted his way. That much I remembered about him. He turned enough so that I could see his profile better, and even after all these years I recognized him as the guy who took off without so much as a good-bye when I was eight years old. The years had been good to him, and although he was wearing the hat, I could see he had hair more pepper than salt. He didn’t look as old as the rest of people in the room. Would he have reached seventy yet? Probably not.

I inched my way through the sunny room trying to formulate what I was going to say. Would I call him Dad? I didn’t think so. Would I even tell him who I was? Would I be able to hold it together without telling him what I thought of him?

I caught a break when a lady of no more than ninety pounds, her cheeks smeared with red make-up, waved me to come over.

“That man over there said we’re going to get two feet of snow. I have to get home before it starts.”

I looked in the direction she was pointing. Al Roker was doing a national weather report on the flat screen that hung on the wall.

“You’re fine,” I assured her. “No snow for us. He’s talking about Rochester, New York. Far from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Today’s all about sunshine for us. See.” I pointed to the window where my father was now sitting quietly.

“He’s always coming around telling stories,” she said.

I think she thought Roker was in the room. She motioned with her crooked fingers for me to move in closer. “I skipped school today,” she whispered, letting me in on her secret.

“Good for you. Enjoy the day.”

No sense in putting this off. I went over to the window and positioned myself to the side of the old man. I swallowed hard. I didn’t know how to address him. Sir? Mr. DeSantis? Not Dad. Definitely not Dad.

“Al.” No response. I walked between the wheelchair and the window so he could see me. “It’s me.”

His eyes were closed. What the hell? He was yelling at the squirrel a few minutes before. Dead? No, I saw his chest move. Sleeping, then. I sat in a chair next to him.

“Long time no see,” I said in a low voice. He moved a bit and I wondered if he was pretending to be asleep. “What’s it been, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years? Where the hell did you go to get that pack of cigarettes, China?”

The corner of his mouth curled up. Was that a smile or was he burping gas like a baby?

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“My father. I’m not going home. I like the women here. Except for their madam. Don’t get on the wrong side of Miss Fena.”

“I’m not your father. I’m your son.”

“My son.” His face grew serious. “My son. What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you. Why are you giving the nurses a hard time?”

He sat up and looked at me. There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“They give me a hard time. You want a sponge bath? They’ll do that for you.” He chuckled.

“Well, you have to knock it off. Okay?”

He closed his eyes again. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Good, then.”

“Who did you say you were?”

“Your son. Al. Yeah, I know you forgot about me a long time ago.”

“My son.” He looked like he was searching way back in his mind. Then there was a glimmer of recognition. “What the hell happened to you?”

“What happened to me? You’re the one who disappeared.”

He screwed up his face in a scowl. “I mean what happened to you? You used to be a cute kid. You look like shit.”

Two, three, four, five. He’s old. He’s old and sick. He’s paying. Hold it together. “Hey, I met someone you know today. Gil Johnson. He said you two go way back. You know how we met? A body washed up at the dock behind your house.”

“What body?” That seemed to catch the old man’s attention.

“I don’t know. A guy was wedged between the pilings and the Grady White.”

“What body?”

He began to squirm in the wheel chair.

“Hey, hey, sit down. You can’t get up. You’ll fall.” He stopped squirming. “Some guy who must have fallen out of a boat or something. Probably drunk. Johnson is investigating.”

He began squirming again. “God damned monkey!”

I looked outside. The squirrel was still raiding the bird feeder. “Yeah, well the squirrel’s gotta eat, too. Maybe it’s stealing to feed its family. Ever think of that?”

“Johnson.” he said.

“Right. He mentioned Granville. What, was that your one and only big case?”

“At least I had Granville. Did you ever think of that? I had Granville. What do you have?”

How about that. The old bastard was looking for an argument. I wondered if he had been acting up only so I would be called in so he could start a fight with me.

“I have my self-respect for one thing.” I took pleasure in the knock.

“Go!” he said.

Ah, so I struck a nerve. “I didn’t ask for Blue Palmetto or your house. In fact, if I had a choice, I’d be in California right now.”

“Go, damn it.”

I stood up. “I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to stop by again.”

There was anger in his eyes, and I felt a tinge of regret that I may have gone a little too far.

“Granville, Granville, Granville!” He yelled as he swung his walking stick. I jumped back in time not to get hit in the face by the brass alligator handle.

He was shouting so loud that two nurses came over to calm him down. One of them motioned for me to sneak away.

Before I did, I put my hand on his shoulder and he fell silent. But now instead of a twinkle in his eyes they looked dead like the eyes of a fish.

“I’ll tell Johnson you said hi.” Then I left.