“Big appetite tonight?” Sandy Miller teased John as she loaded two subs and a bag of chips into a paper sack for him and rang up the order.
Until the fire at her grandmother’s dinner, she had been a plump, pleasant and permanent fixture behind the counter at Ruth’s. Transferable skills, as she liked to call them, had not only landed her the same kind of job at Gull’s Galley down the street but also, if the rumors John had heard were true, had brought her the smitten attention of the cook’s second cousin, Sam.
John grinned in response to her question as he reached into the hip pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “Mom’s playing Bridge tonight with her friends so Dad ‘n’ I are fending for ourselves tonight.”
“How’s he doing?” she thoughtfully inquired.
There had been no shortage of community concern and outpouring of get well wishes when the senior Neal had suffered a stroke the previous year that paralyzed the left side of his body. That there was always someone asking after him or wanting to know how Abby was holding up was just another one of the hometown constants that made John appreciate why his family had never wanted to live anywhere else.
“’Bout the same,” he confessed. “Good days ‘n’ bad. Doc keeps telling him that he’s trying to do too much too soon but you can guess how successful that is.” Sean Neal, just like his father before him, had a reputation for being one of the more stubborn denizens of Avalon Bay.
Sandy playfully poked the side of the bag. “Sure I can’t throw in some pie for you growin’ boys? Certified cure-all for whatever ails you.” She proceeded to tick off on her fingers the assortment she had available. “Oh, and I’ve got carrot cake, too,” she added, comically smacking herself in the forehead for having previously omitted it. “Your Dad love’s Nana’s carrot cake.”
“Sure,” he replied. “Mom’s won’t be back for a couple of hours. It’ll give me plenty of time to get rid of the evidence.” Ever since his stroke left the senior Neal in a wheelchair, his lack of exercise had caused him to put on a few pounds. Abby had put him on a strict, and successful diet to keep her husband as fit as possible to help his rehabilitation.
“No charge for the pie. Tell your Mom it’s from Nana. She wouldn’t dare get mad at her.”
“Will do. Thanks, Sandy. Say hi to Sam for me.”
The blast of a Quad cab truck horn as he stepped off the curb prefaced a yell from the passing Lenny Molino, one of several friends he still hung out with since his football-playing days. Unlike John, however, who had a successful business, Lenny was irresponsibly content to keep living his life as if he were on an endless summer break. A low-rung job at the factory kept him in just enough green to pay his rent and buy kegs but not so much that any of Avalon Bay bachelorettes would ever have considered him to be suitable husband material.
With muscular, tattooed arms wedged into a white T-shirt and a shock of woolly dark hair that perpetually needed a good trim, Lenny’s perceptions of himself as a babe magnet paled in comparison to the natural charm that John exuded just by cracking a smile.
“Wanna go to Kelley’s ‘n’ shoot some stick for beers?” Lenny called out.
“Don’t want to take your money,” John shot back. “Besides, I already promised Dad I’d spring for dinner.”
Lenny snorted as he pointed at the Gull’s Galley sack in his friend’s hand. “Cheap date.”
“Yeah? Takes one to know one.”
With another juvenile blast of his horn, Lenny took off down the street, reminding John for a brief moment of the funny truism that life in a small town moved at a different pace from the rest of the outside world. If he counted today, in fact, sometimes it felt as if it hadn’t budged in fourteen years.
As he pulled into the driveway, John could see that the curtains were open in the front room. Furthermore, that his dad was waving at him from the comfort of the sofa, not his wheelchair. The latter, he noticed once he stepped inside, was parked over by the television where his dad’s favorite game show was in progress.
Shelby, the female German Shepherd that John had bought as a puppy after he moved back from NYC, came bounding out in a black and tan blur from around the corner with a moist chew toy in her mouth that she promptly deposited on her master’s work boot.
“Not now, girl,” he apologized, dutifully scratching her head and tossing her toy a few feet away. Happy for only this fleeting moment of acknowledgment, Shelby went pouncing after it, vigorously shaking it back and forth before hunkering down and proudly trapping it between her paws.
“Mom come home early and help you out of the chair?” he asked his dad, this being a task that normally fell on his own broad shoulders.
Sean shook his head, dislodging a lock of grey hair into an unruly dip over his left brow. “Did it…myself,” he answered. Though he formed his words slowly and delivered them with a slur, there was no mistaking the sense of satisfaction that underscored the senior Neal’s announcement. “Even…cleaned up…too,” he added.
John scowled. “You know you’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that when we’re not here,” he reminded him. “What if you fell and hit your noggin?”
“Might be…an improve…ment,” Sean said. He lifted his right hand off his lap and pointed a shaky finger at the sack John was holding. “Good…eats?”
“Just a couple of sub’s from the Galley. Sandy threw in some carrot cake for you.”
A look of confusion came to Sean’s weathered face. “I…like carrot cake?” This seemed to be news to him. Along with his left-sided weakness, Sean’s memory also took a hit from the stroke.
“Last time I checked. But hey, if I’m wrong, it’s all the more for me.”
Sean nodded and, in returning his attention to the television, missed the melancholy frown that flitted across his son’s chiseled features.
Bored with her toy, Shelby came padding back into the room and now leaned dead-weight against John’s thigh, looking up at him with loving eyes of liquid amber.
“So how are these guys doing?” John asked, indicating the three contestants who were eagerly hanging on the host’s every word about how much money they could wager in the final round. “Do they know as many answers as you?”
“Not…so good…today,” Sean answered, although it was unclear to John whether he was referring to himself or to Donald, Susan and the bespectacled Carl with an ugly orange tie. In a halting speech punctuated by choked chuckles, he alluded to Donald having an eye for Susan. “He…smiles…at her,” he said.
“Smart dude,” John remarked, seeing as how Susan was currently besting both of her male opponents by the happy tune of $2,500. “Why don’t you keep watching and I’ll go grab us a couple of plates.”
As he crossed toward the kitchen, Shelby enthusiastically following, John’s glance absently fell on the day’s modest stack of mail on the mahogany end table.
“So who brought the mail in?” he inquired but his father was currently too absorbed in Susan’s next answer about heroes of the American Revolution to give a reply. Granted, the task of collecting letters and bills only involved retrieving them from where they landed on the carpet once they were shoved through the brass slot in the front door but it still bothered him that his dad may have exerted himself in that fashion.
Sifting through the pile, he was surprised to see a pair of large envelopes respectively bearing the names of two local colleges.
“Thinking about going back to school, are you?” he asked his dad. He repeated the question a second time, this time a little louder.
“What?” a distracted Sean murmured.
“Looks like you got some college brochures here,” John replied. “What’s up?”
“For…you.”
“Come again?”
Sean coughed and cleared his throat of some stubborn phlegm. “For…you,” he said again. “You could…go.”
John’s mouth quirked with humor. “Now why would I want to go back to college at my age?”
“Not…so…old.”
“Not so young, either,” he facetiously countered, wondering what, exactly, was behind all of this. “Besides, you’ve gotta admit I’m not doing that bad with the business.” He tossed out the reminder that he was even hiring a new helper for the summer.
“Carl…went to…Pur…due.”
John scratched his head. “Carl who?”
“Him,” Sean said, waving his good arm at the TV. “Pur…due.”
“You mean the guy who’s in third place? Yeah, uh-huh, I can see how all that learning’s really paid off for him.” He tossed the two envelopes on the coffee table. “Want me to set up some TV trays out here or shall we eat our feast in the dining room?”
Sean, however, refused to be deterred from what he had struggled to start. “We can…pay,” he said.
It was impossible for John not to return his dad’s lopsided but earnest smile or to walk back to the sofa, lean over and squeeze his good hand. “You guys really don’t have to do anything for me, Dad. I’m doing just fine.” In fact, he went on to explain, he’d gotten a couple of calls only the other day from a contractor who wanted to talk about trees for the new exclusive subdivision being built along the beachfront.
Sean blinked his eyes a couple of times as if trying to re-catch a fleeting train of thought. “There’s…mon…ey,” he said. “Still…is. All of…it.”
He bowed his head and drew a deep breath. “That money’s for you and Mom,” he quietly replied. “End of subject.”
“So, how’d I do on the sub?” John asked ten minutes later as he wheeled Sean to the head of the dining room table. Shelby, as was her canine tradition, had already taken up her post under John’s chair and was awaiting her usual slip of forbidden treats.
To a sub purist, the sight of the neatly dismantled cold cuts, cheeses, and two halves of bread splayed on either side of the plate would not only have been alarming but also seeming to defeat the purpose of its being artfully stacked high to begin with. That Sean functionally possessed the equivalent of just one hand to work with and had difficulty chewing, however, had called upon John to be creative.
“Good,” he replied, a bit sadly. Sean tentatively grabbed one end of the sandwich and dragged it over to the side. John could see the sorrow in his father’s worn eyes. Subs were one of his favorite foods. John knew it pained him to not be able to enjoy them as he used to.
John put the matter aside with casual humor, cognizant of the reality that there was no one-size-fits-all pattern to a stroke victim’s recovery process. Like he’d told Sandy, there were good days and bad and no predicting the order, or frequency, of either one.
“So, you’ll never guess who I gave a ride to today,” he said between noshes on his sandwich. “Remember Kate Toscano? We used to go out in high school?”
“Tos…Tos…”
“Toscano,” John repeated, trying not to appear too anxious for a glimmer of memory on his father’s part.
“Lid…die’s…girl?”
John grinned. “Right. Lydia’s girl. Do you remember her?” He proceeded to offer a brief description that ended with the observation she was even prettier than she was as a teenager.
Sean, however, was absorbed at the moment in trying to jiggle a slice of Provolone cheese out from under the piece of Salami that partially covered it. Shelby’s twitching black snout poked out from beneath the tablecloth in anticipation of a mishap.
“Anyway,” John continued, “she was out visiting her mom for a while.” He hesitated, wondering whether he should tell him the reason why or just leave it at that. “Did I mention she lives out in Vegas?” He went on to relate that she’d become a writer just like she had always said she would and that she worked for a magazine that was all about shows and shopping and celebrities. “She’s got a nephew, too,” he said, deeming Jimmy a safe enough topic to yak about. “His name’s Jimmy and he’s five or so. Sweet kid. He likes parades.”
John allowed his mind to wander for a moment, savoring the memory of what it had felt like, even briefly, to hold Kate in his arms again and pretend he was her knight in shining armor. Wishful thinking, of course. Someone as special as Kate deserved a real one, not some blue-collar guy who saved trees for a living and had moved back home to look after his parents. It seemed, sadly, that the chasm between them had widened even farther since the last time they parted.
Purposely, he reflected, he hadn’t asked her too much about her personal life during the ride to the airport. Certainly, though, it had to be a secure one that included a husband or a boyfriend or else she wouldn’t have taken on the enormous responsibility of bringing a special needs child into it. Good for her, he thought, trying to tuck away any lingering feelings of regret about the past and simply label the unexpected crossing of their paths that morning as just a freaky coincidence that didn’t merit any further speculation.
He reached for a handful of chips. “So, did you catch any good games today on TV?” he asked, trying to change the conversation to anything rather than talk about the girl who got away.
Sean gazed upon his son knowingly. The damage from the stroke had affected the motor cortex and perhaps a part of the deeper hippocampal formation on the right side of his brain. Despite these deficits, his mind was still as sharp as ever. He noticed the dull ache in his son’s eyes, a pain he hadn’t perceived in some time. As a matter of fact, it had been well over twenty-five years since he had seen a similar look in the mirror. He decided to let it pass, not wanted to resuscitate such sadness in either himself or his son.
“No,” Sean answered quietly. His appetite suddenly gone, he pushed his plate aside. I think… I’ll go lie down.”
“You feeling alright, Pop?” John asked. “I told you before you need to wait for us to help you out of your chair. I know therapy’s going well, but I think you’re doing too much, too fast.”
“Not… enough.”
John regarded his father. He had become so frail since the stroke. His mind and will was strong, but his body was failing. “Let me help you upstairs, at least.”
The Neal’s old two-story house had no downstairs bedroom. John had moved in after the stroke to help his parents. He was putting money aside to help get them a one-story, wheelchair compatible house, but real estate on the shore was getting so expensive. In the meantime, he would do what he could to ensure his father had some quality of life and normalcy.
“Look at…brochures,” Sean told his son, enunciating carefully to ensure he was understood.
“I will. We’ll talk about it another day,” he replied as his father stood up from the chair. The lack of strength and tone of his left arm and leg had prevented him from being able to use a walker, but he could walk while holding on to John. One step and a time, John carefully helped lift his father’s heavy, weighted left leg as they slowly climbed the steep stairs. Finally, Sean breathing a bit heavily, they reached the top.
“Take a rest, Dad.”
“I’m okay,” replied Sean as he started out again, carefully making his way down the short hall to his bedroom.
Sean’s tenacity was legendary, but John feared he was pushing too hard. He let it pass, knowing his father’s self-esteem and pride were being chipped away every time he needed someone to cut up his food or help him get up from a chair. Hope, determination and the love of his family was all that kept Sean alive. John would ensure his father kept all three.
After John helped Sean into his room, he closed the door and returned downstairs. He walked by the unopened college brochures on the coffee table.
“Another day,” he said aloud and continued into the kitchen to clear the table.