The night before Dad’s eighth treatment, I walk him around at midnight while Mom takes a rest. Dad really hates the treatments.
“I can’t get back on that table,” he says.
“You have to. It’s all planned. They’re expecting us.”
“Why don’t you call them, early in the morning, and let them know we’re not coming.”
“We can’t, Dad. You have to go. Just one more. Then never again. Then you can relax. I promise.”
I’m as tall as Dad, and my arm feels good where it rests along his bony shoulders. My outside hand holds his wrist so I can suppress any rubbing compulsion. We look like a couple about to begin a square-dance maneuver.
I feel alert and happy tonight. Although it seems strange, I’m realizing that these have been good times. I’ve felt occupied and useful, and I’ve never spent so many hours with my father. But now our togetherness may have peaked—he’s been talking about going back to work again.
No one can deny that Bill Junior has been there when needed, like Mom’s uncle Jack, who fell into the tight squeeze in Normandy in World War II by standing under a blanket filled with air.
Will life be cutting me down to size now? I feel my regular life, boring, disappointing, and mediocre, tugging me back with a hundred strings. It wants to turn me into a two-inch-high toy parachute man who will sit in a drawer until someone takes him out again. Folded, rubber-banded, put aside, waiting.