Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Delilah
Me
So I hate to even ask this, but Dad is convinced someone stole his wallet. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is? (I promise I’m not accusing you, I’ve just looked everywhere for it)
Roberta
I told you to text me with any questions ;) I’m not offended, don’t worry.
Roberta
Check the flowerpot on the front porch. That’s where we found it on Wednesday.
Me
Ding, ding, ding! Flowerpot was the correct answer.
Roberta
Yay! What do I win?
Me
…the pride of knowing you we re right?
Roberta
I’ll take it!
“What do you mean, you don’t have shrimp sandwiches? We always get shrimp sandwiches.”
The waitress—a girl of about sixteen with glitter eyeshadow and braided hair—shifts her weight uncomfortably. “We do normally, but we ran out.” Her gaze cuts to me, flaring wide, then back to Dad again. “I’m real sorry, sir.”
I bite my lip. Dad’s cheeks are flushed. His hands shake where they grip the menu. His gaze dances over the words but doesn’t register on any one thing. He reaches for his glass, but a particularly harsh tremor knocks it sideways. The table floods with water. Our napkins, the bread plate, and even my lap get soaked. Tears fill the wrinkles at the corners of my dad’s eyes.
“You know what, why don’t we get burgers, Dad? You love their burgers.”
I do my best to keep the panic out of my voice, but my nerves are frayed. I don’t know how to make this better, and people are starting to stare, including Kyle Miller, who sits at a booth across the aisle from us. Recognition flares in his eyes, because of course it would in this moment when I wish most to slip under the radar. The waitress grabs extra napkins from a nearby table and starts patting up the spill. Dad’s mouth parts and then closes. It’s too much. And I’m not enough.
“I want to go home,” he whimpers.
My throat seizes around a breath, lodging it in my lungs. A burning sensation fills my chest, the base of my neck, the pit of my stomach. I want to fix this, but I don’t know how.
I exchange a desperate look with the waitress. She’s so young and just as confused as I am, but I could plant a kiss on her forehead when she offers, “I can get some burgers to-go for you?”
My responding nod is only halfway done when she pivots on her heel and makes a break for the kitchen.
“It’s all right, Dad.” I stand, ignoring the whispers Kyle exchanges with the other guys at his table. People from high school that I’ve all but managed to forget. “We’re going home.”
Dad won’t look me in the eye. His gaze remains locked on the ratty gray carpet as we make our way to the hostess podium. In my peripheral, I notice his chin wobbling, and it shatters a piece of my heart.
I cup his elbow, calling his attention to me. He pauses but doesn’t look up.
“We’re gonna wait here for our food, okay?”
He glances at the podium, brow furrowing. “Shrimp sandwiches?”
“No, Dad. They’re out of shrimp. I got us burgers.”
“Out of shrimp.”
“Yes, sir.” I slide my hand up his bicep in a soothing motion. “But you like their burgers.”
He smacks his lips and drops his gaze back to the floor. The toe of his shoe scuffs against the carpet. “I like their burgers?”
“You do. And so do I.”
He shakes his head. “What’s wrong with me, sweet pea?”
I study my father. The gray at his temples that makes him look so distinguished. The slight bend to his nose. His lips part, exposing that crooked front tooth. It’s the most jarring part of this whole thing. That he can look so much the same and internally be wasting away.
At his appointment today, he told the doctor I was taking care of him for now, but that he will eventually go into a care facility. He’s been agitated the past few days, and every time, as soon as the moment passes, he either begs me for forgiveness or has forgotten it happened altogether. When he does remember, he explains this is exactly why he can’t stay home. Why he won’t.
I assured the doctor this was incorrect, that I’d be caring for Dad till the very end. But when he handed me a prescription sheet for a new medication to add to Dad’s regime, there were a handful of pamphlets beneath it. Brochures for facilities in the surrounding area. It took everything in me not to dump the stack in the garbage on the way out.
I clear my throat. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Dad. Just a rough day, that's all.”
Dad fiddles with the toothpick dispenser but doesn’t comment.
Images of Nana in her room at her facility flit through my mind. The cold, sterile walls with generic hotel art and the floral love seat where she’d always be sitting when we arrived. I try to imagine my dad in a place like that, and a shiver runs down my spine. Sure, she had nurses on call and someone there to remind her to eat and bathe. Dad and Mom were busy raising me, working full-time. They couldn’t do that for her. But with my job’s flexibility and Roberta’s help…
I square my shoulders against the mental onslaught of fears. Insecurities. Too many damn questions to count. At the end of the day, he’s my father. No matter what, it’s my job to take care of him. To do what’s right. After everything, I owe him that much.
“Here you go.” The waitress offers a tight-lipped smile as she places the to-go containers on the hostess stand. “That’ll be $24.15.”
I fish a few bills out of my wallet and place them in her open hand. “Keep the change. And thanks so much.”
We lock gazes, and she gives me an empathetic nod. I look away so she won’t see the fresh tears welling up in my eyes.
While Dad picks at his dinner, I busy myself with small chores in between encouraging him to keep eating. I straighten up the living room. Do a load of laundry. Divvy his new meds into the pill organizer and add a note to Truett’s handwritten instructions. Anything to keep my mind occupied. Between the doctor’s visit, the episode at dinner, and my own unrelenting brain, it’s all too much. Since I got here, I’ve done everything to convince myself that Dad’s diagnosis is mild. Maybe even a mistake. But the more time that passes, the more it becomes clear. And that clarity is cutting me straight through.
As I clean up the remnants of our dinner—which took two hours to complete as Dad went back and forth over whether he did, in fact, like burgers—he opens and closes each kitchen cabinet in turn. I sweep the last of my stodgy, half-eaten burger into the garbage (it’s hard to have an appetite when you’re focused on getting someone else to eat) and suck in a breath.
“Can I help you find anything?”
He scratches the back of his head. “Did you feed Skittles?”
I close my eyes, chest deflating, and nod.
A low grumble of understanding, and then he turns toward the hall. “Guess I better shower.”
He shuffles past the bathroom, then retraces his steps, head hung low. I wait with bated breath for the water to start running. For the charts to do their job. For the tension to eek out of my spine at last.
After a beat, the hot water screams to life. I let myself exhale.
Then there’s a clatter, followed by mumbled cursing. I take a nervous step forward, and then another. Something else falls. A shampoo bottle, by the sounds of it. Anxiety ripples through me. What if he’s fallen? What if he’s hurt?
I jump as something solid hits the other side of the door. My hand closes around the doorknob. It’s locked. “Dad? Do you need me? ”
More mumbling. I rap my fist against the hardwood.
“Dad!”
“Get the fuck away from me!”
I jump backward, my back slamming into the wall opposite the bathroom. A searing pain reverberates through my shoulder, but it’s nothing compared to the one in my heart.
I don’t know if you ever get used to your normally gentle, encouraging parent screaming at you like this. There’s so much vitriol in his voice that it disturbs my sense of equilibrium. I feel like I’m falling, though I’m safely braced against the wall. Trembling, I step forward and flatten my palms over the door, ignoring the erratic breaths forcing their way out of my lungs.
“I can help, Dad.” My voice is softer now. I’m just as afraid to be let in as I am not to. “But you’ve gotta unlock the door.”
“I don’t want you!” His voice is desperate, like the cries of a trapped animal.
Tears spring forth, dripping down my cheeks in slow rivulets. I let my forehead fall against the hardwood. “I’m all you’ve got.” I’m sorry, I want to add. I wish I was more. The loneliness grips me. Swallows me whole. “You’ve got to let me in.”
Something else hits the door. Steam from the shower billows out from the crack at my feet. I watch it curl around my legs, then dissolve entirely. I can barely hear my dad’s heavy breathing over the rush of water. Then, a keening like I’ve never heard before. Worse than Roberta reminding him of Lucy, though at the time, I couldn’t have imagined it possible.
Roberta. Fuck. I find my purse where I discarded it on the island. My phone lights up, and I click on our conversation from this morning. I don’t even bother typing it all out. With trembling fingers, I select her contact image and press call.
It goes straight to voicemail. Before I’ve gotten a single word out, a message comes through. One of those automated ones that lets me know the person I’m trying to reach is driving, but they’ll get back to me soon. I drop the phone on the counter without leaving a message. Dad’s sobbing grows louder. I want to plug my ears. I want to be let inside. I don’t have a fucking clue what to do.
My head falls into my hands. I lift my gaze, scrubbing my face as I do. In the distance the windows of the farmhouse glow like beacons on the hilltop. I suck in a breath.
Dad’s phone lies abandoned on the kitchen table. I grab it, grateful he’s trusting enough not to password protect it, and select Truett’s name from his speed-dial list.
“Henry? Is everything all right?”
A small whimper escapes my lips even as I clamp down on it.
“Delilah?” Something clinks in the background, like he’s setting down a glass. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Dad.” I hate how weak I sound. How out of control. But I am. And it makes me desperate. “He’s locked himself in the bathroom and won’t let me in.”
“I’m on my way.”
I see the door open and a figure bound down the front steps, silhouetted by the porch light. There’s a covered shed behind the house, and moments later the headlights of a four-wheeler appear from around the corner. They bounce and shift as he traverses the land between our two homes. He never hangs up. I hear the rip of the engine and his steady breathing. I align mine to it on instinct, and it calms my racing heart.
From inside the bathroom, the distinct sound of a curtain rod falling brings me back to the chaos.
“Dad! Truett is coming.” I press my ear to the door. The sobbing has slowed, but the muttered cursing has returned. “He’ll be here any?—”
“I’m here,” Truett calls from behind me. The front door remains wide open, his shoes on, as he crosses the space between us. His hand falls to the base of my spine, the other to the doorknob. “Henry, it’s Tru. You’ve gotta let me in, ya hear? Delilah’s real worried.”
A shadow interrupts the light under the door. I inhale sharply and point, drawing Truett’s gaze downward.
He nods. Taps lightly on the door. “Open up, Henry. Let me help you.”
“I don’t want her to see me like this,” Dad whisper-shouts, his earlier anger all gone. These words are comprised entirely of desperation. Stitched together with utter shame.
Tru’s gaze meets mine and softens. The hand that was resting against my spine now lifts to my cheek, wiping away a fresh flood of tears. “I’ve got this, Delilah. Just wait for me out here?”
Despite everything inside me that screams it’s my responsibility, I relent. If my dad doesn’t want me, I can’t force it. It’ll only cause more pain for us both.
I step out of Truett’s orbit, feeling cold to the bone the second I do. Halfway to the living room, I hear the lock disengage and the door ease open. A glance over my shoulder catches Truett disappearing inside. Soft voices join the flow of water and the sound of my breaking heart.