Twenty-Eight #3
“You’re staying?” He looks delighted. “I’ll tell them to prepare one of the guest rooms.”
We have dinner together. A plate piled high with steamed vegetables, accompanied by two vegetable smoothies, one orange (I
could definitely taste apple and carrot), one green (I’m guessing kale, spinach, cucumber, and celery).
“I could eat like this for the rest of my life,” says my father as I spear the vegetables and wish there was salt somewhere
on the premises. Apparently there is not, salt being one of the many things the patients here are told to cut out. No salt,
coffee, alcohol, grains, meat, fish, dairy.
“You can’t eat like this for the rest of your life or you’ll never put the weight back on,” I say. “Couldn’t you go for a
steak?”
My father closes his eyes briefly. “Oh God,” he moans. “A steak. I haven’t even thought about steak since I’ve been here.
I would kill for a steak right about now.”
“Do you want me to sneak you in something? I bet I could find a restaurant somewhere around here to make you a steak.”
He grins. “That’s more like it! You are a rule breaker after all! No, I don’t want you to bring me a steak, only because I’m
trying to do everything by the book. But atta girl. It makes me happy that you would sneak one in for me. As soon as I’m home,
we’ll go to Sundance and I’ll have the biggest steak they have.”
I point to the vegetables with a grin. “I thought you could eat like this for the rest of your life?”
“Who said that? Me? I don’t think so.”
“I got you something.” I reach into my bag and pull out the box, now beautifully gift-wrapped, placing it in front of him.
“What’s this?” I watch him turn the box over in his hands. I look at his square fingernails, his large wrists, the small scar on his right middle finger from when he was microplaning a sweet potato and sliced through his skin. I know his hands so well. They are the same as mine.
“You bought me a watch?” This is so typical of my father. It is impossible to surprise him. I think of what I should have
done. Placed the watch inside a box, inside a box, inside another box. I should have wrapped it with cheap drugstore wrapping
paper, instead of elegant paper with an insignia that shouts: I’ve bought you an expensive watch!
Marty whistles as he opens the box. “A Patek Nautilus.” He looks from the watch, to me, to the watch again. “Peanut. This
is quite a gift.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s amazing.” He’s frowning, though. “I don’t know that you should be spending this kind of money on me.”
I force a grin. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the CEO of ipryy. I have more money than I know what to do with.”
“You won’t have it for much longer if you keep buying people gifts like this.”
“It’s not people. It’s one gift. For my father.”
My father puts the watch on his wrist. He has lost so much weight, it hangs off, but he holds it tight and stares at it. I
am now embarrassed to have spent so much money on a gift. If my father had really wanted this watch, surely he would have
bought it for himself? When my father finally looks up at me, I am astonished to see tears in his eyes.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” he says, choking back an emotion I have never seen before. “This is the nicest gift I have ever
had. I won’t say you shouldn’t have, even though you shouldn’t have.”
I find myself choking back the tears myself. “You really like it?”
“This is the watch I’ve always wanted.” He looks up at me, his face now serious. “You know I’m not going to die.”
“Marty! Of course you’re not going to die.
I didn’t think that for a second.” Of course I have thought that for a second.
Many seconds. Hours, days, weeks. Seeing him today, hearing the conviction in his voice, is the first time I have felt the darkness lift, the first time I have truly believed that my father is going to make it through this.
He says he no longer feels the chills, that the acupuncture and oxygen therapy took care of it, as he knew it would.
“I also want you to know that I don’t give a fuck about that pissy Journal article. I know you’ve been sent to Europe to keep the shareholders happy, but fuck ’em. I’m going to leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I’m shocked. “Aren’t you supposed to be here for another two weeks?”
“I’m ready. I need to get back home. And when I get back, I want you by my side. I’m giving you a proper role as a very senior
executive. You want philanthropy, right?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“I’ll put you in charge of philanthropy and giving, but I want your input on all aspects. I want you at my side.” My father
then does something entirely uncharacteristic for a man wholly unused to showing affection. He stands up and comes to my side
of the table, squeezing up next to me on the bench and putting an arm around me. I sink into him, leaning my head on his shoulder
and close my eyes, inhaling his smell, the mix of pine soap, aftershave, and Marty, that hasn’t ever changed. We sit like
that for a long time. It is the first time in weeks I have felt that everything in life is going to be okay.