“Listen to me!” he shouted. “Listen to me, what do you mean? You’ve never been smart. I’ve had to take care of everything, you get confused and upset, you can’t even think, and you need me to think for you!
I’m sick!
This ain’t about you, Joyce!”
“Yes, yes, it is.” She blinked back the tears. “It’s about me. You ranting and raving and taking out your anger on me. Decades of meanness . . .”
She turned and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry, Jaden. Call whoever you need to, please. He needs nurses around the clock. I’m up most of the time getting him things he needs, and I haven’t slept hardly at all in two weeks.”
“I understand, Joyce. I know what to do.” I hugged her back. It is not my job to be a marriage counselor. It is my job to care for the patient and be a help to the family, not repair a severely broken marriage that should have ended decades ago.
“Good-bye, George.” Joyce wobbled out of the bedroom.
“You gold digger, you stupid bitch, get back in here, get back right this minute! Shit, Joyce, I ain’t kidding. I will write you out of my will so fast your head will fly off. I’ll give it all away, the whole lot of it, the money, the homes, the stocks, it’s all going to a gorilla organization, better monkeys than you, Joyce, better monkeys than you!”
He turned beet red and kicked a foot, his healthy foot. He wheezed and coughed.
In the other room I heard Kendra, the CEO, stop singing for a moment, Joyce’s low voice cutting across Mr. Bonaparte’s ranting.
“I’ll show her who’s still the boss of the house. That woman has always needed a firm hand to keep her in line, a slap or two to wake her up, and I’m going to show it to her—”
I tried to keep Mr. Bonaparte calm, and to tamp down my own intense dislike of the man. “Please take a breath with me. . . . Let me help you, settle down. . . . I understand you want to get up. . . . No, I cannot let you strike your wife, or your daughter. . . .”
“Get her back in here now, Jaden! Now! Get your ass back in here, stupid bitch, Joyce!”
“I will not make them come back in here, Mr. Bonaparte. Especially because you’re being abusive, horrible to both your wife and your daughter.”
Kendra burst into a new, high-pitched drunken song. “We are free, fluffy hairy birds, no more turds in our lives . . . free to fly, free to laugh, free to sleep with men we don’t bring home to Daddy . . . free because I’m not married to the gay guy that Daddy picked out.... Do la la la la la . . . My daddy cannot mock me, don’t mess with me, you cock. . . .”
Mr. Bonaparte turned about purple, struggled to get up, and pushed me out of the way with truly shocking strength, as I pleaded, “Please stay in bed, I’ll get your walker, you’re going to fall. . . .” He stood up, shouted, “Kendra, I’m coming for you, you drunk, disappointing brat. . . .”
And he fell. Splat. Right on down. I tried to catch him, but his weight was too much. He crashed to the floor and broke his other hip.
We all have visions of dying with our loved ones around us, soft music playing on a harp in the background, receiving some last words of wisdom on how to live a love-filled life.
That happens often, but often it doesn’t.
For the people who have been truly maniacal to their loved ones, well, they end up like Mr. Bonaparte, still a vicious rat, still unloved. The families may or may not come to be with him or her near the end.
People are often criticized for not being there when their parents die, not providing care. Now it could be that the child is a selfish frog, a self-centered and narcissistic coward when it comes to death, unsure of what to say or do because of immaturity or a lack of generosity, so they stay away. It could also be, however, that the person dying was a porcupine needle–stabbing whack job who hurt his family and anyone within twenty feet of his razor-sharp tongue.
Those people die alone.
Even if there are family members emotionally blackmailed into coming, even if they’re sitting around the porcupine as death creeps up, they still die alone because no one cares when they’re gone.
I ate nine red cinnamon Gummi Bears that night.
6
T
he next night, as a family, we celebrated our annual Captain and First Mate Rescue Day.
Captain and First Mate Rescue Day refers to the time when Faith fell off the ship into the Atlantic Ocean on their journey to America, Grace jumped in after her cousin to save her, and the captain and first mate jumped in to save both women, who were quickly sinking because of the weight of their dresses.
We celebrate the captain, who was rumored to have dolphin blood running through his veins, and the first mate, brave soul.
My mother flew up, Caden and his kids came over, and we all drove together to Portland to go on a dinner cruise on the Willamette River. My mother wore a burgundy-colored designer dress and a blond wig. Tate and Caden wore suits. I wore a red dress with a cross bodice. The triplets wore matching sailor outfits with Mardi Gras masks. Damini wore a short gold dress and gold sparkly heels my mom bought for her from a famous designer. “Aunt Jaden, look! My dress shines off my leg!”
I love how Damini does not hide her prosthetic leg. As she said, “I still remember what it felt like in the orphanage to hop on one leg and how it hurt when I kept falling. Now, because of all this metal, I walk normal, I run fast, I don’t crash into the ground onto my face, and I’m joining track and I’m going to run and jump and kick some butt-ola!”
Tate said to Damini, “You’re in gold and silver. You look like a treasure chest. Maybe you should put a lid on it.”
She slapped his arm, grinned, then put her arm through his. “You’re a pain in my keester, Tate. A pain in my keester!”
“I think a pirate is going to kidnap you, Damini,” he said. “Watch out! He’ll probably have sharp, pointy teeth, a hook for a hand, bad breath, warts. . . .”
I knew my mother was thinking of Brooke and my dad that night as we cruised down the river, missing both of them as we nibbled on fancy-schmancy appetizers, but we still had a heck of a time, and none of us fell over into the river as poor Faith and Grace had tumbled into the waves of the Atlantic.
One must celebrate that if one’s ancestor died years ago, you would not be here today.
At least, that was our excuse for the champagne.
This is how my mother summed up my love life at one point, when we were sitting on my white porch one sunny afternoon drinking peppermint tea:
You are testicle-free by choice.
“Mother, I don’t want to talk about this. I only want one man’s testicles, and I can’t have them.”
“I know you feel that Ethan’s testicles have a male chastity belt on them, so let’s move to another man with the same plumbing. In fact, let’s pretend there are a whole bunch of testicles out there.”
I groaned and buried my head in my hands. “Let’s not, Mom.”
“Yes, let’s.” She swung her foot, clad, as usual, in a four-inch-high heel. She was wearing a purple silk wrap and leather belt. By contrast, I was in my jeans, cowboy boots, and a blousy blue shirt with embroidery across the front.
“No.”
“There are testicles flying around and about.” She pretended to try to catch tiny balls. “There are some at the university and at the hospital where you had all those nursing classes, some in our town, some in the city, some on online dating sites, and they’re all whizzing about.”
“I do not want to envision whizzing testicles. Thank you.”
“I do,” my mother said. She stared into the air, envisioning those whizzing testicles, and smiled. “You could reach up and grab those testicles, but you don’t because you think you’re too busy for testicle grabbing.”
“I am busy, Mother.”
She waved her hand. “I am here on many weekends and all holidays. You could date when I’m with Tate, but you don’t. Instead, we stay home and play Scrabble or have movie nights or family parties.”
“I live for Scrabble, movie nights, and family parties.”
“Me, too. But you need testicles.”
“Scrabble is better than testicles.”
“Ha. See. That’s because you don’t grab the right ones. Firm and full of action . . .”
“Mother, must you be that graphic?”
“You work with people who are sliding into heaven, you hover over Tate as if you’re a special agent stalking her prey, you spend masses of time being overly serious and thinking overly serious thoughts, and you have your gourmet recipe and herb obsessions and your greenhouse. You hide. You don’t even try love.”
“I do try love.” I cleared my throat and ate my fifth cookie. “I did.”
Josh, my high school boyfriend, and I dated through my father’s death. He was kind and sweet. He had no clue how to handle a girl grieving over her father, but he tried. But Tate, and my becoming Tate’s mother, that he couldn’t handle.
At the time it sent me into a tailspin of sadness when he broke up with me. I missed him; he broke my heart. We both cried. But I don’t blame him. We were nineteen. He did not want to become a dad.
I tried love in nursing school. There was a doctor I was interested in, he was going to be a cardiologist. We dated, and I told him about adopting my sister’s son. We were friends. I thought he had character.
I showed him a photo of Tate on our fourth date. His face paled.
Now, you would think that a medical doctor wouldn’t be put off by Tate.
He was.
It wasn’t long before I received a telephone call. In fact, it was the next morning, though he knew I had a huge final in a class in an hour. “I don’t think this is . . . uh . . . this is not . . . I don’t want to be a . . . not ready to be a father.... I have a friend who can figure out if there’s something he can do for that kid’s head. . . .”
I told him to go screw himself backward with a fire poker.
There was another man, Dr. Rogey Hicks. I told him about Tate right off. He said he was fine with my being a mother. I did not introduce Tate to Rogey because I made a rule long ago that I wouldn’t introduce Tate to any man unless I was going to marry him.
Dr. Rogey Hicks zipped off to this medical convention, and that doctors’ symposium, and spoke here and there. Our relationship was passionate and intense, he listened, he was attentive, engaged. Lots of admirable qualities.
On a hot summer day in August he was arrested for selling prescription painkillers out of his home.
“I didn’t do it, Jaden!” he protested. “I’m an innocent man. It was a setup!”
The drug enforcement agents who poured out of his garage with garbage bags full of evidence, computers, customer lists, and bags of painkillers, begged to differ.
He admitted his guilt with his two attorneys present, who took the rest of his money, and he spent five years in jail. I believe he is now in apartment management in Toronto.
And there was a man named Mason. He did not mention an ex-wife for six months. He did not mention any wife. He did not mention their children. He did not mention that he was months behind in child support and alimony. I found out when his wife arrived at our table in a fancy steak house restaurant one night. Apparently her best friend had been sitting behind us and called her. Mason’s wife had not been able to get a hold of her husband for the money. She flipped our table over to make sure her point was made about the missing money. Our steaks went flying.
I helped her dump water over Mason. She gave me a ride home. I do not date men who cheat their ex-wives and children.
“You grabbed testicles infrequently,” my mother said, “and the testicles you chose were poor choices, wrinkled, slack, selfish testicles, no offense, divine daughter.”
“None taken. That statement is true.”
I gave up on dating, on men, for years. I was swamped in work and in Tate’s needs.
Then I met Ethan.
I tried a few dates after I met him, as Ethan was off-limits, but I felt lonely, alone, and deceptive on those dates because it wasn’t fair to the men I was with. I was not looking for anyone else. One man even said to me, “You’re not into this, are you?”
He was right.
I quit dating altogether and sank into my daydreams of Ethan and me.
“I wish for you a real man, Jaden,” my mother said. “A real man with real testicles.”
“I found him, but I can’t have him.”
My mother became quiet and contemplative, her face still, then she sniffled. “I know I’ve said this before, honey, but I recognize, we all recognize, that your sacrifices have been enormous.”
I blew that off, waving my hand in the air. “I have Tate, Mom, it’s all worth it.”
“I know, sweetheart. But you gave up your twenties, dating, a husband, and you’ve dealt with all of Tate’s medical emergencies.. . .”
“Let’s not talk about it, Mom. You help me all the time. You offered to raise Tate in Hollywood with you, and I refused to let you take him and I refused to go and live with you. We’ve raised him together.”
“You’re an outstanding mother.” She sniffled again.
“Thanks, Mom. You’re an outstanding Nana Bird.”
She used a tissue on her nose and tried to pull herself together. “I’m going to put a spell out there for some testicles for you.”
“You do that. I don’t believe in your spells.”
“Yes, you do,” said the woman who is rational in all else.
My mother did not chase testicles, either, despite her flirty, outrageous ways, which were mostly an act. One time she told me, late at night, something I’d always known by her actions: “I live my life for you, Brooke, Caden, and the grandkids. Our family, and honoring your father’s life, is what’s important to me.”
I reached a hand out for my mother that afternoon on the porch with our peppermint tea. She held it and said, in all seriousness, nothing about flying testicles at all, “You have blessed my life, Jaden, as you blessed your father’s life. Don’t ever forget that we love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Our hands stayed together for a long time.
“Dr. Robbins, what exactly is your opinion on participating in medical trials, not only from a doctor’s perspective, but from a moral and ethical perspective, too?” Tate asked Ethan. “Especially since most trials don’t work, the doctors are only
trying
something new . . .”
“My opinion is that . . .”
And those two were off and running in Ethan’s office. I tried extremely hard not to stare at Ethan and pant with lust.
When they were done and I was trying to erase a graphic sex scene in my greenhouse with Ethan from my mind, Tate said, “What are you going to do this weekend, study the newest research on Alzheimer’s in a medical magazine or count the taste buds on your tongue? I’m going to opt for the taste buds.”
“Counting the taste buds sounds intriguing, Tate, thank you for the idea, but I’m going river rafting this weekend.”
“Oh, that sounds fun,” I blurted. “I’d been river rafting twice and I loved it.”
“What rapid class?” Tate asked.
“III and IV.”
“Man. I would love to do that.”
“Come then,” Ethan said, pushing his glasses to the top of his head and leaning toward us.
Those two words dropped into the room like a bomb . . . a bomb filled with flowers and chocolate candy and kisses in a river. I quivered.
“Really?” Tate bopped in his chair. “We can come?”
“No, no, Tate, I’m sure that we can’t. Dr. Robbins has plans, probably with other people, with rafts and . . . and . . . plans with paddles and rows, the river—”
Tate crossed his eyes at me as in,
Get it together, Mom.
“Actually, it’s only one other person—” Ethan said.
Instantly I could feel the green and jealous devil in me surface. Was the one other person a
woman?
A female? With a female’s anatomy?
“And . . .” Ethan’s gaze traveled from me to Tate, a surprised, but
delighted
expression on his face, as if he couldn’t believe he’d invited us, but he was glad that he did. “I would love it if you two came.”
“Man, we’re there, right, Boss Mom? Whoeee!” Tate jumped onto his chair, then pretended to row the raft. “I’m gonna be a younger Meriwether Lewis and William Clark except”—he fisted his hand—“my mom’s gonna make the best club sandwiches you ever had. She puts on the smoked turkey, honeyed ham, roast beef, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce and vinegar and oil, but then she makes up this special warmed-up sauce with crumbled blue cheese, and she’ll make cinnamon rolls with extra white sugar frosting, that are so bang-up amazing you’ll cry, same as I do when I eat ’em, right, Boss Mom?”
“No, I’m sure we can’t go . . .” But then, Ethan, tasty Ethan, I glanced at him, and he smiled at me, hopeful, and I couldn’t break away. Another graphic image: Ethan in a raft naked. Me on top. I blushed.
“Here we go again. The staring contest between Boss Mom and Dr. Robbins.” Tate groaned. “This’ll take awhile, I can tell. . . .”