The Last Cadillac (10 page)

Still holding tightly to the door handle, he leaned forward and chuckled, and with that, the anxiety of leaving was broken. He looked at Little Sunshine. “I'll try. I have good days.”

“That awful stroke,” she said. “What does it feel like?”

“Like you're not there at all. Floating somewhere,” he said. “Then the doctor comes and he doesn't help much. They don't know a lot about the brain.”

“But what does it really feel like? Does it hurt?”

“Well, yes, but I don't remember too well. You get a headache, and it's messy. I threw up all the time. It's not nice.”

“I throw up, too.”

“Well, don't do it now!” He tapped his cane up and down, and Little Sunshine laughed.

“Oh, I'll give you warning,” she said.

I grimaced. I knew it wouldn't be much.

“When you were in the hospital, did you get ice cream?” she said.

“Why?”

“My friend Ally told me that people in the hospital get ice cream all the time.”

“What kind?”

“I don't know. But you have to get something good out of all that bad stuff that happens to you.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I have you.”

“Oh, Sunshine,” she said.

I sat up and looked at the two of them. She wiggled in between us, and Dad relaxed. We were almost to the airport, and it looked like we were off to a fine start.

My dad enjoyed the bustle at the airport and the skycaps fussing over him, tipping their hats and moving him around gingerly and expertly. It always appeared to me that they liked their job, with the jokes and camaraderie that went on and on, and Dad acted like he was one of the guys. They produced the wheelchair crisply, tagged the luggage, and
whisked it away, even before I realized the tickets were in the big blue bag on the cart.

I rolled Dad through the airport and he waved at people. On other trips in earlier years—Dad, with his white hair, ruddy complexion, and big nose, intrigued some travelers who asked if he was Tip O'Neill, the great Speaker of the House. Right off, they wanted to know what dad thought of Jack Kennedy. He was always willing to give his opinion of Kennedy, whom he described as Saint Jack, but then Dad would admit that he was not the Speaker and had never run for office, so that ended the celebrity interview. Soon, however, it would start again.

“Next one, I'll tell them I'm Tip.”

“Dad, Tip O'Neill is dead.”

“Oh, that's right. Who should I tell them I am?”

“The strongest man in the world.”

“That's what I told you when you were little.”

“I'm still little, sort of. And you're still the strongest man in the world.”

He started crying then. As a result of the stroke, he cried often—especially when someone mentioned the Navy, or when he watched
Lassie
and
Loretta Young
, and
The Sound of Music
. He was just one big, old, sweet softie.

The airline staff wheeled Dad to the front of the line, and we followed. (If I were hard pressed to come up with something good about getting old, being whisked to the head of the line would be one thing.) When they strapped him to a carrier and put him in a tiny elevator, panic spiked briefly in his eyes. I quickly climbed aboard the cage and put a hand on his shoulder. The whole procedure—from the curb to the plane—was easier than getting him out of bed, into the shower, and dressed for breakfast.

Once he was in his seat on the plane, he couldn't wait for a rum and Coke. The drink, he said, reminded him of Trinidad and his days in the Navy. I was afraid he would get teary again and I'd have to explain the tears to the woman next to me, as well as to the flight attendant, but he settled down. I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd learned to take them one at a time, when they came.

Tick and Little Sunshine sat behind us with the headphones on, already lost in the world of music. They could have been on the school bus, or a train to Timbuktu. It didn't seem to matter to them. But during takeoff, Dad became anxious again. So, I took his hand and held it, like he'd done with mother. Anytime a plane was taking off, he stared ahead, just like he was doing now. He didn't like any talking and activity going on around him; he didn't think it was appropriate. He was praying.

“Dad, are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, I like to fly.” When we landed at the airport in St. Petersburg, Dad told the pilot what a good job he'd done and that he ought to keep his job. The pilot thanked him in that hale-and-hearty way we have once we are grateful to be out of the air and on the ground.

Once we stepped out of baggage claim and into the sunny breeze and humid air, I immediately began to unwind.

Florida has a way of doing that.

It wasn't a long drive to the cottage, less than an hour. Once we were all loaded into the taxi, we were silent, tired. But when we rounded the curve on Gulf Drive and the cottage came into view, Tick whooped and Dad laughed out loud. Little Sunshine, though, was curled up on my sweater, like a cat; the excitement had finally knocked her out.

Our little home on the beach, the waves beating music
against the shoreline, opened welcoming arms. Sunset was approaching. Rain drops glistened on the sea grape and queen palms at the cottage door. As I pushed the door open, a flood of memories washed over me. It was hot inside the cottage. I strode through the living area to the porch and stared out at the Gulf of Mexico, letting the warmth wrap around me like a blanket. It was all just as I'd left it, the white wicker with faded cushions, arranged in a chatty corner of the porch, the rusting lamp on the table. I turned and threw the back door open.

We're here. We made it.

Seconds later, Tick was racing along the edge of the water toward the jettie.

Dad, Little Sunshine, and I followed Tick out to the beach. We sat in white plastic chairs and dug our feet into the sugary sand. The sun lowered quickly, spreading a gold path across the water, and soon the sky was filled with pearly pink-and-blue ribbons. To Dad, sunsets meant the end, but for me, this was a beginning. Our new beginning. Together, the four of us, perched on the edge of The Adventure.

The languid, hot August days induced complacency, but there was no time for it. The height of hurricane season was upon us, and soon enough the weather reminded us of this with a jolt.

It all began with one long, endless cycle of torrential rain, night after night. The water rose up out of the Gulf into the clouds, and then dumped its cache onto the roof. It sounded like we were holding out inside a hollowed-out drum. Thankfully, the roof and windows held tight. The mornings, though, sparkled clean and humid, and in the midst of it all, the kids started school. In the afternoons they ran around the island with their new friends like a pack of cats. But at night, again, the rains came.

One of those nights, in a deep sleep, I awoke to the strange sound of gigantic bubbles bursting in slow, lazy belches. I imagined I was inside my stomach after a huge Italian dinner, but slowly, the spooky sound launched me out of a drifting sleep. I lay there listening to the continuous
baloop, baloop, baloop
. Then I knew.

Fresh hell, because there was never enough of it. I sat
up slowly, swung my legs off the bed, and landed in water ankle-deep. Not thinking or caring about the possibility of zapping myself, I snapped on the light. In the dim glow, water bubbled up from under the baseboard along the wall. The floor shimmered with rainwater. A small rug drifted by and bobbed gently, like it was about to take off. With all the thunder and lightning, the kids surely would be frightened out of their minds. And now this.

Dad slept soundly. Holding up my pants legs, I splashed my way over to the kids. Shoes, socks, shorts, and tops were all on the move. An open paperback floated by. Nothing on the floor was anchored, except the beds. At that point, though, nothing would have surprised me. I began to get a dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn't Italian.

Tick woke up and looked at me and at the floor with a sleepy eye, and then turned over and snuggled down into his covers. My girl sat up—a little angel floating in a white boat.

“Mom, is this part of The Adventure?” She rubbed her eyes and watched the waves ripple around her bed. The free-floating contents of the room bobbled and wandered, which gave a new perspective to my demands that they pick up their clothes. I tried to smile.

“It's really kind of cool,” she said. “We could get a raft and float around in here.”

“OK,” I said, then sloshed over to her and tucked her in. She sank groggily into her Lion King quilt.

That's when I had a moment of terror at what I had done. I had brought a hurricane of sorts to my family, hadn't I? What have I done? I peered out the kitchen window and stared into the dark, impenetrable curtain of rain. We were a long way from Northwest Indiana, and family and friends. We were
alone. No … I am alone. Maybe it was the dark, but the newness of The Adventure was beginning to dawn on me. I needed the sun. Not this incessant, unforgiving rain.

It was almost four in the morning. The rain continued to pelt the roof without cease. I don't know how long I sat on that kitchen bar stool, absently watching the hallucinogenic patterns on the kitchen floor, searching for solutions, considering my options in my divorced, jobless, frustrated, and now flooded state.

Suddenly, of all things, I remembered Kurt Nimmergut and a sunny afternoon and our airplane ride. It was a week after my college graduation when I went flying with Kurt, my college roommate's brother, a handsome, dark-haired hippy. I had no business taking off with him in that two-seater from an airstrip outside Alta Loma, California. But I did. We got up pretty high, and he handed the controls over to me.

“No way!” I said.

“Way,” he said.

So I flew.

“Don't panic,” he told me. “Take each moment—one minute, one hour, one day at a time.”

I pulled back on the wheel, then bussed forward and scooped up the sky. That experience grounded me. I never forgot it, nor did I forget his advice. It was not my parents' station wagon or Cadillac. I didn't crash. I didn't lose control. I flew.

No, I would not imagine trouble and worry over stuff I couldn't do a thing about. There was quite enough to deal with. One day, one moment at a time. Now.

At least, I had a temporary solution. I jumped down off the stool and went for the Pinch. My Aunt Marian, who lived in nearby Bradenton, came over with bottle in hand to visit
after we moved into the cottage.

“It's there, honey, in the cupboard. For when you need a little boost, or to celebrate.”

Of course, I didn't think she'd meant for breakfast, but I would celebrate this new turning point, and Kurt's good advice. This small step in re-ordering my life. I poured a slug of the scotch into a jelly glass and drank it down. It burned with an earth-grounding jolt all the way to my wet pajama bottoms and damp toes. I climbed back up on the stool. Then, like the fingers on a drum giving up, the rain stopped. Still I sat, and although chilled, I remembered Kurt, and it gave me the warmth of new purpose, comforted me. I grabbed a legal pad and listed ideas and plans that came unloosed with the scotch. Pages and pages of them ended up in paper balls all over the bar, but a lot of good notes made it down, and stayed with me.

We needed to get settled—to find a house—maybe one of those little white stucco ranches, one with a barrel-tile roof. I'd have to figure out how to make a four-bedroom home out of one of them. I listed costs, tallied what I had in the bank—close to $90,000, with the sale of the Hammond house, the furniture, and china and such. I jotted down my favorite realtors with Sunday open houses and visualized my furniture fitting in these small, bright living rooms; pictured myself in the tiny backyards with crackling palms and scrubby grass, watching lazy neighbors who scratched away with their rakes to clean up the pine needles.

I wrote. I wrote some more. I drew floor plans and wrote descriptions of what I wanted (spare) and what I kept running into (clutter). I drew spheres that encompassed the cottage, the water, and the birds; the houses, the streets, the landscapes. It was good practice for setting off for The
Adventure—and for future stories, for my story. I let the ideas take over whenever they came and took shape on paper. My life was becoming a Venn diagram of intersecting circles of events and memory and plans. It was a mess, and lot to think about, and do. But I would do it.

Such is the goodness of hope. I will water it and keep it alive.

I had another belt of scotch.

It had seemed like such a fun idea to start over in Florida. And now, I had to make it work. Manufacture a balance in this new little family. That was the priority. The suitcases were hardly unpacked, and we were far from settled. Still, today, I would start.

I stopped to listen to the rain drip off the gutter. It was a mellow hour, but I knew I'd better not get used to scotch for breakfast.

The gulls were cawing at the first hint of sunrise. With a light buzz, I imagined that I saw the tide of water in the living room receding gradually. At least the rug wasn't floating anymore, and the miniature waves had ceased glinting in the overhead light.

I began sweeping out the last of the water, my feet cold and damp, tired all over, but loving the relief from disaster and the plans I'd written down. By eight o'clock, the kids were off to their dry school in flip-flops (with notes to their teachers). The sun was climbing into a blue sky and smiling cheerily, like the nightmare had never happened and the joke was on me.

Later that morning, I gathered the kids' soaked clothing and shoes into garbage bags and a laundry basket. Much
could be saved with a good run through the washer, but the papers and books on the floor were ruined. Then, at the foot of Tick's bed, I saw a composition notebook: “Tick's Journal.”