The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (22 page)

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotta piss?”

“Nah.”

“Wanna brush your teeth?”

“I'm good.”

Leaning in, I get ahold of him under the knees, and drape his stiff arm over my shoulder, readying myself to scoop him up. I feel the heat of his wasted body, feel the stubble of his cheek against my forehead, smell the grease of his scalp and the sour sweat rising up from beneath his shirt collar, tinged with Speed Stick, and none of it is unpleasant. “So, you're not bummed we missed the bordello tour?”

“What do you think?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back. “Me neither.”

Hoisting him, I prop him on my knee, wiggle his shoes off, and unfasten his cargoes, working them down past his boxers, over his white bulbous knees. Once I've situated him in bed, on his side, with a pillow tucked snugly between his knees, I plug in his chair to charge for the night.

“Good night,” I whisper.

“Good night.”

Pausing at the foot of Dot's bed, I can't resist one more look at her curled up atop the covers. She stirs but does not awaken. She doesn't look so tough with her delicate features in repose, her little lips parted slightly. Hard to look tough with drool on your pillow. Resisting the urge to tuck her in, I snap off the TV and climb back into my creaky roll-away.

Lying on my back, I can still feel Trev smiling in the darkness, and I can't help but smile back.

the dealership

O
h that,” says the mechanic, a heavyset bald guy with a maple bar in one hand and a powdered donut perched on the rim of his coffee cup in the other hand. “
Th
at's just a dummy light. But I'll check it out. You kids help yourself to a donut.”

He walks off gingerly, balancing his donut. We kids retire to the waiting area, a windowless den lined with folding chairs in the rear of the dealership, where we help ourselves to a donut.

“
Th
ese are stale,” says Dot.

“I'll bet if we rubbed two of them together, we could start a fire,” says Trev.

But for a sport fishing calendar on the wall, which is current (September features a bearded dude in yellow waders, dangling a trophy trout), the waiting room is a time warp; 1970s faux wood, balding gray carpet.
Th
umbing an issue of
Hot Rod
from 1997, it occurs to me that we could be waiting a long time.

But within five minutes, the mechanic is back, still clutching a maple bar. “Gas cap,” he says, over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Excuse me?”

“Your gas cap was screwed on crooked. Sends a message to the dealy-bob.”

Trev and I exchange glances.

“See, between you and me,” he says, and here he lowers his voice, “damn near everything sends a message to the dealy-bob. It's like the brain of the whole car. But the thing is—and don't say I told you so—the dealy-bob, it ain't so smart. Fact is, my dog's smarter. Now and then, it'll be a vacuum leak or a hose, and once in a while it'll be a thermostat. But often as not, it's the gas cap. You kids get a donut?”

We're two days and five hundred miles behind schedule as we ease east onto I-90, with the fuel topped off and the gas cap properly secured. If all goes according to plan, we'll cover half that distance today, skipping Wallace, along with our scheduled detour to Polson, and aim for Butte by nightfall. We'll lunch along the way and make a brief stop at Big Stack in late afternoon if time allows. I'm willing to grant Dot two cigarette stops, which makes me an enabler, I guess. But the fact is, I don't want to lose her. From Butte, she insists she'll make her own way, and I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to convince her otherwise, though I hope I can at least persuade her to bunk with us again tonight and wait until morning before lighting out by thumb. If nothing else, maybe she'll let me buy her a bus ticket. But I doubt it.

Th
e rain clouds scattered sometime during the night. Travel conditions are ideal for making up time: dry pavement, clear skies, and no Winnebagos glutting the flow of traffic. With Couer d'Alene in the rearview mirror, we begin steadily gaining elevation and winding our way through the heart of the panhandle toward the divide, where hulking green ranges, rock-ribbed and dark, close in on us from either side, until the sky is just a pale blue ribbon.
Th
e effect of this landscape is at once cozy and oppressive. I'd hate to spend a winter in one of these narrow valleys, socked in a haze of chimney smoke.
Th
is was silver country back in the day, and gold and quartz, too, if memory serves. At one point, the Idaho panhandle nearly became the state of Lincoln, something I recall from Piper's second-grade state report. She chose Idaho because it was “skinny on top and fat on the bottom,” and because potatoes were her “sixth-favorite food.” But I'm determined not to think about Piper or Jodi or Janet today, so I turn the newfangled country on low, low enough that Trev and Dot don't notice, so low I can barely hear it myself. Somehow it's enough to know it's there, that somebody's telling it like it is, even if the music sucks.

Trev and Dot have taken up where they left off last night, passing the miles in what is for the most part easy conversation, though Dot, like me, has a tendency to push. I'm perfectly content to be invisible in the driver's seat, listening to Dot lead this dance from the backseat, where she's stretched out lengthwise with her head on the armrest, tracking Trev's eyes in the rearview mirror. She does not pity him as far as I can tell, nor does she go easy on him, as do most people.

“So, do you get sick of people staring at you?” she says.

“It's worse when they talk to me like I'm retarded.”

“
Th
at sucks.”

“What about you?” he says. “People must stare at you.”

“Old pervs and religious people, but that's about it.”

“I'm not religious,” he says.

“I guess that makes you an old perv.”

“But I'm not old.”

“Older than me, anyway. So, then, can you have sex? I mean like everything works or whatever?”

Blushing to the roots of his hair, Trev looks straight ahead at the road and shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

When, after a long moment, he fails to reply, Dot pushes him. “So is that a yes or a no?”

Poor Trev is caught in the headlights.

But Dot refuses to veer. “I guess I'll take that as a no.”

“Yes,” he says, at last, with an edge of impatience. “Everything works.”

“You don't sound too happy about it.”

“Should I be?”

“Uh. Yeah? Duh.” And with that, she finally lets the subject drop, and we hum along in silence for a few miles until she trains her crosshairs on me. “So, how old are you, anyway? Are you like my dad's age?”

“Yes. I'm old enough to be your father. But don't worry, I don't want to be.”

“Got any kids?”

Trev casts an uneasy sidelong glance at me.

“Nope,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Long story.”

“Well, it's not like we don't have time to kill, right?”

“Trust me, it's not a good story. You won't like the ending.”

“What, you just never wanted any? Or you just never found the right person or what?”

“Like I said,” and this time I say it more firmly: “Long story.”

“What, are you gay?” she says. “Because I've got no problem with gay people.”

“I'm not gay.”

“So, you just didn't want any or what? Because I can see not wanting to have any.”

I grip the wheel tighter and stare straight ahead.

“He doesn't like to talk about it,” says Trev.

His defense, though welcome, catches me by surprise—it's the first indication I've had that he knows anything about Piper and Jodi. I could hug him for never bringing it up.

Dot heaves a theatrical sigh. “What is it with guys?
Th
ey never want to talk about anything.”

almost home

W
e're halfway down Agatewood now—right before the dogleg west of Dolphin Lane, coasting through that familiar sun-checkered corridor beneath the tall firs. My window is down. I can smell the trade winds blowing through Agate Pass. Piper is growing impatient in the backseat, Jodi's snot still clinging to her index finger.

“It's starting to dry,” she complains.

“Well, put it in your mouth, then.”

“Eww,” she says. “Daddy, you're grotie.”

“
Th
anks,” I say.

“Daddy grotie,” mimics Jodi, clearly enough that I can understand him.

“He says you're grotie.”

“I heard.”

“Grotie,” says Jodi once more. “Squishity-squish-squash grotie.”

What will that speech pathologist cost? What if Piper needs orthodontia? Whatever any of it costs, Janet can afford it. And should we ever run into trouble financially, Bernard and Ruth will always be there. I hope Bern pulls the trigger on that Discovery Bay lot.
Th
e kids would love it.

“Squish-squishy-bah-buh-squishity-squish, Daddy.” Where does he get the saliva, I wonder?

“He wants to see the octopus,” Piper says.

“We already saw the octopus.”

“
We
saw the octopus.
He
was asleep.”

“Jodi, buddy. Octopus go night-night. We'll go visit the octopus another time, okay?”

Checking the rearview mirror, I expect to see pouting lips, a quivering chin. But he surprises me, and I love him for it.

“Kaykay,” he says.