The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (7 page)

poetry

M
onday morning, Trev wants a full report with his Ensure.

“So, did you give her a Moroccan Meatball?”

“Nope.”

“Fishhook?”

“Nope.”

“Pasadena Mudslide?”

“Hey now,” I caution. “She's a classy girl.”

“C'mon,” he persists. “What'd you give her?”

“I really shouldn't kiss and tell.”

“Disappearing Panda?”

“No condom.”

“Pittsburgh Platter?”

“No coffee table.”

“Change Machine?”

“Only had bills.”

“C'mon, I give up. I know you gave her something.”

“Okay, okay,” I relent. “I gave her a Minivan. I would've given her a Snowmobile, but she lives on the bottom floor.”

“But seriously, did you bang her?”

“Of course.” But I'm too slow to answer.

“Did you even come close?”

“Yeah,” I say, lamely. “Pretty close.”

Th
e truth, of course, is that I didn't even get so much as a Raspberry Beret out of the deal, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't been clinging to a certain desperate hope in the thirty-six hours since Katya's trapeze act swung into my life.
Th
at this crazy-haired girl with her clown shoes and her leotard and her love of a dead dog invited me into her sad little apartment, if only to pity me, means that there is still hope for me.

While Trev was sleeping this morning, I Googled the name Katya down many a blind alley, without so much as a last name. I Googled dinner theaters in Tacoma, trapeze acts in the greater Puget Sound region. I learned about straight jumps and bullet drops and whip-to-saddle swings, about inverse double suicides and half turns, along with a dizzying array of departures. With the cat curled in my lap, I was even moved to write Katya a little note of gratitude, a poem of sorts, really.

Adorable Katya,

May you live your life like a trapeze artist, by letting go and describing your graceful arc with confidence and ease, knowing that your grip will not fail you on the other side.

Yours,

Ben

While composing this little missive, I begin to mist over at the nobility of my own gesture, knowing, even before it's finished, that after work I will drive to Bremerton and slide the note under the door of her apartment, and Katya will see that I'm worth loving.

guess who's coming to dinner

I
've finally submitted to dinner at Forest's house, albeit shamefully late. I'm sitting in his driveway behind the wheel of the Subaru, working up the nerve to make my entrance. I can see him at the window impatiently waving me in. I should've brought wine, dessert, something. Instead, I've arrived empty-handed, smiling sheepishly as I mount the steps, where Forest greets me at the front door with a clap on the back.

Th
ough I am some eighteen months behind Forest's timeline, he is apparently sticking with his plan to facilitate my redomestication by degrees, for soon after my arrival—before Melissa has even emerged from the kitchen—I learn that the girls have been packed off to a friend's house. While it embarrasses me that he's made such provisions, part of me is grateful not to have to see the girls, particularly Maggie, who at ten and a half is precisely the age that Piper would be. And I'm not sure how I'd hold up under the force of their curious gazes.

Th
e house smells of curry. Melissa is lovely with her cherubic cheeks and plump arms. She flutters from the kitchen on butterfly wings and wraps me in a hug.

“So good to see you,” she says. “God, I haven't seen you in ages.”

Melissa is generous with her familiarity, in spite of all those rebuffed dinner invitations, in spite of the fact that for two years I've avoided her like a creditor.

“You look great,” she says. “Have you lost weight?”

“Nah. Actually, I think I've gained some.”

She smiles sweetly. “Well, it looks good on you.”

In college, I dated Melissa. She was rock solid, even back then. She liked my poetry and my thick hair and believed, blindly, in my confused heart. But like a dummy, I let Melissa get away, drove her away, really, into the arms of my best friend. Knowing how good and giving and loyal and sympathetic she is, it's an easy thing to regret from where I'm standing now. But she's better off with Forest, and we all know it.

“So, how's the nursing?” she says. “Are you still working with the boy with ALS?”

“MD, yeah. But I'm not actually a nurse. More of a manservant.”

“I think it's wonderful,” she says.

“Me too,” says Forest.

“It's just a job,” I say.

“Not everybody can do a job like that,” she says.

“Not everybody can afford to.”

Th
e truth, of course, is that nobody can afford to. I'm twelve grand in credit card debt, and digging myself deeper every month. Before I became Mr. Mom, I had decent options. Okay, options. But the job market slowly passed me by.

“Well,” says Forest. “Whaddaya say? Let's eat.”

Th
ough I do my best to uphold my end of the dinner conversation—praising the curried chicken, lauding the swiss chard, extolling the virtues of the Gato Negro as I swill more than my share—dinner is mostly a silent affair. Afterward, Forest and I retire to the shaggy domain of his basement, where we sit on the overstuffed sectional drinking Michelob, as
SportsCenter
unfolds silently on the big screen.

“You wrote her a
poem
?”

“Kind of.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Bob Frost. Dude! What were you
thinking
?”

I don't have an answer for that.

“I thought you gave up writing poetry for girls in college. It never worked
then
.”

Only shame prevents me from pointing out that it worked on Melissa.

“It wasn't really a poem,” I half mumble. “More of a note.”

Forest takes a pull of his beer and shakes his head grimly. “Christ, what did she say when she read it?”

“I haven't talked to her.”

“How long has it been since you left it?”

“Six days.”

I've confirmed his worst fear. He closes his eyes, squinting as though to fight off a headache. Scratching the back of his neck, he asks: “Did you . . . you know?”

“No.”

He winces.

“What?” I say, lamely.

I've disappointed him again. He's disappointed himself by overestimating me. Here he's presented me with the opportunity to take a small step forward, and like an impatient child, I've stumbled.

“Just . . . forget about her,” he says, waving it off.

But even now I'm tempted to drive out to the casino and watch her float through the air or to slide another note beneath her door in hopes that I might set things right. If only to smell her hair again, if only to lie next to another body for one more night.

when does now begin?

W
hile I'm quick to fault Trev for his futile exercises, for mapping the places he'll never go, my design for a future with Janet is every bit as futile. Janet will never come back to me. Janet has moved on. She's put her grief beside her and started shacking up with Jim Sunderland and his hermaphrodite kid. As far as I know, she is standing on her own two feet, which is more than anyone around here can say.

Manning my post on the sofa with my unfinished crossword in my lap, I am more alert than usual this morning, listening to Trev's labored breathing from the bedroom. He's been sleeping considerably later than usual this week, down with a virus that threatens to settle in his lungs. A bug my body could probably beat in a day or two, but given the havoc that MD has already wrought on Trev's respiratory functions, a pesky virus like this could prove to be deadly. All week long a dark cloud has hung over the house. It doesn't matter that it's sunny in Tampa. His fear is palpable. He sits motionless in his wheelchair before the television, conserving energy, completely unmoved by Doppler images of Tropical Storm Erin, resistant to the chubby charms of his favorite meteorologist—no matter that her pendulous breasts are packed inside her blazer like a pair of baby pandas.
Th
ere is no mention of giving her a Dirty Muskie or a Gorilla Mask. Trev blinks slowly like a tortoise at the TV. His lips are blue. He hardly talks at all.
Th
is morning Elsa is around the house, having canceled her lessons for the day. Last night when his breathing was shallow and frayed, she hurried him to the emergency room at Harrison, where she paced the tile floor until the wee hours.

But the ordeal came to nothing more than another sleepless night. After two hours on the ventilator, Trev's breathing returned to almost normal. He's slept fitfully throughout the morning. Twice in the last hour, he has called for her, and she has turned him over in his bed. It is Elsa who sits beside him while I wrestle with 23 Across. I can hear her talking softly to him over the hum of the respirator, and though her words are lost on me, I know they're as comforting as words could ever be.

When she is not ministering to Trev, Elsa moves busily about the house, stacking bills and magazines, watering plants, changing laundry. On this occasion, when I hear her filling the sink and stacking the dishes, I don't budge from my place on the couch. Elsa pauses long enough in her duties to take a bite of a muffin and make a cup of instant coffee. But no sooner has she begun to stir the coffee than Trev calls for her again. From across the dining room she sees me stand, and bids me at ease with a shake of her head. On command, I sit down and pencil in
avoid
for 23 Across. Setting her coffee aside, she answers Trev's call. Again, I hear the soft drone of her voice as she turns him on his side. When she emerges from the bedroom, she takes up her coffee and walks through the dining room to the far side of the living room. She looks out the window with the sleepy eyes of a Komodo dragon and blows on her coffee so a ribbon of steam curls up her face.

“He's irritable when he's like this,” she observes. “He says things he doesn't mean.”

I want to go to her, to offer myself as comfort, to say the words that will smooth her wrinkled resignation, but I haven't got the guts.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Just stay a little longer,” she says into her coffee cup.

But for the muffled hum of the ventilator and the rasp of Trev's breathing in the distance, a dense silence settles in as she gazes out the window, where a rogue sunbeam flashes silver off the wet driveway. Now I see that Elsa is looking right at me with great sadness in her sleepy eyes.

“It's not our fault,” she says.