Apart From Love (45 page)

In return he says, “I am so sorry, Ben. I do not know what came over me tonight. I guess I was not prepared for you. Forgive me.”

I turn to him, utterly in surprise, and notice that he is bringing his eyebrows together, the way he does when he has a severe headache. He looks in my direction through clouded eyes, as if his vision has suddenly blurred.
 

This, I think, is the first, the only time he has asked me to forgive him, for anything. Usually all I get from him is excuses, excuses and blame. My father is right, forever, always. But not now. Which is why the idea comes to me that perhaps, he feels as if he is not going to make it through the night. At once, I push it out of my mind.

Still, his lips are moving. “Now that you are back,” he lets out, “things will go back the way they ought to go. I want you to know it.”

I see him forming words, but his voice is too weak to carry them. So I bend over, putting my ear to his mouth.
 

He breathes, “Here—now—I could not have written it any better.”

And a moment later, “This is the most important day, the most important hour of my entire life. I can see things clearly, more than ever before, as if from a distance. You,” he takes a pause, “you have made your share of mistakes—but the whole thing started with mine.”

“Sorry, dad,” I say.

And he says, “It is my fault, and we both know it. Both of us have been paying the price. Don’t—don’t worry, son. I am going to fix it.”

These few words between us do me good, and my lungs expand and suddenly I can breathe so much easier than before—even though I am left wondering what he means by
the whole thing
and how exactly can it be fixed.
 

The cab comes to a stop in front of Sunrise Assisted Living at ten minutes past five, early in the morning.
 

I have expected to see the doors locked for the night—but to my surprise they are thrown open, and someone is being carried out on a stretcher, soon to be loaded into an ambulance, which is parked slightly ahead of us. As the medics pass by my side I glance at the stretcher, and recognize the head lolling to one side, peaking out of the white sheet. I recognize it because of the black, utterly toothless mouth, which is open in a long
O
, as if in the middle of singing.

I help my father out of the cab. He is having some trouble balancing on his feet, so I practically carry him past the medics, past the young, unfamiliar woman dressed in a nurse uniform, who is darting this way and that around them in great confusion. She must be in charge of the night shift crew. We are inside, barely noticed by her.
 

Martha, the care giver, has not arrived here yet. Outside, outlines of the medics can be seen, shadows rushing to and fro. The flashing of emergency lights comes in through the windows, and starts strobing around us in the empty dining hall as the ambulance moves away.
 

Without saying a word, my old man points his finger at the third door in the raw of doors along a long corridor. It is the only door that is open, perhaps because the old, toothless patient has just been lifted out of bed from there.
 

I bring him in, knowing in my heart that this is where he has been heading all night along. I wonder if he can find the words, if he can even explain—to himself most of all—what possesses him to come to this place. There are two twin beds in the room, one of them unoccupied, just as I expected. In the other, lays my mother. In her deep slumber, she looks as if she is smiling.
 

“Now,” says my father. “Lay me down.”

My old man seems dizzy as I lower him into her bed. From time to time he is given to uncontrolled shaking, so I pull the blanket over both of them.
 

Then I go back and close the door to the corridor, which at once darkens the room. It is a vacuous black, a nothingness that is falling in upon us. I have to feel my way around, as if my eyes have suddenly grown blind. Finally I reach the corner of the room and crouch down there, on the floor, and I hear him panting, panting in distress. The one thing that seems to help him relax is listening to the sounds around him, especially to the sound of my mother breathing, and to my voice saying, I am here, dad. I am right here if you need me.
 

After a long while the room starts to take shape. You can slowly discern the folds, the faint folds of the curtains, and the light seeping in under the wavy edge. And there, in the bed, you can see his outline, combined with hers.

By now my father must have forgotten, somehow, that this is not his place. His eyes wander in confusion, trying to decipher the shadows of the room, and his hand jerks searchingly around him. The more I watch him, the more I become convinced that he is trying hard to control it, to reach out and press some key, which only he can see. But he cannot guide his hand quite where he wants it to go—nor can he stop it from trembling.
 

At last, he lifts his head to me and whispers,
Record
.
 

By which I think he means, Remember. Or maybe he means, Talk to me, Ben.
 

So I start describing this room to him, especially the light poking a hesitant finger through the slit between the curtains, and stripping the darkness away from the empty bed next to them, a bed which is bare, because the sheets have already been taken away, to be cleaned and sterilized for the next person to lie here.
 

I go on to tell him that I knew the old woman who used to occupy this bed. He seems to be listening, so I start drawing from memory how, on my first visit here, she would hunch her shoulders over her empty hands, and lift her head to gape at me, and how her mouth would breathe slowly into the air:

Then the traveller in the dark... Thanks you for your tiny spark... He could not see... Which way to go... If you did not twinkle so...

I sing these words for him, with a voice that is thin and barely audible, just like hers used to be. And I hope that it brings to his mind the musical mobile I have seen, in the window back home, hung between one blind and another. I hope he can fall asleep now, dreaming of reaching up, of pulling that string, to make the plush animals turn around, and go flying overhead faster and faster till all is a blur, to the sound of that silvery note, which is chiming, chiming, chiming, as if to announce a moment of birth.
 

Afterwards, I cannot figure out for certain at what point my voice has trailed off, leaving me lost in a jumble of memories, fearful to open my eyes, fearful to glance at my watch, to figure out the moment, the exact moment when I have realized that I am alone.
 

All I know is that somewhere along its arc, the light has crawled across the wall and leapt onto their pillow, and it is resting there now, on his open eyelids.
 

It is a fairly strong light now, a glare that can blind you if you look directly into it, which strangely he seems to be doing. So I rise to my feet to pull the curtain shut, and then, in spite of myself, I glance at him. His chest barely rises.
 

He lays there, having wrapped himself in my mother’s arms, his eyelashes still somewhat aflutter, his hands still shivering slightly over his heart, his face pale, nearly blue, and I know that if I would leave him at this moment to go look for Martha, the care giver, it would be over. Dad would be gone by the time I rush back.
 

So I draw closer and stand there, behind the head of the bed, over my sleeping mother. From this angle, his ribs seem to move—but I think it is because of her body clinging to him, and because of her breathing, which is so deep and so peaceful. I lean over her arms to take his hands in mine, absorbing his shiver, taking it into my flesh, until finally it dies down.
 

And the light, growing even brighter, washes his face, till all that is left is a smile, frozen.

As Told by Anita

N
ext morning I’m sent home empty-handed, while my baby must stay at the hospital a few more days, to get something called colored light therapy, ‘cause like, he’s been diagnosed with jaundice. But does anyone care? Hello there? I try to call home, for Lenny to come pick me up—but as usual I end up just managing, somehow, to get back on my own.
 

I open the bedroom window, and feel warm spring air coming in, blowing gently into my face, which feels like a promise. Like, it’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be a beautiful day.
 

I rewind the musical mobile, and listen to it chiming, chiming, chiming over my head for a long while. And there I stand listening, not knowing what to do, not wanting to admit to myself how I feel. Anyhow I’m glad you can’t see me sniffling, and blotting the corner of my eye, ‘cause like, there isn’t no one here I can hug, and no one to hug me right back.

Lenny isn’t back yet, and neither is Ben. The place seems kinda empty to me—more so than usual—like a spirit has left it, on account of the piano, which is gone, and the shattered mirror. And it’s messy, because of the glass, which is strewn all around me, crushing underfoot as I move around the floor, until finally I stomp off to the corridor.
 

Then I’m empty. Exhausted. Can’t bring myself to hold a broom straight, like, to sweep away all them broken pieces. In a daze I wander into Ben’s bedroom, and within moments I’m asleep in his bed.

When I open my eyes again, it’s already the next morning.
 

I wake up to a sound, an annoying sound of knocks at the door, and a sudden fear squeezes my heart as I open it, to find two grim-faced cops. It almost feels like I’ve read this story before.

When they hesitate to say, like, what they’ve come in to say, I make up my mind I ain’t gonna scream. Instead I stick my thumbs in my ears, ‘cause I don’t want to hear, don’t want to learn that my husband’s been found lifeless. And for sure I don’t want to be asked no questions, ‘cause like, I don’t hardly have answers.
 

I cup the palms of my hands over my eyes, ‘cause I don’t want to see the snapshots they’re trying to show me, which was taken right there at the scene, snapshots that show him lying there, curled, in Natasha’s arms. How he got there, no one seems to know—not even them cops. They want
me
to tell them, like, how it happened.

So in spite of myself I can’t help peeking, between one finger and another, only to find that in some of them pictures, his face muscles seem awful relaxed. I bet it’s just a trick of the camera, some flash, which makes him look like he’s laughing, almost—even though the crease on his forehead hasn’t barely smoothed up.

Which reminds me of my pa, who left me such a long time ago, that I can’t remember nothing of his face no more, I mean, nothing but a crease just like this, in the middle of his forehead. And even that’s turning into a blur now. I swear, it’s because of them tears. Damn, I miss him. I miss him so.

No, Lenny. I ain’t gonna cry.

A week after the funeral, which I couldn’t attend because of a sudden fever, I get a call from Lenny’s attorney, Mr. Bliss. Which is a sure sign—if you didn’t know it already—that this is a time of misery.

He coughs up something like, “Mrs. Kaminsky, I hope you shall know no more sorrow.” And I go, “Really? That makes two of us.”
 

Then Mr. Bliss goes on to say he’s stunned, simply stunned to hear what’s happened, and congratulations are in order, Mazel Tov for the baby, what’s his name? And he can’t find Ben, do I happen to know his address? A phone number, at least? No? And to come to his office just as soon as I can, because of the will, which Lenny has changed again only three days before his passing, and because of a key to some secret drawer in his desk, both of which must be handed over to me.

I don’t exactly bother to tell him that I’ve known about that drawer for quite some time now, and that I’ve managed to pry it open—right after them cops finally left—with a kitchen knife.
 

It’s like, I had to stab something, someone. If Lenny was gonna pop in right then, I was gonna kill him right on the spot.