If I weren’t there, she’d say yes. She was tempted to say yes anyway, but she shook her head. “I can do it.”
“Uh . . .” Jonathan appeared to be about to dispute that but thought better of it. Instead of standing there watching her, though, he started talking to me. I listened to what he was saying, but continued to watch her over his shoulder.
She somehow managed to get the bottle up and on the dispenser, without actually spilling a drop. It wasn’t the most coordinated effort to watch, but she had done it, and was now trying to hide the fact that the whole thing had left her a little winded.
Jonathan was still talking when I walked past him and over to the water cooler. I grabbed one of the cups and held it under the spigot, pressing the button for cold water. I filled it up and then offered it to Daisy.
“That was quite an effort,” I said.
“It wasn’t really.” Still, she took the cup from me and took a sip. I wanted to reach over and brush a wisp of hair from her forehead, but I restrained myself. When she finished the water, I held my hand out and took the cup, then dropped it into the trash for her.
“Thanks,” she said.
I could tell by the look on his face that Jonathan was just wishing that he had thought to do that first.
Every Wednesday evening, after I left the work, I’d drive on over to Eagle Hollow Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. I’d bypass the main parking lot in favor of the smaller employee lot on the side of the building, right where the window to his room looked out. He was on the second floor, which meant he’d have a great view of the car.
My car.
Well, it wasn’t actually my car, that blue ’67 Camaro. It still technically belonged to Pete. I kept the thing maintained, and I drove the hell out of it. That car was his pride and joy, perhaps the only thing he ever truly loved. And somehow, somehow, it had ended up in my hands.
I’d requested that the nurses make sure Pete be wheeled over to the window right before I’d show up every Wednesday. “He loves that car,” I told them. “And nothing would make him happier than to be able to see it, even if it is just a glimpse from a window.”
The nurses there all fawned over me; they thought it was so sweet how I visited my stepfather on a regular basis, even though he was no longer able to communicate. He’d had one stroke that left the whole left side of his body paralyzed, but it was the second stroke that had robbed him of his ability
to speak.
I parked the car and walked around the side of the building, past the manicured lawn and the immaculately kept flower beds. Inside, I waved to the receptionist, said hello to some of the nurses, and made my way to the elevator. Wendy was walking down the hall and hurried over just in time to make it in before the door shut.
“Ian!” she said. “I thought that was you.”
She was saying it like she was surprised, but I knew this was an act. I’d been coming here every week for over a year now. I had fucked Wendy in the parking lot a few months ago; her shift had been ending right when I’d been leaving. She was in her mid-forties, unhappily married, her body ravaged by multiple pregnancies. She had stretch marks, loose skin, sagging breasts. She could stand to lose about fifteen pounds, and her face was average, at best. But I wasn’t the sort of guy who only fucked hot women. I knew I could probably sleep with any woman of my choosing, and I certainly had been with plenty of gorgeous ones, but I also enjoyed the occasional romp with those who you wouldn’t necessarily consider fine physical specimens. Such as Wendy. She was wise enough to know that we weren’t in love and this wasn’t going to end with some happily ever after, but she could still enjoy it. And when you sleep with someone like Wendy, who knows they’re average looking at best, they are so grateful, so appreciative, that the sex usually ends up being quite phenomenal.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Decent,” I said. She was wearing lavender scrubs that I easily could have reached over and torn off, taken her right there in the elevator. “How are you?”
“Work has been busy. But I can’t complain. Too much, anyway.” She laughed, as though this were some sort of great joke. “Pete will be glad to see you. He’s seemed . . . I don’t know, more agitated than usual this week. It will be good for him to visit with you.”
The elevator stopped at the second floor, and the doors opened. A long, linoleum hallway stretched in front of us.
“Hmm,” I said. “I wonder what’s bothering him.”
“Well,” Wendy said, “my guess is that the anniversary of your mother’s death is coming up. Pete may not be able to communicate verbally any more, but he’s still very much aware of what is going on.”
Good. I was glad to hear it. If Pete was suffering from dementia or something, and his mind was so far gone that he had no idea who I was or no recollection of all the horrible shit he’d done to me, I probably wouldn’t be coming here. The fun was in the fact that he was the one suffering now. He was the one who was helpless to do anything about it, but just sit there and take it.
“You think he knows what date it is?” I asked as we walked down the hallway.
Wendy nodded. “Oh, absolutely. He goes down to the activity room every day, and there’s a big wall calendar where they list all the activities for that day. And sometimes he’ll be in the lounge when the news is on. I’m sure he knows what date it is.” Wendy leaned toward me, her arm brushing mine. “You might be able to help him,” she said.
“Oh yeah? How so?”
She stopped walking, so I stopped too. She looked to her left, then her right, as though making sure that no one else was walking down the hallway. When she saw that the hall was momentarily empty, she reached out and touched my arm. “Forgive him,” she said.
A look of surprise shot across my face that I tried to quickly rearrange into an expression of neutrality. Forgive him? How did she know everything that he’d done to me? Had he told her? But he’d come here after the second stroke, after he’d been unable to speak. Did he have another way of communicating that I wasn’t aware of? And: Did he really want my forgiveness?
“Now, I know Pete can’t come out and say it,” Wendy said as we resumed walking, “but it’s clear as day to me why he’s more agitated now.”