Dirty Secret (29 page)

“Ciao, Dav-id-e,” he calls out and waves.

“Ciao, Paolo,” David says and introduces me.

“Wel-come,” Paolo says.

“Thank you, I mean,
grazie.
”

“He seems nice,” I say to David as we continue crossing the square.

“Everyone here is really friendly so far,” David says. “In fact, we've been invited to a dinner party tonight. I said I wasn't sure because I wanted to see how tired you were.”

“That sounds fun. I'll take a nap and I'll be fine,” I say.

We reach the steep stone staircase I recognize from the photo and David pulls a key from his pocket.

“I really hope you like it,” he says.

“I'm sure I will,” I say, following him up the stairs. All I want is a break from the drama of the last three months. That alone makes the place already seem like heaven.

The main room serves as both living area and kitchen and has
a sleeping loft above it. A big open fireplace sits in one corner of the room and thick, dark wood beams stripe the ceiling. At the back of the apartment, right off the bathroom, there's an area the size of a large walk-in closet with a couch in it.

“I borrowed that couch from one of the villagers. I thought it could be your writing spot. I've been working there mostly,” David says, pointing to the kitchen table.

“It'll be perfect,” I say and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him.

EVERY OTHER DAY
David gets a bus and then a train into Rome; the rest of the time he works at home, reading, translating articles, or writing in the main room. I plant myself on the couch to write, with Abraham Lincoln curled up next to me. I also register for an intensive Italian class in Rome, starting next month.

In the evenings we sit out on the square and talk to the locals, practicing our Italian as they practice their English. They show us around their art studios and invite us to join their impromptu potluck dinner parties outside one of their apartments or even right on the square. On the nights nothing is happening, David and I eat at one of the five restaurants, feasting on fat homemade pasta with rich, wild boar–inflected tomato sauce; a simple spaghetti sprinkled with pepper and sheep's cheese; or my favorite,
paglia e fieno
(straw and hay): thick fettuccine-type noodles with lots of grated Parmesan, juicy cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and a dousing of olive oil. On the side we always order the ubiquitous garlic-intense broccoli rabe and carafes of the cheap and delicious house wine.

I feel spoiled and happy.

My dad's good about emailing me every day, and at first everything's fine. But then, after I've been in Italy about a week, with each email he begins to sound worse. His pain levels
are really high and he hardly has any energy. The daily walks around the block have regressed to just one trip to the corner and back. He's got an appointment with Dr. Nelson coming up and the day of the appointment I check my email about a hundred times to see if there's news.

When it comes, it's bad.

One of my dad's new arteries has collapsed. He has to have a stent put in. It's not major surgery, but the worrisome part is that Dr. Nelson has no idea what the source of my dad's pain is—the collapsed artery wouldn't cause it. I fear that when the surgeons implant the stent they'll find the true reason for my dad's pain, and it will be unfixable.

I reply to my dad's email and ask if I should come back to Minneapolis to help out. I know Sandy's working constantly to make enough money for their high health-care costs; she's having a hard time doing that and taking care of my dad, too. I don't want to go, but if they need me, I'd be there as fast as I could get on a plane.

My dad writes back and says he'll let me know after the surgery. But maybe.

The day of his surgery I pace and pace. Finally, because I know it'll be a while before my dad's out, I ask David if he'll take a walk with me. We go down to the valley below the village, where sometimes at night we can hear wild boar snorting and carousing and doing whatever it is wild boar do. Instead of making me feel better, though, the walking makes me even tenser and more worried than when I was just pacing inside the apartment.

David says, “You're going to have a heart attack yourself if you don't calm down.”

I feel blurry at the edges and I'm afraid I'm going to faint. I grab onto David's shirt and lean against his chest.

“Let's go back,” David says, stroking my arm. “Maybe there will be an email.”

There isn't an email when we get to the apartment, nor is there one an hour later, nor an hour after that. I try calling Sandy's cell phone from the pay phone in the parking lot and the voice mail comes on right away, which makes me think my dad must still be in surgery.

Finally I get an email, but it's not from Sandy or from my dad. It's from Aunt Eve. The subject line simply says:
your dad.

Because we have a dial-up connection, the message takes forever to open after I click on it. “What the hell does
your dad
mean?” I yell, as I wait for the message to load. “That is not the kind of subject line I want to see. I want to see
your dad is fine,
or
no need to worry.
Not just
your dad.
Jesus Christ!”

After a hundred years, the message opens.
Your dad is okay. The surgery is done and he's resting but Sandy was too busy to email so she asked me to do it.

And I can breathe again.

I get an email from my dad the next day. He wants to take me up on my offer to return to Minneapolis. They could really use the help, he says, though he hates to drag me away from Italy and David. I hate it, too. But they need me.

Because of the short notice, the plane ticket is outrageously expensive, but my dad and Sandy put it on their credit card. I'll be there for two weeks.

I'm getting whiplash from all the back and forth these last three months: New York City to Minneapolis to New York City to Minneapolis to New York City to Italy to Minneapolis. For a few devious seconds I consider not telling my mom I'm coming. But I do. I call her from the pay phone in the parking lot. Of course I tell her. She needs me, too.

THIS TIME WHEN I ARRIVE, MY DAD CAN GET OUT OF HIS chair to hug me, so at least he's better than right after the bypass. His main limitations are that he can't carry anything (including the laundry they still need to do each day because of the bugs), he can't walk very far, and he doesn't feel comfortable driving. I don't drive at all—officially I have my license, but I've never owned a car, nor driven one since I was twenty. Since the whole reason I'm here is to take some of the load off Sandy, having to ask her for rides to the grocery store sort of defeats the purpose. But I have no choice. I offer to relearn how to drive, but Sandy says since I'm only here for two weeks, it's not worth it.

When I mention this to my mother the second night I'm in Minneapolis, she volunteers to drive me anywhere I want and take my dad to his appointments. It's a sweet offer, and I feel bad
when I tell her that driving with her would probably give my dad another heart attack—and definitely induce panic attacks in me. But I have to tell her the truth or she'll keep asking and asking and asking. And she's not offended, anyway. She just laughs.

The driving situation notwithstanding, I'm able to make myself useful at my dad and Sandy's. I do the daily laundry, assorted cleaning tasks, and around noon I make lunch. Usually we have a salad, but sometimes soup or something frozen from the co-op. Because he's so nauseated from his medications, my dad isn't eating much. Since the first surgery he's lost thirty pounds. I always set some of the lunch aside for Sandy and if she has time she'll sit down with us. In the late afternoon, I start figuring out what to make for dinner.

I'M TRYING
TO keep one foot in David's world by listening to the two Italian instruction CDs I loaded onto my iPod. When Sandy's home and I know my dad has company, I duck out for a walk along River Road, listening to the Italian lessons and whispering along.

When David calls, the third day I'm in Minneapolis, I'm thrilled to hear his voice.

But he doesn't sound happy. Last night he found out that some of the villagers have come up with nicknames for us.

“What are they?” All day I've been itching like crazy; even though I know it's a bad idea, I take a paper clip from the dispenser on my dad's desk and scratch my ankle with it.

“You're
bruschettini.
”

“Little bruschetta? What does that even mean?”

“I'm not sure,” he says, “but I don't think it's insulting, like mine.”

“What's yours?”

“
Aglio
kid!”

“Garlic kid? Why?”

“Because I smell like garlic all the time! Because of the fucking bugs!”

“Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry.” I toss the paper clip into the garbage.

“These things are affecting my life now,” David says. “I want the villagers to like me. I want them to talk to me.”

“I understand. Look, I'll find something to get rid of these things, I promise.” I feel so guilty that David has to pay the consequences of my mother's hoarding. He probably wishes he had a normal mother-in-law, a wife with a normal family.

“I'm sorry,” I say again.

“I know,” he says, sighing.

It doesn't matter how many times I apologize. The only thing that will make things better is getting rid of these fucking bugs.

MY MOTHER HAS
a telephone phobia, she freely admits it, and whenever she answers the phone her voice has a tentative tone. But tonight she sounds even more fearful than usual.

“He-llo?”

“Hi Mom, it's me. How's it going?”

“Oh, fine,” she says, but her voice sounds flat. “How's your dad?”

“The same. He's in a lot of pain and he's exhausted.”

She asks what medications he's on, and I tell her even though we've already covered this.

“Maybe you should start looking for a new job, Mom, to give you something to do.”

She loved her job. I know that's why she's obsessed with suing them. She wants to punish her former employers for hurting her feelings. They rejected her, they abandoned her, and that
is unacceptable, especially because the nursing home was her sanctuary after Roger died. She had friends there. It was her social life, and now that it's over I don't know how she'll find human connection. Our phone calls are definitely not enough.

“The problem is that if I work, it might affect my lawsuit.”

I'll let that slide. Even though I don't see how she could possibly believe she has a chance of winning her lawsuit when she had so many warnings, there's no point in trying to talk her out of it.

I look at the clock. It's 8:00, when my dad needs to take his nighttime pills. I need to go remind him because Sandy's still out at an appointment. I should have waited until afterward to call my mom.

“What about some kind of cancer survivors' support group? You could meet people and learn how to stay healthy at the same time.”

“I don't know,” she says.

“What about one of those walking groups for seniors? You love to walk.”

“I just wish I was good at something,” she says. “I wish I had a talent.”

“You like knitting.”

“I know, but to be honest with you, Jessie . . . I'm not very good.” The flatness in her voice now has an undercurrent of whine.

“What do you think I should try?” my mom asks. “You always give me the best advice.”

I look at the clock again. I really need to get out to the living room, where my dad is. The phone I'm on has a cord, so I'm tethered at the other end of the house from him. Tethered by my mother's demand for my attention, too.

“Just tell me what I should do, Jessie.”

“Mom, please,” I groan. “Stop.”

“What?” She sounds alarmed.

“I'm here to take care of my dad. You had your turn with the cancer. Let me take care of my dad now.”

“Okay,” she says, and I can almost hear her sitting up straight. “I don't want to add to your stress. That's the last thing I want to do.”

I feel crushed and terrible. She has no one else. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to be a bitch.”

“Oh, no, it's okay,” she says, and that's the problem: It really is okay with her. She has the lowest self-esteem of anyone I know. And when I think about that, I feel even worse.

“Listen, my dad has a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon and Sandy's taking him. We could get together then if you want.”

“That would be fantastic. What should we do?”

Normally when I'm here with David, we borrow my dad or Sandy's car and David drives. We'll pick up my mom and go out to lunch or a café or a museum, and then always a used bookstore afterward.

There's a park that's two blocks from her house and about ten from my dad and Sandy's. I suggest that we meet there.

“That sounds great. Call me in the morning, okay?” my mom says, sounding about a hundred times more chipper than she did thirty seconds ago. “And I've got something to show you . . .”

“What?”

“It's a surprise!”

BEFORE MY DAD
and Sandy leave for his appointment, I ask them to see if the doctor will prescribe the sulfur lotion that my dermatologist wouldn't because of its alleged messiness.

“It's worth a shot,” my dad says. He pulls me to him sideways and kisses me on the head. “Bye, honey.”

As they walk out the back door and toward the garage, Sandy's strides are purposeful, her back straight, while behind her my dad moves hunched and slow, his hand over his chest as if he's about to pledge his allegiance to the flag.

I grab my purse and make sure I have my keys and sunglasses. There's no reason to rush, though, because my mother's always late.