Theater Macabre (15 page)

From the hallway came the whisper of soft-soled shoes and a muffled, ragged cough that spoke of stolen breath and fading hope.

I looked down at my father, shifted in my seat just to make a sound, just to move, because he was now doing neither of those things. He was simply staring up at the ceiling with eyes that had lost their light and color. To his terrible question, I had no answer, but opened my mouth, trusting my paralyzed tongue to shake off the ice and deliver assurance from somewhere, no matter how ill-equipped I was to give it.

To my relief, however, he spared me the effort. "I ask—" he said, "—only because I'd hate to do it wrong." The tiniest of smiles appeared on his lips. "And embarrass myself, you know? Make it necessary to have a closed casket coffin to hide my mortification."

He was dying, and yet his smile had more life in it than the one I forced onto my face. "I see," I said, inanely, torn between appreciating his attempt at levity, and weeping at the truth inherent in it.

"I want you to do something for me," he said, after another prolonged moment so delicate it made knives of every word that penetrated it.

I sat forward, nodded once, afraid to nod again for fear it would loose the reservoir of tears swelling so relentlessly behind my eyes, and took his hand. His skin was cool, and dry, and rasped against mine. "Anything."

My father's face was a sunken mask, his voice a mere croak expelled from an airless vacuum suspended between sallow cheeks that were stippled with stubble the color of frost. "I want you to leave before I do."

I frowned, questioningly, even though I knew exactly what he meant. It was the only form of protest at my disposal.

"I don't want you to be here when I pass on."

"Don't ask me to do that."

"
Hey
." Had he the strength, he would have raised his other hand and pointed a forefinger at me. It pained me to see him trying to be authoritative, like his old self--the man who'd come home every day after a twelve hour shift at the fish processing plant, smelling like saltwater, mackerel guts and industrial soap, to tell us all to get washed up for supper
and no dawdling, damn it
. "Listen to what I'm telling you. I know why you're here and I'm telling you I don't
want
you here."

"And what if it isn't your choice?"

"Well by Jesus if a man can't dictate the terms of his own passing, then there's no hope for the world. No. What you can do is respect my wishes. I don't want you sitting here when I go. It isn't right."

"Dad...you know I can't leave you."

"You shouldn't even be here. I prayed you wouldn't come."

His words hurt, but grief had already shoved me over the pain threshold; another nudge wasn't enough to warrant special consideration. "If the choice has been entirely mine I might not have," I told him, "I knew you wouldn't want me here, despite my hope that time had healed the wounds."

"You make it sound personal."

I shrugged, and looked at my hands. "Isn't it?"

I heard his breath slow as he searched for an answer. At length, it regulated, and I knew he'd given up.

A hollow disembodied voice in the corridor summoned Doctor Ryan to X-Ray. It was answered, at least on our floor, by a single solitary moan.

"Seen your mother?" The years without her hadn't succeeded in diluting the anger and bitterness in his voice. I studied him closely as a sudden violent snow-flecked gust of wind made a static television screen of the window.

"No," I replied. "I stopped by earlier. She wasn't there."

His scoff emerged a wheeze. "I'm surprised you didn't bring her with you."

"Why would I?"

"There'll hardly be a better opportunity, now will there?" He shook his head. "What better time to remind a man of his sins than when he's stricken down and on the way out." He cleared his throat with difficulty. "But of course...I've got you for that now, haven't I?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but let the words melt into a slow exasperated breath at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. My father closed his eyes again, but this time I knew he was doing it to avoid looking at me.

The flickering fluorescents in the hallway chased a long shadow to our door. The squeak of rubber-soled shoes grew louder, and a second later I looked over my shoulder and into a face paler than my dying father's. The stuttering light behind her made an anatomical contradiction of the nurse. Wide-framed yet angular, stout yet appearing to loom in the doorway, I found myself unsettled by her presence there. She lingered, unspeaking, thin arms crossed and clamping a clipboard to her chest, and when at last she stepped forward, allowing her features to be defined by the feeble glow from the monitors at my father's bedside, the severity on her face was almost potent enough to make me recoil. It was as if someone, equipped with poor tools and poorer light, had made a crude and half-hearted attempt to invert the grimace on the mask of tragedy. I might have thought her a ghost if not for her voice, which, when at last it came, was laden with all too human compassion.

"Mr. Brennan? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," said my father, with a croak I assumed was affected for her benefit. "Thank you."

"Can I get you anything?"

"No need. This is my son come to visit. If I need anything, I'll get him to fetch it for me." He winked, but his face was so soaked in shadow I doubted she could see it. "Put him to work one last time."

"Well," she said--rather dismissively I thought--and nodded at the window. "It looks like we're going to have a white Christmas this year. The first in over a decade."

"I think we both know I'm not going to be around to open any presents."

She straightened, chin jutting out indignantly. "Well if it's all the same to you I'll get you something anyway, something small, and you just see if it gets opened or not."

He flapped a hand at her. "I can't rightly go to my eternal rest knowing it'll cause you to lose some of your hard-earned wages, Kathleen. When I go, it'll be with a clear conscience, or not at all."

Abruptly the nurse's voice changed, dropped to the level I'd expected to hear from her when she first spoke, the tone designed to match that malevolent expression. "I suspect that's why
he's
here."

A long slow sigh carried the words from my father's mouth, and again I felt irritation towards him. Whether or not he agreed with the nurse, it was obvious he was playing on her sympathies, recruiting her as an ally no matter how dubious or transparent the cause. "Yes," he said. "I'm afraid you've hit the nail on the head. But what can we do?"

"Ignore him," she replied, in disgust. "Eventually they leave you alone."

I could feel her glare burning like hot coals in the cold gloom.

"What is it he wants from you? To know the whereabouts of your secret fortune?"

"No. Nothing like that. Rather, a confession."

"Hmph. Laying the guilt on you, is he?"

"No, he hasn't yet, but I have a feeling it's coming."

"Do you mind not talking as if I'm not here?" I interjected. "I've come a long way to see my father tonight, and I'd appreciate a little courtesy, if it's not too much to ask."

The wind howled through the eaves, and huffed against the walls. Snow left ghostly fingerprints on the glass. A faint beep sent an amber light speeding across one of the monitors. In the hall, someone else was paged.

"Fiery one, isn't he?" the nurse remarked around her crooked smile, and backed out of the room. "It's a night for such visitors. You know where that buzzer is if you need me, Mr. Brennan. Don't let him work you up into a fit. I'll be down the hall if you want to cut the visiting hours a little short. There won't be a thing he can say to that."

"Thank you," my father said, with a serene smile that told me he was enjoying himself.

"Don't mention it." She retreated down the hall, whistling a discordant tune to the squeak-beat percussion of her shoes.

"Was that necessary?" I asked, glowering at him, while distantly aware that I shouldn't be prolonging this silliness. There were more important things to discuss.

"She doesn't like you," he stated simply. "She's been here for twenty years and has seen enough of your kind to know better than to extend a welcome."

"My kind?" I laughed dryly. "You've never changed, Dad. Despite all the promises, all the affirmations and supposed epiphanies, you're still the close-minded fool you always were."

I expected him to get angry, momentarily forgetting that it was likely he no longer had the reserves required to fuel his ire. "I was never close-minded," he said. "I just know what's natural and what isn't. And you're unnatural."

Unnatural
. It was not the first time I'd heard it, and it wouldn't be the last, but from the mouth of my father, it came with hooks attached to dig beneath my skin and stay there.

"You must wonder about it yourself," he said, as casually as if we were discussing the nurse's white Christmas. "When everyone in town thinks the same of you, can they all be wrong?"

"I never cared about them," I said, alarmed to feel the tears returned and cracks appearing in the dam. "I only cared about you. But you never even tried to understand." I gave a rueful shake of my head. "Maybe it was beyond you."

"Unnatural," he repeated, tasting the word. "Not my fault."

"Like so many other things." I averted my eyes. "Mom, for instance."

I imagined the air between us freezing. Even the beep from the heart monitor seemed delayed. More snow faces peered close to the window, perhaps attracted by emotions of a similar temperature. But any regret I might have felt at finally getting to the crux of the matter in so callous a fashion was allayed by the awareness that time was running out, and it had to be done. There was no room for further delay, not when things had so quickly devolved between us. Soon he would sleep, or stop talking, or die, and he'd be lost, and no matter what he thought of me and "my kind", it didn't change the fact that I had a job to do.

"Is that why you came?" he whispered, as if reading my thoughts. He was trembling now, and on any other day I'd have offered to turn up the heat, or fetched him another blanket. But this was no other day. This was his last, and he was only cold on the inside. "Is it the
only
reason you came?"

A lifetime of disappointment and frustration made me hesitate before admitting the truth. "No." I placed my other hand on his. He made a feeble effort to pull away, but I tightened my grip.

"You're hands are bloody freezing."

"I came because you're my father, and I love you, and right now, none of what's transpired between us matters. Not here; not now. Only the truth counts, and you need to speak it."

He swallowed and his Adam's apple moved like a mouse beneath a pale sheet. "Or what?"

"Or you'll be alone." Of course the consequences would not be so simple, but I assumed the implication in those four words would be enough.

I should have known, with my father, they wouldn't.

"And what makes you think that's not what I want, what I've been hoping for all my life?"

"Because," I replied, "You fell in love with a woman, married her, had a child you loved...for a time. No one who fills other people's lives with light for so long deserves to be left in the dark by himself."

Down in the parking lot, a car alarm warbled and was abruptly muted. An engine revved with the sound of ball bearings rolling down a metal pipe.

"Rehearse that speech, did you?" my father asked. "Or do
your kind
dole out such wisdom on laminated cards to be read to the dying."

I ignored him. "What happened to her?"

"You know."

"No, I don't. I know what you
said
."

"Then you know everything." He turned his head away and the dark rushed in to fill the hollows in his cheeks.

"You're lying."

I watched his eyes drift closed again and felt panic playing the strings of urgency. "Dad?"

"I didn't hurt her."

"Then
tell
me..."

"I have nothing to say."

"You must."

"For Christ's sake," he said, and a tear crept like mercury through the shadows on his face. "Leave me alone."

"I can't, and you know it. Were you with her that day?"

"You know I was."

"Did you fight?"

"Yes."

"Then what?"

He took a breath so deep that for a moment it vied with the wind as the prevalent sound in the room. "Then nothing. I left her there."

I leaned closer. "Alive?"

He didn't speak, but the heart monitor spoke volumes. And when at last he nodded, he was weeping freely. "How...?" he said then in a strangled voice. "How do you die? Please..." This time, there was no mirth in the request, no casual dismissal.

I kissed his hand, cupped my cheek in his palm, and told him I loved him.

Then I answered his question.

*

A short time later, I left him, and my footsteps were the only ones in that long bleak corridor, but before I boarded the feebly lit elevator back downstairs, I saw a few more of my kind, grim-faced and grieving as they slipped softly out of rooms with questions and uncertainties of their own. I did not wait to speak to them, as I had nothing to gain by doing so. Despite their presence, I felt alone, but consoled myself with the thought that I would not be alone for long.

As the elevator doors scraped shut, sealing me in its heavy steel womb, I thought of my father, who had, despite his fear and anger and stubbornness, never hurt my mother, and in his final hours, still made a valiant effort to look upon me as his son. I smiled.

Sometime in the next few days, they will bury him, and someone will come to the grave, charged with the thankless task of disrupting a headstone with his hammer and chisel. There, in the shadow of the old abbey ruins, with a careful hand and the sea breeze ruffling his hair, he will etch my father's name into the cold marble headstone.

Right above my own.

And we will rest.