Two Tears in a Bucket (29 page)

“
What’s up? Why you looking like that?” he asked, opening the refrigerator. Simone didn’t know what pissed her off the most
—the filthy house, the overdue notices, or his undaunted attitude.

“
Why are these sitting here, Andre? Aren’t you supposed to pay them?”

Andre twisted off the cap to the frosted bottle of water and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh. I didn’t know what you wanted me to do with them so I just left them there. I’ll pay them this week.”

“
You’ll pay them this week,” Simone chuckled sarcastically. “Andre, they’re cut off notices. How long have they been sitting on the table?”

“
I don’t know. A couple of days, I guess.”

Andre headed to the great room without a care in the world and settled into his favorite spot on the sectional in front of the sixty-two-inch high-definition television that he’d insisted they needed a few months ago.

Simone ripped open the gas bill, only to discover the cut-off date was two days ago.
Lord have mercy,
she thought, marching to the center cooktop. She turned the knob to ignite the gas pilot and nothing happened.

“
Andre! The gas is off!”

Andre peeped over the couch with ‘oops’ written all over his face. “It’s off?”

“
Yes, it’s off. I don’t believe this!”

Simone ripped open the other notices. Everything was scheduled to be off by the end of the week—the lights, the cable, and even the phone.

Here she was, the six-figure making businesswoman, one of the highest-selling agents in her office, getting ready to sit in the dark. But it wasn’t the first time. The utility bills were Andre’s only financial responsibility. Yet, month after month, it was as if he were allergic to the bills. Something was always off or pending termination.

From the outside looking in, Simone and Andre’s marriage seemed picture-perfect—flooded with material possessions and first-class travel. Their family and friends marveled over the façade, misconstruing their lavish life for happiness.

The undisputed breadwinner, Simone carried their finances without the slightest hint of hesitancy, but there was little appreciation. Andre acted like she was supposed to not only pay all the bills, but still maintain the house by cooking and cleaning while he waddled in the lap of luxury like a king. Night after night, she strolled into a filthy house that her hectic schedule didn’t allot time to clean. She contemplated hiring a maid service, but she couldn’t justify the cost. Not when she had an able-bodied husband who needed to get off of his ass and help. Hell, he wasn’t paying anything. The least he could do was vacuum!

“
I’ll pay them all tomorrow,” he said, strolling back into the kitchen.

Simone couldn’t even respond. She was too pissed and knew it wouldn’t take long before they erupted into one of their heated arguments. Arguing had become their favorite pastime. “Bitches” and “hoes” flew out of Andre’s mouth with little effort. After the initial shock wore off from the first round of insults, Simone joined him. She reached into the same gutter of filth to spit back her retaliation. They argued and slung insults like road-raged strangers on a regular basis. What they had wasn’t a marriage at all.

Simone’s phone vibrated again, a welcomed distraction. This was why she worked so much. With real estate, she got back what she put in, unlike life with Andre.

Reaching inside her purse, she found her phone and flipped it open. Surprisingly, there were four missed calls, all from Mae. She dialed her voice mail; there was only one message.

“
Simone,” Mae cried brokenly, struggling to speak over her muffled sobs. “Your father’s been rushed to the hospital. They found a mass on his brain. Call me, please.”

● ● ●

The two weeks Thomas lay in the hospital nothing else mattered to Simone. Not her daughters, her husband, or even real estate. Day in and day out, Simone and Mae sat by Thomas’s bedside, watching the visitors come and go. Simone knew her father was scared. He’d never been sick a day in his life. In front of company, he was his normal, jovial self, laughing his infamous hearty laugh, joking with the nurses, requesting sponge baths. He even wrote down a few lottery numbers for Stan to play for him. But when out of the blue he asked to be baptized by the hospital’s chaplain, Simone knew he was nervous and his bubbliness was just an act. Knowing Thomas was serious about his request, Mae did better than the hospital chaplain. She had the pastor of her church baptize Thomas right in his hospital bed.

After finally ruling out cancer, the neurologist diagnosed Thomas with an arteriovenous malformation.

“
It’s what we call a baby stroke,” the doctor informed. “A small amount of blood has leaked from the vessels, which caused you to feel dizzy when you moved about.”

“
So,” Thomas said as he absentmindedly played a game of putt-putt with the few green peas on his dinner tray, “you gonna jot down a prescription and send me home, right?”

“
I could possibly honor such a request, Mr. Woodard,” the doctor said, “but any possible cure would only be temporary. See, if the vessels continue to leak, the mass of blood will grow and the weight will begin to add pressure to your brain, which will eventually cause a major stroke.”

“
Whew,” Thomas huffed, blown away by the news. Dropping his fork, he said, “I didn’t want to hear that.”

Seated fretfully on the edge of her chair, Simone asked, “So if medication’s only a temporary fix, how can we prevent a stroke from happening? How can we stop the vessels from bleeding?”

“
I knew you would ask.” He smiled at Simone.

The next day, Thomas was whisked into surgery. A glue-like substance was injected through his groin to the blood vessels in his head to prevent any further bleeding. Eight hours later, the procedure was declared a success, and two days later, Thomas was discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health. There were no prescriptions to be filled or special instructions for him to follow other than the generic ‘follow up with your doctor.’

Thomas’s kitchen was an inferno. The sizzling July day had a ‘Welcome Home’ barbecue tattooed all over it. But, burgers, hotdogs, and ribs were the farthest things from Thomas’s mind. After being in the hospital for two weeks, he wanted a feast fit for Thanksgiving. Thankful that her father was out of the woods and back home, Simone ignored the fact that the air conditioning had conked out and cooked the feast with joy in her heart. As far as she was concerned, it was Thanksgiving in July and she was thankful that her dad was home.

Fans were scattered throughout the house, but offered little relief to Simone as she slaved over the hot stove. Collard greens; homemade macaroni and cheese; potato salad; candied yams; a plump, juicy turkey; a pot roast covered in potatoes, carrots, onions, and green peppers—all had the house smelling good.

After the last group of people left rubbing their stomachs and picking their teeth with toothpicks, Thomas sat in his living room dressed in a brand-new pair of Nautica pajamas, staring at his daughter in awe.

“
You don’t know how much I love you.”

“
Well, if you really love me, you’ll do me a favor.”

“
Simone,” Thomas whined playfully, “I just got out the hospital. I ain’t fit to be doing no favors.”

“
No, Daddy. I’m being serious,” Simone said. “I want you to give up one of your jobs.”

Thomas frowned. “Baby girl, I can’t do that. Those two weeks in the hospital put us behind. Me and Mae got bills. I need my full-
and
part-time jobs.”

“
Thomas,” Mae added. “Simone paid the mortgage for us while you were in the hospital. I told her not to, but you know how she is when it comes to you.”

“
Yeah, Daddy, and I’ll pay it every single month if you give up one of your jobs. You being in the hospital scared me. So, I want you to take it easy. You’re only fifty-eight.”

Thomas stared at his daughter. “What in the world did I do to deserve you?” He smiled. “I got the best got damn daughter in the world.”

Heading home, Simone smiled, engulfed by the warm feeling of love and peace. Finally, things were back to normal.

● ● ●

“
Turn off the alarm,” Simone mumbled, half-asleep. Exhausted, she couldn’t even open her eyes. The irritating noise wouldn’t stop, and Andre didn’t budge. “Andre, please,” she whined, shaking him. “Can you turn off the alarm?”

“
That’s not the alarm,” he mumbled groggily. “It’s the phone.”

Simone’s eyes popped open, and she sprang up in bed. The alarm clock read four-thirty in the morning.

“
Oh my God!” she screamed.

Bolting from the bed, she grabbed the clothes she’d worn to prepare Thomas’s feast from the floor and jumped into the shirt and shorts riddled with the stale scents from the kitchen.

“
What you doing?” Andre mumbled.

“
Answer the phone!” Simone cried. Something in her gut gnawed at her. “It’s about my father.”

● ● ●

The prognosis wasn’t good. Sometime during the night, Thomas had suffered a massive stroke.

“
You sent him home,” Simone cried to the doctor. “You performed the surgery to prevent him from having a massive stroke, and for what? He fucking had one anyway!” Half of her wanted to smack the shit out of the doctor; the other half wanted to drag his ass back to the operating room so he could undo whatever the hell he’d done and scribble out the prescription instead. What good had the surgery been?

“
Unfortunately, Ms. Woodard, it appears that too much blood had already seeped from the vessels in your father’s brain. The surgery was successful, but there was nothing we could do about the mass of blood that had already escaped from the vessels. The body simply absorbs that over time.”

Just when Simone thought everything was back to normal, she was back at the hospital every day, holding her father’s hand as she sat glued to his bedside. She was angry with herself. How come she hadn’t seen it coming? She’d asked questions, but obviously they weren’t the right ones.

Paralysis had set in on Thomas’s right side. He couldn’t walk or talk, eat or drink, and had lost control of his bodily functions. His immobile state ripped Simone apart. Each and every morning while the nurses bathed her father, she sat on the floor outside of her father’s room and cried. Everyone was devastated. The nurses hadn’t wanted to see their high-spirited patient leave, but they hated even more to see him back, especially in his current state.

One of Thomas’s nurses squatted down on the floor and draped her arms around Simone. “We hate to see you like this,” she said, squeezing Simone. But it was of little consolation. “Mrs. Perkins, your dad’s going to be okay. He’s too full of life to let this get the best of him. Just give it time and keep the faith.”

Two weeks drifted by with little improvement. There was no magic potion or surgery that the doctors could prescribe or perform to correct the stroke. So, Thomas was transferred to a rehabilitation center.

“
Visiting hours here in the center end at eight,” the nurse informed as she fiddled about in Thomas’s room. However, the visiting hours had never meant anything to Simone or Mae.

“
The hospital let us stay all night,” Simone informed.

“
Well, we don’t allow overnight visits here,” she shared without a hint of compassion. She didn’t even bother to look their way. “I’ll let you stay a little while longer since it’s his first day, but the hours are strictly enforced. It’s best for the patient and his rehabilitation.”

Mae and Simone exchanged aggravated looks.

“
Simone, you go home. You need to check on Kayla anyway. I’ll stay here until she puts me out.” The bite in Mae’s voice got the nurse’s attention, causing her eyes to dart in Mae’s direction.

“
What time do visiting hours start?” Simone asked extra politely to make up for Mae’s gnawing. She didn’t want to make the nurse an enemy. Not when she was tending to her father.

“
Nine o’clock.”

Simone looked at Thomas lying in the bed. She reached for his hand, knelt over, and kissed him gently on the forehead.

“
You’re on the real road to recovery now, Daddy. Before long, you’ll be teaching me how to hand dance. You know I got the basic steps.” Letting Thomas’s hand go, she playfully danced the basic steps to the black folks’ version of swing dancing. “I got that part, right?”

Thomas smiled with his eyes.

“
Now you gotta hurry up and get better so you can teach me how to turn.” Simone mirrored her father’s smile. “I love you, Daddy. I’ll be outside casing the building at eight-thirty.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Simone walked in the door with a fierce headache. When she didn’t spend the night at the hospital, she couldn’t pull herself from Thomas’s bedside until the wee hours of the morning. Before the sun tiptoed over the horizon, she was back at the hospital. Tonight, she was thankful for the early evening.

“
What you doing here so early?” Andre asked from his usual spot on the sectional. Simone was surprised he was even home.

“
My father got transferred to rehabilitation today,” she said as she rested on the other end of the couch. “And they don’t allow visits after eight. No exceptions.”

She kicked off her shoes and settled into the coolness of the plush leather couch. She grabbed the faux-fur throw on the arm of the sectional and draped it across her weary body. Too exhausted to hunt for pain relievers, she closed her eyes, ready to utter goodnight.