Always? Sorry. Okay, let’s just get the darn thing done with. But, boy, you’re really an expert at making me stop whatever I’m doing to attend to you and then making me feel guilty.” The time he was transferring her from the commode to the wheelchair and the commode’s front wheels weren’t braked, which was his fault — it was his job to brake them — and one of them rolled over his foot and gashed the big toe. “Goddamnit,” he yelled, “your stupid fucking commode.” Yelling in front of strangers in an apartment building lobby when he couldn’t fit the wheelchair she was in through the elevator door: “Why is there always a hassle with you?” Yelling and slapping the back of her wheelchair’s headrest when their van’s electronically controlled ramp wouldn’t lower. Brushing her hair too hard a number of times when he was angry at her or because of something else. A couple of times she didn’t give any indication he was hurting her or tell him to stop brushing so hard, and after he tied the hairband around her ponytail and turned the commode around so he could transfer her to the wheelchair, saw she’d been crying. All of those really happen? Something like he remembered, and some very close to what happened and even a little worse, and there were a lot more. “Dad,” Rosalind says at the end of the memorial, “are you sure you don’t want to say something?” “No, everything seems to have been covered, and more eloquently than I ever could, so I’ve nothing to add. Besides, I’m a little overcome by what you and your sister and so many of the guests here have recounted about your mother, that I doubt I could say anything even if I wanted to. Thank you all for coming,” he says without turning around to the fairly large group of people behind him; he only looked at Rosalind standing in front and who ran the memorial. “Now I think we should all have something to eat and drink, don’t you, sweetheart?” “If no one else has anything to share with us about Mommy,” she says, “sure.” No one does, so she says “Then Maureen and I also thank you for coming to our mother’s memorial and we now hope you’ll help yourselves to refreshments in the dining room.” He has a glass of wine, talks briefly to a few people, mostly thanking them for coming. To one couple he says “It meant a lot to my daughters that you were here.” Then he thinks Maybe that was the wrong thing to say and the wrong tense to use. Is it “were”? Is it “are”? And “means” instead of “meant”? Maybe, he thinks, he should get out of here before he says something even worse. And save the drinking for when everyone’s gone, and he puts the glass down and says “I meant, of course, I’m very glad you came too. Just, you know, the day’s confused me, and I also haven’t been in the greatest shape since my Gwen died. ‘My Gwen.’ I never before referred to her that way. But not to worry, though, not to worry — I didn’t say it for that. For you to worry. I meant about my not being in the greatest shape. But you knew what I meant.” “Oh, God,” he thinks, “I’m losing it. Who knows what I’ll say next. I knew I shouldn’t be here. But then how would it have looked? I should have let them have it in a restaurant, paid for it all there too — room, booze, food, whatever it cost. Then they could have said “My father’s not feeling well and couldn’t be here.” But then people would be worried. “Are you all right?” the woman of this couple says. “Oh, yeah. Excuse me, I have to speak to my daughters about something important. It’s been nice talking to you. Again, thanks for coming.” And he goes over to his daughters, pulls them aside and says he’s become exhausted by it all, physically and emotionally, and if they don’t mind, he’s going to rest. “You can hold down the fort. I was never very good at it. Socializing? Not my forte. That was unplanned. I’m not making jokes today. Haven’t found anything funny in a while, really, and who knows when I’ll next say something funny. I’m all confused. That’s what I was just telling whatever-their-names-are.” “The Smits?” Maureen says. “Do I know them?” “She was a colleague of Mom’s — also French lit, but the century before — and I remember they once came here for dinner, so you’ve probably been to their house too.” “