When I arrived with London in tow, my mom was wearing a red and blue checkered apron-without pockets, I couldn’t help but notice-and her face lit up at the sight of my daughter. Over the years, she’d begun to resemble less the mother I’d known and more the kind of grandmother that Norman Rockwell might have created for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. She was gray-haired, pink-cheeked, and soft in all the right places, and it went without saying that London was equally thrilled to see her.
Even better, both Liz and Marge were at the house. After a quick hug and kiss from all of them, their attention shifted completely to my daughter, and I pretty much became invisible. Liz scooped her up almost as soon as London burst through the front door and all at once London was talking a mile a minute. Marge and Liz hung on her every word, and as soon as I heard the word cupcakes, I knew that London would be occupied for at least the next couple of hours. London loved to bake, which was odd since it was something that Vivian didn’t particularly enjoy, what with all the white flour and sugar.
“How was your Fourth?” I asked my mom. “Did you and Dad see the fireworks?”
“We stayed in,” she said. “Crowds and traffic are just too much these days. How about you?”
“The usual. Neighborhood block party, and then we went to the ballpark.”
“So did we,” Liz said. “You should have called us. We could have made plans to meet.”
“I didn’t think about it. Sorry.”
“Did you like the show, London?” Marge asked.
“They were super pretty. But some of them were really loud.”
“Yes, they were.”
“Can we go start the cupcakes now?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Strangely, my mom didn’t follow the three of them. Instead, she hovered near me, waiting until they were in the kitchen before finally smoothing the front of her apron. It was what she always did when she was nervous.
“You okay, Mom?”
“You need to talk to him. He needs to go to the doctor.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“I’m worried he might have the cancer.”
My mom never said simply “cancer.” It was always the cancer. And the idea of the cancer terrified her. It had taken the lives of her parents as well her two older siblings. Since then, the cancer had become a regular topic of conversation with my mom, a bogeyman waiting to strike when it was least expected.
“Why would you think he has cancer?”
“Because the cancer makes it hard to breathe. That’s the same thing that happened to my brother. First, the cancer takes your breath, and then it takes the rest of you.”
“Your brother smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.”
“But your dad doesn’t. And the other day, he had trouble catching his breath.”
For the first time, I noticed the natural pinkness in her cheeks had faded.
“Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”
“I’m telling you now,” she said. She drew a long breath. “On Thursday, after work, he was on the back porch. I was cooking dinner, and even though it was blazing hot outside, your father got it in his head to move the planter with the Japanese maple in it from one end of porch to the other, so it wouldn’t get so much sun.”
“By himself?” There wasn’t a chance I could shift the thing an inch. It must have weighed a few hundred pounds. Maybe more.
“Of course,” she answered, as if I was dumb to even ask. “And after he’d moved it, it took him a few minutes to catch his breath. He had to sit down and everything.”
“It’s no wonder. Anyone would breathe hard after that.”
“Not your father.”
She had a point, I admitted. “How was he afterward?”
“I just told you.”
“How long did it take him to get back to normal?”
“I don’t know. A couple of minutes maybe.”
“Did he have to lie down on the couch or anything like that?”
“No. He acted like nothing was wrong with him at all. Got himself a beer in fact and put on the ball game.”
“Well, if he seemed fine…”
“He needs to go to the doctor.”
“You know he doesn’t like doctors.”
“That’s why you need to tell him. He won’t listen to me anymore. He’s as stubborn as a drain clogged with gizzards and bacon grease, and he hasn’t been to the doctor in years.”
“He probably won’t listen to me either. Did you tell Marge to ask him?”
“She told me that it was your turn.”
Thanks, Marge. “I’ll talk to him, okay?”
She nodded but by her distracted expression, I knew she was still thinking about the cancer.
“Where’s Vivian? Isn’t she coming?”
“It’s just London and me this afternoon. Viv’s running some errands.”
“Oh,” my mom said. She knew what running errands meant. “Your dad should still be in the garage.”
Thankfully, the garage offered shade, lowering the temperature to something barely tolerable for a man like me, who was used to an air-conditioned office. My dad, on the other hand, probably didn’t even notice, or if he did, wouldn’t complain. The garage was his sanctuary, and as I entered, I marveled at how organized and cluttered it was at exactly the same time. Tools hung along the wall, boxes of wires and assorted gizmos I couldn’t name, and a homemade workbench with drawers full of every kind of nail, screw, and bolt in existence. Engine parts, extension cords, garden equipment; it all had a place in my dad’s world. I’ve always believed that my dad would have been most comfortable in the 1950s, or even as a pioneer.
My dad was a large man, with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a mermaid tattoo on his forearm, a remnant from his stint in the navy. During my childhood, he’d loomed like a giant. Though he was a plumber who’d worked for the same company for almost thirty years, it seemed like he could repair anything. Leaking windows or roofs, lawnmower engines, televisions, heat pumps; it didn’t matter to him; he had an innate knowledge of exactly the part he’d need to get whatever was broken working perfectly again. He knew everything there was to know about cars-as long as they were built before everything was computerized-and spent his weekend afternoons tinkering on the 1974 Ford Mustang he had restored twenty years ago and still drove to work. In addition to the workbench, he’d built numerous things around the house: the back deck, the storage shed, a vanity for my mother, and the cabinets in our kitchen. He wore jeans and work boots no matter what the weather, and had a colorful style of profanity that emphasized verbs, not adjectives. It went without saying that he cared little for pop culture and had never seen a single minute of anything that could be considered reality TV. He expected dinner on the table promptly at six, after which he’d put on a ball game in the family room. On the weekends, he worked in the garden or in the garage in addition to taking care of the lawn. He wasn’t a hugger, either. My dad shook hands, even with me, and I was always conscious of the calluses and strength in his grip.
When I found him, he was half under the Mustang, with only his bottom half showing. Talking to my dad in the garage was often like talking to a poorly stored mannequin.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Who’s there?”
In his midsixties, my dad had begun to lose his hearing.
“It’s me, Russ.”
“Russ? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d bring London over to say hi. She’s inside with Mom and Marge and Liz.”
“Cute kid,” he said. From my dad, that was about as gushy a compliment as he’d ever offer, even though he adored her. Truth was, he loved nothing better than to have London sit in his lap while he was watching a ball game.