At home, she begins telling Dad how she’s had a very light heart attack, so light in fact it’s doubtful she had one at all. She isn’t saying anything of what the doctor told us, only what she wanted to hear. I’ll give Dad a straight story later; I don’t want to start her crying again. Dad’s right, crying can’t be the best thing for a heart patient.
After lunch she’s at full steam.
‘Look how the paint on this house is peeling. The garden is going to pot, nobody’s weeding. The windows are filthy. We haven’t had any really balanced meals since I’ve been home. Dad isn’t taking his pills regularly, he doesn’t look well and he’s running around so much he’s going to have another stroke.’
Far as I know, he hasn’t had a first one.
I try to reassure her Dad’s doing fine and he’s getting good food. But nothing will do. Things are slipping away from her, and she’s in a minor panic; her very reason for living is being pulled out from under her.
The truth is Dad is getting away, gaining independence. He’ll go back, and in his new breezy way ask how she’s doing and what he can do. This bugs Mom, the roles have been reversed, so quickly, easily. He’s bringing her glasses of water, fixing her medicine, straightening her bed, regulating the electric blanket, giving her massages and trying, generally, to help her relax. Everything he does makes it worse. She’s caught in an unplanned double bind.
Dad’s cooking is improving, too. It isn’t serious cuisine, but then there’s never been anything resembling good cooking going on in this house. Dad’s opening cans of soup and making sandwiches in the toaster. He makes a couple complete dinners without my assistance; nothing difficult – lamb chops with canned peas and mashed potatoes, or some steaks with canned string beans and defrosted French fries – but it’s good.
Sometimes Dad will go into the bedroom to see how Mom is and he’ll forget to take off his apron; this drives her up the wall. I almost begin to suspect he does it on purpose; that apron, like his aircraft-carrier cap, has become a badge of authority. And I know all this is almost worse for Mom than her overexertions, but I can’t think of any other way. I’ve got to leave sooner or later and Joan can’t do everything.
Joan’s concerned, but can’t see any way out either. Dad has to take over. It would be even worse having a professional nurse. Mother makes no bones about that; no strangers living in her house.
Well, this goes on another week. Dad’s getting better every day while Mom fumes and keeps overdoing herself. Dad’s seventy-third birthday is rolling around. We decide to have a quiet party for him, just the four of us; Joan, me, Dad and Mom. We don’t want Mother getting involved with the preparations, but we can’t keep her down. I’m baking the birthday cake and she’s convinced I’m going to burn the house down; wants me to buy a cake at Van de Kamp’s. She opens the oven door so often the damned cake falls. It’d drive anybody bats. I haul her back to bed at least ten times. She’s on the point of tears. Her lines are:
‘This might be the last birthday I’ll ever celebrate with my husband and you want to do it all. I know myself; I feel just fine; you can’t know how I feel …’ and so on.
Joan buys Dad a pair of blue striped flannel pajamas, also a button-down-the-front sweater from Mom. I buy him a new dark green aircraft-carrier hat. I want to give him a roller singing canary but there’s not one to be found anywhere; the Newcastle blight’s almost wiped out canaries in America.
Dad enjoys helping with the cake. We do it from scratch, no cake mix. He can’t believe you can make a cake with only flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter and salt, with a little flavoring and baking powder. It’s terrible how far removed from the fun parts of life most men get. We bake another cake after the first falls, and put them on top of each other.
The party’s a big success. We cut the cake and it’s a bit compact but delicious. Dad blows out all the candles in one fell blow; seven big ones, and three little. He makes a thing about opening each present, shaking to see if it rattles, making wild guesses and insisting on untying every knot and preserving the wrapping paper. He folds the paper carefully before he’ll go on to the next present. He’s dragging out the pleasure.
‘Come on, Jack, open it; stop playing with the paper; we don’t have all day.’
Dad turns to Mom and smiles.
‘Oh, yes, we do, Bette; we have all day; today’s my day, all day.’
He says it nicely and he’s smiling but it’s the first time I’ve heard him come back in more than twenty years. Joan looks over and gives me one of her looks. Joan’s look is to close her mouth, with her eyes wide, so white shows all around the iris. While doing this she nods then tucks her head into her shoulders. It’s best translated as ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’
Because I couldn’t find a canary, I give Dad the Swiss army knife Billy gave me for my fiftieth birthday. I hope Billy doesn’t mind. There’s something fulfilling about owning a knife like that. This one has thirteen different blades and instruments, including a magnifying glass, an ivory toothpick, scissors, tweezers, a saw, two blades, two screwdrivers (regular and Phillips), a can opener, a bottle opener, a corkscrew and a leather punch. Dad’s fascinated and opens all the blades simultaneously. It bristles like a hedgehog. Mother comes on with the expected ‘simp’ remark, and the three of us laugh.
‘You’ll see, he’ll probably cut off his finger before the day’s out.’
She’s also worried about washing the flannel pajamas; they take so long to dry.
Later, Dad goes into the bathroom and comes out with his pajamas on, his new sweater over them, and the aircraft-carrier cap on his head. He stands there smiling and opens up the Swiss knife to the magnifying glass and peers through it like a lorgnette.
Mom claims this proves he’s getting more senile every day and soon he’ll be crazy as his son. Dad says he feels like Dagwood, or a prisoner, in the striped pajamas. He sings a few lines from one of his all-time favorites.
‘Oh, if I had the wings of an angel,
O’er these prison walls I would fly;
Into the arms of my loved one and
There I would so safely hide.’
His voice is tremulous but strong and in tune. I don’t think I’ve heard him sing since he used to sing us to sleep when we were kids.
That night they want to sleep together. I move from the garden room into the side bedroom and Mom goes to sleep with Dad in the back bedroom. He smiles and says it’s the nicest birthday present of all. This is verging on the risqué from him; Joan laughs and he blushes.
In the middle of the night I hear the buzzer beside my bed. I pick up the receiver but there’s Dad at my bedroom door; his face is white in the dim light.
‘Mother thinks she’s having another heart attack, Johnny. She looks awful.’
I jump up and run back to their bedroom. She’s pale and sweating but conscious. She says she’s having terrible pain and tightness in the chest. She’s crying. I give her some digoxin but it doesn’t help. Now I have to do all the things I’ve been preparing Dad for. I leave him with her and tell him to yell if she goes unconscious.
First, I call an ambulance, then phone the hospital to alert them we’re coming in.
I go back to the bedroom. She’s still conscious but in great pain, crying. I think she’s crying mostly from disappointment and discouragement; she’d actually almost psyched herself out of that heart attack. She’s also scared.
The ambulance arrives in less than ten minutes. They roll in a stretcher and oxygen; they put her on oxygen immediately. The paramedic takes her blood pressure, shakes his head and says we’d better hurry. We wheel her out to the ambulance; I say I’ll go with them and ask Dad if he wants to come