‘You see that,’ he said, pointing to an imprinted book bag. ‘That’s the symbol of the Presbyterian church. I am an ordained minister in the Presbyterian church. The mainline Presbyterian church, not one of those split P’s.’ My father leaned and picked up the bag. It was indeed a Presbyterian book bag, clearly emblazoned with a cross and large capital P. My father exhibited the bag’s symbol with solemnity. The book bag had become a talisman for him and he rarely let it out of his sight.
I told my dad about the ambulance, that we were taking Betty Lee to the hospital. I knew my father understood the situation deep down, knew he couldn’t duck it. Below his smile, his careful manners, beneath his delusions, he knew it was grave. He knew his wife was near death and that he was not right and that he had left her there dying. He knew the soya protein was bullshit, that he sang the hymns all alone. He knew that his chattered prayers were all bent and broken and still he prayed to God they would work. And they did, too, because I came to triage his mind and pick up my mother, because I knew what to do; I’d been on both sides. My father watched from his full-blown mania, from his paranoid seat at the right hand of God, as the disgusted paramedics stared at his smile and lifted my mother onto the trolley.
I love my father. I knew what he was attempting because I’ve done it at times, passed myself off as sane by sheer force of will. Like my father, I’ve seen the beautiful cartwheel of thoughts pitch past and crash and I’ve learned not to speak of them, to let them all go. I can stand inside a desperate circus and force my mind to slow, if only for a few moments. It is the hardest work I’ve ever known. And now I watched my father attempt it, try to gather a mind much deeper than mine, try to hold back a green interior ocean full of monsters and wonders. I watched as he reeled in each rocking moment, as he stood in her bedroom and loved her and smiled.
I left him alone in his apartment and drove up to the hospital. They taped oxygen tubes under my mother’s nose, pushed a needle in her arm and taped it for the glucose drip. They said she was severely dehydrated, that her blood was like sludge. They pulled some of it for a lithium level. I explained the green soya drink again. We talked about strokes. I mentioned her state at my cousin’s in Rockport and I mentioned her lithium poisoning. Still, she was unconscious and a stroke seemed most likely. I walked with my mom and a nurse up to intensive care. There’d be an MRI in the morning. I sat a long time by her bed and it felt like a grave, but her eyelids still fluttered. I left her, called Roberta from the lobby and ran out of change. I went back to my dad.
It was long past midnight and he was awake. His bed was stripped, too. I suspect it hadn’t been slept in for weeks. I told him that Mom was all right now and resting, that we would go over in the morning. I was exhausted. I asked for his car keys. His smile tightened and he spat out his words. ‘Absolutely not. I’m legally entitled to drive. We’ve been all through that.’
‘Dad, I can’t let you drive.’
‘Oh, you can’t, can you?’ He rose up and snarled. ‘That’s enough. That’s more than enough. Get out now, David Lovelace.’ I threw up my hand and left without another word. Hell, he could light out for anywhere.
I slept hard and woke early at home. I called my brother to let him know it had busted wide open. He said he’d come at the weekend. I waited an hour, called my sister Peggy, and said Mom might be dying.
‘She’s still not conscious?’
‘No. I mean I haven’t been there today but it looks pretty bad.’
‘So, Dad just left her like that? On the floor?’
‘Peg, he’s out of his mind. You can’t blame him. I mean maybe you can but that’s not important right now. I’ve got to get him somewhere, into a hospital.’
‘Right,’ she said, and slipped into gear. She doesn’t have it but she knows all about our disease. She knows the drill; she’s a professional, a therapist with a practice out west. I needed her badly. ‘Get him to the psychiatrist – what’s his name?’
‘Bryant.’
‘Get him over to Bryant right away, like this morning. It’s an emergency and he’ll make room in his schedule. We need to get Dad safe and back on his pills today. He’s a loose cannon right now. Bryant should give you the paperwork to commit Dad if he won’t sign voluntarily.’
‘He probably won’t, not after yesterday.’
‘Right. Make sure you get the form. Each state’s different. I don’t know what it’s called out there, but Bryant will know. Okay? I’ll book a flight but it might be a few days. I’ll see. Now, call Bryant immediately and then keep me posted. Use my mobile.’
I booked an appointment and drove back to my father’s. This time he let me in before I could knock. He was waiting for me, playing Don Giovanni loudly and pacing. His clothes were the same. Books and papers littered the floor. He held out his strangely limp, sweaty hand and I shook it. ‘Thanks, David, for coming. I’m so glad you did what you did. You know best.’ He smiled. ‘Everything’s just marvellous here.’
‘Good.’
‘Listen, David, I did just as you suggested. I dumped Bank of America.’
‘You did what?’
‘I went in a few days ago and closed my account. I got everything out of safe-deposit.’ He thought I’d be pleased. He’d heard my complaints about the mega-bank, how they turned me down for a loan. I realized he had taken my financial rant seriously.
‘Where is it?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, the stuff you had in your safe-deposit box. What was in the box?’
‘Oh, our will, a few of Grandmére’s rings, I think our life insurance policy. And the gold, of course.’
‘Gold?’
‘British gold sovereigns.’
‘Sovereigns. How much?’
‘Well, the markets fluctuate, of course. You know, Peter Grady got us to cash out all our stocks and buy gold. Remember Peter Grady? From church? A marvellous idea, just wonderful. Y2K?’ He shrugged. ‘No problem at all. There’s always gold, no matter what –’
‘Dad, that was five years ago. Besides, it didn’t even happen.’
‘What didn’t happen?’
‘Y2K.’
‘Yes, it did. Clearly it did. Just look at the date.’
‘Okay, okay. How much?’
‘Sixty, seventy thousand if you want just a rough figure. If you’d like, we can look it up. I have today’s paper.’ He had the whole month’s papers in a pile by the welcome mat.
‘Where?’
‘It’s in the basement.’
‘In the laundry room? The building’s laundry room?’
‘No, no,’ he reassured me, ‘next to it. It’s in a yellow tackle box.’
‘Do you mind if I go get it?’
‘Not at all, not at all.’
The yellow tackle box was there all right, on the concrete floor next to my father’s snow tyres. I hauled it upstairs. I suggested we walk downtown to my bank. I assured my father it was local and benevolent, a good place for a safe-deposit box. He shrugged and put on his coat. An aria finished as we stepped out the door. ‘Wonderful piece that,’ my father said. ‘Wonderful.’
Sixty grand worth of gold is heavy. I worried the tackle box might snap open, its tiny hinges give out, so I held it under my arm, hoping my dad wouldn’t change his mind, hoping I wouldn’t end up chasing him around town with a plastic box full of gold.
The bank’s atmosphere quietened my father somewhat. I sat with the tackle box on my lap and tried to