He can’t imagine losing two parents in one day but knows it is possible. It is not statistically impossible, nor is he so special as to be karmically immune to great misfortunes. Andrew also knows that given the bereaved state his father was in, he could have easily run the Volvo into a light pole or driven off a bridge. Such horrifying scenarios are within the realm of possibility. Therefore, when Constable Abraham asks him to come to the police station to post bail for his father who is sitting in a cell charged with assault, it is the last thing he expects.
A little later, as Andrew parallel-parks outside the police station, he is overwhelmed by a deluge of emotions. His heart breaks for his father who will have to learn how to live without a wife and constant companion. Andrew also feels the numbing shock of his mother’s death, not to mention the fatigue of being on his feet since the morning. Underneath all that is the guilt of forgetting to call his wife to tell her about his mother’s passing. However, his most immediate reaction as he opens the heavy glass door of the police station is sheer gratitude that his father is safe, held in a cell where the man can’t be a danger to himself or anyone else.
After posting the $3,000 bail, Andrew waits in the reception area. “Huh?” was all he could say when the policeman told him about the bowling alley brawl. But his surprise that his father was in a bowling alley of all places took a back seat to the charge of assault. His father, the pacifist, the believer in non-violent solutions to world problems, the man who drove all the way to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against the Vietnam War, who voted for any politician advocating the banning of guns, now sits in jail for smashing another person’s face. Unbelievable! Andrew thinks as he waits for his father to emerge. And the more he ponders the situation, the less he feels he knows his father.
When the glass door finally slides open and Andrew’s father steps out, he seems too frail to have beaten anyone. Andrew smiles, trying his best not to appear disapproving. However, Gregory’s dirt-covered khakis, the torn pocket of his blue shirt, and the cut over his left eyebrow make it impossible not to judge. They stare at each other for a moment, then without a word walk side by side out of the building.
As Andrew drives north on Parliament Street toward his father’s house near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue, he wants to ask Gregory what possessed him to attack another man in a bowling alley. But he doesn’t. Andrew can see that whatever the cause, just or unjust, his father seems sorry about the outcome. Besides, they have more pressing matters to worry about. They have a funeral to plan, relatives to notify, an obituary to write, not to mention getting a good lawyer to sort out the bowling alley mess.
“Natalie has called Aunt Doris, who said she’d call everyone else, and Uncle Dave is flying in tomorrow,” Andrew says without taking his eyes off the road. “I’m going to take care of the funeral home and the obituary, and Natalie will handle the rest.”
“What about me?” Gregory asks.
“You’re in no condition.”
“Bullshit.”
“Dad, you need to rest.”
“Don’t treat me like an invalid.”
“I’m not. I’m just worried about —”
“I’ll find the funeral home. You’ll take care of the rest, and that’s final.”
Andrew knows better than to argue with his father, a man whose stubbornness has always been formidable under the best of circumstances. He pulls the cab into his father’s driveway and turns off the engine. Reaching for the door lock to get out, he notices that his father isn’t moving, so he remains seated, gazing at the red garage door in front of them. They sit in this fashion for quite a while. It feels so long that Andrew begins to worry. He wouldn’t put it past his father to stay in the car all night, so he makes the first move. Touching Gregory’s wrist to be certain his father is still awake, he suggests, “Dad, why don’t you go in? You must be starving.”
“I should paint that door,” Gregory says.
“What?”
“The garage door.” He moves his chin up a little to point to the door in question.“Your mother nagged me to repaint it for months.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll paint it.”
“Before the funeral. We have to do it before the funeral. She would hate people visiting us with a door like that.”
Andrew tries to hide a surge of impatience. “I’ll paint the door, Dad.”
They stare at the garage door as if waiting for it to tell them what to do next.
“We really should go in,” Andrew says at last, putting authority in his tone. “Natalie’s worried to death in there.”
Gregory finally gets out of the car. Andrew follows him, registering a tinge of pride for his display of strength against his father’s childish obstinacy.
When they stroll in the front door, they are confronted by a dishevelled Natalie. Her hair is mussed and her blouse is covered with large red stains. She hugs her father with relief.
“What the hell happened to you?” Gregory demands.
“I was cooking. I wanted to have something ready to eat when you came home. We’ll have to order pizza, though.”
“I’m not hungry,” Gregory mutters as he climbs the stairs, leaving his children in the mustard-yellow foyer.
They watch him trudge up. Once alone, Andrew turns to Natalie and chuckles. “You tried to cook?”
“Oh, shut up!” Natalie snaps as they head toward the kitchen to inspect the damage.
Andrew feels a jolt of happiness that he can still get satisfaction from teasing his sister even on a day such as this one.
Standing in a corner of the elevator, Andrew stares at the changing red digital numbers above the door. It occurs to him that he hasn’t shed a single tear yet for his mother, who he imagines lying in the hospital morgue, body growing colder with each passing minute. He is dismayed by his lack of emotion. It is as if his heart hasn’t caught up with the dizzying speed with which the events of the day have occurred. And the day still isn’t over. Turning the key in the door to his apartment, he tries to construct the words to tell his wife that his mother is dead. His mother liked Rosemary — a lot. She told him so when he informed her that Rosemary was two months’ pregnant with his child.
“Marry her, you fool,” his mother said to him as she struggled to sit up in bed, exhausted from another chemotherapy dose earlier that morning. “She’s a sad girl, no surprise considering her parents, but she’s kind and hard-working. If that doesn’t make a good wife, then I give up.”
Rosemary once lived two houses down from the Christiansen family, with a bipolar mother who spent most days watching Portuguese soap operas while knitting miles and miles of colourful bedspreads no one ever bought. Her father used his job driving a Greyhound bus as an excuse to be away from home most of the year. So it was natural for Andrew’s mother to develop a soft spot for the shy, scrawny girl whose flat chest made her unpopular with boys at school, and more dismayingly, with girls, as well. Because Andrew was the only guy among his peers who was nice to her, and because they were neighbours, Rosemary found a second home with the Christiansens where after school she would watch Wheel of Fortune — a game she beat everyone at — or help Ella prepare supper.
Given all that, Andrew wasn’t surprised to hear his mother say, “Marry her, you fool” — especially since Rosemary was carrying his child, the result of many evenings driving her home when she visited his mother at the hospital. It had started with one awkward kiss on Rosemary’s porch and had progressed to what could only be described as several months of comfort sex, the type two sad, lonely people share as a temporary refuge.
As Andrew now enters his apartment and quietly closes the