“Things have changed,” Dad says. “I don’t think I want to go to a nursing home after all.”
The application is all filled out except for his signature. He says he could go back to work at Melville and they can help him find an apartment of his own and a full-time care provider. Or he’ll ask my cousin Bobby, in Dallas, for money.
These ideas are so outlandish, so desperate, that tears fill my eyes. I take his hand. “I know you don’t want to live in a nursing home...”
“And I’m not going to.” His eyes blaze with defiance.
—
This week, our angel story is about a woman whose father guides her canoe, lost on the river, safely to shore. “You were the Eagle Scout, Dad,” she calls. “Show us the way.”
—
Two days later, Dad tells me, “I asked Olga to marry me.”
“Very funny...”
He doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me.
“Wait, you mean, really?”
He nods, busting out in a grin. “It’s perfect, really. I need someone to take care of me. She lost her apartment in a flood. She has very little money and her visa is about to expire. If she marries me she could stay in the country and I’d pay our expenses.”
“But where would you live? How will you pay the rent? How will you live?”
“By our wits!” he says, literally crowing. “I’ve always lived by my wits. Olga and I are both poor. Poor people have to make the system work their way.”
Two days ago, I told Dad, “This choice is making you,” but it seems that Dad, scrappy, defiant, has found a loophole.
—
“It sounds as if you’re uncertain whether helping your father is the right thing to do,” my therapist says.
“Is it?” I ask.
—
This is a scene from The End of Men, a memoir I started years ago. The previous chapter, Bear, is here. If you’re new to the project, read the first chapter here: Keys. The full list of scenes, in order, is here.
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Free will is such a constant companion in adulthood, I can’t imagine the grace and compassion required to guide someone through such decisions.