Lucy and I went to visit our father in the spring he was turning seventy. He had rang her and asked us to. He said it was important. Both of us knew that something was occurring, but neither of us knew what. He was waiting in his house for us when we arrived in the afternoon. He looked frail, drawn. He seemed short of breath and had a woman who was flitting about the house. He had never mentioned her to either of us, so, naturally, Lucy asked if he had a girlfriend.
He laughed softly and shook his head, “No,” He smiled, “Felicity is my nurse.”
He explained much too calmly that he was in third stage kidney cancer. Lucy and I sat in our chairs in stunned silence as we listened to him prattle on. It was only the one kidney, he told us, and there was no evidence that any cancer had spread. There were plans to have it removed. With luck they’d get it all in one swoop. Without luck, he’d die quickly, possibly even on the table.
Lucy and I stared at each other. Finally, she spoke, “Daddy! What’s the odds you’ll have luck?”
He laughed again, oddly happily, “About 10%,” He told her. “Don’t look so frightened, Lucy! It’s certainly dismal, but I’m having it removed, so there’s at least a chance! If I didn’t, I’d be dead in a couple of months. I’m opting for the surgery!” He leaned back in his seat, “I’m a Scot, after all! I won’t go down without a fight!”
I phoned Oliver later and told him the news, too stunned to feel any emotion. He didn’t have much to offer on the subject. Oncology was not his speciality. We ended up talking about taking a trip to Paris later in the season, just for fun. Just the two of us. He made me laugh like he always did. How odd, I thought. I was fifty-one years old, lying in my old bed in my old bedroom, whispering to Oliver Dickinson on the telephone, covering my mouth so my giggles wouldn’t wake my father. Life truly does repeat itself.
As we said goodnight, he promised, “I’ll ring you up as soon as I’m done with work. At lunch, maybe, if I can.”
I thought of the boy who worked at the flour mill in Newtown who always rushed to phone me after work. I wished he were rushing to catch a train instead to see me just like he did then. But I didn’t say it. Instead I sighed, “I love you, Ollie.”
“I love you, Just Silvia. I’m glad you’re not hurt or ticked off.”
“No, Sweetie,” I laughed softly, “I’m just fine.”
Lucy and I stayed in Edinburgh, in the house we’d grown up in, while Daddy prepared for his operation. The day he had it we were at the hospital. It took several hours. Lucy cried here and there, paced the halls, phoned Alexander so often I thought he’d tell her to stop, but he never did. I didn’t feel quite so anxious. I sat on the couch in the waiting room and drank coffee from a paper cup while I read a book. On the surface I am sure that I appeared removed, but the truth was that I felt far from it. I wanted that man to live. Not so much because I loved him so much I couldn’t imagine life without him or because, like my sister, I valued life in general so highly. I wanted him to live because I still hadn’t gotten what I wanted out of him yet. He still hadn’t told me about Mum.
The doctor came out of the operating room at about six in the morning to tell us that Dad had come through his surgery successfully. “We got the kidney,” He said with a tired smile, “And it looks like we got all the cancer with it. It’s going to be a rough road, but this part is over.”
Lucy and I were exhausted. We took a taxi back to the house. It was still inside as we entered, like there was no life in there at all. It smelled faintly like pine needles and coffee. The boards creaked beneath my feet as I walked into the kitchen.
Lucy followed behind me. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned loudly. She shifted her weight from side to side, “Well, I reckon we should go to sleep.”
An idea had suddenly swept me. I turned to her and put my hands on my hips, more awake than I’d been all night. “You go ahead, Lucy,” I told her, “I’m going to go into the attic.”
“For what?” She made a face. Her nose twisted and her bottom lip poked out just a bit. Lucy had always been afraid of the attic.
“You don’t have to come,” I laughed, “But I want to have a look. There have to be… things there…” I trailed off, then said the rest quickly, “That I want to see.”
“Like what?” She blinked, looking at me as if I were out of my skull.
“Oh, Lucy!” I stamped my foot, “Things that were Mummy’s! You know he’s hidden them! I want to see!”
“Mum’s?” She looked confused.
“Lu, I know you were little and you don’t remember her, but I do! I think I do! I might! I think about her all the time lately and I wonder. I think I remember things, but I’m not sure and if I can find something…anything…that was hers maybe I’ll be able to remember more.”
My little sister nodded with sudden understanding, “All right,” She answered gently, “Do you want company?”
“That’s up to you. You’re tired, aren’t you?”
She grinned. Lucy was forty-six years old, but she was still beautiful, especially when she smiled. “Nothing coffee can’t fix!” She swore as she glanced at the machine on the counter, “You taught me that!”
My sister and I tore through that attic and searched for any remnants of our mother.
“I feel naughty," She told me as she flipped open a dusty hat box, “Like I’m not supposed to be doing this."
“He wouldn’t like it," I agreed, “But I don’t really care. She belongs to us, too, Sissy," I felt a ping of anger spread through my chest and run up my neck. Heat spread across my face, “She belongs to us as well. He can’t keep her to himself anymore. It’s not fair."
Lucy nodded and began to thumb through the contents of the box. After several minutes, she paused, “Oh, my,“ She said softly, running her fingers gently over a post card, “Have a look.“
She handed it to me. It was a glossy black post card with a picture of red wine and the words, “J’taime”. I flipped it over and read what was written on the back.
“Dear Philip, Paris is no good without you. I miss you. Hurry. Love forever, Sharon.“ I checked the post date. They were eighteen years old.
My father had told me once that they’d lived in Paris briefly after they were married. I read the words again, “Look at the date. It was right after they were married.”
Lucy took the card from my hand, read it and grinned, “Let’s see what else we can find.”
There wasn’t much else. Some old photos, many reminders of our childhoods, some of Gran’s gloves and hats, but not much of our mother. Not much at all.
Daddy came home a week later. Oliver and Alexander came on the weekends to help out. After two more weeks Daddy told us he was fine with his nurses and more or less tossed us out. Relieved, we returned to our lives and our husbands.
“Did you ask him about your mther?” Oliver asked me.
“No, I didn’t want to upset him, especially considering what he’d been through.”
Ollie didn’t ask anything else.
I put the post card I had stolen from him in a glass frame and I hung it in our bedroom on the wall beside photos of our children when they were little.
A year passed. I spoke to Dad maybe three or four times, but I asked him nothing. Lucy came to the wood one day all alone. Her eyes were wet and swollen. “I just spoke to a doctor, Sil," Her bottom lip quivered, “He was at a football game and he collapsed."
“Dad?" I felt my heart stop, “Is he all right?"
“Oh, Sil! He’s all right! Sort of! He’s home, but the cancer’s back!" She wailed, “It’s in his lungs this time! Stage three again! Oh, Sil…it’s bad! It‘s so bad! We have to go!”
The two of us drove again to Edinburgh. With no time to wait, he was in surgery when we arrived. Half of one lung was coming out and a quarter of another, plus he was going to have to undergo chemotherapy and radiation. Oliver and Alexander followed after the next evening, both of them uncharacteristically quiet, even as the four of us sat in Daddy‘s kitchen and played cards to pass the time while we waited for word from the hospital.