“In the kitchen!” her mother called out, unnecessarily since it was the only room in the house they ever used, from as far back as Christine could remember, just the three of them huddled around a Formica table in the sunny kitchen she always thought was cozy. She didn’t realize that it was cramped, or indeed how small the house was-a white clapboard with two bedrooms, a “sewing” room, and one bath on the second floor-until middle school, when she visited her friends’ houses. They had living rooms and family rooms, as well as a kitchen, but Christine didn’t see the point because in the Murray house, the kitchen was the family room and the living room.
“Hey, guys!” Christine entered the kitchen, dumped her purse, tote bag, keys, and phone next to the toaster oven, then went to her mother, who rose from her seat next to Christine’s father, lifting her arms for a hug.
“Here’s my girl, how are you feeling, honey?” Her mother gave her a big hug, then let her go, smiling at her. The former Georgina Maldonado, she was cute enough to be Homecoming Queen at Windsor High in her native Providence, R.I. They’d called her Gidget because she could have passed for the actress Sally Field, with her big, friendly smile, wide-set, warm brown eyes, and bouncy, dark brown hair, typically gathered into a girlish ponytail, even now.
“I feel good, okay, Mom. How are you?”
“We’re good, good.” Her mother had turned sixty-five last week but had the energy of a much younger woman, and her smile was dazzling. She stayed trim by walking on her treadmill in the basement, but silvery-gray strands sprouted at her forehead, a sign of recent stress. It broke Christine’s heart that just when her parents retired, her father had fallen ill and her mother had become his caregiver.
“Will you please lock the front door, from now on?”
“Nah, pssh.” Her mother waved her into the chair. “Sit down, get off your feet. You’re always running around.”
“Mom, guess what, I’m finished with school.”
“Oh my, already?” Her mother pushed bangs from her eyes, surprised. “You okay to be leaving teaching? Or are you sad?”
“I’m okay.”
“I bet, I can’t wait for the baby.”
“Me, neither.” Christine went around the side of the table to greet her father, though she wasn’t sure he knew her. Sometimes he remembered her name, but she wasn’t sure he knew she was his only child. He sat in his place next to her mother, behind a folded newspaper that he didn’t read and a flowery paper plate that held a grilled cheese sandwich, cut into small squares. There was a plastic fork in his hand, though her mother had started feeding him to save time. She still had him hold the fork, giving him the dignity that his awful disease was determined to strip him of.
“Paul, Christine is here.” Her mother leaned over, smiling in his face to get his attention. “Christine’s here to say hi to you. Look, it’s Christine.”
“Hi, Dad, it’s Christine.” Christine leaned close to her father, so close she could smell his breath. She used to think it was infantilizing to get right in his face, but they had learned it was finally necessary. She and her mother had attended a seminar at the hospital, as part of her support group for caregivers, where they had been taught the basics by an instructor who had not only a degree in social work but was taking care of her husband at home.
Now, don’t ask factual questions like, “Did you eat yet?” Or, “Did you go to the doctor?” They don’t remember the answer, and it could agitate them. Go with questions there’s no right or wrong answer to. Something that doesn’t elicit a fact. Try, “How are you feeling?” “Are you having a fun day?” “Would you like a glass of water?”
“Hi, Dad,” Christine said, smiling. “It’s Christine, your daughter. How are you feeling? Are you having a fun day?”
“What?” her father said, his hooded brown eyes shifting upward, to her. His gaze was unfocused, and Christine wasn’t sure he recognized her. He was only sixty-five, but the illness had aged him mercilessly, so that his forehead was more deeply lined and the folds from his aquiline nose to his fine lips more pronounced. The shape of his face was long, but his cheeks looked hollow. His bristled hair was cut close in a salt-and-pepper buzz cut, which her mother said would keep him cooler in summer but was really easier to help her shampoo him, in the shower.
“Dad, it’s Christine, your daughter. Great to see you, Dad. I love you.”
“Christine?” His lips curved into a smile. His lips were dry. “Christine.”
“Right, Dad!” Christine leaned over, heartened, and kissed him on the cheek, which was slightly grizzly. He’d had a five o’clock shadow in his younger days and still did, though his beard came in gray, and her mother didn’t bother shaving him again until the next morning.
“Honey,” her mother said, touching her arm. “Talk to him about the baby.”
“The baby is doing good, Dad,” Christine said, following her mother’s cues.
“Honey, let him feel your belly again. He liked that the other day, he told me. He talked about it.”
“Really?” Christine felt her hope lift, another of the illness’s cruel tricks. It was impossible to predict what would get through to her father and what wouldn’t, and so she would try anything, only to reach him on Monday and have it fail on Wednesday. It was the connection to him that she missed to the depths of her soul, because she had been a Daddy’s Girl from day one.
“Dad?” Christine picked up her father’s free hand and placed it on her belly. “Dad, can you feel the baby? Do you want to feel the baby? There’s a baby in there. Your grandbaby’s on the way.”
“Christine, Christine,” her father repeated, leaving his hand against her belly and looking up at her with his warm smile. He’d taught Language Arts in the local high school, and she’d gotten her love of reading from him; and he used to take her to the library and got her hooked on the old English mysteries that were his favorite. His students called him Sherlock Holmes, and it killed Christine to think that his brilliant mind, as well as his gentle heart, were being eroded day by day. She felt as if she mourned him even while he was alive, hating that he didn’t have their shared memories anymore, of trips to Lyman Orchards for the apple pie they both loved, or their annual pilgrimage to Gillette Castle, the East Haddam estate of William Gillette, the actor who had played Holmes on the stage. Christine tried to enjoy every day she had left with him, which was why she had come over tonight to visit them though she was exhausted. Because she didn’t know how many days they had with him.
“Dad, hold on, I brought you something.” Christine went around the side of the table and got her purse. “Mom, wait’ll you see this. Look.”
“What?” Her mother reached for her bright red reading glasses, which she called her Sally Jessy Raphael glasses though nobody knew who that was anymore. She even had her Hartford Whalers T-shirt on, though the Whalers had left in the nineties, which didn’t matter to true fans like her parents.
“It’s the baby’s ultrasound, they gave me a picture.” Christine slid the photo from her purse, and her mother took it, her dark eyes lighting up.
“You had your ultrasound today? Great!”
“I saw the heart. It was great.” Christine pointed to the whitish figure eight in the photo, which was reasonably visible. “See, this is the baby, the head and body are about the same size.”
“Honey, I’m so happy for you!” Her mother beamed. “It’s official now!”
“I know, I cried.”
“Of course you did!” Her mother laughed, her eyes shining, and handed her back the picture. “Show it to your dad.”
“Dad, this is the ultrasound, I had an ultrasound.” Christine brought it over to her father, holding it in front of his face. “The white parts are the baby. You can see-” She stopped short when she saw her father looking away. He’d turned his head, staring at the counter, which was cluttered with crossword puzzle books, newspapers, mail, bills, and brown plastic bottles that were his medications, neatly categorized in separate Ziploc bags by her mother.