The Complete Collection. William Wharton
can’t figure the trouble. He asks what she’s been feeding me. She says she’s only been nursing and giving me a little baby food. He decides to check her milk. He asks what she’s been eating, if she’s been drinking heavily. She admits she’s been slugging down bleach. I’ll bet that doctor flipped.
As soon as she stopped the bleach, I improved. I don’t know what they did after that. They didn’t get pregnant for three years, so they must have been doing something. If Dad put on a rubber before he went to bed, Mother could just pretend it wasn’t there.
You read this kind of stuff in all the Irish-American novels but it keeps going on, over and over. Nobody seems to learn; humans must want to torture themselves in as many ways possible.
But to go back. Mother does know a lot about cystoscopic examinations and isn’t nearly as panicked as I thought she’d be. But Dad is scared deep inside.
That day I drive Dad to the hospital for tests and pre-op things, Mother gets weepy and Joan comes out to stay with her. At the hospital, I take Dad to his room and help store his clothes in the closet. I show him where the john is and assist him with getting dressed in the hospital gown. I speak to some of the nurses and try telling them how scared he is, but they’re mostly only professional. They listen but have their routines and are too busy to do much in the way of personal care.
Dad’s embarrassed by the hospital gown and wants to wear his pajamas but they won’t let him. The gown is a long shirt with a neck-to-bottom opening in the back and no buttons.
‘Do I walk around in this, Johnny; with the back open and all these nurses here?’
I want to reassure him but can’t; I don’t know why hospital gowns are made that way. It’s basically degrading. There must be another solution. They spend billions of dollars on hospital buildings and doctors. They charge hundreds of dollars a day, but they still use the same gown they used during the Civil War.
I settle Dad in bed and show him how to work the TV. He finds a program he likes, and it all doesn’t seem so strange. I leave and tell him I’ll be back as soon as possible.
The nurse tells me they’ll begin sedation tonight and operate in the morning. At home, I tell Mother everything went fine. She doesn’t want to stay in bed now; says she lies awake thinking; she wants to come out and watch TV.
I could move the TV back there but she wants to sit in the platform rocker.
She’s lonely and is being so good about things, I help her out and stack some pillows behind her head. I prop her feet on another chair. It’s Lawrence Welk night.
He really does bounce up and down saying ‘… and a one and a two and a three …’ I try projecting myself. How will I feel when I’m seventy? What will be the equivalent then that I’ll enjoy? There’ll be something, some gimmick which will interest, comfort me, but will seem ridiculous to my kids and impossible to my grandchildren. I watch and listen. Mother laughs at all the corny jokes and sight gags. She keeps repeating how young Lawrence Welk is for his age and how beautifully he dances; and how he’s the same age as Daddy.
After that, we watch a movie; then I move her to the bedroom. I ease her into bed and give her some Valium.
I go back to the living room. I don’t want to watch TV anymore.
I write a letter to Vron. I try telling her my feelings of lonesomeness, of feeling disconnected. I need my own place, familiar things, I feel like a grown bird crawling back into last year’s crap-encrusted nest. I also feel ineffective, helpless; Vron could do these things ten times better than I can.
I go check Mother. She’s sleeping fine. I put on my sleeping suit and climb in bed. I think about Dad alone in the hospital. I think about how fast things have gone downhill.
Next day Joan comes. We decide to spell each other and go independently to see Dad. I go in first. He’s sitting up in bed and seems OK; says he didn’t feel a thing, didn’t know anything; he’s sore down there but that’s all.
He wants to know how it went; does he have cancer. He’s very anxious.
‘Find out for me, will you, John?’
I tell him I’ll go talk with Dr Santana, but I’m sure everything’s fine. I go to the urology clinic and catch Santana in his office. He’s wary seeing me, but we get right into it.
‘Well, Mr Tremont, I’ve just gotten the lab reports; there were several malignant tumors. I think I got them but we’ll have to do some chemotherapy. We won’t radiate, not with a man your father’s age.’
‘But it’s definitely cancer.’
‘Yes, a very virulent form. It’s a good thing we went in and got them when we did.’
‘Please, whatever you do, Dr Santana, don’t tell my father. He’s terribly anxious and frightened.’
‘Come, Mr Tremont, you’d be surprised what these old people can take. Their children tend to underestimate older people.’
His attitude worries me. He doesn’t seem to understand or want to understand.
‘Doctor, this is not so in this case. My father’s deathly frightened.’
‘There should be no shock, Mr Tremont; this was a relatively simple excision; it hardly qualifies as an operation.’
I repeat, as forcefully as I can, how I’d appreciate it if he would hold off telling Dad he has cancer. I thought he was listening. I go back to Dad and say the doctor feels everything went off fine. He doesn’t ask me again directly if it’s cancer, so I don’t need to lie but I’m ready to.
At home, I tell Mother how bright and chipper Dad is. I go into the living room with Joan and explain what the doctor told me. Joan’s more worried, as I am, about how Dad will take it than about the cancer itself.
After Joan leaves for the hospital, Mother wants to know what Joan and I were talking about; I lie and say I told Joan the same thing I told her.
‘Tell me the truth, now, Jacky. Is there anything really wrong; does he have cancer?’
I’m usually a fair-to-middling liar but Mom has super antennae.
‘Mother, I’d tell you if anything were wrong! The doctor said they got out the cyst; that’s all there is to it!’
It’s close, not too far off; but I know she’s still suspicious.
Joan comes back. Dad asked her what she knew and she told him the same thing I did. He accepted and was glad it’s all over.
Mother’s insisting she has to go see Dad herself. Here she’s only been home less than a week and she wants to visit the hospital. Joan and I succumb; if that’s the way she wants to die, OK. Joan needs to go home and cook for her mob; I say I can manage it myself.
I make dinner, keeping an eye out so Mom doesn’t come out of her bedroom checking to see her idiot son isn’t burning up the kitchen.
Mother doesn’t comment on the food but she doesn’t complain. After dinner we go back to her room and she tells me what she wants to wear. I get clothes from drawers and off hangers. She says she can dress herself while I do the dishes. I’m wiping off the dining table when I hear her shuffle into the bathroom. I phone the hospital, and ask if a wheelchair can be ready in the lobby.
When I put down the phone, she comes out of the bathroom. You wouldn’t believe she could possibly be sick. Mother is a master of disguise. Her hair is fluffed out and she’s wearing high heels. She’s tickled pink with herself; the way things look means a lot to her. I’m almost ready to call back and cancel that wheelchair. It’s going to look ridiculous pushing her through the hospital glowing like this.
But it only lasts a minute. She’s made her show, now she’s getting pale under the color. I help her into the platform rocker.
‘You sit here, Mom, and get your breath. Have you taken a Valium?’
She