He Hid Himself in Every Room So I Could Survive Him

Frank had always needed his hands.

If not on a wrench, then on a fence post.

If not on a fence post, then on a leaky faucet.

If not on that, then peeling apples or carrying groceries or sharpening pencils for the grandchildren even when they were old enough to do it themselves.

Doing was his way of staying steady.

It was how he loved.

It was how he bore pain.

If I took that from him now, what was I giving him instead?

Just waiting?

Just pain?

Just a chair and a clock and the long hallway toward the inevitable?

So I swallowed hard and said, “No.”

His forehead creased.

“No?”

“No. I’m not telling you to stop.”

A breath left him.

I don’t know if it was relief or heartbreak.

Maybe both.

“But,” I said, “I get to be mad while you do it.”

That made him smile.

“Fair.”

“And you do not get to make any more soup.”

He considered that.

“Can I label canned soup?”

I put my head against his shoulder and laughed into his sweater until I was crying again.

Two days later, Mark came over with a folder.

Of course he did.

Mark was fifty-one years old and still managed to look like a worried thirteen-year-old when life scared him enough.

He had his father’s shoulders and my mother’s eyes and a terrible habit of standing in the doorway like bad news had to ask permission before entering.

Frank was napping upstairs.

I was paying the electric bill at the kitchen table.

Mark set the folder down in front of me and said, “Don’t get upset.”

I looked at the folder.

Then at him.

“You started wrong.”

He exhaled through his nose.

“There are some forms.”

“No.”

“You haven’t even seen them.”

“I don’t need to.”

“It’s power of attorney paperwork, and some medical release forms, and a few things for later.”