The Thief
A short story about fathers.
My father was calling from the senior’s home. It was eight-thirty and I’d just gotten in from work. “He’s at it again,” he said, clearing his throat from a constant tickle. He was referring to his roommate, this little happy guy—happy and smiling, as they say—named Charlie. When I came in their room the other week, Charlie had said “Hello,” but nothing else. My father wouldn’t have tolerated him saying anything else. He told me Charlie was a thief. Charlie was sitting in his chair, next to his bed, when my father said it. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.
I’d driven up there in a snow storm that day, following a large transport. Drifts were already forming from the snow blowing across the open fields. Everywhere was flat land, spotted with farm houses, barns and hay bales under flapping tarps. By the time I’d pulled into the senior’s home, it was three o’clock. I had to talk to Henry Simmons, the home’s director first. He’d promised my father a private room, saying,“Your father’s next in line.” His hands were behind his head and he was looking out the window.
“It’s just a stall,” he said. “They got plenty of empty rooms. They just want me staying here with this guy. They’re in cahoots.”
“Will you look at that snow coming down,” he said.
I went and told my father the good news. He didn’t see it that way, though. “It’s just a stall,” he said. “They got plenty of empty rooms. They just want me staying here with this guy. They’re in cahoots.”
Charlie wasn’t in cahoots with anybody. He was just a sweet, gentle guy, trying to make the best of things. Even if he was a thief, what could he steal? Everything my father owned was still in his house. I kept saying to him, “Nothing’s been moved. You can go home any time you want.”
That was a lie, of course. Ever since my aunt — his sister — found him sitting in his living room, half starved, too weak to move, we knew he couldn’t look after himself anymore. Crazy thing is, we’d spent months the previous year, convincing him to go into The Newton Ridge retirement home. It looked more like a country club with its plaid carpets, mahogany panelling and a view of the Crazy River. First class all the way.
My father looked healthier then, of course, and Newton Ridge was happy to consider his application. Then my aunt found him that day and called an ambulance. He was severely anemic from poor diet. Newton Ridge wouldn’t take him after that. He’d have to go into long-term care, a senior’s home, the closest being Campbell’s long-term care facility north of Fergus.
Newton Ridge didn’t take sick people. Everyone there was doing daily yoga, water aerobics, and evening salsa. My father told the director they wouldn’t catch him doing any of that.
Well, my father took one look at the place and walked out. My aunt had to bring him back, telling him Campbell’s was the only option. After ten minutes of arguing, he finally came inside, staying silent, until they got to his room. “This is where you’re sticking me?” he said to my aunt. Out the window was a treeline of dead ashes. Beyond that, abandoned old rusty farm machinery. That’s when my father noticed the two beds.
“What do I need two beds for?” he said.
“You’ll be sharing until a private room comes available,” my aunt said.
“When will that be?”
“Mr. Simmons said it wouldn’t be too long.”
“Who am I sharing with?”
“A very nice man named Charlie.”
Charlie was just coming back from lunch. He walked in the room, smiled, offered my father his hand. My father just nodded. Charlie went and sat on his bed. He kept smiling, my father kept looking at the dead ash trees outside.
“Never shared a room except with my wife,” my father said.
“Well, she’s gone now,” she said.
“I mean my second wife.”
“She’s gone, too. Good riddance, if you ask me.”
“The nerve of that girl,” my aunt told me later. “And here’s me defending her, telling your father to get her a car.”
My father’s second wife, Trudy, left him the year before. She was much younger and hadn’t worked the entire time they were married. After she left, she told my aunt she could’ve gotten more of a settlement. “The nerve of that girl,” my aunt told me later. “And here’s me defending her, telling your father to get her a car.”
Between the settlement and the new car, my father’s savings weren’t what they should’ve been. He might’ve managed Newton Ridge with the government subsidies, etc., but like I said, that was off the table. As my aunt told told him, “You’re lucky Campbell’s wants you.”
So he moved into Campbell’s and, within a week, he was telling my aunt that Charlie was a thief. Then I had to hear about it from both of them, and when I went up there to talk to Simmons, the first thing I mentioned was my father thinking Charlie was a thief. I knew Charlie wasn’t, of course, but maybe it was reason enough to move my father to a private room sooner than later.
“Charlie Wilkens?” Simmons laughed, hands behind his head again.
“Dad’s just acting out,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“There isn’t a more honest man than Charlie,” Simmons said.
“I’m sure there isn’t — ”
“He ran The Humane Society here for thirty years.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it.”
“You do that,” Simmons said. “Tell him Charlie’s a Rotarian.”
He made blankets for the dogs at the local shelter.
I got up and went down the hall. I found my father on his bed, flipping through a book he had no intention of reading. Charlie was on his bed, bifocals down on his nose, doing some knitting. He made blankets for the dogs at the local shelter.
I sat down on the edge of my father’s bed. He barely looked up.
“What did Simmons say?” my father said.
“You’re next in line,” I said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said.
My aunt had been in earlier, washing my father’s face, brushing his teeth. He didn’t seem to care. He kept telling her he was freezing, but he wouldn’t put on a sweater. He had sweaters, of course, even a hand-knitted cardigan like Charlie was wearing, but my father preferred to complain. The building was drafty, the food cold, he couldn’t get up and go outside.
“I’ve just spent two hours driving through a snowstorm,” I said. “Believe me, you don’t want to go outside. Why don’t you try enjoying yourself?”
“What the hell for?” he said. “I’m not sticking around.”
“You aren’t well enough to be on your own.”
“Well, I won’t have to be,” he said. “Trudy’s going to take care of me.”
“When were you talking to her?”
“Yesterday,” he said. “She asked me to take her back.”
“News to me,” my aunt said. “I wouldn’t put it past her, though. Probably figures it’s free rent and she’ll get the house when he’s gone.”
I hadn’t heard anything about this. When I got home that night, I called my aunt. I asked if Dad had said anything about Trudy moving back.
“News to me,” my aunt said. “I wouldn’t put it past her, though. Probably figures it’s free rent and she’ll get the house when he’s gone.”
“Will she?”
“I have no idea,” my aunt said.
I didn’t hear anything else until my father called about Charlie. As I said, I was just getting home from work. On the phone, it sounded like he was covering the mouthpiece, possibly so Charlie couldn’t hear. “His kids came by with a Christmas tree,” he said. “Put it on his dresser with these blinking lights. Like I need a bunch of blinking lights. They’re all hugging him and bringing him presents. Rotten shyster. I’ve had dealings with that man for years.”
“You’ve never had dealings with him, Dad,” I said.
“He stole two pieces of property out from under me.”
“He ran The Humane Society.”
“The man’s a crook, I tell you.”
He kept moving the phone around, muffling it one minute, talking out loud the next. “He’s gone for coffee,” he said. “Bloody shyster, that’s what he is. The sooner I get out of here the better. Stole my wallet the other night.”
“You don’t have your wallet,” I said. “It’s in Simmons’s safe.”
“I’ve got another wallet, sonny boy. Don’t think you’re so smart.”
“Look, Dad, nobody’s trying to take your wallet — ”
“I should tell his kids he’s a thief. See how many presents he gets then.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, buster. I’ve caught him going through my dresser. Didn’t even try to deny it. Just smiled away. I should tell his kids he’s a thief. See how many presents he gets then.”
“You’re gonna get yourself thrown out of there, Dad.”
“They can’t even make a decent rice pudding here.”
“Have you heard from Trudy?”
“Of course I’ve heard from her,” he said. “Brought me presents, too. Charlie stole them, of course. Put’m under his tree. Changed the cards and everything.”
I called my aunt after that. She hadn’t heard anything about Trudy bringing presents. Neither had Simmons when I called him the next day.
“Your old man’s got some imagination,” Simmons said. “Some news on the room front. Sam McGillis died yesterday. We’re just airing out the room. Anything you want to bring over, you can do it tomorrow.”
I’d hoped to get over there that weekend. Work was piling up, though. I talked to my aunt. Her neighbour had a pickup. He was more than happy to help take over some things, one being my father’s easy chair. “We’ll get it all set up,” my aunt said. She’d been at my father’s house a few times, getting clothes, a few paintings, even the TV. Her neighbour helped her. They made the room at Campbell’s nice and comfortable. Even the view out the window was better.
“I don’t know where your father gets the idea he can move back home,” my aunt kept saying. “He just goes on and on about it.”
Christmas came and went, my father still complaining about the food, the cold. Nothing more about Charlie — or Trudy, for that matter. When I’d call, my father kept saying he was moving back home. He said the same thing to my aunt who was over there most days. Except for one snowstorm, she’d always managed to get there. Either her neighbour would plow her driveway, or drive her over in his pickup.
“I don’t know where your father gets the idea he can move back home,” my aunt kept saying. “He just goes on and on about it.”
Towards the end of January, I got a call one morning. It was my aunt telling me my father has passed away. I told her I’d be up there as soon as I could. It was still rush hour. I was forty minutes just getting out of the city. Three hours later, I pulled into the home’s circular driveway. An ambulance was just leaving.
My aunt was waiting in the front foyer. She took me down to the cafeteria, past Simmons’s office. He was in there talking to somebody. He got up and came to the door. “Everything okay?” he asked us.
We told him everything was fine and kept walking.
Sitting down with our coffees, I asked my aunt what happened.
“A heart attack,” she said. “He was in his wheelchair coming to the dining room. He got to the entrance and just slumped over. Blocked everybody.”
“What do we have to do now?” I asked. “Pack up his stuff?”
“It’s all packed,” she said. “Your father did it last night.”
“Do you think he knew?” I asked.
“That he was dying?” she replied. “I don’t think so.”
She looked up at someone standing behind me. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I thought it was Simmons. I turned and there was Charlie in his cardigan, a sad smile on his face, if there is such a thing.
“Sorry for your loss,” he said in a soft voice. Then he handed me a wallet.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s your father’s,” he said. “My daughter found it moving the dresser. It must’ve fallen down behind.” He looked at my aunt. “She — my daughter — asked when the funeral is happening. We’d like to send flowers.” My aunt said she’d let him know. “Thanks,” he said and shuffled out.
They went for a swim one morning, and suddenly, a driver’s license floated by, then an insurance certificate, then a credit card.
I got home late that night. I sat in the living room, looking in my father’s wallet. There was twenty dollars and a picture of my father on vacation in St. Lucia with Trudy. I remembered him telling me they went for a swim one morning, and suddenly, a driver’s license floated by, then an insurance certificate, then a credit card. My father had forgotten to take his wallet out of his bathing suit. “I thought Trudy was going to have a coronary,” he told me later. He was laughing when he said it.
There wasn’t much laughing after that—not with the separation, divorce, and him getting sick. My aunt said he laughed when he told Charlie he got his own room. “I guess he thought he was rubbing Charlie’s nose in it,” she said. I asked her what Charlie did. “Wished your father well,” she said. “Even tried to shake your father’s hand.”
“Dad probably thought he was going for his watch,” I said.
“Probably,” my aunt said. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
We both thought that was pretty funny—not hilarious, but what is when someone dies? They go, you reminisce, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you laugh.
