Pappa’s Gift
A short story
Her family and friends were constantly at her side the first few weeks after Pappa’s stroke. The two daughters, who lived in town with their husbands and children, rushed to his bedside trying, through the sheer force of their will, to infuse his weakened body with their strength. One son came by himself from half a country away; his wife and children stayed behind. The eldest son only called.
She was surrounded by family at the hospital. They hovered over her when they weren’t weeping over Pappa. When she finally went home for a few hours rest, the neighbors came, bringing their love baked in a casserole. They didn’t stay to talk much; they weren’t sure what to say except thank God it didn’t happen to me, which didn’t seem to be appropriate.
Three weeks later, Pappa came home from rehab in a wheelchair, unwilling to speak, unable to walk. The insurance company sent an efficient nurse who silently did her job and stayed out of the way. Three times a week, a therapist tried to teach Pappa how to walk and talk again, but there was little improvement.
The stroke had been mild, and it wasn’t that he couldn’t relearn how to function. It was almost as if, after working hard to provide for his family, after thirty-eight years of providing for the needs of others instead of his own, he felt he deserved the rest, deserved to be taken care of. He learned to communicate with well-rehearsed grunts and she was reduced to conversations that only needed yes or no answers.
After two months, the daughters went back to their busy lives and resumed their infrequent phone calls and even less-frequent visits. The sons, made uncomfortable by the thought that they might have to provide for anyone other than their own families, never called at all.
After six months, the insurance company sent a very polite letter informing her that her husband’s benefits had expired. On the first day of the next month, the nurse and therapist would no longer come. She resigned her job at the school cafeteria the same day, and after that her days became deadly routine, insanely boring.
At first, she tried leaving Pappa for an hour or two when she knew he would be sleeping and safe in his hospital bed, but one day she came back from the store to find him on the floor. She had no idea how he could have climbed over the rail, but there he was, crumpled on the floor, silently crying. The doctor came immediately, looked Pappa over very carefully, and declared him fine. But he stared at her as if she had let a two-year-old play with matches.
After that she only left the house two hours a week when she paid her neighbor to sit with him while he napped. For those two hours she went to the library to pick up three new books to replace those she had read the week before, and to the grocery store to buy a week’s worth of food. Once a month she also went to the pharmacy.
The neighbors didn’t come around anymore, and her friends from work and church went on with their lives. The tiny house that used to be her haven in a rushed and hurried world turned into a prison. She kept it very clean, not because she cared that much about cleanliness (she had always thought a house should look lived-in and a little dirt never hurt anyone), but because she had nothing else to do. The small rooms seemed to close in on her, especially in the winter when the snow and wind pounded the doors and windows shut.
Their days followed a predictable routine. She woke him up at eight, changed his diaper and got him dressed. Settled into his wheelchair in the kitchen, she fed him breakfast and read him the newspaper. The rest of the morning they watched game shows and soap operas in the living room. Once in awhile, the corner of his mouth raised up a little when something especially absurd happened to one of the people on the soap opera.
Sometimes she would catch him at the smile, and it became a kind of game to her; to see if she could capture this small sign of emotion and hide it inside her. After lunch of soup and crackers, she settled him back into his bed for an afternoon nap and then read for the next few hours until he awoke. Up again, he watched TV while she fixed a simple meal for dinner and afterwards, more TV until bedtime. Day after endless day, their lives were regulated by the passing of the TV game shows.
It had been two years, eight months and three days since the stroke. It was as if her life and the calendar had started all over on the day he was stricken with the paralysis that numbed his desire to continue living. She marked the weeks and months from that day: b.s. and a.s., before stroke and after stroke. And now, Valentines Day was just ten days away.
She tried not to think about it, but in the afternoons when Pappa’s soft snores blended with the turning of the pages of her book, she found herself remembering thirty-five Valentines Days. More than birthdays, more than Christmas or anniversaries, Valentines Day was their day to say I love you, to show that they cared.
He would come home with a frilly nightie, the largest box of chocolates he could find, and a dozen roses. He took her out for a romantic dinner, picking up a bottle of wine on the way home for an all-night session of love and talk. And as her life slipped slowly toward that bright red day, she grew sadder and sadder. She didn’t cry. She’d done her crying two years ago, but it was becoming very hard to put a cheery tone in her voice and carry on a conversation with someone who didn’t even try.
And then an idea came to her. She knew it wasn’t right; it didn’t feel right. It started as a “what if…” Two very small words that could be creative, challenging, innocent. But her “what if” was: What if Pappa died and what if I died with him? At first she forced it out of her mind, but it continued to slide across her thoughts. Then, as the days wore on a little longer, the “what if” skidded to a halt and stayed.
The day the “what if” became a “how,” she couldn’t read. She sat, the book open on her lap, staring at the spot on the wallpaper where one of the grandchildren had drawn a mural. She found herself slowly getting up and going into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was full. Among the toothpaste, deodorant and denture cream were the pills. Bottle after bottle of heart pills, blood pressure pills, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, decongestants, antihistamines… it looked like the pharmacy she visited each month.
Then the “how” became a “what.” What was here? What would work? Was there enough? She wasn’t sure, but she thought that the heart pills and tranquilizers would be best. Before she could change her mind, she picked up several bottles and dialed the pharmacy. The pharmacist knew her and had no reason not to believe her when she told him that she needed a refill again so soon because she had accidently knocked the opened bottles over into the sink.
The next day, when the neighbor came to watch Pappa while he slept, she returned her books to the library, but didn’t stop to check out new ones. The librarian gave her a puzzled look, but she just walked quickly out the revolving door. Next she stopped at the florist, the candy shop and the pharmacy. It was the most shopping she had done in two years. She skipped the grocery store — -there was enough food until Valentines Day and after that they wouldn’t need anything else. The neighbor didn’t notice or, at least, didn’t comment on the lack of groceries.
Valentines Day finally arrived, and her resolve was strengthened. She decided that she would do it at dinner. That was the time that they would normally be celebrating. In the afternoon she set the table with her best china; the china the children had given them for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary just months before Pappa’s stroke. She put the roses in a vase on the table and arranged the chocolates on their plates; two for eyes, and a whole row to make a smile. She put on her best dress and fixed her hair before getting Pappa up from his nap and dressing him in his best suit. He seemed a little more alert, perhaps he sensed that something special was happening.
She rolled him by the dinner table so he could see how pretty everything looked. Then she put him in front of the TV while she finished with the preparations. She went to the cupboard and took down a small, cracked bowl with little blue flowers along the rim. It was one of the last surviving pieces of their wedding china and her hand trembled a little as she gently rubbed the chip on the rim with her thumb.
She poured the little white pills into the bowl, and using the back of a spoon, began to crush them into a fine white powder. As she worked, small, pearl-shaped tears slipped silently down her tired face. Her slight shoulders sagged under the weight of her decision.
Suddenly, she heard something. She looked around, but the kitchen was empty. There it was again. It seemed to be coming from the living room. She hurried to Pappa’s chair and watched him as he laughed. Puzzled, she looked at the TV. A Valentines Day commercial from a greeting card company was on.
She knelt down in front of him and searched his wrinkled, sad face. He took his eyes from the TV and looked at her — really looked. And in that moment when their eyes met, their hearts joined again. As on so many Valentines Days in the past, their souls melted once again into one. All of the good times, the happy memories came flooding back to her. Their hopes and dreams of thirty-eight years revived. She realized that they weren’t dead, just different, altered by time and circumstance.
She remembered why she had married him. She thought of his quiet strength that had seen them through the tough times. She remembered him holding her after her second miscarriage, his courage when his small business failed, his pride in her when the PTA voted her Mother of the Year. She realized that even though there would be no more nighties or flowers or candy from him, that he had given her the best gift of all — his love that endured all things, even their loneliness.
His thin, cramped hand reached out to hers and he squeezed it, just a little. With the tears still sliding down her face, she hugged him, gently kissed his cheek and told him dinner would be ready soon. Then she slowly went back into the kitchen, swept the white powder into her hand and washed it, along with her tears, down the sink.
Susan L Stewart writes non-fiction and novels. She paints abstracts with acrylics and pastels. SusanLStewart.com
