Say You'll Remember Me(84)

He waited for me to reply. I didn’t.

He looked at each of us. “Her condition is progressing. It’s moving beyond what we can handle. It just is. And it’s not even about us. Do you think your mother wants to hurt you when she has a blowup? For you to have bruises and scars from holding her down? Do you think she wants her children seeing the things you will see? Wiping her? Changing her diapers? She would want dignity. She would want us to have quality of life.”

My chin quivered. “But we promised…”

“Those places are like six thousand dollars a month,” Tristan said. “Just so you know.”

Jeneva looked up at him in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Yup.”

“How do people do this?” she breathed. “I mean, it’s taking all four of us just to afford the basics for her—”

“They become wards of the state,” Tristan said. “That’s how they afford it. And then they end up in the same kind of place Dad wants to send her only shittier.”

“I wouldn’t take her to a place like that,” Dad said. “We would find somewhere nice. And yes, they’re expensive. But the cost of keeping her at home is going to end up higher if we bring in help.”

“No,” Jeneva said, shaking her head. “I won’t do it. I won’t put her into a nursing home.”

Dad nodded. “Okay. So tonight is your night to sleep with her.” He got up. “Let me know if you still feel the same way in the morning.”

“Okay, just wait,” I said. “Wait. I hear you. It’s been harder than we knew, you’ve been shouldering this stuff alone, you’re getting burned out. Let’s try different meds. Stronger sleeping pills—”

“That I can’t get her to take half the time?” Dad said.

“Let’s do it at dinner,” I said. “When she’s already used to drinking something. Maybe we just put her to bed earlier. We didn’t know it was like this, Dad. You didn’t tell us.”

Dad went quiet.

“How about if we start helping with showers?” Jeneva said. “Everyone but Tristan. We can alternate nights.”

“And maybe we do get some help during the day,” I said. “Someone to help with toileting. We could do a shorter shift so it’s only ten to three or something, not as expensive. Just Monday through Friday while I’m trying to work.”

“If I have to change a diaper, I have to change a diaper,” Jeneva said. “Right?” She looked at me.

I nodded.

Jeneva peered at each of us. “We have to make it work here. We have to make it work with the four of us. It’s what she wanted and I can’t afford to chip in for more care.”

“We agreed to split it,” Tristan said. “That was the deal.”

“Yeah? Well I have kids, Tristan. I’m a single mom and I don’t get a dime of child support. I’m already paying on the remodel—” She buried her face in her hands and let out a shuddering breath. “God, why did we do that? What were we thinking? I have to put these boys through college,” she said, so quietly we could barely hear her.

“When it comes time for the boys to go to college, we’ll figure it out,” I said. “Nobody’s going to leave them behind. Nobody is leaving anyone behind.”

My sister didn’t look up, but she nodded.

Dad was staring at his glass. “I just don’t see this working. I think we’re putting a Band-Aid on a knife wound.”

“She wanted to stay with us,” Tristan said. “It’s the only reason why I’m fucking here.”

“What she wanted was to be remembered,” Dad said. “She didn’t want to be left somewhere and forgotten. We’d never do that. We’d go see her every day, we’d take her home for the weekends and holidays. And when we’d see her we’d get to do what we’re supposed to be doing, enjoying her, not resenting her.”

“Wow. Tell us how you really feel.” Tristan crossed his arms. “Why don’t we talk about what this is actually about.”

Jeneva made a frustrated noise. “Tristan, knock it off. Dad is not cheating.”

Tristan scoffed. “Oh no? For someone who cares so much about sleep, he sure disappears a lot between the hours of midnight to two.”

“What I do to relieve stress is none of your business,” Dad said, his voice a warning.

“It is if you’re trying to dump her in some nursing home so you can go fuck around,” Tristan said.

The three of us looked at Dad.

“Your mother is beyond understanding anything that happens in this house or this marriage,” Dad said, carefully.

“So you’re admitting it,” Tristan said.

Dad stared at him, his face more haggard and weary than I’d ever seen it. Or maybe it had been this way for a while, and unlike the slides I see of Xavier, it had happened before my eyes and I’d gotten used to it.

“I love my wife. I always will. There are days I’d rather be dead than have to live through the things happening to her,” Dad said. “Her body might still be here, but she is gone and she has been for a very long time. I am a full-time caregiver to someone who barely knows my name. I will not apologize for what I have to do to make it so I can wake up in the morning to the reality I’m forced to endure. My life is a permanent, intolerable unhappiness. And I pray you never know what that’s like.”