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his
favorite. He was grateful. He enjoyed himself. He mentioned the sale of the
house he and his second wife had long occupied. You said you were glad, because
he’d have plenty now to meet the retirement home’s steep entry fee.
    Oh,
I’ll have to scramble a bit for that , he
said. I let Leslie have it all .
    You fell
silent. It’s possible you even made a face, because when you father looked at you
he said, She needs it, Dar. She’s had such a hard time.
    The hard
time, you soon learned, consisted of not being able to find a job, not being
able to make the rent on her small apartment every month, not being able to
find a good man to spend time with, and so on. Then your father added that he
wouldn’t need his car at the retirement home and would give that to Leslie,
too, since her car was so old and undependable.
    He went to
bed early, not long after you cleared the table. You sat in the living room alone,
drinking your own gift of scotch, and drafted the letter you’d write the next
day to Leslie about responsibility, trying harder to get a job, not taking
money from your father, who had reached the time in his life when he must
survive on a fixed income.
    Her return
letter arrived quickly enough to make you certain that she felt terribly
guilty. She didn’t feel guilty. She wrote:
    It was
weird to hear from you after all these
years. You don’t exactly stay in touch. Your father used to say he wished you’d
pick up the phone or drop him a line once in a while. I hope you’re not mad I
said so. I’m very concerned for your father’s welfare, as you know. I’ve made
every effort to keep him company these last few months, and I don’t mind
telling you that your poor father is very grateful to me. The time I spend with
him has made it hard to develop my pet sitting business. Your father is very
supportive of my career. It gives him pleasure to extend his support and thanks
to me. I know you understand that it would be unkind of me not to accept it.
    You
remember Leslie as a child when you were still one, too, and the visits to your
father’s new home on Sundays, the one day the divorce agreement allowed.
Leslie’s mother insisted on eating in the formal dining room, an ugly box with
deep red wallpaper and dark, heavy furniture. Conversation centered on your
father, his students, the papers he was grading. And then it always came, that
moment when Leslie wouldn’t eat her vegetables. Your father made her sit at
table staring at her cold plate, while you stayed tensely in the living room.
You wonder how she has forgiven him, and think maybe she hasn’t, that wanting
money lies behind her kindness. You’re proven right, because with the house
gone, and the car in her hands, she’s nowhere to be found.
     
    ***
     
    You skip the next meeting
of the group. Things have gotten crazy at work. You’re facilitating the
acquisition of a large electronics company by an even larger discount chain.
The dreary time you spend negotiating the buyout ratio makes you regret
majoring in economics. You would have preferred to study English Literature,
but your father discouraged you on the grounds that he wanted you to make a
good living, and not struggle for money the way he always had to.
    Several
days later a social worker from the retirement home tells you long distance
that your father fell in his room and needed to be hospitalized. His condition
isn’t grave, but she thinks now would be a wise time for a visit.
    During the
three-hour drive northward from Virginia, you consider the information you
received about the incident in question. Your father was standing on a chair
which he’d brought into his closet. There was something he wanted on the top
shelf, what, you don’t know. You don’t know what things he brought with him
from the old house. You don’t even know what his room looks like. As to the
fall itself, it was assumed that fluid in the inner ear was to blame for the
loss of balance, also the medications