Armistice

Jennie pulled into the driveway of her childhood home and quickly put the van in park before the half of her that wanted to drive far away and never look back could protest. Every small outing was a speed relay for her to return, the goal being to limit the time that her dad was alone in the house unsupervised and that she was alone outside of it with thoughts of leaving for good.

“I’m home from the store!” Jennie yelled through the door as she nearly fumbled the case of Coke Zeros amidst a jumble of overstuffed plastic bags. It was a novelty to her that they still had plastic grocery bags here - Boston had banned them years ago, but this place was always a time capsule for at least a decade behind the rest of the state.

She misses the city. In Boston, it’s easy to disappear. You can be just the quiet neighbor in apartment 2F that maybe has a cat but no one in the building interacts with to know for sure; there’s no social capital needed to wander the city streets and no one to ask what you’re doing and why. The streets of Athol seem to advertise any inhabitants' woes, requiring them to be on display. Going to the grocery store was an exercise in avoiding the press as a major celebrity but instead of flashing cameras she was under the harsh fluorescent lights of the SaveALot and her red carpet interviewer was a family friend from decades ago who can’t believe their eyes - why are you back in town? She wishes she could decline to comment.

“Hi honey,” she hears her dad’s whisper of a voice from his chair in the living room. She was back in town because he needed her even though he was too proud to admit it. Stubborn ass.

She begins the methodical work of unpacking the groceries. The kitchen layout had barely changed since she was a child. It was frightening to her how quickly she had grown reaccustomed to this place. New since her childhood was the massive pillbox on the counter, with segments delineated by day. A pad of paper sat next to it, clear by the curl at the corner of the first dozen pages an often-referenced tome.

Two pills at 7am before he wakes up at 9am for another six, then three pills at 12pm, six pills at 2pm, four pills at 8pm, and a final four pills at 10:30pm, given with water but not too much or he’ll need to get out of bed during the night to pee. Her mom’s handwriting was always terrible, but it was familiar and Jennie had no problems reading the meticulous notes that others might call scribble.

Before her mom died, Jennie had helped her type up these notes into a Word document so that it would be easy for anyone to read. Silly of Jennie to think that it would be anyone but her here now, holding the worn notebook page of pen ink. The plan had been that once her mom couldn’t care for him any more, they would bring in a caregiver, or move him to a home. The plan had not been for her mother to suddenly pass after an intense aggressive infection that left her in intensive care for weeks, leaving behind her daughter, her husband, and a distinct lack of funds for his care. Now, it’s been weeks turned to months of sick leave and FMLA while she puts her life on pause to figure out what’s next.

Jennie brings over the four 8pm pills with a glass of water.

You were supposed to die first, she thinks, and hates herself for it.

He had never been a nice man. That’s how she knew he was really sick. When he started to stay quiet, started to hold back the explosive anger that her childhood had been dictated by. It was a shift that had thrilled her before it scared her. She had fled his anger, bolting to Boston the moment she turned eighteen. She would have never looked back if it hadn’t been for her mom. Her mom who she called at a minimum every Sunday, who begged Jennie to try harder, who pleaded her father’s case. It never made sense to Jennie what she saw in him, but she deeply loved her mom so despite herself she loved him too.

“What would you like for dinner?” she asks sweetly. It helped to remove herself, think of him as a guest, not the man whose controlling nature made her childhood fearful.

“I’m not hungry,” he almost whispered. She tries not to be angry that the Parkinson’s has taken his vocal chords and made him literally and not just emotionally difficult to understand. The ‘dinner game’ was one they played every evening; she asks what he wants, he says he’s not hungry. This goes back and forth several times before she makes him whatever she wants for dinner, which he eats because if he does, she’ll let him have dessert, and if he doesn’t, she’ll let him be hungry. She puts the evening news on for him and heads back into the kitchen with his empty glass of water to begin cooking.

When she was younger, he hated her for her boldness, her capability, her sense of self that threatened his status in their home. Now, he depends on it. As it turns out, neurodegenerative disorders don’t care about bravado and patriarchal power dynamics. Parkinson’s is impartial, and is cruel in the progressive disenfranchisement of its sufferers. It was over a decade ago now that his tremors had begun. Now, he uses a wheelchair for even short distances, and can only use his right hand functionally. So much has changed since she last lived at home.

Jennie knows how he feels about her being home. She is not her mother, and he resents her for that. You might have suspected Jennie killed her by the way he glared at her when he was in the midst of a bad episode, when the dementia symptoms that frequently accompany Parkinson’s were worse. It’s painful to feel his hatred, but she can’t help but have sympathy for how pathetic he was. She wishes that she believed his anger was from love for her mother and not frustration at missing her convenience, her willingness to love him without question. But she has her doubts.

The plate of pasta and meatballs clatters onto his table where she leaves it while she helps him transition from the wheelchair to his dinner chair. She moves his hands to grasp the specialized gyroscopic fork that lets him feed himself.

“I don’t like pasta,” he whispers, which she knows is a lie. This is also part of the ‘dinner game’. It doesn’t matter what she makes, or orders, or buys - because she procured it, he will hate it.

“No dessert then. Pasta first, you know that,” she replies while punching the television remote buttons to catch the tail end of Survivor. Part of their mutual agreement to coexist now includes that he gets to watch whatever he wants all afternoon, but during dinner she gets control of the TV. Half an hour of comparative peace.

It’s Thursday, which means he has his occupational therapy appointment tomorrow, which means it’s a shower night. They both dread shower night. Jennie, because it is physically exhausting to help him out of the wheelchair, set up the shower, wash him, inevitably get soaking wet herself, try and fail to avoid getting water all over the bathroom floor, dry him off, get him into pajamas, and convince him that it’s time to sleep. Her dad, because even in his confusion, he retains his faculties enough to feel emasculated by the help he needs.

Her favorite player is eliminated at tribal council. “Disappointing, I thought she’d go far,” she says for the sake of saying something out loud. He doesn’t respond; she’s not sure he’s following the show at all. Survivor used to be the one night a week she was allowed to stay up late without incurring his wrath, and they would watch together. An unusually happy spot in a bleak history of their relationship. Now, it’s just reality TV to fill the void of silence between them.

She turns it back to the news while she does the dinner clean up and a host of other chores to avoid the rest of the evening.

“Alright, well it’s getting late - let’s get this over with,” and wheels him into the renovated wheelchair accessible bathroom on the home’s first floor.

She turns the shower on, careful to face the spray away from him while it heats up.

His frail body looks to her like it could disintegrate at the water's touch. She wishes that it would, that the water would somehow magically melt him away, but it feels unfair to hold this version of him accountable for the crimes of a younger iteration that is now so far buried.

It’s been two months since that version last resurfaced. She had been helping get his shirt off and it caught painfully on his now-useless left arm. Parkinson’s usually muted his voice, but he loudly barked “STOP IT” at her.

It had taken every ounce of control she possessed not to begin hyperventilating. She felt every fiber of her being vibrate as she struggled not to transport back through memories of a younger self buffeted by his verbal tirades. The strength that suddenly appeared in his voice threatened to expose her vulnerability. She was still his daughter.

Since then he has kept his calm, following this odd armistice that they have developed out of necessity. Of course, it would be over gracious to think that at least some of his change of demeanor wasn’t due to the dementia that she could tell was settling in deeper each passing day.

This shower night is uneventful. She suds the soap, and stays gentle in her scrubbing of his skin. He is quiet, staring straight ahead at the blank white tiles of the walk-in shower wall.

His bedtime routine is rote at this point. Each step was also outlined in her mother’s hand on a worn pad of paper and a subsequently dictated Word document. Lotion, eyedrops, 10:30pm pills, mouth wash, toothpaste, dry mouth solution, second lotion, carefully placed pillows to cocoon him in bed until she retrieves him in the morning. A dance that both are now practiced at although neither want to be waltzing.

She turns the lights off, setting the sleep timer on his audiobook. This has to be the fortieth time he’s heard the whole thing through, but he insists that she shouldn’t change to a different one which although she finds ridiculous isn’t worth breaking their truce over.

“Goodnight dad, I’ll see you in the morning.”

It both heals and hurts her when he gently says “Thank you sweetie, love you,” as she closes his bedroom door.

“Love you too,” she whispers quietly enough for him to never hear.