Dirty Secret (24 page)

“Where is it?” I ask.

“Here,” he says, lifting up his shirt a little. On his stomach is an angry red welt. “I have to admit, I'm kind of pissed off at your mom about this.”

“You have every right to be pissed off,” I say. David and I both hate being late, so we're walking quickly. “I'm so infuriated I could—”

My cell phone rings. I pull it from my purse. A California number.

“The subletter,” I say to David and press the button on my phone to answer.

“My friend said the apartment is funky,” Carolyn says in a chipper voice. I've always hated the word “funky.” I never know if it's supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. “She said it's cute in a bohemian way.”

“Okay, good.”

“So I've thought about it and I definitely want it.”

“Great. So it sounds like it'll work out, then.” I give David the thumbs-up sign and he smiles a little. At least we have one less thing to stress out about.

“She did say it could use a good cleaning,” Carolyn chirps.

I stop walking. “Excuse me?”

We're at a corner and we have the walk sign. David motions with his hand for me to continue, but I shake my head.

“It's just that Isabel said your apartment was a little dirty. So I had an idea: If you guys will spring for a cleaning person before I get there, it's not a problem.”

“Our apartment is
not
dirty.”

“Oh, sorry,” Carolyn says. “It's really not a big deal.”

“Actually, I don't think you're the right person for the apartment after all.”

David raises his eyebrows.

I nod
yes.
He's left the decision-making process about the subletter up to me, so I know that if I veto Carolyn, he won't love it, but he won't stop me. The light turns red.

“But I'm ready to FedEx you the money tomorrow. A check for the whole six months and the deposit.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “That's a big issue for me, and . . . well, now I just don't think it'll work.”

“I don't understand.” A whine is creeping into her voice. “Your apartment being dirty is a big issue?”

“I'm not going to get into it,” I say. “Our apartment is clean. It's a nice apartment. And I'd like to have someone living there who appreciates it.” I'm punishing her, but at the moment I don't care. There's probably no worse insult in the world to me than calling my apartment dirty.

David motions for me to follow him and we cross the street against the light.

“Listen, Jessie, please. I've already made so many plans. Can we forget what I said?”

But I'm on a roll. “By the way, your friend was really rude. I can't stand the idea of her being in our apartment while we're gone, judging us—”

“Isabel's hardly a friend! I promise I won't allow her inside, ever. Please, Jessie.”

David looks at me, concerned. He can hear her begging tone even if he can't hear her words.

I feel myself caving. She wasn't
trying
to offend me. Maybe I've been too hard on her. David points to the restaurant's awning a few yards from us.

“Look, Carolyn. I need to get off the phone now, but can I
call you back tomorrow? I need to talk everything over with my husband. Let us sleep on it, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, managing to sound both petulant and pathetic.

I already know we'll let her move in. I've never been good at saying no.

ONE OF MY
greatest fears comes true a few days later, when I find out that Sandy's come down with the bugs, too. But at least Sandy agrees to go to an actual doctor. He tells her that it must be fleas from her two cats (even though neither of the cats has fleas). My husband sees a dermatologist—he got lucky on a cancellation list—who diagnoses him with body acne. David spends fifty dollars on a medicated body wash that does nothing. Every time one of us hears a new opinion, we want to believe. Anything would be easier than dealing with these permethrin-resistant scabies—assuming that's what this is.

And soon after Sandy comes down with them, my mother makes an announcement: She was wrong, she tells me, about being cured of the scabies when she was in the hospital. Apparently she has the bugs now, too.

Over the next few weeks she uses the most extreme methods to try to get rid of them. First, something called lindane, which is so toxic that it's banned in eighteen countries. You're supposed to use it once. Just one time. But she creates a ritual: She covers her body in lindane at night, and then in the morning she washes it off in a hot, hour-long tea tree oil infused bath. As soon as she gets out of the tub, she applies another coat of lindane.

I beg her to stop, telling her what a horrible idea that is, especially because she's recovering from cancer, especially because
if she applies the lotion right after a hot bath her pores are still open and the chemicals can get directly into her bloodstream—but she won't stop. She's punishing herself.

I'm so afraid of giving these bugs to someone that I'm still holding my writing class in a bar rather than our apartment, turning down almost all offers of plans, and certainly not shaking anyone's hand. “I'm just getting over a cold,” I'll say, when someone tries to shake my hand—which is exactly what I used to say when I had repetitive strain injury.

All the sympathy and goodwill my mother garnered from having cancer has been squandered. Taking care of my mother, and of cleaning her house, is once again all my responsibility. Which I should be used to, and can normally handle. But right now I'm so steeped in trying to rid us of these bugs (while keeping the whole embarrassing tale a secret), get things ready for Italy, and teach my classes, that I can barely take care of myself. In fact, I can't take care of myself. I'm drinking too much wine and not eating enough food. I'm losing weight; I can tell because I have to put a new hole in my belt to hold up my jeans, even though the only real exercise I get is hauling laundry back and forth from the Laundromat every day.

My mother calls me almost every night. She needs me. But if I can't take care of myself, how am I supposed to take care of her, too?

BUT THE WORST THING, THE VERY WORST THING, HAP-pens one morning in early June. It begins with a phone call. It's Sandy. I know something's wrong because I just talked to her last night, and besides, she never calls me in the morning.

“What's wrong?” I ask immediately.

“Honey, I need to tell you something,” she says, her voice fake-cheerful, “and I need you to hold it together.”

“What is it?” I already have a feeling.

“Your dad had a heart attack.”

The room is spinning. I burst into tears. I somehow manage to croak out the words to my husband, and it's just like when we found out about my mom's cancer—we sit on the couch and he tries to hold me and protect me while I hold the phone and all its bad news against my ear.

“He's going to be okay,” she says. “I need you to keep it together, Jessie!” Sandy hardly ever raises her voice and I'm snapped to attention.

I wipe my tears. I take a deep breath. “Okay. I'm here.”

“They could tell from the blood test that it was a minor heart attack. He has to have angioplasty—it's very common,” Sandy says, and the room rights itself and stops spinning.

“He's going to be okay,” I tell David.

“We're at the hospital now. Oh, wait, they're taking him. I'll call you as soon as it's done.”

WHEN DAVID AND
I had known each other only a few days, we were exchanging stories about our families, the way couples do when they're just getting to know each other. I said offhandedly that if my dad ever died I'd have to be locked away in a mental institution. I wasn't being hyperbolic; it's just something I've thought for as long as I can remember. David and I were walking through Old Town Square in Prague and he dropped my hand when I said it.

“You need to deal with that,” he said, but not unkindly. “It's going to happen someday.”

“No, it's not,” I said, pretending I was joking and reaching for his hand again.

As we wait for Sandy to call back from the hospital, David keeps at least one of his hands on me—over my shoulders, on my knee, or holding my own hand—at all times. I have no idea how I managed to find such a wonderful husband and I want to tell him that, I should definitely tell him more often than I do, but all I can think about right now is my dad.

Finally Sandy calls. “You should probably sit down, honey,” she says, and I immediately start crying again. “It's worse than
they thought. Your dad's arteries are too blocked for the angioplasty. He has to have a bypass, probably a quadruple bypass.”

Not my dad.

Not my dad.

I can't say anything because I'm crying and Sandy's telling me that he's going to be okay, that Aunt Eve's dad had a bypass twenty years ago and is still doing great, and that maybe this is why my dad gets tired so easily and after this he'll be in better shape than ever—

“I can be there tonight,” I tell Sandy, already making a mental list: find a substitute for my classes, get the plane ticket—where's my suitcase? That's right, up in the closet—

“Actually honey, what would be better is if you'd come here when he gets out of the hospital. I know I'll need help taking care of him when he first comes home. From what I've heard this surgery can be really taxing—they have to pry apart your ribs.”

That image. The blood and organs and bones. I do not want to think about my dad's ribs split apart. “I could come now and stay after he gets out, too.”

“It's okay. I know summer's busy for you, with the double load of classes. It's better this way.”

“Are you sure? I'd really like to be there for the surgery.”

“Jessie, he's going to be okay. He's going to be. And I'll need your help when he gets out of the hospital.”

“All right. Whatever you think is best.”

After we get off the phone I make the necessary arrangements to go back to Minneapolis.

I'll arrive to take care of my dad exactly seven weeks after I was there for my mom.

I TAKE THE NEW LIGHT RAIL SYSTEM FROM THE MINNEA- polis airport to a stop that's half a mile from my dad and Sandy's. She picks me up, warning me that since my dad got back from the hospital yesterday, he's been really weak and has hardly any energy. “But,” Sandy says, “he's recovering and he'll be fine. Okay, Jessie?”

“I'll keep it together, I promise. I just want to help you guys.” We're driving over the familiar streets of their neighborhood, and the summer sidewalks are empty. The many gardens—some filled with only wildflowers in the hippie houses, others more sculpted, like Sandy's—are in full bloom.

“And some bad news,” Sandy says. “We think Rick still has the bugs. He discovered some new bites this morning.”

“Dammit,” I say. “That is
not
what he needs right now.”

“I know,” Sandy says, switching on her turn signal. “As far as I can tell I don't have them anymore. And you don't, right?”

“I don't know. It changes every day at this point. But at the moment I'm not itching, so maybe not. But I won't feel like they're really gone until I've had no itching or bites for at least a few weeks.”

“I guess all we can do is keep trying different things and hope that one of them works. We've got all the furniture draped in sheets and I'm trying to change those every day but it's hard to keep up with all the laundry.”

“I'll be in charge of the laundry and changing the sheets while I'm here,” I say. “And I want to cook and clean, too.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” Sandy says. “We can really use the help right now. In fact I have a project for you today, if you don't mind—I need to run over to a client's house for an hour or so this afternoon.” She explains that they need to rent a hospital bed for my dad. He had a hard time getting up the stairs to their bedroom last night and they've decided it'll be easier if he sleeps in the living room.

“I'll set everything up,” I say, happy to have a task.

We pull into the alley, and Sandy presses the garage door opener tucked onto the back of her car's sun visor.

“Are you ready, Jessie? Because I want you to be prepared for how your dad looks . . .”

“I'm fine,” I say, though my stomach is completely knotted and I can feel tears, lots of them, building behind my eyes. “The last thing I want to do is create more stress. I'll just pretend he looks the same as always.”

When we walk in the back door and I see my dad sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, I let out a small gasp that I hope no one hears. My dad of seven weeks ago was sturdy, with strong arms, broad shoulders, and a thick head of dark brown hair. He
could practically build a house with his bare hands. This father is frail; even his hair is thinner. My strong father looks weak and it scares me.

“Hi, Pop,” I say, trying to keep the shock out of my voice.

“Hi, honey.” For a second I think my dad is mad at me about something because he doesn't get up. Then I realize he's so weak he can't get out of his chair.

“Hi, Pop,” I say again, as I walk toward him and open my arms.

“Careful about touching me,” my dad says as I hug him, and I know he means about the bugs.

“I'm not worried,” I say, and what I mean is,
I don't care: I'd be infested with the bugs for the rest of my life if it meant that you'd get better
but I don't say it because I don't say things like that, I can't, even though I wish I could. And when I lean back from hugging my dad I blink away my tears as best I can.

“So how does your old man look?” my dad asks.

“He looks good!” I lie and he laughs.