His expression lightened. “No, honey. Robert seems to be a good kid. You know me. No one’s ever going to be good enough for my Al.”
“I know.” Allyson suddenly smiled. “Did I ever tell you why Nancy didn’t get married?”
“Who’s Nancy?”
“You know, my roommate. You met her at Christmas. She came with Robert.”
“Oh, yeah. No, you didn’t tell me.”
“Every summer Nancy’s family rents a beach house in Baja. This last summer she took her fiancé, Spencer, along. They were out swimming in the ocean when she spotted a shark’s dorsal fin. She screamed and they both started swimming for shore, but when she got to where she could touch the sand, a wave hit her and knocked her over. She yelled for Spencer to help her and he stopped and looked at her but then he got scared and ran back to the beach house without her.”
“He left her in the water?”
“Yep, he did. She was so mad when she got back to the house she didn’t speak to him for the rest of the week. He tried to apologize, but really, what could he say? It was kind of a defining moment. Her dad told her that if she didn’t have the brains to give him the boot, she deserved what she got.”
Carson shook his head. “Maybe we need to plan a beach trip with Robert.”
Allyson laughed. “Robert wouldn’t run.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“You’ve seen me mad. I can be scarier than any shark.”
“Can’t deny that, girlie.”
A whistling twilight breeze fluttered the trees around them. One of the horses whinnied and Carson glanced back at them. Then he said, “When I asked Robert about his family, he didn’t say much. Just that he was the youngest of four boys.”
“I know. I thought it was odd that we had dated for almost six months and he had never mentioned his parents. But now I understand why. His mother left them when Rob was in middle school. Rob doesn’t like to talk about her. His father raised him but he’s not close to him either.”
“Not much of a family life.”
“No, it’s not.” Allyson leaned her head back onto her father’s shoulder. Her voice softened. “But I’m sure about him. At least as sure as I can be. I mean, it’s a throw of the dice anyway, right? No one marries expecting it to fail. And even when it’s good, who knows how long it’s going to last? Like Robert’s mother. Or Mom . . .” She stopped. She never spoke of her mother without wondering how it would affect her father.
“No, you don’t know,” Carson said, though more to himself. “Maybe it is just a roll of the dice.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Those were hard days. For all of us.”
“I remember the night you came into my room with Aunt Denise and Pastor Claire. It was the worst moment of my life.”
“One of mine too,” Carson said softly. He seemed especially troubled by the recollection, the memory rubbing across his heart like sandpaper. For a moment they were both silent. Then he cleared his throat. “So the date is still the eleventh of December?”
“Yes. We’re threading the needle. Two days after graduation, two weeks before Christmas.”
“Then what are your plans?”
“Rob starts his new job in Salt Lake on the fifth. We fly out on the second.”
He shook his head. “Wrong state, sweetheart. ”
“I know.”
“Tell Bob there’s a radio station in Medford.”
“Dad, he hates to be called ‘Bob.’ And Medford isn’t exactly a hotbed of opportunity. This is a great opportunity for him. KBOX is the number one station in the Salt Lake market.”
“That’s what he wants to do? Sell radio commercials?”
“No. What he really wants to do is write books.
Romance novels.”
He frowned. “You mean the kind they sell at Kmart, with the long-haired men with their shirts all open . . .”
Allyson laughed. “No.”
“What does selling radio have to do with being a writer?”
“Not much. It’s just something to pay the bills until he’s able to get published. A friend of his older brother is the sales manager there. And they’re going to let him write radio commercials for some of their advertisers.” While Carson digested the information, she added, “We’re getting a house.”
He turned to look at her. “A house? So soon?”
“Rob’s dad is helping us. It’s one of his rental properties. He’s selling it to us without interest, so it’s the same price as renting an apartment. It’s a Tudor in a beautiful little community south of Salt Lake with horse property. It has a fence around it. It reminds me a little of Ashland. And we’ll have a guest room for you to stay with us. You can fly out whenever you want.”
“I don’t fly.”
“Well, it’s a long drive, so you better start.” She hit his knee playfully. “You amaze me, you know that? You used to ride bulls and yet you’re afraid to get on an airplane.”
“Bulls don’t crash into mountains.”
“No, they crash into you.”
“Wrong state,” he repeated.
They were quiet again. Then Allyson said, “I’m going to miss you, Dad.”
He looked forward. “Me too.” After a moment he said, “You know things weren’t always that great between me and your mom. Sometimes we’d get into it like cats and dogs. When we lived in that little apartment in Medford the neighbors would call the manager to complain about the ruckus.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t want you to take unrealistic expectations into your marriage. Just because the boat rocks, doesn’t mean it’s time to jump overboard. The relationship will change. All relationships change through time. But that’s not always a bad thing. In fact some of the best things to happen to our marriage were the changes. It’s part of the growing process.” He looked forward again and he sighed.
“You look tired, Dad. Are you feeling all right?”
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Maybe it’s time to head on back. What time is our dinner?”
“I made our reservation for nine. That’s not too late, is it?”
“You mean for an old guy like me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He reached over the side of the rock and lifted the knapsack he had brought from the horse. “Before we go I want to show you something.”
He took from the pack a thick leather-bound binder overflowing with pages. Its cover was burnished with a flourish and its leather was aged with time and wear. Allyson looked at the book curiously. Though she did not remember seeing it, something about it seemed familiar to her.
“What have you got there?”
“Something I’ve been working on for about twenty years.” He pulled back the cover. Inside the binder were pages of different sizes and gauges, uneven and dog-eared. The first page was parchment marked with her father ’s wild scrawl.
“It’s your life book. It has your genealogy, letters from Mom and me, your birth announcement, your high school graduation program, thoughts about things—and my thoughts about you. It’s time for you to take it.”
Allyson took the book in her lap. She gently turned through its leaves, as if it were a sacred relic. Each page contained a piece of the puzzle of who she had become. Without looking up she said, “Dad, this is wonderful. I didn’t know you were doing this . . .” She suddenly paused at an aged page with a small note written on lined paper and a photograph taped to its bottom. “Oh, my . . .”
“That’s the first love note I ever wrote to your mother.”
Allyson read it softly aloud.
To my heart, Alise,
Wherever you are, wherever you go, I love you
and always will.
—Carson
“You have a poetic heart.” She ran her finger across the black-and-white photograph of a young woman that was taped to the bottom of the letter. “Is this Mom?”
“She was about your age when that was
taken.”
“We look alike, don’t we? Doris Day hairdo aside.”
“You always wondered where you got your good looks.”
“I’ve never wondered.” She began turning pages again until she stopped at a leaf with her mother’s funeral program. Next to it there was a picture of herself as a small girl dressed for her mother’s wake. Her father looked young in the picture, she thought. It made him seem only that much more remarkable to her.
“How did you go on after losing the love of your life?”
“I had you. Failure wasn’t an option.”
“You’ve always been there for me. I don’t know how I’d live without you.”
He smiled, but his eyes revealed deep sadness. Then he said, “Well, girlie, we need to talk about that.”
Allyson’s heart skipped at his words, and she moved back from him to look into his face.
“What?”
He didn’t answer for what seemed a long time to her. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make your wedding.”
She looked at him as if anticipating the punch line of a joke. “What are you saying?”
His lips tightened and his brow furrowed in deep creases. “I guess there’s no good way to put this.” He scratched his head the way he did when he was troubled. “I have cancer, Al. Pretty bad cancer.”
Allyson’s mouth opened, but no sound escaped.
“It’s pancreatic cancer. The doctors say that there’s nothing they can do. I’d even try some of that chemo hocus-pocus if it could get me to your wedding, but the doctors don’t think I have that long.”
“How long?” she asked. Panic rose in her voice.
“With treatment they say I only have three to four months.”
“Three months . . .” Numbness spread throughout her entire body, making it difficult to continue. “. . . And without?”
“They give me two.”
She began to cry. “No.” Then she erupted angrily. “You don’t even look sick. We’ve just spent the whole afternoon riding . . .”
Carson put his arm around her. “It hasn’t gotten me yet, girlie. But it will. They tell me pancreatic cancer is that way. It sneaks up on you. The truth is I didn’t feel a thing. I only found out about it because my eyes were turning yellow. They say it’s the most fatal of all the cancers.” He looked back at her. “Truth is I kind of expected it to be coming along.”
Allyson stopped crying briefly and looked at him, confused by what he had just said. “Why would you expect something like this?”
“On account of something that happened a while back. About six weeks after Mom died I was diagnosed with cancer. Had a big tumor growing inside my neck.” He pointed to a small scar. “That’s where they tested it. I was already in a world of hurt with her loss and wondering how I was going to raise you alone when whammo, the rest of the wave hits. I about lost my faith over it. I couldn’t believe that God would do this.” Carson looked out over the land around them then continued in a softer voice. “When I was done being angry with God, I made Him a promise. I told Him that if He would let me live to see you grown and married off that I would do everything I could to fill the gap left by your mother—and that I would never touch alcohol again.”
Allyson was stunned. “You used to drink?”
Carson chuckled. “Oh yes, girlie, I used to drink,” he said, the tone of his voice implying the understatement. “. . . Like a sailor on a weekend pass. That’s one of the reasons your mother and I fought so much. A week after my promise, I went back to the doctors. There was no sign of cancer. I remember my doctor looking at one X-ray and then the other as if it were a prank. Some of the doctors tried to explain it away as a misdiagnosis. Doctors don’t like to be wrong—think they could wrap up the universe in a handkerchief. But I knew better. God had accepted my deal. I started AA that night. Haven’t touched a drop in almost twenty years. Believe me it wasn’t easy. There were nights I went outside and howled at the moon. But then I’d look at you and I’d remember why.” He rubbed her knee. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the symptoms came just a few days after you told me you were engaged. The way I see it, the Lord fulfilled His part of the bargain.”
“How can you be so calm about this?”
“Truth is I’m scared. ’Course I’m scared. Any man who says he’s not afraid of dying is a liar or an idiot. Or both.”
Allyson lowered her head and began to sob. Carson ran his hand over the back of her head, through her hair, bringing her head against his chest. “Honey, we can see this two ways. We can be upset that I’m being taken out of the game or we can be grateful that I got to play the extra innings.” He took her face in his hands and lifted it until she was looking into his eyes. “You have no idea how much I’ve loved watching you grow up. Or how proud I am of the woman you’ve become. Frankly, I’m grateful for the extra innings.” He turned away so she wouldn’t see the tears welling in his eyes.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “That’s why you wanted me to come home this weekend?”
He nodded slowly, his gaze lost in the valley before them. “It’s the last chapter of our story, girlie. I wanted one last perfect day.”
Chapter 2
Allyson didn’t return to finish the summer se mester. She spent the next two months at her father ’s side, at first busying herself with cooking and caring for the house and yard, then, as the cancer became more debilitating, caring just for him. Within three weeks he was having trouble walking and became bedridden. Allyson rarely left him. She even slept on a cot in the same bedroom. I called her every day during this time. I could feel her father ’s deterioration through her voice, as if life was draining from her as well, and I suppose it was.
I pled with her to let me come and be with her, but she wouldn’t allow it. She couldn’t explain why she didn’t want me there, but she didn’t have to. I think I understood. She couldn’t mix the two men in her life any more than she could simultaneously entertain thoughts of the wedding and funeral. It would be too much for anyone. She finally asked me to stop asking and promised that she would let me know when it was the right time for me to fly out.
Carson knew that his death would be difficult for Allyson, too difficult perhaps, so he did what he could to protect her. He made all the funeral arrangements himself, choosing a casket, writing his funeral program and his own obituary (which turned out to be as understated as he was) and paying for services in advance. As much as he hated lawyers, for Allyson’s sake he hired an attorney who brought to the house the papers to complete Carson’s will, and they crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s, with Allyson physically in attendance and emotionally a universe away.
As the cancer progressed, her father was given new drugs, one of which caused hallucinations. Every few nights Allyson would wake to find him sitting up in bed talking to people who weren’t there; usually to her mother.
I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for her, and I have never felt so helpless in my entire life.
On September 9, almost three months to the day since she had learned of her father ’s cancer, Allyson called. It was time, she said. Her father was dying.
I had met Allyson at the University of Utah in an English literature class. I was working on my master ’s and was employed as an aide in the class. The first time I saw her I knew that I was in the right place.
Allyson came to Utah on an academic scholarship. I had come to the U because of the help with tuition I received since my father was a professor at the school—which was almost reason enough for me to go elsewhere. I don’t know how best to describe my father. The simplest noun seems adequate. Flint. Old and hard and sharp. I don’t ever remember calling him Father or Pa or Dad like my friends called their fathers. It’s always been sir or, as I grew older, Chuck.
Charles (Chuck) Harlan had run away from home at the age of seventeen and joined the military during the last years of World War II. He had seen combat in the Navy. But I didn’t hear
it from him. He saw the kind of action a man doesn’t talk about lest he unearth something he’d spent years burying. I blame those years for who he was. I have to blame something.
He married late in life to Irene Mason, a woman fifteen years younger than him. She was also from a military family. She was a staunchly religious woman who bore four sons in five years. She died at the age of thirty-four in childbirth with her last son. Me.
Chuck remarried four years later to a woman he met in the administration building at the university. Colleen Dunn. I’ve always considered Colleen my mother. Colleen was also younger than Chuck, ten years or so, but the gap in age was the subtlest of their differences. When I was old enough to understand the contrast in their personalities I was astonished that the two of them had ever come together. Truly, love is blind. Or maybe just stupid. They couldn’t have been more mismatched.
In the words of her friends, Colleen was a party waiting to happen. She was a large woman with an extra chin or two and a lap that could hold four boys and often did. What I remember most about her is that she liked to laugh. She sometimes drank too much, nothing hard, dessert wine or sherry and she never drank alone. Unlike Chuck’s first wife, she went to church only for us children. I knew her feelings about church but still considered her closer to God than Chuck. Though Chuck never missed a church service, he lacked the graces of faith my mother held in abundance: love, gentleness and mercy. It was as if religion was simply an extension of the military world he had left: a world of rules. Chuck was big on rules. He ruled the home with an iron Bible.
Every now and then it would come down on one of us. One afternoon he caught Stan, my oldest brother, looking at pictures in the women’s undergarment section of a department store catalogue. Even though Stan was only eleven at the time, Chuck whipped him with his belt so severely that Stan couldn’t walk. He crawled to his bedroom, where he remained until the next morning.
In the end, Colleen stayed with us for nine years: probably eight and a half years longer than she would have had there not been us boys. She stayed as long as she could to protect us from Chuck.