|
The ....... Man ....... Who ....... Ran ....... |
|
Few things felt as wonderful to Bruce as the breeze on his face as he ran round the large, green soccer field. He had read somewhere that Indians ran barefoot because they believed that the morning dew on the grass was good for the body. So he tried running on the field without his jogging shoes and, despite the initial discomfort, found it bracing to be running on cool, moist grass. He had always liked to run. He remembered the days when, as a young student, he ran on the tennis lawns near his home while his father walked on the periphery and kept an indulgent eye on his athletic son. Even as a rising executive later on, though he kept long hours in the office, he would find time to run a mile or so and enjoy the wind strike his face.
All this was now decidedly in the past. A mild but growing discomfort, then the periodic pain, and finally a searing agony had driven him to an orthopedic specialist, who had gravely spoken of a rare but intractable syndrome, and sent him to a surgeon. The surgery was brief but radical, and Bruce had returned home with crutches. He had imagined, in the absence of a clear prognosis, that those would be temporary aids, but now he has been using them for five years and the hope of ever walking again without their help had slowly receded.
With that his life had changed too. While he could drive, it was no longer the pleasure it was, and the hourly commute through turgid traffic proved difficult. The consulting company converted him to what they called a ‘mobile’ employee, who worked mostly at home, with rare office visits to meet the client. His supervisory role was pruned, with a corresponding enlargement of his report and proposal writing responsibilities. His share of plum assignments plummeted and his salary became essentially stagnant.
Less precipitously but more radically changed his social life. He stopped going to the club: after all, he couldn’t play tennis, and although he was told he could perhaps still swim, he found it a bothersome routine to take others’ help simply to get into the pool or get out. More importantly, the list of friends and neighbors he used to call on with some regularity shrunk quickly. It simply required too much effort. After an initial period of concern friends who visited him stopped doing so; the areas of common interest had dwindled.
The final ignominy came later. As his mobility declined with increasing pain in his thighs, the doctors recommended that he consider a nursing home. He visited two in the area he lived and felt shell-shocked to visualize himself in the midst of a sea of decrepit men and women, many of them in wheelchairs and afflicted with dementia. It was then, in a spirit of abysmal despair, that he discussed his quandary with his daughter.
Dawn was an impressive and, from all accounts, a charming woman. Tall and statuesque, she had done well in college and university, and immediately afterwards had successfully started on an upward curve in a defense industry company. Her soft-spoken style gave no clue to her preternaturally independent and self-confident nature. She had not married, though not from a want of suitors, and was inclined to be sympathetic but decisive.
The moment she heard of Bruce’s problem, she came up with a definitive solution.
“Dad, if that is the situation,” she said, “then you should simply move in with me.”
Bruce was taken aback. He had never been close to his daughter, and the idea would never have occurred to him. He came from a working class family, had struggled his way forward in his career and never felt he had enough time to spend with his growing daughter. Dawn was close to her mother, and the closeness grew with years. When a short, severe bout of pneumonia removed her mother from the scene, for a fleeting period Bruce had the feeling that Dawn had grown closer to him. That halcyon period ended soon enough, and they resumed their normal amiable but distant link. So for Dawn to suggest that Bruce move in with her was both unexpected and drastic.
When he recovered, Bruce thanked her for the kind offer and promised to think seriously about it.
He did, for a long time, with a little pleasure and a lot of concern. Yes, he was pleased that Dawn had suggested he stay with her, their tenuous relationship notwithstanding. Yet he couldn’t help wondering if the offer came from concern for him – love was too immoderate a word in this case – or from a sense of obligation or even propriety. He felt guilty about the latter thought, upbraiding himself for so cynical an interpretation of his daughter’s benign overture.
His greater concern related to the consequences of the offer rather than its motivation. He had always loved being on his own, making his own decision, without having to defer to anyone else. How would he feel living in someone else’s home, albeit that of his daughter? How would she in turn feel having a person in her home all the time albeit her father? As he thought more about it, he pondered whether he cared any more to make all his own decisions. He remembered the early days of his long-past marriage when it seemed a pleasant prospect to have someone look after him and take a few decisions, keeping his interests and preferences in mind. Maybe it will feel good again to have someone – his own daughter – take some decisions out of his hands. Maybe, maybe they could again resurrect those few wondrous days after his wife died when his daughter felt a close person.
He talked about it with the very few persons he considered friends. Apparently they had misgivings about his living alone they had discreetly refrained from voicing, and they felt Dawn’s invitation represented a good way to build his relationship with his daughter as much as to resolve his problems.
Dawn too seemed glad to hear him say yes. “Dad,” she said, “I’m so glad. I’ll set up your own room and make sure that you like it.”
Dawn’s friends came to help with the move. They were affable people whose genuine concern to make it easy for Bruce touched him and his view of the future brightened. It wasn’t painless to let go of the familiar furniture, not to mention so many of his books, but it was good to get rid of papers he had maintained long beyond their use. Dawn was scrupulous in looking through it all and checking with Bruce before discarding his old files. She took particular care with his photographs and said she would make sure they are properly displayed in his new home.
Dawn’s apartment was a sizable, sunny place, which lifted Bruce’s heart. An accustomed hearth has its charm, he thought, but a bright new home can be attractive. As her friends went about placing his photographs on the wall, Dawn took care to ask his opinion about placing his files and suitcases in the places he preferred. Hers was a more modern place, well furnished with shelves and storage areas. His new bed was smaller but undoubtedly more comfortable. Clearly Dawn had taken some pains to make sure Bruce was at ease in his new home. She had even ordered sandwiches in advance; so when they all rested from their labor, they had the benefit of a meal with their beer. It felt almost like a festive occasion.
That feeling continued in the evening, when Dawn brought out a champagne, she said, to celebrate “his homecoming.” Bruce had told her that he usually had an early and light dinner, but Dawn had countered that it was a special day and served scallop scampi with linguine that she had remembered was his favorite entree. Over the fluted glass, Bruce looked at his daughter’s smiling face and felt peaceful and content.
All this was now decidedly in the past. A mild but growing discomfort, then the periodic pain, and finally a searing agony had driven him to an orthopedic specialist, who had gravely spoken of a rare but intractable syndrome, and sent him to a surgeon. The surgery was brief but radical, and Bruce had returned home with crutches. He had imagined, in the absence of a clear prognosis, that those would be temporary aids, but now he has been using them for five years and the hope of ever walking again without their help had slowly receded.
With that his life had changed too. While he could drive, it was no longer the pleasure it was, and the hourly commute through turgid traffic proved difficult. The consulting company converted him to what they called a ‘mobile’ employee, who worked mostly at home, with rare office visits to meet the client. His supervisory role was pruned, with a corresponding enlargement of his report and proposal writing responsibilities. His share of plum assignments plummeted and his salary became essentially stagnant.
Less precipitously but more radically changed his social life. He stopped going to the club: after all, he couldn’t play tennis, and although he was told he could perhaps still swim, he found it a bothersome routine to take others’ help simply to get into the pool or get out. More importantly, the list of friends and neighbors he used to call on with some regularity shrunk quickly. It simply required too much effort. After an initial period of concern friends who visited him stopped doing so; the areas of common interest had dwindled.
The final ignominy came later. As his mobility declined with increasing pain in his thighs, the doctors recommended that he consider a nursing home. He visited two in the area he lived and felt shell-shocked to visualize himself in the midst of a sea of decrepit men and women, many of them in wheelchairs and afflicted with dementia. It was then, in a spirit of abysmal despair, that he discussed his quandary with his daughter.
Dawn was an impressive and, from all accounts, a charming woman. Tall and statuesque, she had done well in college and university, and immediately afterwards had successfully started on an upward curve in a defense industry company. Her soft-spoken style gave no clue to her preternaturally independent and self-confident nature. She had not married, though not from a want of suitors, and was inclined to be sympathetic but decisive.
The moment she heard of Bruce’s problem, she came up with a definitive solution.
“Dad, if that is the situation,” she said, “then you should simply move in with me.”
Bruce was taken aback. He had never been close to his daughter, and the idea would never have occurred to him. He came from a working class family, had struggled his way forward in his career and never felt he had enough time to spend with his growing daughter. Dawn was close to her mother, and the closeness grew with years. When a short, severe bout of pneumonia removed her mother from the scene, for a fleeting period Bruce had the feeling that Dawn had grown closer to him. That halcyon period ended soon enough, and they resumed their normal amiable but distant link. So for Dawn to suggest that Bruce move in with her was both unexpected and drastic.
When he recovered, Bruce thanked her for the kind offer and promised to think seriously about it.
He did, for a long time, with a little pleasure and a lot of concern. Yes, he was pleased that Dawn had suggested he stay with her, their tenuous relationship notwithstanding. Yet he couldn’t help wondering if the offer came from concern for him – love was too immoderate a word in this case – or from a sense of obligation or even propriety. He felt guilty about the latter thought, upbraiding himself for so cynical an interpretation of his daughter’s benign overture.
His greater concern related to the consequences of the offer rather than its motivation. He had always loved being on his own, making his own decision, without having to defer to anyone else. How would he feel living in someone else’s home, albeit that of his daughter? How would she in turn feel having a person in her home all the time albeit her father? As he thought more about it, he pondered whether he cared any more to make all his own decisions. He remembered the early days of his long-past marriage when it seemed a pleasant prospect to have someone look after him and take a few decisions, keeping his interests and preferences in mind. Maybe it will feel good again to have someone – his own daughter – take some decisions out of his hands. Maybe, maybe they could again resurrect those few wondrous days after his wife died when his daughter felt a close person.
He talked about it with the very few persons he considered friends. Apparently they had misgivings about his living alone they had discreetly refrained from voicing, and they felt Dawn’s invitation represented a good way to build his relationship with his daughter as much as to resolve his problems.
Dawn too seemed glad to hear him say yes. “Dad,” she said, “I’m so glad. I’ll set up your own room and make sure that you like it.”
Dawn’s friends came to help with the move. They were affable people whose genuine concern to make it easy for Bruce touched him and his view of the future brightened. It wasn’t painless to let go of the familiar furniture, not to mention so many of his books, but it was good to get rid of papers he had maintained long beyond their use. Dawn was scrupulous in looking through it all and checking with Bruce before discarding his old files. She took particular care with his photographs and said she would make sure they are properly displayed in his new home.
Dawn’s apartment was a sizable, sunny place, which lifted Bruce’s heart. An accustomed hearth has its charm, he thought, but a bright new home can be attractive. As her friends went about placing his photographs on the wall, Dawn took care to ask his opinion about placing his files and suitcases in the places he preferred. Hers was a more modern place, well furnished with shelves and storage areas. His new bed was smaller but undoubtedly more comfortable. Clearly Dawn had taken some pains to make sure Bruce was at ease in his new home. She had even ordered sandwiches in advance; so when they all rested from their labor, they had the benefit of a meal with their beer. It felt almost like a festive occasion.
That feeling continued in the evening, when Dawn brought out a champagne, she said, to celebrate “his homecoming.” Bruce had told her that he usually had an early and light dinner, but Dawn had countered that it was a special day and served scallop scampi with linguine that she had remembered was his favorite entree. Over the fluted glass, Bruce looked at his daughter’s smiling face and felt peaceful and content.
The next several days Bruce was both uncomfortable in certain ways and happy in others. He had long lived in his earlier house, and over a period of years grown accustomed to finding things in certain places. He had two pairs of scissors, large and small, for example, in the second drawer of his desk on the left, one for snipping articles from newspapers he wanted to retain and the second for all other purposes, and he never had to search for the scissors. Now the desk had been considered too large to be accommodated in Dawn’s apartment and everything was in a new place. Bruce had to search for every little thing he used to find instinctively. It was frustrating and, on occasion, especially when he needed something in a hurry, annoying.
He bore the annoyance well because there was an undercurrent of pleasure in finding himself in company, whenever he felt he wanted to express his feeling. “Heaven knows,” he would exclaim petulantly, “where I put my car keys!” and Dawn would either fetch it in a minute from a corner of the dining table or at least say, reassuringly, “Dad, you’ll find it, I’m sure.” Bruce felt better even before he had the car keys in his hands.
One day he was looking for his old copy of Bartlett’s to trace the source of a quote he wanted to use in a talk. He simply could not find it. It was a large book, not easily missed, yet he could not see it in his collection. When he mentioned to Dawn in the evening, she airily responded, “Why don’t you look it up in Google?” He did, but the missing book still bothered him. Then he had a troubling thought, and started looking for another of his old books, a well-thumbed copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. He could not find it either. Clearly, Dawn had thought these crumbling copies not worth preserving and decided to save precious storage space in her home by discarding them. Granted these were very old copies, and Bruce was more likely to refer to current websites than these early editions, but the notion that his books could be summarily thrown out by anybody else was a disturbing thought for him. That Dawn had done so, knowing how attached he was to his books, hurt him more.
Yes, Dawn took good care of her apartment. It was just not neat and well-arranged; it had a certain charm. Bruce own place wasn’t half as orderly. Dawn no doubt had a certain sense of pride about how her place looked, though she was too well-mannered to express it, and Bruce liked that his daughter had something she could feel good about. Now, for the first time, however, he realized that her orderliness had a less endearing aspect of austerity about it. He realized, too, a little painfully, that it was not an aspect he could ever discuss with his daughter.
Bruce and Dawn were both in the habit of dining early and would typically listen to the evening news on television and then sit down directly for dinner.
“Dad, I have invited a friend for dinner this Friday,” Dawn said as they sat at the dining table. “You may like meeting him.”
Bruce assumed that it would be someone from Dawn’s office, perhaps a colleague. When the person turned up Friday, he had a bit of surprise.
Pete was a tousle haired young man who looked ten years younger than Dawn, though from later conversation about his graduation Bruce surmised that he would be actually about five years younger. No, he did not work in Dawn’s office, but in a technology start-up, in some esoteric branch of data analytics. This aroused Bruce’s curiosity about how the two had met.
“Oh, we met through a website,” said Pete, with a charming smile of discomfiture. Pete’s discomfort, Bruce realized, was not because he had met Dawn through the mediation of the internet, but because Pete had immediately noted the suggestion of a frown on his face. Pete had shrewdly sensed the unease an older generation felt to hear their progeny searching for friends in the penumbral cyberworld.
In fact, Bruce rather liked his ingenuous, easy-going manner, but could not easily find a way to convey that. He felt his daughter’s guest would have preferred him to call him Pete – that is, after all, how he had introduced himself as he extended his hand – but Bruce kept calling him Peter. The abbreviated name seemed somehow too familiar to be used right away; he didn’t like its artless sound anyway.
Dawn and Pete talked at length about some common friends and their problems with a fund raising campaign they were initiating for Salvadoran children on behalf of a non-profit organization. Bruce listened and politely asked a question or two initially, but he did not quite follow the problem and finally gave up and wondered why they should discuss something about people he did not know, without caring to explain the problem to him. He tried later to steer the conversation to a more general discussion about children in developing countries and their needs, but neither Pete nor Dawn seemed keen to go there.
Bruce finally said, “I’m not sure that we always understand the real problems in these countries.”
He thought it was a provocative enough remark that might initiate a discussion he could take a part in. But none appeared eager to broach the theme.
When Dawn brought out the fruits and coffee, Bruce took a quick sip before declaring, “I’m afraid I’m a little tired,” and decisively pushed back his chair to rise from the table.
He took leave of Pete, saying how much he had enjoyed meeting him, collected his crutches and moved toward his room. He turned to say a last word to his daughter, encouraging her to continue with the guest, before entering into the quiet of his refuge.
He opened a book to read, but his mind went back to the evening. It had been a pleasant enough evening, but he had the uneasy feeling that he didn’t quite belong where he was. His friends had always considered him lively company, and he had usually felt perfectly at home in most parties. What, he wondered, could have changed for him to feel a bit of an outsider at his daughter’s dinner and prompted him to seek an escape as soon as he could.
Three days later, it snowed rather heavily, rather unusually for the time and for their part of the country. Bruce felt uneasy to see Dawn put on a fur coat and big boots and go out with a shovel to clear the front of their home. In his mind it was a man’s job and he had always done it readily, and even helped his neighbors clear their yards. But now it was clearly beyond his capacity. When Dawn returned, he extended her a cup of coffee and said, “I wish I could be of help.” It took her a couple of seconds to even understand that he was referring to the snow, so accustomed she was to look after herself, and when she did, she said dismissively, “Dad, it wasn’t a problem at all. I do it each year anyway.”
Bruce contributed to the rental, including the utilities; on that he had reached a clear agreement with Dawn before he had moved in. Still he wanted to help in other ways, but found it difficult to find those ways. It is not just the limits placed by his disability; it was much more the way Dawn lived. She was like a fortress of invulnerability, forever flying a flag that said No Help Needed. If a pot had a scratch or a cup a stain, she replaced it before Bruce could do anything about it. If the iron did not work well, she took it for repair the very next day. The house was exceptionally clean. Dawn attended to it every couple of days; additionally, a maid came once a month. If the faucet dripped or a living room lamp lost a bulb, before Bruce could get around to it over the weekend, Dawn had attended to the problem. Bruce thought long and hard, but could not find a means of doing something useful for the household. Yes, he would buy some muffins occasionally and Dawn would dutifully eat one -- scarcely ever more than one – but his keen desire, which waned over time, to do something useful for his daughter’s home, never went anywhere.
The biggest issue in Bruce’s mind was their conversation, or rather the absence of it. When he had agonizingly pondered the question of whether to move in with Dawn at all, a scenario that had tempted him was that they would end each day with long conversations about their work, their thoughts, maybe even their hopes and dreams. Of course they talked. In fact, Bruce sometimes suspected that Dawn carefully planned not to let a day pass without exchanging a sentence or two with her father. But did they add up to what Bruce could say was a real conversation? No, nothing that gave him a real clue to what Dawn was thinking or feeling. He felt it all the more when he heard the flow of conversation between her and Pete the day he came for dinner. Much of it was banter, to be sure, but it still seemed like a real exchange, which gave one person some sense of the other person’s views or feelings. Bruce tried in different ways the first several weeks, always initiating with an innocuous query about her office or the neighborhood, but retreating in the face of what seemed like an invisible wall. It wasn’t just Dawn’s home that was a fortress, she was herself, in the gentlest, politest way, a fortress too.
Bruce sought a breach in that fortress not very consciously the next week when, returning from the local convenience store, he saw a florist he hadn’t noticed earlier. What drew his attention was a remarkable collection of white roses in the window. He walked in, impulsively ordered a large bunch and watched eagerly as the young woman neatly wrapped it up for him, assuming it to be a gift. He took the roses home, hoping to surprise Dawn. But Dawn hadn’t yet returned. That was slightly disappointing, but it occurred to Bruce to go a step further. He had already remarked a large vase in Dawn’s living room. He lovingly wiped it clean, filled it partly with water and carefully arranged the roses in the vase before placing it on the center table. He sat and waited in the living room, reading The Atlantic, hoping to see surprise in his daughter’s face as she came in.
Dawn was surprised as she came in and immediately saw the flowers, but the expression on her face filled Bruce with a certain foreboding.
“Dad,” began Dawn, hesitantly, “it is very thoughtful of you to bring the flowers. They are pretty.” Then, after a slight pause, “I am sorry I must tell you that I don’t really like cut flowers in the house. It is just a strange quirk of mine.”
“But you had that vase!” Bruce responded instinctively, despondently.
“I know. A friend had given it to me. I kept it as a decorative piece, but never placed flowers in it. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I just don’t care for flowers in the house. Never have.”
Bruce went to his room, stood for a long time at the window and watched the street without observing anything in particular. There was a sinking feeling in his heart and he did not know how to overcome it.
Bruce was taken aback when the following Friday, a cool, bright fall day, Dawn came home, barely put down her coat and bag and said, “Dad, isn’t this is a magnificent day? Why don’t we go out and have dinner somewhere where we can sit out?” Bruce could guess where they were going, for she had spoken enthusiastically earlier of a relatively new restaurant two blocks down, but still it was a surprise.
He felt happy and responded with genuine enthusiasm. He quickly changed, collected his crutches and, just in case the weather changed, put on a jacket. The advantage, it struck him, of his slow trudge was that their conversation on the way was longer. The street was busy and the area was lively this Friday night, and Dawn spoke vibrantly of the book she had started reading about Hemingway and his days in Cuba. By the time they had both agreed that sometimes a change of country can be a wonderfully rejuvenating experience, they were not only in the open-air part of the restaurant but ready to order a happy-hour drink.
It was a place that served tapas, and the fair variety of small items they ordered turned out to be just right for Bruce. He liked a light dinner, and was pleased that Dawn too seemed to relish what she was eating. Midway through dinner she suggested the movie that had been lavishly praised in the newspaper and was showing in a local theater and then proceeded to buy two tickets on her phone.
That night, as the temperature dropped and Bruce pulled up his blanket as he got into the bed, he felt that the dream he had earlier of long, close conversations with his daughter perhaps might not be unattainable. They could indeed talk and they could indeed be a lot of fun for each other.
He bore the annoyance well because there was an undercurrent of pleasure in finding himself in company, whenever he felt he wanted to express his feeling. “Heaven knows,” he would exclaim petulantly, “where I put my car keys!” and Dawn would either fetch it in a minute from a corner of the dining table or at least say, reassuringly, “Dad, you’ll find it, I’m sure.” Bruce felt better even before he had the car keys in his hands.
One day he was looking for his old copy of Bartlett’s to trace the source of a quote he wanted to use in a talk. He simply could not find it. It was a large book, not easily missed, yet he could not see it in his collection. When he mentioned to Dawn in the evening, she airily responded, “Why don’t you look it up in Google?” He did, but the missing book still bothered him. Then he had a troubling thought, and started looking for another of his old books, a well-thumbed copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. He could not find it either. Clearly, Dawn had thought these crumbling copies not worth preserving and decided to save precious storage space in her home by discarding them. Granted these were very old copies, and Bruce was more likely to refer to current websites than these early editions, but the notion that his books could be summarily thrown out by anybody else was a disturbing thought for him. That Dawn had done so, knowing how attached he was to his books, hurt him more.
Yes, Dawn took good care of her apartment. It was just not neat and well-arranged; it had a certain charm. Bruce own place wasn’t half as orderly. Dawn no doubt had a certain sense of pride about how her place looked, though she was too well-mannered to express it, and Bruce liked that his daughter had something she could feel good about. Now, for the first time, however, he realized that her orderliness had a less endearing aspect of austerity about it. He realized, too, a little painfully, that it was not an aspect he could ever discuss with his daughter.
Bruce and Dawn were both in the habit of dining early and would typically listen to the evening news on television and then sit down directly for dinner.
“Dad, I have invited a friend for dinner this Friday,” Dawn said as they sat at the dining table. “You may like meeting him.”
Bruce assumed that it would be someone from Dawn’s office, perhaps a colleague. When the person turned up Friday, he had a bit of surprise.
Pete was a tousle haired young man who looked ten years younger than Dawn, though from later conversation about his graduation Bruce surmised that he would be actually about five years younger. No, he did not work in Dawn’s office, but in a technology start-up, in some esoteric branch of data analytics. This aroused Bruce’s curiosity about how the two had met.
“Oh, we met through a website,” said Pete, with a charming smile of discomfiture. Pete’s discomfort, Bruce realized, was not because he had met Dawn through the mediation of the internet, but because Pete had immediately noted the suggestion of a frown on his face. Pete had shrewdly sensed the unease an older generation felt to hear their progeny searching for friends in the penumbral cyberworld.
In fact, Bruce rather liked his ingenuous, easy-going manner, but could not easily find a way to convey that. He felt his daughter’s guest would have preferred him to call him Pete – that is, after all, how he had introduced himself as he extended his hand – but Bruce kept calling him Peter. The abbreviated name seemed somehow too familiar to be used right away; he didn’t like its artless sound anyway.
Dawn and Pete talked at length about some common friends and their problems with a fund raising campaign they were initiating for Salvadoran children on behalf of a non-profit organization. Bruce listened and politely asked a question or two initially, but he did not quite follow the problem and finally gave up and wondered why they should discuss something about people he did not know, without caring to explain the problem to him. He tried later to steer the conversation to a more general discussion about children in developing countries and their needs, but neither Pete nor Dawn seemed keen to go there.
Bruce finally said, “I’m not sure that we always understand the real problems in these countries.”
He thought it was a provocative enough remark that might initiate a discussion he could take a part in. But none appeared eager to broach the theme.
When Dawn brought out the fruits and coffee, Bruce took a quick sip before declaring, “I’m afraid I’m a little tired,” and decisively pushed back his chair to rise from the table.
He took leave of Pete, saying how much he had enjoyed meeting him, collected his crutches and moved toward his room. He turned to say a last word to his daughter, encouraging her to continue with the guest, before entering into the quiet of his refuge.
He opened a book to read, but his mind went back to the evening. It had been a pleasant enough evening, but he had the uneasy feeling that he didn’t quite belong where he was. His friends had always considered him lively company, and he had usually felt perfectly at home in most parties. What, he wondered, could have changed for him to feel a bit of an outsider at his daughter’s dinner and prompted him to seek an escape as soon as he could.
Three days later, it snowed rather heavily, rather unusually for the time and for their part of the country. Bruce felt uneasy to see Dawn put on a fur coat and big boots and go out with a shovel to clear the front of their home. In his mind it was a man’s job and he had always done it readily, and even helped his neighbors clear their yards. But now it was clearly beyond his capacity. When Dawn returned, he extended her a cup of coffee and said, “I wish I could be of help.” It took her a couple of seconds to even understand that he was referring to the snow, so accustomed she was to look after herself, and when she did, she said dismissively, “Dad, it wasn’t a problem at all. I do it each year anyway.”
Bruce contributed to the rental, including the utilities; on that he had reached a clear agreement with Dawn before he had moved in. Still he wanted to help in other ways, but found it difficult to find those ways. It is not just the limits placed by his disability; it was much more the way Dawn lived. She was like a fortress of invulnerability, forever flying a flag that said No Help Needed. If a pot had a scratch or a cup a stain, she replaced it before Bruce could do anything about it. If the iron did not work well, she took it for repair the very next day. The house was exceptionally clean. Dawn attended to it every couple of days; additionally, a maid came once a month. If the faucet dripped or a living room lamp lost a bulb, before Bruce could get around to it over the weekend, Dawn had attended to the problem. Bruce thought long and hard, but could not find a means of doing something useful for the household. Yes, he would buy some muffins occasionally and Dawn would dutifully eat one -- scarcely ever more than one – but his keen desire, which waned over time, to do something useful for his daughter’s home, never went anywhere.
The biggest issue in Bruce’s mind was their conversation, or rather the absence of it. When he had agonizingly pondered the question of whether to move in with Dawn at all, a scenario that had tempted him was that they would end each day with long conversations about their work, their thoughts, maybe even their hopes and dreams. Of course they talked. In fact, Bruce sometimes suspected that Dawn carefully planned not to let a day pass without exchanging a sentence or two with her father. But did they add up to what Bruce could say was a real conversation? No, nothing that gave him a real clue to what Dawn was thinking or feeling. He felt it all the more when he heard the flow of conversation between her and Pete the day he came for dinner. Much of it was banter, to be sure, but it still seemed like a real exchange, which gave one person some sense of the other person’s views or feelings. Bruce tried in different ways the first several weeks, always initiating with an innocuous query about her office or the neighborhood, but retreating in the face of what seemed like an invisible wall. It wasn’t just Dawn’s home that was a fortress, she was herself, in the gentlest, politest way, a fortress too.
Bruce sought a breach in that fortress not very consciously the next week when, returning from the local convenience store, he saw a florist he hadn’t noticed earlier. What drew his attention was a remarkable collection of white roses in the window. He walked in, impulsively ordered a large bunch and watched eagerly as the young woman neatly wrapped it up for him, assuming it to be a gift. He took the roses home, hoping to surprise Dawn. But Dawn hadn’t yet returned. That was slightly disappointing, but it occurred to Bruce to go a step further. He had already remarked a large vase in Dawn’s living room. He lovingly wiped it clean, filled it partly with water and carefully arranged the roses in the vase before placing it on the center table. He sat and waited in the living room, reading The Atlantic, hoping to see surprise in his daughter’s face as she came in.
Dawn was surprised as she came in and immediately saw the flowers, but the expression on her face filled Bruce with a certain foreboding.
“Dad,” began Dawn, hesitantly, “it is very thoughtful of you to bring the flowers. They are pretty.” Then, after a slight pause, “I am sorry I must tell you that I don’t really like cut flowers in the house. It is just a strange quirk of mine.”
“But you had that vase!” Bruce responded instinctively, despondently.
“I know. A friend had given it to me. I kept it as a decorative piece, but never placed flowers in it. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I just don’t care for flowers in the house. Never have.”
Bruce went to his room, stood for a long time at the window and watched the street without observing anything in particular. There was a sinking feeling in his heart and he did not know how to overcome it.
Bruce was taken aback when the following Friday, a cool, bright fall day, Dawn came home, barely put down her coat and bag and said, “Dad, isn’t this is a magnificent day? Why don’t we go out and have dinner somewhere where we can sit out?” Bruce could guess where they were going, for she had spoken enthusiastically earlier of a relatively new restaurant two blocks down, but still it was a surprise.
He felt happy and responded with genuine enthusiasm. He quickly changed, collected his crutches and, just in case the weather changed, put on a jacket. The advantage, it struck him, of his slow trudge was that their conversation on the way was longer. The street was busy and the area was lively this Friday night, and Dawn spoke vibrantly of the book she had started reading about Hemingway and his days in Cuba. By the time they had both agreed that sometimes a change of country can be a wonderfully rejuvenating experience, they were not only in the open-air part of the restaurant but ready to order a happy-hour drink.
It was a place that served tapas, and the fair variety of small items they ordered turned out to be just right for Bruce. He liked a light dinner, and was pleased that Dawn too seemed to relish what she was eating. Midway through dinner she suggested the movie that had been lavishly praised in the newspaper and was showing in a local theater and then proceeded to buy two tickets on her phone.
That night, as the temperature dropped and Bruce pulled up his blanket as he got into the bed, he felt that the dream he had earlier of long, close conversations with his daughter perhaps might not be unattainable. They could indeed talk and they could indeed be a lot of fun for each other.
He woke next morning to another beautiful day. Bruce got up, made some coffee and left half of it for Dawn who was still asleep. He decided he would pay a visit to the public library seven or eight blocks down and pick up some books he had been planning to get. He did not have to walk the whole distance on his crutches; he would take the bus. As he came out of the house, he saw the neighborhood slowly coming awake and walked comfortably to the corner. But just as he went round the corner, he felt a sudden and acute pain in his right leg. He took two more steps, then a very painful third step, and realized that he could not walk. He could not even stand! He slowly sat down on the curb.
He sat there for a very long time. He could not call Dawn, for he knew she was sleeping. He could not bring himself to ask help of the one or two strangers who were on the road. His leg ached monstrously and he knew for sure that he could not walk. He had never experienced such acute and sustained pain in his leg and was certain that an effort to get up and walk home was futile. He had to wait, but he was not sure for what.
Then he saw Dawn come running. “I just heard,” she said briefly and sat down on the curb next to him. Apparently a neighbor who knew Dawn had seen him slowly collapse on the road and had gone home to call Dawn.
It took a while for the ambulance to come. Dawn waited patiently while the doctors in the Emergency Room went over his records and Bruce went through a number of tests. The unusual variety of rheumatoid arthritis that had earlier robbed Bruce of the normal use of his legs had apparently suddenly turned rogue and metamorphosed into another and more violent form. Bruce listened stoically to their dismal conclusion: it was unlikely in the near future that he would be able to walk at all, even with crutches or a walker.
Three months later Dawn visited her father in a nursing home facility, which had now become his permanent domicile since he could no longer move himself without help.
Dawn tiptoed into the room, for Bruce was sleeping. He was dreaming. He was running barefoot around a large, green soccer field, and reveling in the cool breeze against his face. Through the corner of his eye, he could make out the distant shadow of someone who was walking on the periphery but keeping a caring watch over him.
000
He sat there for a very long time. He could not call Dawn, for he knew she was sleeping. He could not bring himself to ask help of the one or two strangers who were on the road. His leg ached monstrously and he knew for sure that he could not walk. He had never experienced such acute and sustained pain in his leg and was certain that an effort to get up and walk home was futile. He had to wait, but he was not sure for what.
Then he saw Dawn come running. “I just heard,” she said briefly and sat down on the curb next to him. Apparently a neighbor who knew Dawn had seen him slowly collapse on the road and had gone home to call Dawn.
It took a while for the ambulance to come. Dawn waited patiently while the doctors in the Emergency Room went over his records and Bruce went through a number of tests. The unusual variety of rheumatoid arthritis that had earlier robbed Bruce of the normal use of his legs had apparently suddenly turned rogue and metamorphosed into another and more violent form. Bruce listened stoically to their dismal conclusion: it was unlikely in the near future that he would be able to walk at all, even with crutches or a walker.
Three months later Dawn visited her father in a nursing home facility, which had now become his permanent domicile since he could no longer move himself without help.
Dawn tiptoed into the room, for Bruce was sleeping. He was dreaming. He was running barefoot around a large, green soccer field, and reveling in the cool breeze against his face. Through the corner of his eye, he could make out the distant shadow of someone who was walking on the periphery but keeping a caring watch over him.
000
