Acre Under a Green Sky

Ruth was sitting at my father's bedside that next morning when we arrived. She looked as though she'd been there all night. She closed her magazine and gathered her things like a nurse ending a tiresome shift. We were her relief crew.

My father lay on his back; asleep. He looked so fragile –– shrunken with white wispy hair. His mouth was open and his cheeks were sunken. I had never seen my father without teeth. He looked years older than his seventy-seven years.

"He ate nearly all his breakfast," Ruth said as she pulled on her blue down coat, "He'll probably sleep till lunch. Don't wake him."

That last 'Don't wake him.' was an admonishment to me. Ruth didn't like me and she saw no reason to pretend that she did. She had divorced a husband I barely knew and started some sort of business with the divorce settlement. Maybe she never liked me; I don't know, but she stopped pretending to like me after her divorce. It did little good to question her feelings for me. No one would say what I had done, so I accepted her dislike as if it were a splinter in my thumb.

"I'll go with Ruth and leave my car for you," Dan said handing me the keys, "Stay as long as you like. I'll be down after work. Six o'clock or so."

Ruth was standing in the doorway glaring at me with the same stony look my mother had. I could see so much of my mother in her.

Dan took her arm, and she jerked it away from him. She had something to say:

"Why do I feel I should apologize for this?" she said, "As if you left him in our care, and we somehow screwed things up. The lord and master has returned home from his travels only to find the estate in shambles. You make me feel ashamed like I was a failure or something."

I said nothing. Dan took her arm again, and they left me there with our father.

A nurse came in just minutes later and woke my father.

"Come on, sweetheart. You got company," she said.

She got his eyeglasses from the nightstand drawer and put them on him.

"Ups-a-daisy," she said as she cranked the head of his bed up into a sitting position. Then she turned to me and said, "He's been sleeping too much. Get him talking about old times. The older the better."

"Hi Dad," I said, "How ya doing?"

He looked at me fearfully as if I were a terrible threat.

"It's me. Don't you recognize me?"

"Course he does," the nurse said.

My father looked up at her as if she were about to reveal all the secrets of the universe.

"Now take a good look," she said, "Who is he?"

I could see that he hated these quizzes.

"He's my doctor, isn't he?"

The nurse laughed and left the room; saying, "Just get him talking."

He didn't know me, and nothing I said could spark a memory. Finally, he fell asleep to escape me. Losing him this way was worse than death. There is no grief for the lose of love and remembrance –– just a hallow, tolling ache.

That night, Dan and I got drunk.