Page 7

Nicole

One of the parenting books I read a while back—and I’ve read many—mentioned that parents who come from divorce are likely to feel intense emotions when their own children are at the age they were when their parents separated.

This might explain why I feel as if I’m cracking up most days, why I ruminate on that woman who jumped off the overpass, why I want to make Kyle my punching bag.

I didn’t come from divorce. But when I was three—Grace’s age now—my mother died.

A car wreck. It’s tragic, objectively, but I have a hard time believing this event is to blame for any of my current state of mind.

But then I think of how Grace and Liv would be affected if I died today.

They would be shattered. Their current brains would be overcome with grief, and it stands to reason that this would affect them as they grew older, even if actual memories of me faded.

I’ve seen so many photos of her, and I’ve hoped they will trigger something, but they just .

.. don’t. I look just like her—“spitting image,” my dad says.

He’s said I have her laugh too. He saved some of her clothes and shoes, gave them to me when I was in high school.

They didn’t fit. I’m taller than she was, and I have bigger feet.

Years ago, I tried to look up her name online.

I don’t know what I was searching for—details of the accident, an obituary?

She existed before the internet, though.

So now it’s like she didn’t exist at all.

My dad says things like “I don’t like to talk about that time,” and I’ve tried to be respectful of that.

He’s said she loved me. He’s said she was very smart— brainy was the term he used. I know so little else.

My dad raised me on his own until he met Merry.

He toted me around to school and appointments and birthday parties and activities.

He was dreadfully forgetful, in accordance with the trope of the bumbling father, but he was there.

He was reliable in the ways that mattered.

I was nine when he introduced me to Merry.

Apparently, they’d been dating for a year before that.

He married her when I was ten. I didn’t have any of the usual kid angst about acquiring a stepmom because there was no competing loyalty with my real mom.

In fact, I was a bit excited to have a woman around.

She ushered me through puberty and did her best to advise me about boys.

She ran the household while my dad worked, took over all the tasks my dad had previously done for me.

They seemed to have a peaceful agreement when it came to traditional gender roles.

She is, for all intents and purposes, my mom.

But I’ve never called her that. I’ve called her what my dad calls her—“Merry.” We don’t have the best relationship now, but it’s not the worst either.

She can be rather exhausting, which is why I always dread calling her.

I waited a few minutes after Kyle left to take the girls for ice cream before calling. She picked up right away and came out with it:

“Something is wrong with your father.”

Merry has a flair for the dramatic. This is one reason why she’s exhausting.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Nicole,” she said, exasperated. “His memory is shot. I had to pick him up at the golf course today because he couldn’t find his car keys. Then when we got home, we found them in his golf bag.”

Both Merry and my dad are in their late sixties. My dad has been forgetful for as long as I can remember. Kyle is similarly forgetful. Men get to be this way because their wives perform all the executive functioning for the family. Must be nice.

“Okay? Is that it? He forgot his keys were in his golf bag?”

She sighed. “It’s not just that. I told him we have to start getting things ready for our taxes—he always does our taxes—and he said he couldn’t remember how to do them.

He went to Costco the other day and brought home a bag of avocados, a tray of blueberries, and a bunch of bananas, which is exactly what he had bought just two days before.

What am I going to do with all this produce ? ”

I immediately began to consider that my dad could have early-onset Alzheimer’s, then realized that it wouldn’t be considered early onset.

It never ceases to shock me that my dad and Merry are elderly , that they receive Social Security benefits and take blood pressure medication and have a will.

My grandma, my dad’s mother, had Alzheimer’s.

Or I guess it was classified as dementia.

I don’t know what the difference is. But I’m guessing whatever it was has some genetic component.

“Have you taken him to the doctor?” I asked Merry.

“Not yet. You know how your dad is with doctors.”

I didn’t know how my dad was with doctors. How is a daughter supposed to know such a thing?

“He won’t go?”

“He doesn’t think he needs to. Because he doesn’t remember what he forgets.”

“What?”

She sighed again. “He doesn’t realize how forgetful he is. I’m the one who has to suffer the reality of it.”

I rolled my eyes. Merry is the type of woman who gets all females accused of being histrionic.

“It sounds like he needs to go to the doc—”

“And his walking! My god. We went to Walgreens the other day, and he was stumbling like a drunk person. I was embarrassed to be seen with him.”

I had been pacing the length of the kitchen up to this point of the conversation. When she mentioned his trouble walking, I sat on a stool at the island.

“His walking?” I asked.

My mind started racing then. My first thought: brain tumor.

“He’s completely unsteady on his feet,” she said, still exasperated.

“How long has he been like this?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks?” she said. “He said he thinks he hit his head while retrieving a golf ball.”

“What?”

“He said he thinks he hit his head—”

“Mer, I heard you. What do you mean he hit his head?”

“Well, I guess one of his balls went in someone’s yard and he hopped the fence—”

“Dad hopped a fence?”

My dad has always been in good shape, but I had a hard time picturing this.

“I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. This is what he said, although now he doesn’t remember saying it.”

“And he fell?”

“Apparently.”

“And he hit his head?”

“I wasn’t there, Nicole. But it stands to reason.”

“And now he’s having memory issues and trouble walking?”

“Yes.”

“When was this fall?”

“I have no idea. He has no idea.”

Now it was my turn to sigh.

“You need to see a doctor. Is Dad there now? I’ll tell him.”

“He’s upstairs. Hold on.”

It sounded like she yelled directly into the phone: “Rob! Nicole’s on the phone.”

I heard the click of a new line. They still use landline phones—archaic and charming.

“Nikki!” my dad boomed. He is the only person who calls me Nikki.

“Hey, Dad,” I said. “How you doing?”

“Well, I’m great.” He sounded jovial, as usual. My dad has always served as a counterbalance to Merry, who thinks life is just one inconvenience and disappointment after another (ironic, considering her name).

“Merry said you went golfing today?”

“Not today. She mistakenly thinks I golf every day when I do not.”

This has been the Fight of their marriage—my dad’s golf and Merry’s disdain for my dad’s golf. I have encouraged Merry to get a hobby of her own, but I think her favorite hobby is complaining about my dad. If she were to get another hobby, there would be less mental energy for the primary hobby.

“Rob, you did go golfing today,” Merry said, irritated.

“What are you doing on the phone, Mer?” It was as if he had no idea she had been there. It took me a second to realize he really did have no idea.

“I’ve been talking to Nicole, and she wanted to talk to you, so I told you to pick up the phone,” Merry explained.

“No you didn’t. I just called her myself.”

It was then that I realized how serious things were.

“Rob, that’s not what happened,” Merry said, getting upset. “And you did play golf today! Remember I had to pick you up because you lost your keys?”

“What?” he said.

“Nicole, do you see what I mean?” Merry shouted. She was nearing hysteria.

“Guys, I need you both to be quiet,” I said.

“This is just absurd, Nicole. It is untenable ,” Merry went on.

“Mer. Stop,” I said.

She sighed for the hundredth time in five minutes and then went quiet. My dad made little grunts before quieting himself.

“Why don’t I come up for a visit?”

The last time I’d seen them was Christmas. They’d come to see us, showing up with too many gifts. I had a hard time remembering the last time I had gone up to see them. Was it before Grace was born?

“A visit?” Merry asked.

“Yeah. I could come up, see how things are there.” I tried to sound casual. I didn’t want to alert my dad to my concerns about a brain tumor. He would order me to stay home, to stop being silly.

“It would be nice to see you,” Dad said. He was back to being jovial, perhaps having forgotten the tension of a moment earlier.

“It’s been a long time,” I said.

“Would you bring the girls?” Merry asked.

I thought about it. Flying up there would be too expensive. I’d have to drive. I pictured seven hours in the car with them. I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t kill them or myself along the way, so I said, “I don’t think so. I’ll just come for a couple days. Kyle can watch them.”

The words felt strange in my mouth: Kyle can watch them .

Kyle had watched the girls once overnight before, when I had to attend a photo shoot for work in Los Angeles that didn’t end until nearly midnight.

I stayed at a hotel and then drove home early the next morning.

Kyle insisted everything had been fine without me, but he looked wrecked, the bags under his eyes assuring me that I wasn’t the only one who found it difficult to be the primary parent.

“Kyle can watch them?” Merry asked.