The Thief of Lost Time

Epilogue

"Excuse me."

I'm unlocking the apartment door when I hear a voice behind me. A tiny, elderly woman with beautiful white hair is coming out of her apartment. "Would you tell your father I found the newspaper article he's looking for? I left it on my hall table to remind me."

She scurries back into her apartment before I can speak. I don't want to tell her Dad's dead. I can't believe it myself and don't want to discuss it with anyone. Even sincere sympathy would be an insult when measured against my sense of loss. No one can help me.

"I tried knocking several times," she speaks from inside her apartment, "but there was no answer." She returns holding a clipping with a long tail like a kite. "It took me a while to find it in the paper. I don't want him to think I'd forgotten." Standing beside me, she looks into the apartment and raises her voice. "George? I found the article you wanted."

"I'm sorry." Without thinking I move to block the doorway. "My father's not here."

She frowns at me with surprise as if I said he'd moved away. "Where is he?" She moves to glance into the apartment again.

"He's in the hospital."

"I hope nothing's wrong."

I want her to go away. "He'll be better soon."

"That's all right then." She acts as if going to the hospital is an afternoon's excursion.

I take the clipping. "I'll give this to him when I visit him tonight."

She smiles, pats my arm. "Tell him Gladys is thinking of him. He's such a nice man."

She turns and walks to the elevator. I enter the apartment and close the door. I lean against it overcome with guilt and grief.

A soft knocking on the door. Gladys. She has a sheepish expression and her eyes sparkle. "I don't want you to think I have any designs on him."

In spite of myself, I smile. "I'd never think that. Thanks for the clipping." I close the door.

The apartment is silent. Sounds from the street are muffled by the coating of snow. When I step into the living room, I see him sitting in his recliner happy to have his grandchildren with him on Christmas Day. Unable to stop shaking, I press my fists against my eyes. I sink to my knees, hiding my face in my lap.

He died too quickly. We were right there outside the door, but we never had a chance to say goodbye. We should have asked more questions. But Dad was fighting for air, and we were desperate to help him.

If we'd been with him when he passed, it would have been a comfort to him and easier for us to accept. We deserted him. He lived for eighty-eight years and on his last day on earth we were only with him for five minutes and even then he died alone. He suffocated with no one beside him.

My shaking subsides. He didn't deserve a death like this. If he'd been that sick, they should have encouraged us to take him to hospice. But how do you explain 'hospice' to a loved one who is unaware Death is beside him? Would Dad have resisted? Or was he ready to go? He would have had a peaceful death with drugs easing him to meet his end. But I imagine the expression on his face when we'd say, "We're taking you to hospice." My God! The look of disbelief in his eyes.

Quiet now, I struggle to stand, leaning on the Lazy boy for support. My knees creak. I must concentrate on what must be done. I replace the cordless telephone in the charger on the table by his recliner. I pick up one of his Christmas books, perched like a tent on the arm of his chair. The tears flow when I recall his excitement explaining the book to his grandchildren. I replace his bookmark and then wonder when I will stop thinking he is coming back.

There is an unpleasant odor coming from the kitchen. The smell reminds me of the day Leslie called to ask me to stay overnight with our parents. I look for the remains of Dad's breakfast on the morning when he left for the last time. Nothing. Then I remember he left in the middle of the night.

A coffee cup remains on the counter, the remaining coffee covered with a furry green mold. I pour it into the sink. The scum stretches from the lip of the cup and falls with a plop. The smell comes from the garbage disposal. I rinse the cup with hot water and turn on the disposal.

I open the refrigerator and find the two dinners Rachel made for Dad on Christmas. He never had a chance to eat them. I remember putting the food in the fridge with the sound of the grandchildren in the living room. I half-expect to hear him talking to his grandkids.

But that memory is usurped by my imagination. I almost believe I hear the EMTs called by Life Alert pounding on the door. They strap Dad on a stretcher for the ride to the hospital. As they wheel him out, does he watch the ceiling and wonder if he'll ever return to his apartment? Or does he feel too ill to care? He must be grateful someone arrived to rescue him. His feeling of peace perhaps overrides any morbid thought he has.

I throw out the two dinners. They land with a thud on the bottom of the wastebasket. I empty the half and half and fat-free milk down the sink. I pull everything out of the refrigerator including the vegetables, wilted and discolored. Everything is tossed in the trash. Nothing has a right to exist now Dad is dead. I'll take my grief out on anything at hand. Better I do it now before Leslie arrives. My eyes are swollen and my cheeks, raw from the cold weather, sting from the salt.

I find his laundry where I left it in the hall and carry it to his bedroom. I stop when I see his bed, the covers thrown back like he got out of bed for a moment but will return. I almost believe the sheets are still warm.

I sort the laundry. Four pairs of socks. Three undershirts like those worn by movie stars before the war. One undershirt is worn so thin, I can see through it when I hold it up to the window. Five pairs of white boxer shorts, one pair tinged green as if washed with dark green clothes. I gather the laundry to throw out but instead place the clothes back on his unmade bed. I'm not ready to toss anything away. Bureau drawers and the closet are half empty. He discarded clothes he knew he'd never wear again.

On the other side of the bed, a metal cabinet acts as a bedside table. His bottles of pills anchor a document listing all his financial holdings with ids and telephone numbers. The printing is perfect, each number the same size, in perfectly straight lines. I'd recognize his handwriting anywhere. Every item on the list is coded with a number duplicated on a folder in the top drawer. In the last unmarked folder, I find his university diploma and his Army discharge papers.

I replace his discharge papers in the cabinet. I walk down the hall and stand for a moment in my mother's bedroom. She lived only a brief time in the apartment. I have few memories of her in this room. I recognize her double bed and duvet, the bedside table and bureau, her furniture from the bedroom they once shared. In an instant, these objects recreate the bedroom I remember with its wallpaper pattern, the windows in their familiar configuration, and the cast iron radiators against the walls.

A summer day between fifth and sixth grade. I'm helping Mom make their bed. The radio is playing pop songs with Sinatra singing Love and Marriage. Mom sings along.

"Why do they always sing about love?"

She smiles. "Those are songs teenagers like to listen to. You'll understand in a few years."

That moment is as vivid as the day it happened. I long to go back to that summer day and relive making the bed with my innocence and with my mother at age forty. What catches a fleeting memory in its unrelenting grip?

There must be other moments which could unlock other doors revealing what made me who I am.. But I can't think of any. And what would I do with these hours of memories? How boring most of them would be, like looking at a box of photos, wondering why I ever thought most were worth taking.

From the window, I see Leslie turn into the parking lot. I go to the bathroom to check my face. I open the door to the hall and listen for the elevator. I'm thankful for the chance I had to be alone in the apartment and to feel the calm one experiences when resigned to what one must face.

I hear the elevator. I wait for the doors to open and Leslie to appear. I know the image of her stepping out of the elevator will become another memory I will own for the rest of my life.