Jamie Sobrato - Baby Under The Mistletoe

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit too masculine. Nature and earth should feel more feminine, don’t you think?”

Julia gave the matter some thought. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Perhaps you can help me figure out how to fix it.”

She laughed. “I’m a retired elementary school teacher. Most of my art expertise involves pasting macaroni to construction paper.”

“You’re being modest.”

She turned her attention to a finished sculpture in the corner, a piece that looked a bit like a bird in flight. It was both stark and stunning.

“That’s my raven,” Frank said. “What do you think?”

“Very striking. What’s it made of?”

“Old bicycle tires, meticulously cut into tiny pieces.”

And as she got closer, she could see it was true. The tread patterns had the effect of looking like the texture of feathers.

“I used to sculpt with traditional materials, but one day I looked around and thought, ‘Why am I putting more garbage out there in the world, when there’s already so much discarded stuff the planet’s nearly drowning in it?’”

Julia looked at him, impressed that a man of their generation could be so aware of his own environmental impact. Every other man she’d known over fifty was too busy driving his giant SUV to the golf course or jetting off on vacation, to worry about such things.

Heck, she hardly worried about such things, comfortable as she was in her safe middle-class life. Here was a man who devoted his art to making important political statements. Was she political enough for him, or would he ultimately decide she was bourgeois and dull?

This was ridiculous. She was too old to be so worried about impressing a man.

She looked at Frank and realized he’d been watching her brood. “I know this isn’t the cheeriest stuff. What do you say we get out of here and take a stroll downtown?”

“Oh, thank you, but I should probably be getting home soon.”

The wind had been taken out of her sails. She suddenly had the feeling something was very wrong, and she was wasting her time here with this Frank person. Feeling self-conscious again, she took a sip of tea to have something to do with her mouth.

“I know how you feel, Julia-like we’re too old for this online-dating stuff. Maybe too old for dating at all, right?”

She smiled, feeling her cheeks redden that he’d managed to read her mind so easily.

“Maybe we are,” he continued. “But what if we aren’t? What if we miss out on something wonderful by thinking like that?”

She looked at him again, at the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, and she remembered why she’d wanted to meet him in the first place-because he seemed like a good man. Because he seemed like someone she might be able to care about.

He still did. He had a daughter who clearly liked him, and he had what looked so far like a vibrant, interesting life.

“What do you say we meet for dinner later this week?” she blurted before she could lose her nerve.

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll call you to make plans?”

“I’ll look forward to it,” he said.

Whatever else was wrong-with West, or her ex-husband or her own ability to seize the day-she couldn’t let it ruin this one little grasp she’d made at trying to find happiness a second time around.

WEST DROVE to his father’s house in a half rage, half stupor. The news that he was going to be a father was only partly sinking in.

It scared the hell out of him. If he’d just learned he’d have to have a leg amputated, he’d at least have begun immediately to see all the ways that news would impact him, but this…

Becoming a father, so unexpectedly, and with a woman he had no significant relationship with, seemed like someone had detonated a nuclear bomb in the middle of his life. Existence as he knew it had been blown to smithereens, and he was a stunned survivor, wandering around unable yet to make sense of the aftermath. What did it mean for his career-where, until now, he’d only had himself to consider when accepting assignments and promotions? Would he have to limit the postings he was eligible for? Would he even be able to continue in the military? If not, what the hell would he do? This was the only job he knew, the only one he’d ever wanted.

As he pulled into the driveway of his family home, he forcibly put aside the dilemma for a while. He had a whole other set of devastating circumstances to face, although at least he came here expecting bad news.

He got out of the SUV and strode up the sidewalk, his dread growing with each step. As he reached the door, he could hear his father yelling inside. General Morgan-or the General, as he was usually referred to-was prone to yelling, but the bellowing he was engaged in now had a different timber, almost manical quality, that West had only started to recognize last summer during his most recent visit home.

West had never imagined his own father succumbing to any weakness, let alone weakness of the mind. The tone of his father’s voice sounded crazy. No, that wasn’t the right word. Senile was better. The most accurate description, according to the doctors, was Alzheimer’s disease.

And it wasn’t early onset, either. No, the General was advanced into the dementia that was making him more and more incompetent, less and less able to function as a normal person.

“I said I don’t own a goddamn cat!” he bellowed again. “Get that animal out of my house!”

This urged West to take a step forward, until he was knocking hard on the front door.

A moment later, an exasperated-looking woman in a white outfit opened it.

“Hi,” West said. “You must be Margie from the temp service?”

“I am,” she said. “And if you’ll excuse me-”

She was cut off by the sound of a yowl, then the cat scrambling through the front door and flying across the porch in a blur.

“Mr. Morgan, I won’t have you abusing that animal!” she said as she disappeared into the house.

West stepped inside. To the left, he could see the double doors of the study were open, and his father was standing there, brandishing a cane.

“Never have liked cats,” he muttered, ignoring Margie.

His gaze landed on West. “Who’s that? West?” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

Relief flooded West. At least his father recognized him still, if not the cat.

“Hey, Dad. Remember I said I’d be arriving here today?”

“Oh, sure.” But he didn’t look as though he remembered.

“I’ll be going now, if that’s okay with you, sir,” Margie announced. “Mr. Morgan has been making it clear all morning that he doesn’t want me in the house.”

West followed her into the kitchen, where she retrieved a coat hanging on the back of a chair.

“Thank you so much for sticking around until I could get here,” he said, pulling out his wallet to give her a tip.

“Heaven knows I understand how dementia patients are-I’ve been working with them for twenty years. I simply don’t tolerate any outright abuse of the animals in the house. Me, I’m trained to defend myself, but that poor cat doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

“I hope he hasn’t been too hard on you.”

Her lips went thin. “Have you been around an Alzheimer’s patient before?”

“I visited here last summer, but he was only forgetful then.”

“Sometimes they go downhill fast, and it’s a real shame to see. You’d best be prepared for him being a lot more than forgetful.”

Margie had only been with his dad for a few days. The General had been so alternately belligerent and obscene with every caregiver that none would stick around for longer than a few weeks.

“What kind of trouble have you had with him?”

“You just witnessed the incident with that poor cat. He’s been insisting all day that the animal doesn’t live here.”

“So that’s how he is all the time?”

“Not all the time. The thing with Alzheimer’s is, it comes in waves. For a while he’ll be living in the past, convinced it’s 1963 or he’s in the middle of the war or his wife’s been gone to the grocery store too long. Then he’ll take a nap and wake up normal.”

“What should I do when he’s confused and agitated?”

“Sometimes it’s best to play along and save yourself the battle. Other times, like if he might do something to hurt himself or someone else, you’re going to have to let him know he’s confused, and that’s where the battle begins.”

“Is there any chance I can convince you to stick around at least for another week or so? It’ll be an easier job when I’m around to act as a buffer.”

“I don’t think-”

“I’ll make sure there’s a nice holiday bonus for you.”

Anything to keep him from having to be here alone all the time with his dad. He wasn’t sure how he’d manage as it was.

Margie sighed. “I’ve got to go to a dental appointment this afternoon, but I suppose I can stick around here for another week or two if Mr. Morgan behaves himself.”

“Thank you so much.”

Whew. That bought him some time, at least.

She picked up her purse from the table, accepted the tip from West and headed for the door.

She paused in the door of the study. “Goodbye, Mr. Morgan. I’ll be going now that your son is here to look out for you this afternoon.”

“I already told you to go. Now get out of-”

“Dad!”

Margie gave West a significant look, then walked out the front door, the determined set of her shoulders speaking volumes as she let the screen door slam behind her.

West turned to his dad. “You can’t chase away every caregiver I hire, Dad.”

“I don’t need any caregiver. I’m a grown man, not a drooling baby in diapers.” He banged his cane on the floor to emphasize the point, then walked over to his desk chair and took a seat.

“Did you hit your cat with the cane?”

“That cat? I’ve never seen it before, and it sure as hell doesn’t belong in this house. Your mother’s allergic, you know.”

“But-” West was about to say that his mother didn’t live here anymore, except he wasn’t sure it would do any good to point it out right now.

Hadn’t Margie said he should choose his battles? So long as the cat was outside, they had time to see if his father would return to the present day and remember that his beloved pet for the past decade actually did belong there.

His father turned on the radio next to his desk and adjusted the volume on a talk show, then settled back in his chair to listen.

Some welcome home.

“Hey, Dad, I’m going to make a few phone calls, then maybe we can have a cup of coffee and catch up.”

“Eh? Can you be quiet? I’m listening to my show right now.”

Right.

West closed the front door and locked it, then went into the kitchen again. He put a pot of coffee on, noticing at every turn signs of decay. The house was no longer the pristine home his mother once kept, but that was nothing new.

The divorce long past, his father, in spite of his talk of high standards, had been letting things slide in his bachelor years. Two more wives had come and gone, each less patient and less forgiving than Julia Morgan had been, and with the crumbling of each marriage, the General had seemed a little less like his former stickler self.

It was as if he didn’t have the energy to be the man in command of every detail anymore, as evidenced by cobwebs in the corners and a thin coating of grime on the stove top.

“Women’s work,” his father had always said of housekeeping-far out of his element in a postfeminist world.

West, on the other hand, considered keeping a home in good order a fact of life. It was simply part of being an adult. So he grabbed the duster from the cleaning caddy that had always been stored under the sink and got rid of the cobwebs, then gave the stove top a good scrubbing. Once he’d completed those tasks, he felt a little more at ease in the room and sat at the table to call his mother.

He wanted to hear a normal voice right now, one that didn’t have any bad news to bear. Because as soon as he stopped thinking about his father, thoughts of Soleil being pregnant took over.

He was going to be a father, for better or worse. He was going to be responsible for a child in less than four months. And here was his own father, turning into a two-hundred-pound belligerent child.

Would West be able to cope? Would he be a better father than his own dad had been?

Somehow, he would have to be.

JULIA DIDN’T LIKE the look on her middle son’s face. Something was definitely wrong, to have him looking so troubled and showing up at such an odd time of year, too. Normally West arrived in town like clockwork for the holidays, the weekend before Christmas-not weeks ahead of time.