Daddy

“Good.” Sam clung to her hand, but the two children looked suddenly exhausted. She put Sam to bed shortly after that, and chatted with Mel until shortly after ten, and then suggested she go to bed, she could take care of herself for another half hour before she called a cab. And Mel finally went upstairs, with her own thoughts. And Ollie came home at ten-thirty, and was surprised to see Daphne still there, quietly reading.

“How's your father?”

“All right, I guess.” Ollie looked tired. He had put his own father to bed, like a child, and promised to come back the next day to help him decide what to do about his mother. “It's an awful situation. My mother has Alzheimer's, and it's killing my father.”

“Oh God, how terrible.” She was grateful that her own parents were still youthful and healthy. They were seventy and seventy-five, but they both still looked like fifty. And then she remembered the call from Sarah. “Your wife called, by the way.”

“Oh Christ …” He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if the kids had told her Daphne was there, but she read the look in his eyes and was quick to reassure him. “What did they tell her?”

“I don't know. I wasn't in the room when they talked to her. But no one was around when the phone rang, I answered it, and told her I was the sitter.” She smiled and he grinned at her.

“Thanks for that.” And then, with worried eyes again, “How were the kids afterward?”

“Upset. I gather she told them she couldn't come home next weekend, and she can't have them up there. Sam was crying. But he was all right when I put him to bed.”

“You are truly an amazing woman.” He glanced at his watch then with regret. “I hate to do this, but I'd better get you to the station for the train. We'll just make it.”

“I had a terrific day, Oliver.” She thanked him on the way to the station.

“So did I. I'm sorry I had to run out at the end.”

“Don't worry about it. You have your hands full. But things will look up one of these days.”

“If I live that long.” He smiled tiredly.

He waited for the train with her, and gave her a brotherly hug before she left, and told her he'd see her the following day at the office. She waved as the train pulled away, and he drove slowly home, sorry that things weren't different. Maybe if she'd been free, he told himself, but he knew it was a lie. No matter how free Daphne might have been, how attractive, how intelligent, all he wanted was Sarah. He dialed her number when he got home, but when the phone rang at her end, there was no answer.

Chapter 8

George Watson put his wife in a convalescent home the week after that. It was one that specialized in patients with Alzheimer's and various forms of dementia. Outwardly, it was cheerful and pleasant, but a glimpse of the patients living there depressed Oliver beyond words, when he went to see his mother. She didn't recognize him this time, and thought George was her son, and not her husband.

The old man dried his eyes as they left, and Oliver took his arm in the bitter wind, and drove him home, and he felt as though he was deserting him as he left him that night and went back to his children.

It seemed odd, when he thought about it, that he and his father were both losing their wives at the same time, although in different ways. It was heartbreaking for both of them. But at least Oliver had the children to keep him occupied, and his work to distract him. His father had nothing, except loneliness and memories, and the painful visits he made to the home every afternoon to see Phyllis.

And then the big day came. Sarah called on Valentine's Day, and announced that she wanted to see the children the following weekend. In Boston.

“Why don't you come here?” She had been gone for seven weeks, and, like the children, Oliver was aching to see her and have her at home with them.

“I want them to see where I live.” He wanted to object, but he didn't. Instead, he agreed and called her back when he had figured out their approximate time of arrival in Boston.

“We should get to your place around eleven o'clock Saturday morning, if we take a nine A.M. shuttle.” He would have liked to make it on Friday night, but it was too complicated with schools and work, and she had suggested Saturday morning. “Do you have room for all of us?” He smiled for the first time in weeks, and at her end, there was an odd silence.

“I wasn't … I thought Mel and Benjamin could sleep on two old couches in my living room. And … I was going to have Sam sleep with me …” Her voice trailed off as Oliver listened, his hand frozen to the phone as the words reverberated in his head, Sam … sleep with me she had said, not with us.

“Where does that leave us, or should I say me?” He decided to be blunt with her. He wanted to know where he stood, once and for all. He couldn't stand the torture of not knowing any longer.