An Absent Mind(11)

Saul





Love Letters


I’ve never been the sappy type and, believe me, I’m not now. But I know I am getting to the point where I soon will not be able to communicate meaningfully with anyone. That wouldn’t be so terrible, except that I don’t want to miss the chance to let the kids know how I feel about them.

In the best of circumstances, I can’t talk about anything involving emotion. That’s a given, and one that wouldn’t have changed even if I hadn’t gotten the big A. But I have never been faced with extinction before. It would be pretty shitty leaving this place without letting Florence and Joey know I love them. Yes, Monique, too, but she sort of knows. I mean, we’ve had good and bad. I don’t think it’s one of those soul mate kind of unions, but it isn’t terrible, either. My guess is she probably feels the same way. We have few things in common, and except for when we would travel, we would always be arguing. I don’t know what it was about the travel that worked out that way— but there you have it.

As for the kids, they know I’m not demonstrative. Maybe even a cranky pain in the ass. I hope they know how much I care, but in reality, how can they when I don’t reach out to them, and when they reach out to me, I slink back into my cocoon? Well, maybe slink is the wrong word, but you get the drift—I just don’t like to talk mush.

Even if I were to go today, and they were here, I probably wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye and tell them I love them and how privileged I am to be their father.

Sometimes I think my relationship with them has been a rerun of my relationship with my father—especially when it comes to Joey. Believe me, I did everything I could to dump that movie! But it’s not so easy. You can’t just say, Okay now I’ll behave in such and such a way. It doesn’t work like that—at least not for me. The only thing I can hope is that I restrained myself often enough so my actions were at least a watered-down version of my father and me.

Anyway, maybe they have done some things that didn’t make me happy, but I was no prize for much of my life. It was always about me and what I wanted. Not that I would intentionally hurt someone. That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it? I wonder what my mother and father would have to say about that.

There were so many special moments that I shared with the kids and so many things they did that made me proud. Too many to mention here. Well, to be honest, I can’t remember them all now. But believe me, there were many.

I have to put all this down in writing and give the letters to Monique so she can pass them on to the kids after I’m gone.





Monique





Saul’s Will


Today was a disaster. Several weeks back, Saul had suggested that we go downtown to see Nat Friedman, our family lawyer for the last thirty years. Actually, Saul’s lawyer and boyhood friend. I told Saul last night that we had to be in Nat’s office this morning at ten-thirty. He had a puzzled look on his face. So I reminded him that it had been his idea to meet with Nat as soon as he returned from some legal conference over in Hong Kong. Saul has been going downhill and said he wanted to put his affairs in order while he was still well enough.

Saul became agitated. “How dare you try to interfere,” he said. No, make that shouted—shouted so loud, in fact, that they could probably hear him all the way down on Sherbrooke Street. He said all I wanted was his money. That I didn’t give a rat’s ass—what a disgusting expression—about him. I sat through his tirade, which lasted only a few moments but seemed to go on forever. When he was finished, he got up and went into the kitchen, looking, I was sure, for the bottle of scotch that I had hidden under the counter. Dr. Tremblay told me it was okay for him to have a glass or two, but not his usual three or four.

I waited for him to storm back into the living room, accusing me of hiding it. But there was only silence. A few moments later, I went into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, staring at the napkin holder. I figured it wouldn’t do any good to bring up the subject of our meeting again, so I helped him up from his chair and guided him into the bedroom beside the den.

I had moved our bedroom down from the second floor a couple of weeks before, knowing that as Saul got worse, the stairs would become not only an annoyance but dangerous.

This morning, I woke him up at seven-thirty and went into the kitchen to make breakfast while he got into the clothes that I’d laid out for him. It breaks my heart to watch him stare at a sock or a shoe, trying to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes it’s no problem, and other times I have to come back in the room and rearrange him. Today, he did it right and came into the kitchen with a smile on his face.

“We’re going to see Nat this morning,” he said, as if we had never discussed it.

I nodded as I placed his favorite pecan and banana pancakes with Quebec maple syrup in front of him. Although I sometimes wonder why I don’t just use the cheaper fake syrup, because, at this point, I don’t think he can tell the difference. But I would feel like a traitor if I did that.

He always made such a big deal of knowing if it was the real stuff. He would sometimes put his hands over his eyes and dare me to trick him. “Go ahead, chou-fleur, try to fool me,” he would say. That was his favorite name for me. It sounds better in French than cauliflower, its English translation. But he doesn’t say it in either language anymore.