So Long, Chester Wheeler(13)

“Just following orders.”

“Sure,” he said. “Got it. Exactly what Adolf Eichmann said.”

I pulled in a few more deep breaths. Really made an effort to steady myself. In that moment I decided, without really thinking much about it, that the best way to fight back against Chester Wheeler was to stay steady. The more he tried to knock me off balance, the more I would stay steady.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I just talked to Ellie. She’s still driving. Let’s give her a few minutes to get to the airport and get checked in. I’m going to go around and open the drapes. Let a little light into this place. And I’ll open a couple of the windows to give the house a good airing out. And then I’ll call her and see if she thinks you can have a whiskey. And if she says yes, great. Happy hour is here.”

I didn’t point out that it was still very much morning, because I wasn’t sure how to make him care about such a thing, and I wasn’t even convinced it was right to try. When you’re living out your last couple of months on earth, does it honestly matter what time it is when you pour?

“Leave the curtains right where they are,” he said.

“Nope. Sorry. We’re going for light and air.”

“I hate light and air.”

“I’m sure you do. But I don’t. And if you’ll stop complaining about it, I’ll call Ellie and see about getting you that drink. If you insist on grousing about your need to sit in a dark place with no air, then I’ll just assume she doesn’t allow whiskey and go from there.”

He gave me a look I can only describe as loathing.

“This is going to be hell,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty much figuring we’re already there.”

I stepped out of the doorway and began to walk around the house, letting light in. I opened one of the front windows. The air that flowed in felt decidedly cool, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. Traffic noise also flowed into the living room, but it felt like a welcome reminder that people were alive and attending to their day out there in the world.

I opened a kitchen window for cross ventilation.

Then I walked back to Chester’s room and wheeled him out into the light.

“It’s freezing out here,” he said as I parked his chair near the couch.

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“I don’t want a blanket.”

“You just said you were cold.”

“I don’t want to sit here with a blanket on my lap or around my shoulders like a frail old man.”

But you are a frail old man, I thought. I kept the observation to myself.

“I’ll get you a jacket, then.”

“Fine.”

I looked in his bedroom closet, but found only shirts. I opened doors in the halls that I thought might have been closets, but they contained shelves of threadbare linens and old worn towels, or in one case an ironing board.

“It would help if you told me where a jacket might be located,” I called in.

“This whole thing was your idea,” he called back.

I finally found the coat closet off the living room, and laid my hands on a royal blue down jacket. What was it with Chester and royal blue?

He clearly wasn’t going to lean forward or offer to put his arms through the sleeves, so I draped it over his shoulders, wheelchair back and all.

As I did, he looked up at me. Just for a split second I thought I saw deeply into his unhappiness, a place I was not normally allowed to go. When he saw me looking, he quickly closed that window into his interior again.

“When did you last shave, Chester?”

His cheeks and chin were covered with longish, spotty stubble, mostly gray.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Who cares?”

“I think you might feel better if I shaved you.”

“I don’t want you shaving me. I don’t want you touching me. Besides, I can shave myself. My arms aren’t broken, you know.”

Then why didn’t you? I thought. Again, I kept it to myself.

“Fine,” I said.

I wheeled him into the tiny, cramped bathroom. There was barely room for both of us in there at the same time.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, standing behind his wheelchair, and it knocked me entirely off balance. When you catch a glimpse of your reflection unexpectedly, it’s like seeing yourself from the outside.

I didn’t know who I was looking at anymore.

I knew who I so recently had been. I had been a software developer. A good earner. A boyfriend. I’d been that person saving to move to California. But who was I now? I had no idea. Other than the fact that I was just . . . absolutely . . . lost.

“What?” Chester said. “Stop looking at yourself in the mirror. You’re not that pretty a girl.”

I pulled my attention back to the task at hand, and buried that personal crisis as deeply as possible.

I took two towels down off their racks. Put one on his lap and one around his neck. Then I looked around in the cabinet over the sink and found shaving cream and an old-fashioned safety razor.

“What am I supposed to do for water?” he said. “I can’t reach the sink.”

I squeezed out of there and walked to the kitchen. Opened a few cabinets and took down the biggest bowl I could find. I filled it half-full of water in the kitchen sink and then handed it to him through the open bathroom doorway.