So Long, Chester Wheeler(80)

“So here’s a very important question for you,” I said. “What do you think of my new Winnebago?”

Probably not very fair of me, I know. But I wanted to see how he would handle that one.

“It’s . . . big.”

“Oh, it’s all of big.”

“I’m not sure ‘new’ is the perfect description.”

“Right. No. Of course not. New to me, I meant to say. I realize it’s not the most attractive thing in the world. But you can go places and do things in it. You can go to the places you’ve always wanted to go, before it’s too late.”

“Are you planning on leaving the world soon?”

“No. But I expect to be meeting some more people who are.”

I started walking again, and he did, too.

“It used to belong to Chester Wheeler,” I said. “His daughter let me keep it.”

This time he was the one who stopped.

We were just beyond the rear bumper of the great beast, and he stood there a moment, staring at it. Considering . . . I didn’t know yet. Something.

“This was Chester’s?”

“Yeah, this is the one we drove across the country.”

“That seems surprising,” he said.

“How so? It seems very Chester Wheeler to me.”

“Based on the way you described him . . . I can’t picture him having those bumper stickers.”

“Oh, the bumper stickers,” I said, barely suppressing a smile. “There’s definitely a story behind the bumper stickers. Walk with me, and I’ll tell you all about it.”





Epilogue:



* * *





One Year Later

I spent a few minutes loading Estelle’s belongings into the Winnebago. And then, finally, I loaded up Estelle.

I use the word “loaded” mostly jokingly. Estelle was, in fact, fairly mobile. She was wobbly, and a distinct fall risk, so I tended to walk at her elbow. But she got places more or less on her own power. The tricky part, for me, was keeping her steady with one hand and wheeling her oxygen tank with the other. Especially up the steps into the RV.

Once inside, she stopped. Looked around. She did a fair amount of looking up, as though she had expected a century-old theater with an ornate domed ceiling. Her hair was gray-white and about as close to nonexistent as a person’s hair can get without literally falling out entirely. It was so thin that every inch of her scalp was visible to me as she surveyed the indoor scenery. She had a hooked nose that tended to look pinched where the nasal cannula of her oxygen system entered her nostrils.

Meanwhile I could see Brian standing on the sidewalk outside our house, waiting to see us off. He reminded me of a faithful beau in a 1930s movie who stands on the dock for no other reason than to wave goodbye to his sweetie as the ship sets sail.

Okay, okay. So I romanticize. Sue me.

Estelle finally offered her proclamation.

“Not exactly the Ritz-Carlton,” she said, “is it now?”

She had a scratchy, nasally voice that had always struck me as the human equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. If she had been more of a constant talker, it might almost have been a deal breaker.

“What did we talk about, Estelle?”

I figured there was maybe a ten percent chance she would remember.

“No idea. We talk about all manner of things.”

“We agreed that if all you had to say was some form of criticism, you’d just keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“You must be thinking of one of your other dying patients.” This was her idea of a running joke. I had no other patients, dying or otherwise. Estelle was a full-time job and then some. “I’d never make an agreement like that. Being critical is all I’ve got left.”

I walked her up to the passenger seat and guided and supported her as she sat.

I reached across her for her seat belt but she slapped my hand hard.

“I can do it!” she barked.

“You. Do. Not. Hit!” I said, my voice low and strong. “That’s two strikes, Estelle. Next time you hit me I resign from this job and you can damn well get somebody else.”

“But I can do it myself.”

“Then you tell me that! With your words. How would you feel if I hit you?”

“You’d better not. That’s elder abuse.”

“My point is that anybody hitting anybody is abuse. I will work for you and I’ll care for you, but under no circumstances will I accept your abuse. Are we clear?”

“Fine, fine,” she said, buckling the belt herself.

But the trouble was that, in a minute or an hour, she’d forget we’d ever had the conversation.

“You sit right here,” I said. “I have to go kiss Brian goodbye.”

Her face morphed into an overdone mask of shock, like something from a silent-movie melodrama.

“On the street?”

“Yes, on the street. Where he’s standing. Do not go anywhere.”

I trotted down the steps and joined Brian in front of our house.

“I have such a sense of dread,” I said. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“It was your idea.”

“It was pretty much Estelle’s idea. But yes, I agreed to it. And the question still stands.”