We Are Not Ourselves(179)

He parked in the lot and waited to be buzzed in. As the vestibule gave way to the hall, a red canvas band spanned the width of the hallway at waist height, secured at either end by Velcro. It looked like an oversized winner’s tape, but in fact it was an effective deterrent against escape. Connell removed one end, passed through and felt a creeping sadness as he matched the furry strip in his hand up to its rougher twin.

He found his father in the Crow’s Nest, a small room overlooking the front lawn where the noisier residents took their meals in sequestration so as not to disturb the others, and where they spent the better part of their afternoons. A dozen or so other residents were there. With the meal over and the orderlies somewhere else, wheelchairs abutted each other like bumper cars. His father was moaning a low moan. He registered a small change of expression when he saw Connell standing there, but he hardly seemed to stir out of his hazy state. It was past his bedtime; they had left him there for Connell. The television on the wall was set to the evening news.

Connell wheeled him out. When they reached the canvas band, he stopped.

“I’m going to punch in the code,” he said. “I can tell you what it is, if you don’t tell anyone I told you.”

He waited to see if his father’s eyes would light up to indicate that he’d been longing for this key to liberty, but his father didn’t seem to notice what he’d said. The low, keening hum persisted. He punched in the code and replaced the strip and wheeled him out. He had a feeling of springing his father from jail. After they had been outside for a few moments, his father stopped moaning.

“That’s what you wanted?” Connell bent down to ask. “To go outside?”

His father’s silence seemed to confirm it.

“If only I’d known! It’s a little too cold to stay out long. Besides, we’re going someplace I think you’re going to be happy to see.”

He got to the car and opened the door and got both arms under his father’s armpits to get him standing. He got him seated in the car and secured the belt and put the folded wheelchair in the trunk.

It was the first time his father had been off the grounds in months, and Connell wondered how it felt to him to be driven down the long driveway. The trees were bereft of leaves, and strong winds whipped the denuded branches, which in the reflected glow of the headlights looked like guards reaching their elongated arms out to stop his father’s escape. They made their way down the road, his father slumped against the window, silent, his hands in his lap, his neck at an uncomfortable angle.

“Sit up straight, Dad,” Connell said, but his father didn’t move. He reached over and pulled him upright and turned the radio on. He wanted him to look out the window and see the lights strung on fences in front yards, the candles in the windows, the lawn ornaments, and, in a larger sense, the world outside the confines of the nursing home, the fact of its being Christmas, the fact that such a thing as Christmas existed at all, but it was as if his father hadn’t noticed he’d left the Crow’s Nest. It didn’t matter; when they got home, he would see the house done up for Christmas and be recalled to the seasonal cheer. He would be brought back to his life. It would make Dad happy, but the bigger consequence would be his mother’s joy at having everyone together for one last Christmas at home. She’d mentioned it so many times before his father had gone into the nursing home, and it must have been bitter for her to watch that possibility die. For his father, nothing hung on this trip, but that was because he didn’t know where he was going. Once there, he would understand that Connell had spared him a lonely drifting off in a room whose sole concession to the holiday was a drugstore-purchased Santa Claus sign taped to the door. For the night to pass without any observance, for his father to slip into an ignorant slumber, was too much for Connell to take.

Traffic was light, and they arrived quickly enough that he might almost have been gone that long had he set out in search of a string of lights. The block had filled up with cars and he had to park a little distance away from the house. He had been intending just to walk his father in and guide him to a seat on the couch, but instead he retrieved the wheelchair and wheeled him. As he neared the driveway he saw Ruth McGuire hitting the button on her keychain to lock her car. She must have left Frank at home. Her eyes widened as he approached. She met them at the foot of the driveway.

“What’s this?”

“Merry Christmas,” Connell said, leaning in for a hug, though Ruth was strangely stiff.

“Hi there,” she said to his father, bending down to kiss him. She stood back up. “What’s the deal?”

“I thought the whole family should be together for the holidays.”

Ruth put down the bags of gifts she was carrying. “Your mother doesn’t know about this?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not a good idea. She doesn’t know he’s coming at all?”

“It’s all me,” he said.

“Oh, God.” She seemed to be thinking quickly. She picked up the bags again, made a quick circle, and put them back down. “What to do. What to do?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s good. We’re going to have a nice night. She wanted this.”

“Your mother is under a lot of strain right now,” Ruth said. “She’s not having an easy time of it, and the holidays make everything harder. Believe me, I know.” She gestured toward the passenger seat her husband would have occupied. “I left Frank home with the nurse because it’s just too hard to make it work with nights like this, and I didn’t want to upset your mother. She just wants to get through the night and move on.”