Joyce Oates - I’ll Take You There

She'd checked him and, yes, he was awake-"Not awake like you and me, dear, but, for him, awake." He could see me for a few minutes, no more. Gently Hildie took my hand, her warm dry fingers gripping my clammy-damp fingers, and urged me out onto the porch, positioning me where my father could see me but, my back to him, I couldn't see him. "H-Hello, Daddy? Hello. It's-" uttering my name as if my father might not know it; daring to call him "Daddy," as if that had been my name for him when I'd been a child. My knees were shaking, my eyes stared blindly into space. It was dusk; the wooden porch was shaded from what would have been a bright, pitiless sunshine by day, by an immense gnarled vine that might have been grape, or wisteria, but had neither fruit nor blossoms, only a tangle of insect-stippled leaves; and by an inexpensive screen nailed into place between the railing and the roof. The screen was a reproduction of a Japanese watercolor of foliage and butterflies, badly faded, but exquisite in design. Hildie had made up a daytime bed for my father a few yards away, on a sofa with creaking springs. I could sense his presence immediately, though I didn't turn my head so much as a fraction of an inch; I knew that he was staring at me; his vision was weakened from his illness, but he was staring greedily at me. I heard a low straining guttural Uh-uh-uhhh which Hildie quickly translated-" 'Hello!' your father says. He's so happy you are here." I said, wiping at my eyes, "Oh, Daddy, I'm so happy to be here, too. I only wish-" Hildie poked me in warning, for what was I going to say; what are the words one utters to a dying man, that require being said aloud? My father squirmed in his bed saying Uh-uhhh and breathing harshly, and Hildie translated, "He asks you to shut your eyes and turn to him so he can see your face. But you must shut your eyes tight for if you look at him, you won't like what you see. And he won't like you to see it." I shut my eyelids, which were trembling badly, and Hildie turned me to face the man in the bed; the man I believed was my father; the man who was Death, and yet my father. "Don't be afraid, dear," Hildie said, gently, aiding me by pressing the palms of her hands lightly over my eyes, in such a way that most of my face was exposed. Hildie said to my father, enunciating her words as if my father would have had difficulty hearing otherwise, "Isn't she a brave girl, to drive alone to see you, so many miles! I would love her best, too." My father must have been staring at me in wonderment for he was silent; he didn't try to speak again. His breathing had become more labored; you listened with anxious fascination waiting for such breathing to cease. It was a terrible sound to live with intimately and yet I thought This is the sound of life for Hildie Pomeroy, so long as it continues .

And were they lovers? Never could I ask.

I was shy in the woman's presence as in the presence of any woman intimately and mysteriously connected with my father; knowing secrets about him I would never know. And how proud Hildie was of being his nurse: she sponge-bathed him daily, gently washed what remained of his hair, shaved him, fed him pureed foods, gave him his numerous pills, checked his temperature several times a day, carried away his bodily wastes that accumulated in sacs beneath the sofa. She slept in a room close by his and was wakened every night by my father thrashing about and moaning and she came to him immediately, comforted him, consoled him. "It's his wish to die at home. And this is his home now, he knows"-Hildie uttered this statement with such pride, I felt almost a surge of envy.

Hildie had met my father in the late winter of 1964, in the Rendezvous Cafe on Main Street where she worked as a cashier. He'd come into the Cafe for a drink, with a local man whom he knew, a truck driver for a gravel company in town; my father was looking for work as a trucker. This was shortly after his release from the Utah State Facility for Men at Goshen, where he'd served eighteen months of a three-year sentence on a charge of assault in 1961. Hildie passed lightly over this fact to say, with vehemence, "The other man in the fight, where they were working up in Duchesne, he was the cause. He hit Erich first, with a shovel, and Erich only defended himself. He lost control, he said. You know how a man is. 'It's like an avalanche,' he told me. 'Once it starts you don't know how it's going to end and you can't stop it.' " Hildie spoke to me in a fierce, lowered voice as to a co-conspirator. She was tugging at the thin gold chain around her neck. "The witnesses lied, the bastards! All except one. Swore on the Bible right in court, and lied! So Erich was found guilty when all he'd done was defend himself."

Guilty! Prison! My father had been in prison. The revelation was a shock to me, years after the fact, yet somehow didn't surprise me. There was a melancholy logic to it: my father had wanted us to think he'd died. Better dead, than a criminal. He'd wanted to spare us shame; he'd guessed that, for his family, grief might be more tolerable than shame.

I wiped at my eyes. It was unfair! He hadn't given us a choice. He hadn't given me a choice.

Hildie was squinting at me suspiciously. "You knew this, didn't you? Your family?"

I told Hildie yes, we'd known. Something.

"And not one of you came to see him at Goshen? That's so?"

I told Hildie yes, that was so.

"An innocent man! Your father."

Hildie was disgusted with us, shaking her head. She would have visited her beloved Erich under any circumstances. That went without question.

I was staring at my hands that looked blameless. They were slender, restless hands; attractive hands, I suppose; I wore no jewelry, unlike Hildie and her glittery rings, and only a loose-fitting inexpensive Bulova watch on my left wrist. The short, evenly filed nails I'd managed finally to get clean, at the motel, before coming to see my father. It has never been my nature to defend myself against another's moral indignation; in the presence of individuals who assume moral superiority, I lapse into silence; think what you wish to think, what you need to think, is my acquiescence. For though my brothers and I hadn't known that my father was in prison in Utah, it's quite possible that we wouldn't have come to see him in any case. It's possible that, in our deepest hearts, we'd preferred to think he was dead; he'd read our hearts correctly. This was utterly possible. I could not debate Hildie Pomeroy, a stranger who would claim to know my father better than I knew him.

Hildie said, aggressively, "He's a man of pride, your father. Anybody insults him, he gets what he deserves, see?"

I told Hildie yes, this was so.

"In the fight he was hurt bad in the throat, he said. That started the cancer. He'd have these coughing fits in the prison but they never gave a damn, said it was just from smoking. Finally they paroled him. The bastards!"

I pressed my fingertips against my eyes. I had no reply, no words. We were in the Rendezvous Cafe, in a booth near the cashier's glass-topped counter. Hildie had had several glasses of beer and spoke loudly, others in the Cafe could overhear. Very likely they were listening: they were curious about me, a stranger. It was as if the more vehemently Hildie spoke, the greater the possibility my father wouldn't die.

"An innocent man, treated like shit. I told Erich he could sue. We could sue. There's an uncle of mine in Salt Lake City, he knows one of these 'contingency' lawyers-"

I would have liked to ask Hildie Pomeroy how she knew with such certainty that my father was "innocent"; and what exactly did "innocent" mean to her? How does a woman know what she so fiercely wishes to believe? Truth is wish; we wish to believe; what we believe, we invent as truth. And where love intervenes, truth is lost . I was thinking of Vernor Matheius whom I'd loved, or had imagined I'd loved, more than life itself; more, certainly, than my own life; I was thinking of the man's duplicity, dishonesty, betrayal. I knew that I could believe the very worst of anyone I loved, no matter how much I loved him; for all things are possible. I could have believed that my father was a violent man, even a murderer; it wouldn't have changed my fundamental feeling for him. But this is unnatural, isn't it? In a woman at least. A passionate "feminine" woman like Hildie Pomeroy. As a woman you're supposed to deny ugly facts, you're supposed to be faithful, loyal. Hildie, breathing deeply, incensed, didn't seem to guess how I felt, how my heart beat in revulsion for her self-righteousness; gently, she touched my wrist as if to console me. "But I'm taking care of him now. He knows he can trust me. I own that house, that's mine. It was my parents' house for fifty years and now it's mine ."