Peter Geye - Safe from the Sea

“Where have you been?” Noah asked. “I’ve been worried.”

Solveig helped Olaf out of his coat, she led him to the chair. “I left you a note,” she said.

“Where?” Noah looked under the magazines and mess on the table.

“I didn’t want to wake you this morning.”

Olaf sat down heavily.

“Are you all right?” Noah said.

Olaf looked at Solveig.

“We went to the hospital in Duluth. That’s where we’ve been, that’s why we’ve been gone so long.”

“You went to the hospital?” Noah asked his father.

Solveig spoke for Olaf. “We talked about it yesterday, Noah. While you were outside, I guess.” Solveig had found the note under the table. She handed it to Noah. “Don’t be mad.”

Noah read, Took Dad to St. Mary’s. Be gone all day. Wanted to tell you but he wouldn’t let me. Sorry. Love, Sol.

He read the note again, folded it, put it in his shirt pocket. “Well?” he said, at a loss for words but suddenly filled with a kind of hope. “What did you find out?”

“Let’s get Dad to bed. We can talk later.”

“Good idea,” Olaf said, his first words since arriving. “I can get to bed myself.”

While Olaf tended to his dentures, Solveig took several small plastic bottles from a white paper bag. She sorted a half-dozen prescriptions. After Olaf stashed his teeth and poured himself a glass of water, he kissed Solveig good-night.

Solveig caught Olaf by the arm. “Take these, Dad,” she said.

Olaf looked at the pills in the palm of her hand. He took them from her and went into his bedroom.

“How did you. . all those pills. . he looked so. .”

“Come sit over here,” she said, patting the couch. She straightened up, wiped her eyes dry with the heels of her hands.

“I’ll stand,” Noah said.

“Don’t be upset, Noah.”

“I’m not upset,” he assured her. “I just don’t understand how you got him to the hospital. What did they say?”

“They did tests. They took a lot of blood. They did a proctology exam and took tissue samples. X-rays. They wanted him to stay, naturally.”

“Of course he wouldn’t.”

“No.” She trembled visibly. “I’m so sorry we went without you. I wanted you to come, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Don’t worry. Just tell me what they said.”

“The prescriptions, they’re mainly to help with pain. The doctor said he must have a lot of discomfort. The proctology exam showed advanced signs. She said the first test results would be ready on Wednesday. You’re to call her at noon.” She handed Noah the doctor’s business card. “She said she’d be surprised — very surprised, she said — if they don’t confirm what she suspects, that the cancer is beyond treatment, that it has probably spread to his liver and lungs, that it’s probably only a matter of time. She said he was a big, strong man. That doesn’t mean anything, but it doesn’t hurt.”

“How was Dad?” Noah motioned to the bedroom door.

“He hasn’t heard any of this. He told the doctor to tell me, said he didn’t want to know. I wish we hadn’t gone. I just thought maybe there was something they could do.” She began to tear up.

Noah sat down. “Hey, they gave you prescriptions for the pain, that’s something at least. It’s good you took him. He should have gone sooner. Listen, we knew, like you said. You seem surprised.”

“I’m not surprised, Noah. I’m sad. My father — our father — he’s dying. We should be sad. I should be allowed to cry.”

Noah put his arm around her shoulders.

Soon she gathered herself. She asked for a glass of water, which Noah poured and brought her. She drank it all at once. She wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt. “I only got him to go because he wanted to see the old house.”

“In Duluth? The house on High Street?”

She nodded. “We went first thing, before the hospital. We were sitting there idling in front of it. The man who lived there, who must have lived there, was cleaning his gutters. He was up on a ladder. Dad just stared out the window. God, it was weird. It looked the same, just exactly the same. I felt ten years old again.” She handed Noah the glass as if to ask for more water. Again he filled it and brought it to her.

“After five minutes Dad said, ‘Okay.’ Halfway to the hospital he said, just out of the blue he said, ‘A lot of times I couldn’t remember what our house looked like. Not lately, I mean when I was gone, out on the Lakes. I’d try to picture it but couldn’t. I should have taken that for a bad sign.’

“God, it was sad, Noah. I told him how I used to wait for him to get home. I’d sit in the window in the living room and watch the harbor entrance.”

“I’d do the same thing. Before the wreck.” Noah paused. “Maybe we were waiting for two different people.”

Solveig looked at him. “He loved us the same before and after. He just didn’t know how to feel about himself.”

“It’s not so simple,” Noah said.

“What’s not simple?”

“There’s a long list of things that aren’t simple about it.”

“Maybe. Anyway, I could use a drink.”

“There’s nothing here. Amazing but true.”

“It’s not amazing, Noah.”

“He told me about quitting. He should have had his epiphany about twenty years earlier. Things might have been different.” Even as he spoke he realized that the rancor was all but gone. “But better late than never, I guess.”

“That’s just what I was going to say.”

They talked long into the night and were exhausted in the end. At midnight they turned in, Noah to a sleep absent of rest.

“YOU BAKING A pie?” Noah said, one eye closed, the other squinting at the dull shimmer of the kitchen light.

“You could say that,” Olaf said.

There were eight or ten Mason jars sitting on the kitchen counter, each fuzzy with freezer burn. Olaf had two more under his arm. He was already dressed.

“Seriously, what is all that?”

Olaf set the last jars on the counter. “This is for you and your sister.”

Noah had rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He stood and stretched. He yawned. He walked to the counter, picked up one of the jars, and held it to the light.

Olaf took it from him and put it back on the counter. “Wait until your sister gets up.”

Noah’s jeans hung on the chair. He hiked them on and sat back down. “Want to tell me about the trip to Duluth yesterday?”

Olaf rearranged the jars into neat rows on the counter. “Your sister didn’t tell you about it?”

“She told me some.”

“I went for her.”

“Those prescriptions they gave you, are they making any difference?”

“Will you grab that box and put it on the coffee table?” Olaf said, pointing at a wooden whiskey crate.

Noah picked it up and moved it to the table. “The prescriptions?”

“I didn’t take them.”

“Of course not.”

Olaf finally sat down on the sofa. “Solveig drove me by the old house,” he said.

“She told me.”

“It’s a nice house. Someone’s taking care of it.”

“I give up, Dad.”

“You give up?”

“The doctor, the prescriptions, everything.”

Olaf smiled. “You promise?”

Together they reminisced about the old house. Memories like photographs. Olaf told Noah about the night of his birth, Noah in turn about his forays into the old man’s office and how he’d pretend to be his father while the elder sailed the Great Lakes. After the sun rose Solveig emerged from her bedroom.

“What’s all this?” Solveig asked.

“Noah,” Olaf said, “there’s a box on the dresser in my room. Would you grab it for me?”