Page 25 of The Progressions

I looked over. “It’s the Great Lakes State,” I mentioned, in case he’d missed that in elementary school.

“I’m going to have to be on a boat tomorrow,” he said, and Dad asked him about the trip to Mackinac. As I pieced together the meal, I heard him assure Tyler that it was a big boat, and it probably wouldn’t ever sink. They talked about the Woodsmen, too, with my father asking more questions in the very careful manner he used when speaking to strangers who weren’t used to his voice. I remembered how he used to talk, before the stroke. He had been a great storyteller, totally mesmerizing. I vividly recalled spitting my milk out of my nose when I was a little girl and he’d said something funny that made me laugh. It had shot right onto my plate but he’d helped to clean it up and told me it was ok, that he was glad I was happy.

I heard my name and focused on their conversation. “Kasia looks just like her,” my dad was saying, and I knew they were discussing my mother. “Justyna came from Poland when she was only twenty. I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.” He paused and regrouped, moving his jaw a few times before the next words came. “Now Kasia is. They’re exactly alike.”

How had they already gotten onto that topic? I should have paid closer attention to ward it off. “Dad, I promised him that you’d show off the garden. Tyler, can you help my father up?”

“Uh, ok.” He did that by lifting him out of the chair, but he was careful about it. I wished I were that strong and could do it so efficiently. They went outside, down the little ramp I’d built myself, and I heard them talking out there, too. Dad wasbragging about how big the pumpkins would be, and that was good for us. I sold them out of the back of my car, along with gourds and some winter squash. The stuff we picked in the summer was for eating, and I also canned and pickled a lot for us to have later.

I watched through the window as they walked slowly through the garden. I couldn’t help keeping an eye on Dad, although I tried not to let him see because he sure didn’t enjoy it. “I’m the parent,” he liked to remind me, and that was true. He was my only parent left and five years before, I had walked into the house after carefully driving down the bumpy road in my new-to-me car, and I’d found him on the floor of our kitchen. He’d been there all day, alone for hours as his brain was blocked from getting the blood it needed. I would never forget it, never.

So I watched as he and Tyler slowly walked around the garden, looking at things and picking a few. I watched to make sure that Dad was steady and I also wanted to make sure that Tyler was being nice. I definitely remembered how he’d acted the first time I’d met him, when he’d thrown open the door of the leasing office and then had refused to speak to me or Iva. I remembered his behavior the next few times we’d met up, too, and also what the girl Dalila had told me about how he’d behaved with the other Woodsmen. “Booty hole” was the term she’d used and it seemed fitting if her story had been accurate.

But they were talking quietly and walking slowly, and I saw my dad smile, the expression that was kind of lopsided now but that I loved to see on his face. They came back to the door and up the ramp—well, Tyler stepped around rather than on it, whichwas smart move. I had, after all, built it myself, and I was aware of what my carpentry skills were worth. He weighed a lot more than we did, and in fact, seeing the two of them together was almost shocking. My father looked thin and gaunt, like he’d lost more weight than I’d realized.

“It’s right in here,” Dad was saying, and they walked the few steps through the living room and toward the bedroom.

“Daddy, he doesn’t want to…” I let my words trail off. No, Tyler didn’t want to see this, but it was my dad’s most treasured possession and it was so rare that he got the chance to show it off. I followed them and stood just behind the Woodsmen player’s wide back. I didn’t have to look myself, because I could already see her perfectly in my mind. As always, I saw her face in the frame, not the real woman.

“My friend was an artist and a professor at Eastern Michigan University. He came home one summer when Kasia was a baby and he painted this for us. I don’t know if it captures how lovely she was, but it comes close,” my father said, speaking each word carefully and slowly so that they were clear, and breathing hard after he was done with it all.

It was a picture of my mother, Justyna, sitting on the sand dunes that loomed on the shore of Lake Michigan. Her long, dark hair, a lot like mine, blew in the wind coming off the water, and she was smiling at someone or something just past the artist. I had always imagined that it had been her husband standing there, and that he had been smiling back at her.

“They do look alike,” Tyler said. He glanced over at me. “They have the same eyes.”

“Like the feathers on jay’s wing, that bright blue,” my dad said. I could hear the emotion in his voice. He used to be able to hold it in better, but the stroke had made it harder for him to contain it. “She was wonderful…”

“Dinner’s ready,” I called. I had stepped quickly back to the kitchen, and I loudly plunked three plates onto the little table and jangled some silverware. “Daddy, come on and eat.” After I helped him into his chair, I quickly wiped his cheeks with a kitchen towel.

“This is not going to be up to your standards, but it’s edible,” I told Tyler. “Has he talked about what he likes to cook?” I asked my father, and we discussed that, football, and more about Mackinac Island until dinner was over.

“Thanks for having me over,” Tyler said when I walked him out to his yellow car.

“You’re welcome. Thanks for being so nice to my dad.” I spoke quietly, so that my words wouldn’t carry through the bedroom window where he was resting.

“Why wouldn’t I be nice to him?”

“Thank you,” I repeated. “And don’t worry about tomorrow. The boat ride isn’t that long and you’ll like it once you’re there. Take lots of pictures.”

“Why?”

“Because some people haven’t visited, and they’d like to see. Me,” I clarified. “Send them, or show me when you get back.” My dad and I had never traveled before his stroke, and now I wasn’t allocating money for hotels and meals out. Maybe someday—maybe. There were lots of things to pay for before I thought about trips. Currently, I was thinking about my next tuition payment, new gutters, and an oil change.

Tyler seemed puzzled but he didn’t say no. Before he drove off, though, he did say something else. “Tell me if you’re getting a lot of shit about Shay’s video.”

“What would you do about it?” I asked, but then shook my head. “It will be fine. I bet that by tomorrow, most people will have forgotten.”

“Maybe. Tell me anyway.” He rattled his key chain. “It should be good weather tomorrow.”

“The water will be calm.” I realized that I was slightly anxious about his trip, too, but my feelings didn’t center on the boat ride. “If you behave with your teammates like you did with us tonight, then you’ll be great,” I said. “Why don’t you try it? Wouldn’t that be better?”

He stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Have a good trip. Pictures,” I reminded him, and I stood in the driveway until his car disappeared, bumping through the potholes that you really couldn’t avoid, until his lights were out of sight.

Things would be bumpy for me for a while too, I thought, but they would be better soon. Probably by the time he got backfrom his trip, Shay Galton would be here, and everyone would have forgotten the home-wrecking slut who had made her cry so beautifully.

I just needed to wait a little, and it would be fine.

---