Page 94 of No Contest
We all knew this was coming. It had been imminent for almost two years, since the day Dad forgot my name and called me by his brother's instead. The dementia diagnosis came next.
Knowing it was coming and facing it weren't the same thing.
My phone buzzed again. This time it was Hog.
Hog:Will you be at your workshop later, after the game?
I stared at the message and thought about the night before—Hog sprawled across my bed, talking about Margaret's offer and what might have happened if the team moved. I remembered the weight of his arm around me when we'd finally slept.
My hands were still shaking.
I typed back:
Rhett:Dad's dying. Going to my parents' house. Don't know when I'll be back.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Hog:I'm so sorry. Do you want me to come with you?
I did and I didn't. I had no idea what I wanted for sure, except not to be sitting in my truck with my hands shaking and my father dying and the kitchen behind me half-finished.
Rhett:Not yet. I'll call you later.
I put the truck in reverse, pulled out of the Underwoods' driveway, and drove toward the house where I'd grown up—theone with the business in the garage and the father who'd never asked what I wanted, only told me what I was supposed to do.
The steering wheel was solid under my palms. That helped. The clear road helped too.
They'd converted the living room into a makeshift hospital. The bed sat where the couch used to be. The oxygen concentrator hissed in a steady rhythm—two seconds in, three seconds out—and underneath it all was the smell. It was antiseptic trying to cover what it couldn't fix.
My mother sat in the recliner Dad had bought her for Christmas three years ago, hands folded in her lap. She looked up when I arrived.
"Rhett." She stood and smoothed her cardigan even though it didn't need smoothing. "You made good time."
"Hit all the lights green." I set my keys on the side table—the same table that had been there since I was ten, scarred from when Sloane and I tried to build a Lego castle on it. "How is he?"
"Sleeping. Mostly sleeping now." She twisted her wedding ring. "The nurse was here an hour ago. Said his vitals are—" She hesitated. "They're stable. For now."
Stable. Hospice-speak for "hasn't died yet."
I moved closer to the bed. The man lying there was smaller than I remembered, like dying had compressed his body. His hands were mottled purple and white where they rested on top of the blanket, fingers slightly curled.
Dad had built houses. He framed walls, hung drywall, and installed windows that didn't leak. His hands had been huge—scarred, callused, always moving, and always busy. Now they looked like wax replicas of themselves.
I pulled up the folding chair someone had positioned beside the bed and sat down. The metal frame creaked under my weight.
"You can talk to him," Mom said from behind me. "They say hearing's the last thing to go."
I didn't know what to say to a dying man who'd spent thirty years telling me what I was supposed to want.
"Hey, Dad. It's Rhett."
The oxygen hissed. His chest rose and fell, shallow but regular.
"The Underwood job's coming along. New cabinets are in, trim work's about half done." I watched his eyelids for any sign of response. Nothing. "Justin is doing good work. Learning fast. He's got the attention to detail you always talked about."
Nothing.
"Business is steady. Got three more jobs lined up for spring." I was talking to fill the void, saying things that didn't matter because the things that mattered were too big. "People still remember your name. Still ask about you."
