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“And the old man? You didn’t say much.”
More silence.
“He’s the same as he’s been, really. He’ll keep declining bit by bit, just like the doctors say.” He sighs. “He’s been talking about Mama a lot lately, surprisingly.”
Mama?
Shit.
It’s to be expected, I suppose. Probably inevitable, given what we’ve been told about our father’s condition.
As the disease progresses, he’ll ruminate, recalling fragments of his past. Some days he’ll confuse them with the present.
Just like he already does to an embarrassing degree.
It fucking guts me.
Cris tries to sugarcoat it when he knows I don’t have to see it every week like he does, talking like it can’t be helped.
Maybe it can’t.
Truthfully, I owe him.
He’s the only one who could stand to watch our father’s decline day after day and still be in the mood to joke around.
Even if I could be there, I’m not sure I could stand it, honestly.
I can’t shake how strong Dad used to be, this proud, focused bull. Nothing slipped past him, not since Mama died.
And seeing him now, feeble and confused, having home nurses he can’t remember fussing over him every damn day. That chews my heart out like a dog with a piece of gristle.
“He’s been talking about angels. Pretty weird,” Cris says absently. “Don’t know what he means. They say people start seeing funny shit toward the end. Hate to say it, but I wonder how long he has left.”
“Yeah.”
A shadow in the corner shifts into the familiar shape of an emperor penguin.
Oh, fuck.
I don’t acknowledge Inky as he appears, slumped in the chair, staring at me with his beady black holes for eyes.
My brothers and I might be close, but that’s something I’ll never share.
It’s one thing to suffer from seeing demons that aren’t there when you’re old. Completely different when you start seeing them before you’re fucking forty.
They’d have me locked up and committed.
“You might want to come down here, sooner or later,” he says as Inky waves his flipper like the smug little creep he is. “Dom said he’s probably going to come this weekend.”
Of course, Domenico, our older brother, would.
Dom always has to put on a good show, keep up appearances, make the rounds like he’s King Shit of Fuck Mountain whenever he leaves home base in Chicago.
“You hear from him lately?” Cris asks.
“Nah.”
I haven’t.
