The Day Dad Held the Baby

I had thought about lying to him. I had thought about telling him the service was early or the church was crowded. But I had never lied to my father in sixty years, and I was not about to start with this.

“Brynn didn’t put you on the list, Dad,” I said. “She’s worried about the pictures. The tank.”

He was quiet a long moment. He reached up and tucked the tubing behind his ear, the way he always did, and smoothed it down along his collar.

“Well,” he said finally. “She’s young. And it’s her baby.” He looked out the window at the parking lot, at the lilacs along the fence. “I don’t want to be trouble for that girl.”

“You’re not trouble,” I said.

“I’m a little bit of trouble.” He almost laughed. “I’m a lot of tubing, Dottie.”

I took his hand. His knuckles were big from all those years of grain sample bags and tailgates. His skin was thin as tissue paper now.

“I’m picking you up Sunday morning at nine-thirty,” I said. “Wear your gray suit jacket. We’re going to church.”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he nodded, once, the way he used to nod at a farmer when a deal was done.

On Sunday morning the sun came up clear and warm, the kind of May morning where the pastures are so green they look painted and the cottonwoods along the creek are just leafing out.

I wore my sage green dress, the one I bought for my retirement party from the school library. It still fit, mostly. I combed my short gray hair and looked at myself in the mirror and told myself to be kind no matter what happened.

At the care home, Neva was on the morning shift. She was a big, cheerful woman who had worked there twenty years, and she had already shaved Dad and combed his white hair with water so it lay flat.

“He’s been ready since seven,” she whispered to me. “He made me brush that jacket twice.”

Dad was sitting up straight in his wheelchair, in his gray suit jacket and a pale blue shirt buttoned to the collar. The green oxygen tank was clipped in its holder on the back of the chair.

Neva had checked the gauge and put a full cylinder on. She handed me a second one in a canvas carrier.

“This one’s good for about five hours at his setting,” she said, tapping the tank on the chair. “The spare is full too. If he gets short of breath, you sit him down and let him rest. Don’t let him talk too much on the way.”

“He’s never talked too much a day in his life,” I said.

Neva laughed. Then she bent down and fixed his tie and said, “You go hold that baby, Lyle.”

He did not answer her. But I saw his eyes, and I had to look away.

Getting Dad into my car took the two of us and about ten minutes. Neva showed me how to lock the wheelchair brakes, how to have him pivot on his good leg, how to keep the tubing from catching on the door.