The Turkey Dad Carved One More Time

I called Velda Szymanski first, from my desk, with the door to the parts room shut. Velda is seventy and has run the hall dinner for twenty years. She worked beside my father at every one of them.

“Halina Kowalczyk,” she said, when she picked up. “Don’t tell me. You’re calling to say your dad’s not coming. Bernadette told the ladies at church he was too worn out this year.”

“He’s coming,” I said. “If you’ll have him. I’m going to bring him myself. I just wanted to ask you something first, Velda.”

“Ask,” she said.

“Would you hold the first turkey back for him?” I asked. “Whole, not carved. I’ll have him there by half past twelve. He can’t stand anymore, but his right hand is good.”

There was a pause on the line, and I heard her set something down on a counter. When she came back, her voice had gone thick.

“Honey, I’ll hold the first two,” she said. “I’ve had the young fellow from the volunteer fire department carving since your dad got sick, and he saws at them like he’s cutting firewood. Bring him. I’ll put him at the end of the serving table where he always stood.”

Then I called the nursing home. I asked for the charge nurse on Dad’s hall, and I got Jadwiga, who has worked there twenty years and calls every old man “my darling.”

“Can I sign him out Thursday at noon for a few hours?” I asked. “For the hall dinner. I’ll have him back by three or a little after.”

“He’s his own man,” Jadwiga said. “He signs for himself, and he’s sharp as a tack in the mornings. If he says yes, you sign the leave book at the desk, and I’ll send his one o’clock pill with you in an envelope.”

“Does anybody have to give permission?” I asked. “Bernadette is the one you call when something happens. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

“Your sister’s on the contact list, but she’s not his guardian,” Jadwiga said. “Nobody is. Your father decides where your father goes. You’ll want to ask him yourself, though, my darling.”

So I called the phone in his room at four o’clock that afternoon, when the sun was still on the shop windows. It took him a while to get the receiver up. I could hear it bump the bed rail twice.

“Dad,” I said. “It’s Halina. Do you want to go to the hall on Thursday? To the dinner? I’ll take you myself.”

“Bernie says too tired,” he said. His words came slow now, one at a time, like a man crossing a creek on stones. “I am not tired.”

“I know you’re not,” I said.

“Who carves?” he asked.

“You do,” I said. “If you want to. Velda’s holding back the first bird for you.”

He did not say anything for a long time. I thought maybe he had set the phone down. Then I heard him clear his throat, the way he used to before saying grace on Christmas Eve.

“Bring my knife,” he said. “Basement. Gray box. Top shelf.”

I said I would, and I told him I loved him, and he said “You too, girl,” which was what he had always said, stroke or no stroke.

Then there was the van. That took the rest of the afternoon and half of Wednesday.

Every transport company I called was booked solid for Thursday. It made sense. Every family in northeast Wisconsin with a parent in a home wanted the same thing on the same day.