The Pedicure

Standing in the hallway of the nursing home, I wait outside my father’s closed door for the aide to get him dressed, out of bed, into his wheelchair, and ready for a visitor. It’s the first time I’ve visited him alone—without a brother, sister, or my husband along as a buffer—since he had the stroke four years ago and we moved him a thousand miles north from Florida, his home for the last thirty years.
         A resident who lives across the hall from my dad stops his wheelchair to chat with me. “It’s a beautiful day,” he says, nodding towards the bright sun outside the window. “Is it warm out?”
         “It is,” I tell him. “Too warm for February, I think. My daffodils are starting to come out; I hope they don’t die off when it gets cold again.”          
“They know what they’re doing,” he assures me, smiling.
He starts to speak again when I hear my father roar from the other side of the closed door: “SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!”
         A moment later, the aide hurries out of the room and I look at him apologetically. I steel myself and pick up the K-Mart bags full of the items my dad requested last time he called. I plan to stay only an hour; then I’m meeting a friend who lives nearby to go shopping and out to lunch.
         “Hi Dad,” I say, as I enter the room. I’m still surprised by how old and weak . . . and a little bit crazy . . . he looks. In the handful of memories I have of him, he’s athletic, powerful: I’m six, watching from the dock as he cuts through murky green bay water, leaving a wake like a motor boat; he stops, treading water and demanding to know why I don’t know how to swim yet. I’m thirteen and visiting him in Florida; he’s tennis-court tanned and yelling at me from the other side of the net: “Whack hell out of the ball!”
Now, though, downy feathers of thin white hair stick up all over his head; he hasn’t combed it, and he needs a cut, not to mention a shave. His blue eyes, the same color as mine, peer irritably from behind his too-big old man glasses. He’s slumped in his wheelchair, his left hand curled uselessly on his lap. I don’t approach him to hug him; our family doesn’t touch, except to give Indian burns or to throw a hard foul in a driveway basketball game. Even when he disciplined my older brothers and sisters, he used a belt. 
         “These people,” he starts in immediately as I place the shopping bags on his bed. “They treat you like you’re an idiot. Well, they sure hate me because I’m actually aware, I know what’s going on, and they don’t like it.”   
         At first, I don’t answer, which is my standard response to his complaints. Of course, this strategy works better when there’s someone else in the room to do the talking. So I show him the items I brought—underwear, Imodium AD, denture adhesive, a wall thermometer—and he starts directing me.
         “You need to hide that Imodium where they won’t find it,” he says. “They’ll take it away from me, you know. They have to be in control of everything. It’s ridiculous.”
         I try to put everything exactly where he tells me to, knowing that if I make a mistake, he’ll be on me. “Jesus Christ! Can’t you see? I can’t reach that part of the closet! This arm doesn’t work!”
I take the thermometer out of a bag and hold it up. “What do you need this for?”
“It’s so goddamned cold in here!” he growls. “But they don’t believe me. They tell me it’s 75 degrees, but it can’t be. I’m freezing! Those goddamn nurses, I tell them they’re always hot because they weigh three hundred pounds.” I place the thermometer on the cabinet next to his television. “Jesus, not there! The heat from the TV will make it read warmer than it really is! Here, hide it behind that lamp so they don’t see it. If they know what I’m up to, they’ll take it away.”
After I’ve finished putting the items away, it’s time to rearrange his furniture. The desk needs to be moved seven inches so that he can pull his wheelchair close to it. I make the mistake of moving it nine inches, though, and he shouts: “Look, can’t you see? If the desk is too close to my bed, I can’t get out of bed! I can only get out on this side because I can only use this arm!” I slide the desk back a few inches. Moving the desk out of the corner, though, means that the books on the desk will fall over; he needs another bookend. I write that on the list I’ve already started for the next visit. 
We continue in this way: him directing me, desperate to remember all the things he needs done while he has someone here. Me, trying to do everything right, and quickly, so that I can move on to the fun part of my day.
As I work, I briefly remember the day he moved north. My brothers, sisters, and I were helping him move into the first nursing home. I was actually a little excited. I thought that I could go have coffee with him in the mornings, that I might get to know him better. Those ideas were crushed, though, when this pattern emerged: the irascible, abusive, condescending attitude that had been present before but was amplified with his disability, the attitude that caused him to move through nine nursing homes in four years.
The hour has passed, and my obligation has been fulfilled. “Well, Dad, I’ve gotta go now,” I tell him, picking my sweatshirt off the bed rail.
         “Wait a minute there, kid. I need you to do something for me,” he says, reaching down with his right hand and struggling to slip his sock off his foot. “In that top drawer there’s some nail clippers . . .” and the horror of what he is requesting sinks in. No. No way.
         But what can I do? I can’t say, “No, Dad. No way. That’s about the grossest thing I can think of.” I get the nail clippers out and kneel down, take his calloused foot into my hand and clip away at the thick, hard yellow horns of his toenails.
         “Clip them short,” he demands. I’m barely listening to him, anxious to get this chore done as quickly as possible but without drawing blood. Vaguely I wonder why there isn’t someone at the home whose job it is to do this, but he surely wouldn’t agree to that. “If they do something for you, you owe them,” I can hear him complaining.
         Some of the nails are especially tough, requiring an extra forceful squeeze on the clippers. Toenail shrapnel flies off at erratic angles as I work. It’s certainly not my job to collect the pieces, I assure myself.
As I finish, I hear the closest thing to a thank you I’ll probably get: “Oh, Jeez, you have no idea what a relief it is to have this done.” You’re not kidding, I think.
“All right, let me go wash my hands,” I say as I stand up and put the clippers away.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he scoffs. “What, did I raise a bunch of Niles Cranes or something?”
I stifle my immediate response, the one that would bring the reality of our relationship too starkly into the open: Raise me? I’ve barely seen him for thirty years, and he claims to have raised me? Please.
Although instinct tells me to keep quiet, to not set him off, I say the second thing that comes to mind: “Dad, I just touched your foot. I’d wash my hands if I touched my own foot.” And I walk into the bathroom.
After washing my hands, I take a moment to check my hair, and I realize how much I look like him—not just the ice-blue eyes, but the square jaw, the big ears that I, fortunately, can hide under long brown hair. His anger, his impatience, his depression . . . I see those traits in myself as well, although not to the same extent as in him, not yet.
When I come out, I reach for my sweatshirt to make a hasty exit. He’s quiet, his hand over his face, and I’m shocked to realize that he’s nearly crying, his anger replaced by despair.
“OK, Dad, I’ll see you soon,” I say, as I bend over and kiss the cool crepe paper skin of his cheek. “But, you know, next time I’m bringing some pink nail polish.” He chokes out a small laugh and lifts his hand in a dejected wave.