Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [125]
“You’re getting out tomorrow,” I tell him the next afternoon.
He puts aside his crossword puzzle and raises an eyebrow.
When I tell him the plan, he protests. “I will not have you following me around, force feeding me, fretting over me. It’s annoying.”
“Well, too bad, Richard. It’s time you got back to work. You promised to decorate my apartment, and the only way I can think for you to do it is to make you live there. When it’s finished, you can leave.”
Richard turns away from me and doesn’t say anything more. I start to worry that I’ve made a mistake by initiating this forced dependence on me, but soon he begins to squirm in his wheelchair, trying to get his right side to cooperate as he struggles out of his sweatshirt, the dung-colored one. He balls it up and tries to toss it to me, but it lands inches from his seat. Then, exhausted and panting with the effort, he says, “Prepare the bonfire.”
I shove the last of the unopened boxes into the space under the stairs, into the space that should be Chloe’s cozy nook. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours scrambling to get the apartment set up and prepared for Richard’s arrival and have been too busy to unpack all but the most essential items: the Diaper Genie; Chloe’s kitchen set and Fisher Price farm; my pots, pans, copper sauciers, and assorted kitchen implements, although the dough hook is missing from the KitchenAid mixer and the shallow olive-wood bowl has somehow gotten separated from its matching mezzaluna. I have no idea where my toothbrush is, but I’ve spent the last half hour unwrapping and washing my china, a vintage set for twelve from the fifties by Russel Wright, because I’ve missed it—the elegant sweep of the cup handles, the delicate glaze, a blue so clean and light it appears almost iridescent. I like looking at it, spread out on the open shelves in the kitchen. It makes this place, or a small corner of it anyway, feel like home.
Earlier in the day I’d been dispatched to Richard’s for all his necessary items: his cashmere lounge suit and paisley silk robe and slippers; his favorite antique Wedgwood coffee cup; his collection of Steelers Super Bowl highlight DVDs; and the TV from his kitchen to watch them on; and Katherine, his elderly seal point Siamese, who had taken up temporary but reluctant residence with Richard’s neighbors, a young working couple who had found it a chore to soft boil Katherine’s daily egg. I open a bag and spill some fresh litter into Katherine’s box and slide it into the small remaining space under the stairs. Katherine approaches, circling my legs, a trembling purr caught in her throat. She looks at me, then at the litter box, and then with a grace and agility that belies her fifteen years, jumps into the potted palm, a housewarming gift from my father and Fiona, and pees.
Richard is snoring in the hospital bed by the window, his headphones askew. In the last few weeks his hair has lost its sheen, and it now hangs in wispy, dust-colored tufts over the earpieces. The Steelers DVD, a replay of their 1975 Super Bowl victory, has ended, and the television screen is filled with black and white static. Not for the first time this week do I marvel at what I’ve gotten myself into. The Richard I know wears thousand-dollar suits, has his hair professionally highlighted, and drinks his morning coffee from an antique Wedgwood cup. He does not wear sweat suits or have bad breath.
I turn off the television and remove his headphones. Richard stirs, and I nudge him a little more urgently, until he opens one eye and looks at me. The expression on his face is one of nearly complete disorientation.
“Do you have