Clock Winder - Anne Tyler [65]
“Well, about that job,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh, it don’t pay much, I know, but the hours aren’t long and the work is easy, just so you don’t mind elderly men. He’s well-nigh bedridden, you see. Has to be helped to his chair by the window—that’s where he stays. Nice view of the street. I’m gone most of the day, I clerk at Patton’s. Ladies’ wear. I could get you a discount on your clothing. Jerome’s gone too, and now, well, I don’t feel comfortable leaving Daddy up there alone all day. He’s getting on. I won’t mince words, his mind is failing. Times he’s clear as a bell, other times he thinks I’m Mama who’s been gone these twenty years. Or what’s worse, his own mama. He asks after these names I never hear of, never even knew were in the family. ‘Daddy,’ I say, ‘it’s me, it’s Ida.’ Then he’ll get right quiet. Then, ‘Ida,’ he’ll say, ‘I know I’m slipping. I feel it,’ he tells me. ‘Feels like my mind is flickering, feels like I’m a lightbulb just about to burn out. Ida,’ he says, ‘tell me straight, am I going to die now?’ Oh, it breaks my heart. I love him so. I’ve been looking into those eyes of his for sixty years, and now all of a sudden there’s nobody behind them. You know? Like all he left with me was their color, and he went somewhere else. Then when he clears he gets so scared. ‘Don’t let them take me away,’ he says, ‘when I am off like that.’ ‘You know I won’t,’ I tell him. I never would, I’d sooner they take me. I love him more than ever now that he’s so helpless.”
She stirred the Kool-Aid endlessly, her little feet set apart on the floor and her face pouched with worry. In the other room her husband said, “We had what they call a railroad apartment, I’m sure you know. Say this coffee table was the hallway. To your left, now, just as you enter, was the living room. No, wait, the coat closet. Then the living room.” Mrs. Stimson sighed and set her spoon down. “I expect you’d like to see him,” she said.
“Well, yes.”
“Come upstairs, then. I got him sitting by the window. I told him company might be coming.”
They filed up narrow dark stairs, through a wallpapered hall and into what was plainly the best bedroom. Light poured in from a tall window, whitening everything—the tufted bedspread, the polished floor, the bony old man sitting in an armchair. A shock of silver hair slanted across his forehead. He was tilting his face upward, letting the sun shine on sunken, gleaming eyelids. For a moment Elizabeth thought he was blind. Then he turned and looked at her, and his hand fluttered up to make sure his pajama collar was buttoned.
“Daddy, honey,” Mrs. Stimson said.
“They got me in pajamas,” the old man told Elizabeth. “Used to be I never wore pajamas if there was company coming.”
“How you feeling, Daddy?”
“Why, I’m all right.” He squinted at his daughter—nothing failing about those eyes of his, which were chips of bright, sharp blue. “Later I might come down and see the people,” he said.
“Well, I got someone I want you to meet. This is Elizabeth Abbott, the preacher’s daughter. Remember? I know you must have seen her when she was just a youngster. This is my daddy, Mr. Cunningham.”
“How do you do,” Elizabeth said.
Mr. Cunningham nodded several times. A metallic flash moved back and forth across his shock of hair. “I was an usher when the