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I shake my head. “No, thank you. I, uh, appreciate all of your help, though.”
After helping my dad to the car, I make sure everything is squared away with the fire department before pulling away from the rubble of my home.
* * *
I stand by the bathroom door, listening intently in case my dad falls and gets hurt. He is still insistent on showering himself, although I’ve offered to help. When he finally comes out, he’s gasping for breath, like he’s just finished climbing ten flights of stairs.
“You okay?” I ask with a hand on his back as I guide him to the first bed.
“I’m fine,” he rasps breathlessly as he leans against the headboard in the thick sweats I bought at the store on the way to the hotel.
He looks so elderly now. I’m used to having a dad so much older than the dads of other people my age. When I was growing up and had friends with dads in their thirties and forties, my dad was already in his late sixties. He and my mom had me when he was almost fifty. She wasn’t interested in raising a child at her age, so she ran off with some guy she met when I was only seven.
From that point, it was just me and a man who should have been enjoying his retirement. A man who most people assumed was my grandfather. A man who sacrificed everything for me.
I know that everyone in our town assumed my dad was a shitty father. That he drank too much and didn’t provide me with the life I deserved, but they were wrong. He’s not perfect, but no one is. The truth is that he was the best dad he could have been.
And now he needs me, and I can’t do shit about it.
After my dad is settled, I take a quick shower and order some food. Then I sit at the desk and open my laptop.
“Son,” my father mutters in his gravelly, breathless voice across the room.
“What, Dad?” I ask, not looking up from the claims page on my insurance company’s website.
“You should take that place.”
“Huh?” I ask, not entirely paying attention.
“Take the place that man offered you.”
“You heard him,” I reply without glancing up. “It’s on the second floor. Those stairs would kill you.”
Not to mention, the room is owned by the one person in this town I hate. But I don’t tell my dad that part.
“I don’t mean for me, Dean. I’m mean for you.”
Finally, I do look up. “What are you talking about? Where the hell are you going to go?”
“The retirement community can take care of me, so you don’t have to. And they have hospice there when the time comes.”
“Fuck that,” I mumble, shutting down the argument. “I’m not leaving you to some fucking nurses. I will take care of you.”
“Goddammit, son. Will you just listen to me? I’m tired of being…” He pauses to catch his breath, his eyes fluttering closed as he fights the urge to pass out.
“Jesus, Dad. Calm down.” I shut my laptop and cross the room toward him, checking the settings on his oxygen tank.
When he finally settles down, he’s wearing an expression of frustration. And I get it. I’d hate to be in his shoes. I’d hate feeling so helpless that others have to take care of me. I hate the thought of needing anyone.
I will never let myself get to this point, though.
But I also won’t have a stubborn-as-fuck grown kid to relentlessly keep me alive, either.
“I’m serious, Dean,” he rasps. “I’m done. You’re twenty-six. You shouldn’t be taking care of an old man who smoked too much and lived like a goddamn fool. My insurance and retirement fund will cover it. Just call them.”
“I said no, you stubborn old fucker.”
“I’m not backing down from this fight,” he says with a grunt. “You can either take me to that home, or I’ll call a taxi myself. You hear me? Now go. Call them.”
