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I climbed the double wide staircase and stopped at the three paintings at the top of the stairs. They were three austere, tight-lipped portraits painted centuries ago. They were the type of creepy paintings that looked as if the eyes were following you as you turned at the landing. My dad had not bought them for decorative or cultural purposes but for investment reasons. He never would have bought something as frivolous as art unless it was going to grow greatly in value.
I walked along the polished wood hallway to his bedroom door. It was slightly ajar. I stood there for a second before entering.
"Don't linger in the hallway, Nash. Come inside."
It seemed even in failing health, he had preternatural senses. I walked into the room. His once masculine and cold bedroom had been transformed into a well-appointed hospital room with beeping monitors and an IV stand. His mahogany dresser, an antique he'd purchased on a trip to Germany, was covered with bottles and tubes of medicine. When I was a kid, he rarely let me into his room, but it had always smelled of his pen ink and furniture polish. He was always a clean freak. The housekeepers, who lasted about as long as the nurses, had to wipe down his entire room every morning and once in the evening before bed. Now that smell of extreme clean had been replaced by the scent of rubbing alcohol and medicinal creams.
Dad was sitting at his work table in front of the window. The heavy curtains were closed and the ceiling lights made his sallow skin look dry and thin like tissue. His once broad shoulders had shrunk down to look like the arms of a coat hanger. He was nearly swimming in his robe.
He was just shy of sixty, but the cancer had withered him into a much older man. He didn't look up from his account ledger as he pointed at the chair across from him with a long shaky finger.
I walked over and sat down. I was no longer a kid, yet I sat there fidgeting with the zipper on my jacket, quietly waiting for him to finish his task. My eyes drifted across the table to an old shoe box that was completely out of place amongst the leather-bound ledgers spread out over the table.
I reached for it.
"Those are just some ridiculous old pictures. Pruitt found the box when he was bringing the ledgers up to my room. I told him I didn't want them." He adjusted his glasses, but he still had to lean closer to the books to see them.
I opened the shoe box. "I can't imagine you ever saving pictures in a shoe box. I can't imagine you saving pictures period. I don't even know what I looked like as a kid."
"That's bullshit. I have every one of your school photos." He barely lifted his milky gaze to look at me before focusing back on his work.
I pulled out the first picture. It was old and faded. The date October '61 was printed on the edge. A little kid, about three, was wearing just a ripped pair of shorts and holding a tambourine. Dirt smudged his face and arms, but what really stood out was his smile. Behind him was a woman with long wavy hair and a shirt with long flowing sleeves. A leather headband was tied around her forehead, and she was smiling right along with the toddler. My dad had rarely spoken about his parents, the grandparents I never knew, and when he did it was wholly unflattering. He claimed they were two homeless vagabonds who played off of each other's flaws and who should never have been given the responsibility of raising a kid. His mother had died in what Dad called 'miserable and embarrassing circumstances'. Apparently, she had grown fond of heroin and eventually it killed her. After her death, his dad, my only grandfather, decided to move to South America for no particular reason except he thought it would be different. My dad was sixteen at the time, and he decided to stay here in the states on his own. He lost all ties to his dad along the way to his billion dollar bank account.
I looked across the table at Dad. "They were hippies."
"I told you they were homeless vagabonds. Sometimes we lived in that mildew rotted van of theirs for months."
"But they were part of a cultural movement. Peace, love and . . ."
"Drugs and avoiding 'the man' as they liked to call anyone with a job or a real life."
I looked at the picture and felt a pang of jealousy over the kid in the photo. "You look happy."
He made a scoffing sound and wrote down some numbers on his paper.
"Right, I forgot. Happiness is just a silly abstract word that means nothing." I rubbed my thumb over the woman in the picture. "My grandmother looks pretty. I think I have her eyes."
My comment made him stop writing. He didn't look up right away, but as he lifted his face, my breath stuck in my throat for a second. It was really happening. The rich and powerful David Nash Archer was being erased from this earth forever by a chain of rogue cancer cells. His face was drawn from the rigorous chemo treatments and the constant pain. It seemed his weakened physical state had left him just a tiny bit vulnerable to an unexpected show of emotion. "Her eyes were green like yours. They never stopped sparkling."
