AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We learned early about sundowning. It’s when an older person gets confused and argumentative at night. “You’re a good boy, but you could burn toast.”
My laugh is soft and soundless. It’s true that I’m not much of a cook. I’ve picked up a few basic skills in the years since I’ve been a boy, though. “Then Jennifer can make you an omelet. She does it the way you like, nice and fluffy.”
He gives her a suspicious look. “Why is she here? Where’s Geneva?”
A knot forms in my throat. He asks after her every day. There’s no good answer, but I’ve tried them all. “She’s out right now. A gala. Would you like Jennifer to make you an omelet? I see onions there. What else? Cheddar cheese? Spinach?”
“I can make it,” he insists.
“Dad.”
“Why doesn’t anyone trust me? I’m the master of my own home, aren’t I? I’m a grown man, aren’t I? How dare you tell me what to do. I ought to ground you for the week. If I were your father I’d turn you around and whip your bottom bloody.”
“Dad, stop.”
“Stop telling me what to do!”
He yanks away with sudden force, and I let him go. It’s always a struggle, how hard to hold him. It’s cruel to treat him as a prisoner, but it’s negligent to let him hurt himself.
The area between those is a large expanse of gray.
It seems to take him by surprise, the fact that he’s midflight.
He stumbles back. Crack. An egg turns to mush beneath his bare foot.
He looks down, confused. “Why are there eggs on the floor?”
Jennifer sweeps back in. My father allows her to guide him to the chair. She fusses over him, and he turns passive as she cleans the egg off his foot.
I grab a box of mix from the pantry. “Pancakes.”
My father blinks. “Pancakes?”
“I can make pancakes, at the very least. They won’t be too burned.”
“Geneva likes them that way.”
My mother does prefer pancakes well done. At least, she did before she stopped eating carbs. She loved when the butter turned crisp at the edges. Dad used to give her a hard time about it, but of course he’d cook them the way she liked.
He’d tease her about it, back when there was still laughter in this house.
The mix is the easy kind. I only need to add water. When the pan is hot, I pour the lumpy batter in the center and wait for little bubbles to rise to the top.
“What do you want to drink?” Jennifer asks.
There’s no frustration in her voice. She’s a wonderful caregiver. Skilled. Patient. And most important for this position, discreet. I don’t feel guilty because she’s paid a lot of money to do it. That, along with my recommendation, allowed her to purchase one of the smaller homes on the west end of Bishop’s Landing. Her salary put her two sons through Harvard.
Not bad for a single mom who went to night school to become a nurse.
“Orange juice?” she suggests. “Or how about a glass of milk?” We’re both going along with the morning routine, because it’s easier than arguing. There’s only one tough thing about mornings—
“I want coffee.”
“Mr. Hughes,” she says, soothing.
“No, make it a flat white. I need a pick-me-up to face the day.”
Even if it were morning, we wouldn’t give him coffee. And definitely not espresso. Caffeine makes him more querulous. We don’t even keep a Keurig in the house. If I want to drink coffee, I do it at the office so he doesn’t see.
