I wonder what I want from him, this desiccated remnant of the father who bowed to every opinion Adele voiced. I sit in the chair beside the bed and wait for him to say something of worth to me. What do I want? A deathbed confession of wrongdoing? I want him to tell me that he was wrong not to take my side. Wrong to be sucked into the lie that I had made the whole thing up. Isn’t blood thicker than water?

I am trembling with the desire to hear his confession. Get an apology.

My father says nothing. He is attached to a morphine drip, and I excuse him again for his silence.

18

Adele is sitting in a kitchen chair. Paul is gone. She says nothing to me, so that the silence of the sickroom and the silence of the kitchen make me think that no one will speak in this house until I go away. But I’m not going anywhere. She asked me to come, I’m here, and she’d damn well better like it. I’ve lost my dog because of this, so giving me the silent treatment is not acceptable.

I’ve lost my dog, my Mack. The thought keeps returning to me, fresh in its intensity each time.

“Got any tuna?” I suddenly realize that I’m really hungry and I’m not going to wait for an invitation.

Adele looks up from studying the pattern in the old tablecloth. “Yes. In the cupboard.”

I don’t move for a moment, just look at her. I’m having trouble recognizing this stranger as the same person who tortured me enough that I bolted from home as a girl; the one who gave me no choice but to strike out on my own as soon as I could. She traces the pattern of the flowers with her sharp nail and sighs. Should I feel sorry for her? She’s remained my father’s wife, taken care of him. Presumably loved him in some way. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t tell me anything, and I don’t know if she’s expecting me to ask her questions or if she is so absorbed in her thoughts that she’s forgotten I’m standing here. I look at Adele and see her as she really is, an old woman facing widowhood. The upright posture and the Wicked Witch of the West scrawniness have melted into a dowager’s hump and a midriff roundness. Her hair is the yellowy white of faded blondes and the skin on her hands looks like paper that’s been crumpled and then flattened. I try to think how old she is and am shocked to think that she’s at least seventy-five. She’s been a part of my life for over thirty years. I think that when I was a kid, I held out some hope that eventually she’d go away, or that my father would come to his senses and we’d go away.

Now she looks at me. “Well, are you going to stand there or are you going make us some lunch?”