The gurgling in my intestines sounded underwater like wall hangings clanging to the floor and wandering off wounded. Lying sick in the tiny tub, my legs stood straight up against the tiled wall. Only half of my body fits in the tub at one time. My head underwater but for my nose, I relaxed into the soft heat of the Epsom water cradling my face and head, awash in the experiences of yesterday. Dad wanted to attend the wedding, and I agreed: the three of us should go. I have avoided taking Dad anywhere, for the strain on us both, but loading him into the high front seat of the Mighty V8 proved a simple execution of our detailed loading routine. I guess we could do this more often, after all, I mused. Turning the key brought only the click click click of a failed starter. “Not to worry!” I preempted Mom’s panic. “I’ll have us jumped and on the way in five minutes!” And it was so. But I did not tell Mom and Dad how when I jump start a car battery I am terrified of blowing up the cars and killing everyone within a city block. Perhaps with good reason: I read the instructions three times and still connected the cables backwards. A lurking dyslexia? We rejoiced to see my cousin David and his wonderful family at his son McKay’s wedding. The officiator was a tall slender fetching tatted woman in a sleeveless summer dress, her hair a pleasing mess of multi-colored dreads running four feet down her back. The men read their vows, both sweet, and the colorful woman pronounced them “Husband and Husband,” words I had not heard before. I always feel happy and wistful when two people find love and each other in this vast complicated world. It is quite a miracle, really. May their loving union long endure. Leaving the venue, I helped raise Dad from his wheelchair. Weak and shaky after three hours in his chair, he grasped the handholds and struggled to straighten. But his left foot was positioned under the running board, and his right foot too close to the left, and his feet stuck to the asphalt as if with buckets of cured epoxy. He could not lift his legs to shift his feet, and hung grunting from the handholds, his whole body trembling. I could not move his feet either: all my effort was devoted to keeping him from collapsing to the parking lot. Dad surprised me with a move he had never made before: “Help me lift my right leg!” I capitulated, to tired to argue, but his right foot on the running board created an impossible tangle of legs and feet and hanging arms and belly and arthritic artificial knees that wouldn’t bend but were bending anyway to his howls. In a last desperate move with my remaining ounce of energy, I pulled the chair to him with my left hand and yanked him backwards by the waistband with my right. With some luck, backside and seat met squarely. Parched and panting and sick, I pulled David and Jason from the wedding lunch with a plea for help, and with four strong arms and legs they hoisted Dad handily into his seat like he were a feather duster. Relieved to be on our way to the sanctuary of home, I turned the key and heard only a click click click.
Rabbit Lane 