I wanted to vomit, to curse and scream. I knew what was behind the door, but part of me didn't want to face it. 'One step at a time, you can do this, Jeff. This is what you wanted: what you worked so hard for.'
My parents divorced when I was five years old; my dad was an all-American soldier stationed overseas, leaving my first-generation Honduran mom behind to work as a hostess in Vegas. She raised me, she did everything for me. So why was I halfway across the country searching for the man who abandoned us?
I lived with my mom until I moved out at eighteen. I wanted so badly to join the military, but a wipeout on my bike, resulting in a bolt in my knee, took that off the table. Instead, I went to college, to work in the medical field. In my graduate thesis, I explained that it was all in his, my estranged father's honor. My goal in life was to find him, to help him. (Even if this pissed off my mother to no end.) Was that why I couldn't open the door? On some level did I know this was wrong?
I placed my finger on the dry erase board, stroking my fingernail over the name, 'Richard Blake.' My action left behind a small scrape in the red ink. "Sorry, Dad."
From childhood stories, I knew my father was a world-class sniper. He was someone important, a hero. As mother loved to say in a sarcastic tone. I knew he paid child support because the government auto-deducted it from his paychecks and later his disability pay. After he moved out, he visited one last time and then I would never see him again. 'Just turn the handle, open the door.'
The last time I heard his voice I was thirteen. He sounded sick and in pain, but he'd been calling from a payphone, with a time limit. Ten years later, here I was in a hospice clinic in rural South Dakota about to finally rediscover the man that was my father. "Master Sergeant Blake?"
The patient was asleep in bed. He slept with blankets and cold packs on his chest, with a hand towel over his eyes. I assumed that was because of the brightness of the window. Even with the shades closed, it was much too bright to comfortably sleep. "Who's there?" Richard asked in a whisper. He spoke with the tired, scratchy voice of a smoker.
"My name is Jeff."
The man took a breath, swallowing the lump in his throat. "That was my son's name."
Before I could reply. He removed the cold compress from his face, revealing a bandaged left eye, and a right eye that had turned white with cataract-like infection. "Ocular cancer," he said with a laugh. "It's such a fucking joke.
"Cancer is a joke?"
"I wasted my life in war zones, pissing and shiting my pants for hours to get that one perfect shot. my eyes were my treasure, all I had in this world. So of course, that's what cancer chose to take."
"You're blind?" That explained his calm demeanor. He probably thought I was just another nurse (or unpaid volunteer med-student.)
"And I guess you're new here." The man sat up in bed, wrapping the robe closer to his body. "Fuck it's cold in here." He moved to grab his cane, easily getting out of bed on his own. "Since I'm awake I want to go out for a smoke."
I stayed where I was, watching him brush past me. Richard then paused by the door, holding out his free hand. For a moment I felt truly ashamed. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you needed assistance."
"Not something they teach you in school?" he said with a laugh. "I'm just messing with you." Standing tall, his voice seemed to be less scratchy with a hint of his deep southern accent. "You're not required to hold my hand like some kind of stray cat on his way to church."
I forced a chuckle, holding back tears. "That was something my dad used to say."
"I guess me and your daddy have a lot in common." Richard remained motionless, with his hand still extended. "Well, can I hold your hand? I can tell a lot about people from their hands."
"Sure." I reached for his hand, allowing him to grip my wrist.
His thumb massaged the center of my palm, down to my fingertips. "I see you're an artist." Richard shifted his fingers, lacing them through mine. "No, you're a musician."
"A little of both, while I was in school."
"So, you're a nurse?" he asked.
I assumed he was taking my use of past tense to mean I was not a volunteer med-student. "Yeah, I guess."
"You guess?"
I didn't expect him to recognize me as his son, so perhaps it was for the best I maintained a lie of convenience. "I'm a volunteer, a med-student from Seattle." That was where I lived when I went to university for my undergrad work.
"Seattle, wow," he said with an expression of genuine interest. "I'm a big-city boy myself, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi."
I chuckled at what I assumed was a joke (I had never been to Mississippi, for all I knew Jackson could be a legit metropolis.) "What brings you out to the middle of nowhere?"
"South Dakota is a beautiful place."
"I have to agree; nice weather, cheap housing..."
We soon made it outside, to a semi-air-conditioned smoking spot that resembled a bus stop. There was clean cool air being sprayed from the overhang. I imagine during rainy days the five-foot piece of metal came in handy but in the current state, it provided little relief from the desert sun.
Richard took a seat on the wooden bench, spreading his legs, despite the fact he wore only boxers under his robe. "Do you ride?"
"Motorcycles? My father used to." In all honestly, that was one of the appeals of moving to South Dakota: the biker culture. "Right now, I just have an e-bike."
Richard laughed so hard he gripped his side, gasping for air. "You mean you ride a bicycle with a motor?
"Just until I graduate, save up some money to get a proper license," I said with a nervous shrug. Yes, I didn't even have a motorcycle license.
Richard took out a Bic lighter and a box of cigarettes. "Before I lost my sight," he said with a sigh as he lit up, "before the chronic pain, there's nothing I loved more than riding my baby out on the highway." My father took a long drag, leaning back against the wall.
I wanted to ask about my mother. From all the stories she told me, I could never tell what was the truth. I opened my mouth to speak when suddenly I heard a voice coming from around the corner.
"Hey, Rich! I've been looking all over for you." A tall male nurse appeared. He was clearly Hispanic or perhaps Italian. Either way, his sexy sun-kissed skin looked ethereal against the contrast of his light green scrubs. I could tell by his salt-and-pepper hair and the delicate wrinkles around his eyes, he was in his late forties, early fifties. It was possible he was even older, but damn his smile was infectious.
