Chapter Fourteen
-- August, 1999
Simon & Garfunkel – “Bookends”
The news came suddenly. Uncle Nick was sick and had been for some time. The Aunts and Uncles were keeping it a secret for as long as possible to protect their kids. The trip to Bermuda was to say goodbye. With all the drugs Nick took, I couldn’t believe it was the cigarettes that were killing him, but I guess even Joe Camel can get cancer.
Mom had been different ever since she came back from Bermuda; sleeping in late, skipping meetings, eating everything in the fridge. I had never seen her like this. So, I was nervous when she said we were going to pay Nick a visit. I had never been around a dying person before, but strangely enough that wasn’t what was foremost on my mind. I hadn’t seen Dean since the party and was only told at the last minute that he would be at Uncle Nick’s the same time as we were.
When we got there, I tried to stay in the car, but Janet wasn’t having it. She practically had to drag me out of the backseat. Sheila met us at the door, telling us “he’s not having a good day. So, if he seems tired, I need everybody to go back downstairs.”
We agreed, noticing we weren’t the first ones there. The Vanowens, who weren’t particularly close with Sheila and Nick, had beaten us to the house. As we entered the living room, Lynn puttered around tidying up. I watched as Dean pretended that I hadn’t just walked in. We stood on opposite sides of the room, refusing to look at each other. It got to be so awkward that even Amanda pointed it out. The adults asked what was wrong, but neither of us would answer.
The fallout from the party had been severe. I had tried calling Lauren to apologize, but she wouldn’t take my call. In fact, none of Dean’s friends would have anything to do with me. I wanted to say good riddance, but I think I cared more than I let on.
Call it trepidation, but when it came time to climb the stairs to Nick’s bedroom, I hung back and let the others head up before me. It had only been a couple of weeks since I had seen Nick, but I was worried what he would look like.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw the rest of the family crowded around the four-poster bed that held my Uncle. The room was dimly lit. The first thing I noticed when I entered was the smell; a sickly sweet, mildewy one. It reminded me of that Van Morrison song “T.B. Sheets.”
Open up the window, babe. And let me breathe...
After Lynn and the cousins said their hellos, I reluctantly stepped forward. Nick was tucked in tightly to prevent him from falling out of bed, so when I leaned in to hug him, my arms had nowhere to go. I ended up just laying on him for a few moments, my hands flat on the bedspread. When I pulled back, I noticed he had lost weight since the sick day I had spent at his house. His rib bones were visible all the way up to his neck.
Unsure of where to look, I took stock of the things in the room: the heavy-duty pain meds on the bedside table, the VHS copy of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” collecting dust atop the VCR. There was a cup of something next to the pills. Apparently, it had gotten hard for Nick to swallow. The only thing he could eat was ice chips, which weren’t being administered nearly enough as he had cracked lips. But every time someone ran an ice cube over them, they were dry a minute later.
His voice was ragged, but he did his best to talk. As the girls had fun putting barrettes in his hair, he gave Dean tips on dating. “It’s all about confidence,” Nick said. I quickly noticed that he was only giving Dean advice. Was there something wrong with me?
Sensing that small talk was finished, Uncle Kevin turned the T.V. on and put his feet up. “Make yourself at home,” Sheila said, sighing. You could tell that having people over outside of cocktail party hours was new for her.
Eventually, all the conversations in the room tapered off and we were left in an uncomfortable silence. For some reason, I felt like I had to fill the space. I started saying how jealous I was that Uncle Nick got to lay in bed all day when suddenly his hand shot out from beneath the covers. He grabbed my wrist, surprisingly hard, violently insisting, “you don’t want this!” I was stunned silent, unable to react.
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Mom calmly separated us, gently prying his hand away. “Take it easy...” she told him, helping him lay back against the pillows that had been propping him up. When he finally relaxed, a cough racked his upper body, tensing everyone in the room. Sheila hurried to his side with a box of tissues. She held a few to his mouth as he hawked up blood. She cleaned him up as best she could, but his lips stayed red for the rest of our visit.
By the end of the week, he lost the ability to speak.
And a week after that, he was gone.
**
It’s odd how swiftly loose ends are tied up. A memorial service was scheduled barely three days after he died. But from looking around at my family, you’d hardly know it. At the Episcopal church we went to, there was not a wet eye in the house. It pissed me off. My family were practically British in their talent for holding back emotion. How could I ever tell these people who never talked about feelings, how important they were to me? Instead, they kept everything bottled up. You never see Italians doing that. I imagined my mother as an old, Sicilian grandmother at the funeral for me, her son. How she wailed and clawed at the casket! The image was so ridiculous that I actually smiled during the priest’s benediction.
During the service though there was someone crying. Quite audibly so. A man with salt and pepper hair near the back of the church continuously blew his nose into a Kleenex that he kept re-using. I looked back at him and wondered how he knew my Uncle.
On the procession out of the church, Nannie stopped in front of Sheila and held both of her hands in her own. “Thank you for taking care of my son,” she said. “Because he didn’t know how.” Sheila nodded, choking back tears, unable to respond.
As my row made their way out, I made it a point to stop in front of the crying guy in the back row. “Excuse me? How did you know my Uncle?”
“Oh, I’m Cody Renna - your Aunt’s brother.”
“You’re Sheila’s brother?”
“Yep. You’re Taylor, right? Janet’s kid?”
“I am.”
“You know, we’ve met before. You and your Mom stayed at my place in Michigan when you were about five...”
I thought about it for a second. “Alligators.” I finally said.
“What?” he looked confused.
“You told me you had three pet alligators that you kept behind your bar.”
A genuine laugh escaped his mouth. He threw a hand up to block it, embarrassed. “Oh my god, I forgot about that!” When his laughter waned, a sad smile took its place. “The Bensons were my favorite family. I think I liked it more over there than I did my own house.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, thinking about the stories my mother had written. “What was Nick like growing up?”
“Oh, he was so much fun. He could be the life of the party. But he was quiet too. Always leaving when people wanted to hang out. The old “Irish exit” we used to call it. Keep ‘em wanting more, I guess. He was always running away from something or other...”
As the procession wound its way outside of church, we made our way to the garden where all our deceased family member’s ashes were buried. It was a perfect square, lined in rose bushes, up against a nook of the church. Being such a picturesque spot, I wondered why we got top billing. And how much it cost...
Before they scattered his ashes in the ground, Mom read a poem that Nick had liked. She shook with sobs as she read it.
**
Two weeks after the funeral, Mom and I checked in on Sheila. We found her dealing with a broken window. After Nick died, the tree next door had collapsed onto her house, causing major damage to the roof.
She called it a sign.
We walked carefully around the outdoor elements spilling into her house and followed her up to her bedroom. To their bedroom. The one he died in...
I was surprised to find her packing. Most of the room had already been boxed up. Apparently, I was the last to know. She had told Mom, but Mom thought it better that I hear it from Sheila herself. She was moving to Florida to be closer to her mother. Sheila broke the news to me gently, but it still felt like losing two parents all over again. She told me I could visit whenever I wanted, but that didn’t feel like much of a consolation. I didn’t know why I was being punished like this and why she was leaving.
She gave me a box of Nick’s clothes because he had said I might appreciate them. I didn’t know why he thought that. Unless there’s a dress code, I’m wearing sweatpants. But Sheila didn’t want them to go to Uncle Bill where they’d likely be ruined by cigarette smoke. I wanted to ask if Nick hadn’t already ruined them with cigarette smoke, but knew in my bones that no, he probably took good care of his clothes.
Before we left, Mom went to use the bathroom and Sheila and I were left alone. She looked like there were so many things she wanted to say. In the end though, she left me with a word of warning about my family.
She said, “if you’re not careful, they’ll take everything from you.”