Part 4 (1/2)

Anthony nodded, pained with emotion.

”I thought I'd die without her,” his father said. ”Five years. I never expected... I've met somebody. The sister of a man whose house I'm renovating. We've gotten to know each other, and... Well, I... What I need to ask is, Would you object, would you see it as a betrayal of your mother if...”

Anthony felt pressure in his tear ducts. ”Would I object?” His eyes misted. ”All I want is for you to be happy.”

Anthony was the best man at his father's wedding. His stepmother was the same age as his daughters. The following summer, he had a half-brother sixty-one years younger than himself. It felt odd to see his father acting toward the baby in the same loving manner that his father had Presumably acted toward him when he was a baby

At the celebration when the child was brought home from the hospital, several people asked Anthony if his wife was feeling ill. She looked wan.

”She's been working hard on a big trial coming up,” he said.

The next day, she had a headache so bad that he took her to his clinic and had his staff do tests.

The day after that, she was dead. The viral meningitis that killed her was so virulent that nothing could have been done to save her. The miracle was that neither Anthony nor anybody else in the family had caught it, especially the new baby.

He felt drained. Plodding through his house, he tried to muster the energy to get through each day. The nights were harder. His father often came and sat with him, a young man next to an older one, doing his best to console him.

Anthony visited his wife's grave every day. On the anniversary of her death, while picking flowers for her, he collapsed from a stroke. The incident left him paralyzed on his left side, in need of constant care. His children wanted to put him in a facility.

”No,” his father said. ”It's my turn to watch over him.”

So Anthony returned to the house where his youth had been wonderful until his father had gotten sick. During the many hours they spent together, his father asked Anthony to fill in more details of what had happened as Anthony had grown up: the arguments he'd had with the broker, his double s.h.i.+fts as a waiter, his first date with the woman who would be his wife.

”Yes, I can see it,” his father said.

The next stroke reduced Anthony's intelligence to that of a nine-year-old. He didn't have the capacity to know that the computer on which he played a game with his father came from long ago. In fact, the game was the same one that his father had given him on his ninth birthday, two weeks before his father had gotten sick, the game that he'd never had a chance to play with his son.

One morning, he no longer had a nine-year-old's ability to play the game.

”His neurological functions are decreasing rapidly,” the specialist said.

”Nothing can be done?”

”I'm sorry. At this rate... In a couple of days...”

Anthony's father felt as if he had a stone in his stomach.

”We'll make him as comfortable here as possible,” the specialist said.

”No. My son should die at home.”

Anthony's father sat next to the bed, holding his son's frail hand, painfully reminded of having taken care of him when he'd been sick as a child. Now Anthony looked appallingly old for sixty-three. His breathing was shallow. His eyes were open, gla.s.sy, not registering anything.

His children and grandchildren came to pay their last respects.

”At least, he'll be at peace,” his second daughter said.

His father couldn't bear it.

Jesus, he didn't give up on me. I won't give up on him.