My Day Off

Last summer, I stayed home on July 30^th. I was very tired. I just called in sick. I hadn’t known why I felt the way I did, that is until around one that the afternoon when I got the call. My friends Genna and Anna had gone to the zoo in Portland that day. I could have gone if I hadn’t been scheduled at the place all three of us worked. And when I called in sick, I couldn’t very well go out to the zoo with them. Someone would tell. Plus, I really didn’t feel good. I called my sister-in-law Beth who came over to my house, instead.

As we talked in my living room, facing each other on opposite ends of my couch as the air conditioner blew cool air quietly into the space, we talked about anything and everything that came to mind. The lights were out and the blinds open to let the summer light in. I had been scheduled for a short shift that day, so my boss let me off the hook, which didn’t happen often or easily. I took advantage of the time, and planned to go get Chinese food at my favorite restaurant with Beth for lunch.

But as we sat there on the couch, I got a call from my dad at 1:00 pm. He was choked up and could barely get the words out. I knew what had happened before he said it. My grandfather had died. In fact, he had died in his home in Billings Montana with his wife and daughters less the two hours before I had gotten the call. I cried as I heard my dad explain that his dad had died, and he was headed home to pack. He was leaving for Montana that night. And so was I.

Beth watched and listened with the sympathy of a sister. She hugged me and gave her condolences. We had Chinese food as I talked over my cell phone in short conversations with my husband, my mother, my sister, and my dad. I told my husband Kris what had happened. He doesn’t do well in situations like this. I do well. He doesn’t. I asked him to come home at the usual time. At first, I gave him the option to stay home. It was a Friday and Grandpa was going to be cremated Saturday. We were in a hurry. After all the planning and thinking and packing, I decided I needed my husband to be with me. Beth patiently listened and talked to me in between phone calls. Emily, my sister, was sun bathing beside a lake with her friend a good two hours away from home. I had to wrangle up my sisters, my parents, and get the show on the road, and I wasn’t about to leave him at home just because he was afraid of missing work. I didn’t give him a chance this time, as I usually did. He was going and he could just deal with it on his own. I was in no mood to cater to his insecurities about traveling to unknown places, meeting unknown people, and mainly, leaving his safe hovel of a familiar home.

I packed the dress Kris had gotten me for my birthday in June. It was expensive, and I was going to wear it for the first time to my grandfather’s funeral. It was a beautiful dress with the top part from my waist up consisting of a sexy black material in a v-necked sleeveless piece which connected to the flowing and silky material of the patterned swirls and shapes of dark purple, red, green, blue, and brown. The dress went to my knees. It was beautiful and sad, and I admired it as I packed it with my clothes and my husband’s clothes.

Beth watched and talked to me as I made plans and acted generally like I had lost it. She offered to take care of our two cats and the mail while we were gone. I didn’t know when we would leave or get home. Kris was pissed at me for not allowing him to fail me and taking way his security of the everyday routine. He still wasn’t home yet. My dad had called at 1:00 pm. I called Kris right away. Beth and I had lunch until 2:00 pm. Kris would be home at 3:30 pm.

Our bags were packed for a week long trip just in case, the cats were taken care of, and Beth and I went into my workplace and notified them of the tragedy. It was store policy to give bereavement time without set dates. The store manager was a bear of a man, a bit of an idiot, and intimidating as hell, but I wasn’t scared. His second in command was there. They both said to take as much time as needed and to call when things would return back to normal and I was ready to come back to work. I hated my job, my bosses, and the whole store, but I needed the money then. I would return unfortunately, but I’d milk my vacation, my sick days, and my personal days to pay for my trip to Montana to be a long one. I didn’t want to hurry home. My family needed me. I needed my husband. My day off had turned into a trip to Montana.

When Kris got home, we did the normal routine for when we leave for the weekends. We took the garbage out, set the AC to energy save so it would keep the house cool for the cats but not cost us an arm and a leg, and we cleaned all the dishes. There is nothing like coming home after an exhausting weekend and finding dirty, stinky sinks, a rotten garbage can, and a house in disarray. You want to just sit back and relax for an hour or two before you crash in bed after your family has drained the energy of your weekend and left you in a daze. We were going to be doubly as tired. Not only were we going to be with my family, but we would be traveling and staying with extended family.

Kris didn’t like the idea of driving all the way from Corvallis, Oregon to Billings, Montana He didn’t like that he wouldn’t know where he was staying. He didn’t like that he didn’t know how to get there. He hated that we were all as unsure as he was. And he hated that he hadn’t had a good week or two to mentally prepare for a trip. But this wasn’t a vacation, and he and I both knew that. It was not a trip to go site see or go relax. He can’t really relax around people, especially people he doesn’t know well. He is an introvert, as my mother would say. “He doesn’t get his energy from people. He’s like me. You do though Sophie, you are just like your father,” she would say. I always felt like she hated dad and I for being extraverts. Right then, I hated her and Kris for being introverts because they couldn’t deal. without stopping.

We drove the two and a half hour drive home to my parent’s house to meet up with them before heading out to Montana. I had no idea what to expect when we got there. I had told Kris during the ride there that all I needed him to do was to trust me, trust that we’ll be taken care of, and to shut up. I couldn’t deal with him and with my family. He could help it. They couldn’t.

It was getting dark out around 10 pm when my parents finally had their bags piling up in the living room. Emily had gotten home. Her friend was not happy to truncate their summer trip to the lake, but Emily told her off. Her grandpa had died. Our grandpa had died. Jesse, our youngest sister, found out much later than all of us. Dad had called Emily and me on our cell phones. Mom and Dad waited until they both were home to tell her. She is not a melodramatic kid. In fact, she was distinctly not sad. She was excited she’d get to see all our relatives, even though it was under sad circumstances. She bounced around as a thirteen year old does, and packed her enormous bags full of unnecessary objects. I didn’t comment, which was hard. I am a master packer, and a master controller. Her packing all her CDs, her whole wardrobe, and several bathing suits was not important. Kris stood in the background and waited for instructions.

My mother was on her computer when I came into the living room. It was her normal position. She had become very techno savvy and she relied heavily on her computer. My father was the opposite. He couldn’t sit still indoors. He had to be building something or tearing something down outside on the fifty-something acre farm. He barked at mom for being on the computer while she should be packing. I broke that fight up quickly by asking, “Dad, where’s your bags?” He hadn’t even gotten his suitcase out. He insisted on the hard shelled, teal mid-sized suit case his father had given him, which was inconveniently packed up in the loft in the shop. I sent him to get it, yelled at Emily to help pack, Kris to take out the garbage, and Jesse to go through the fridge to throw out food that would spoil while we were gone. Dad did go to the barn, but came back with poles to fix his closet with instead. Emily yelled at me and said, “Sophie, you are not the fucking boss, we are getting ready!” Kris took out the garbage and cleaned the fridge. Jesse watched TV on the couch in the middle of the piled luggage. Mom was still on her computer. I went over to her, rubbed her shoulders, and I realized something. I was right. They had needed me. My father couldn’t pack, my mother couldn’t leave her chair, and Kris did everything I asked because I needed him. Jesse was too young to see what I could. Emily was too bitchy to see what I could. Kris was too scared.

I helped dad set up the pole in his closet. My mother’s overflowing clothes had finally set the closet into disrepair and he propped up the shelf, holding the weight of thirty years of clothes I have barely seen my mother wear up with his shoulder. I shoved the pole under, bickering with my father about how to extend the pole. I twisted the top end of the pole to extend it, and he returned with his suitcase. He had held up the shelf, straining under the weight a minute before, but it was carrying his suitcase that made him look weak, tired, and old. I realized I would have to pack for him. I talked to him as he sat on the edge of his King size bed. I picked out shorts, t-shirts, a few pairs of pants, a belt, socks, and a nice shirt for the funeral. He hadn’t wanted to pick out the outfit for the funeral, I had realized. It had made it too real. He couldn’t sit still, like a child. He jumped up to get his toiletries, or his underwear, or his dress shoes, or unnecessary clothes, which I pulled out of the suitcase when he wasn’t looking. He wouldn’t need a fleece in July in Montana, but that is my father, “Always be prepared. If I taught you anything, it is to wear layers so you don’t freeze.”

He pulled out a metal trinket that looked like a toy pogo stick. He put it in one hand, pulled back the side parts like a trigger, and it snapped forward with a pop. It was a chiropractic tool his father had used way back when. My dad stood there and told me to use this archaic tool on his back, which felt like a gun when the spring released and sent a jolt into the muscles of his shoulder. He explained the use of the tool, but I wasn’t listening. Neither was he. He was speaking gibberish. It was like being with a child. I treated him like he was four just to get him packed and out of the house, because he was fragile and sad. He needed comforting, and I was there for him. I packed his pillow and took his suitcase out to the building pile in the living room.

I had brought my car, and Jesse packed her stuff into the trunk joyfully. Kris quietly sat on the couch awaiting further instructions. He was paralyzed by the idea of bad things happening. He never thought he would know what to do; therefore, he couldn’t do anything. I knew I could do what was needed, and hence I did it easily. We are very different.

Mom still sat at the computer. I stood behind her again and tried to coax her into the bedroom. She needed to pack. She would take longer and pack more than anyone. I wouldn’t be able to control that, but to get her started would get us on the road. Dad’s sister Karolyn had called and briefly told my father that their deceased parent would be cremated Saturday evening and he could view him before then. We had about twenty hours before then, and it would take twenty-four hours to get there. My father wasn’t talking to my mother. He resented her for not moving fast enough. She had lost a parent too. A father of twenty-four years, as long as she was married to my father. She handled situations less gracefully than Kris, because she doesn’t take orders. And she is less effective than dad who is balls to the wall, day light is burning kind of planner. She packed as if nothing was replaceable. I watched her scan travel and hotel websites for rooms. She thought and rethought about booking rooms. She had been told by dad that Karolyn had everything worked out. She didn’t trust that things would be ok. I had to get her off the computer, in a car, and on the road. She was just as fragile as my father and needed me.

I pulled her away and ensured her that if she called Karolyn, I’m sure she would reserve rooms for us if there wasn’t any space at any of their houses. She argued with me and said that Bob, my dad’s older brother, and his family were coming. All of the kids and cousins from every family would be there. I just told her to listen to dad, get packed, and bring a cell phone charger so we could have a back up option. She wasn’t completely there. Usually she was in charge. Though she was always last out the door, with dad running the car and honking about burning daylight, she still had things under control. She didn’t tonight. I did.

Emily was invisible, as she stayed in her room packing, talking on the phone to her boyfriend in Iraq, and avoiding the chaos that I was knee deep in. It was dark out, Jesse was packed and back in front of the TV. Dad would walk past her to the door, yell at her to get up and help, and leave out the front door with a bag. She didn’t budge. Mom would do the same, but with a more pleading tone. And Jesse would sit there glued. Emily would yell through the wall of her bedroom, which were paper thin and adjoined to the living room, to Jesse to get off her ass and help for Christ’s sake. Kris would sit and watch TV as well, but was ready to lend a hand. He finally talked Jesse into going out to the barn to feed the horses with him. They had been whinnying for hours, forgotten in the pandemonium. My mother had left her packing for some reason to come out and call people. It was getting close to 11:30 pm, and Dad was anxious and more cantankerous than ever to get the show on the road. In the back of his mind, he imagined he’d never get to see his father again before he was stuffed in some jar. I knew what he was thinking, that my mother wasn’t thinking about that, and I wouldn’t let it happen.

Mom was freaking out about what car to take, who was going to take care of the animals, and how she was going to leave work at such a tumultuous time. I chose the pick-up because dad’s boss paid for the gas in the truck and he offered to pay for the trip there for mom and dad. I told her dad had already called their friends Larry and Heidi to take care of the animals. Then, I asked, “When is work not crazy?” She went back to her room and finished packing, finally. My dad and Kris packed luggage into the truck. Emily rode with them. We had everything packed up. I had brought a bag of trail mix, stowed water bottles, and packed their left over fruit that needed to be eaten. We had the Corolla following the F-150 on the road and three miles from the house, when my parents turned around and went home. I didn’t know what they were doing, we were out of cell phone range, but Jesse and Kris kept me preoccupied until the truck showed up alongside us where we had stopped and been waiting.

Dad yelled curtly out the window, “Decided not to leave the puppy after last summer.” They had a puppy disappear last summer while on vacation, so they took the new puppy Buster with them. He drove off with a six month old puppy in the back seat with Emily, Mom fretting in the front seat about being uncomfortable or something like that, and the dingy dog kennel strapped in the back of the truck. Kris pulled the car out behind them. We had the air conditioner blasting in the humid night, I wore my sweatshirt, and we drove the whole night through.

I slept with the hood of my sweatshirt pulled forward to cover my eyes as Kris drove the night shift. He was comfortable on the road with no one around. I would pick up my shift when the sun rose. Jesse slept curled up in the back seat. The road passed a few feet under my body and the body of the car at speeds of 75 to 90 miles per hour as we raced across the states in the summer night. And my day off ended with lights passing above my head trying to keep me awake as we drove on down freeways and highways following my father’s well-honed navigations to his home, to Montana. He saw his father for the last time the next day. I made sure he would during my day off.