“A towel? I’ll even wear a horse blanket if I have to.”
“Yes. Please wear a towel and ruin what’s left of my reputation with my father.”
“Surely he would understand about not wanting to put on shitty clothes.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess you can ask him.”
With a grunt of frustration, William grudgingly put his jeans back on. “I might be putting on the pants, but I’m not doing the shirt.”
“Fine. I’ll grab one from Ansel’s closet when we get back to the house.”
After I threw on my shitty smelling clothes, we headed back to the house. When we tried sneaking in the back door and up the staircase in the kitchen, our plans were thwarted by Daddy and Ansel sitting at the kitchen table. The moment we entered the room, their expressions soured. “Damn, you two reek. Were you guys screwing in the horse shit?”
“Ansel!” I exclaimed.
“I fell off of Sampson and took Sophie with me into a giant mud puddle,” William explained.
“Actually, he fell off, and when I laughed hysterically at him, he pulled me into the mud with him.”
William scowled at me. I guess he didn’t want to come off as an asshole in front of my dad. Of course, Daddy found the story hysterical, and he laughed until he got one of his coughing episodes that left him gasping and wheezing for breath.
While Ansel and I were used to it, William began to pace around and wring his hands, desperate to do something to aid my father. “It’s okay. He’ll be fine. Just give him a few minutes,” I replied in a low voice.
Although he nodded, I could tell William was still unnerved that he couldn’t help.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Please don’t apologize. I was just worried and wanted to help.”
“When you think of muscular dystrophy you think of the atrophy of the muscles of the legs and arms. What you forget or don’t think about is the diaphragm is a muscle. Our lungs don’t compress on their own. Once the diaphragm is weakened, like in my case, you face all kinds of fun stuff like coughing fits, being extra susceptible to pneumonia and lung infections, and worst of all, suffocating in your own carbon dioxide because your diaphragm can’t push it out of your lungs.”
William shook his head. “That’s a hell of a raw deal, sir.”
Daddy smiled. “Yeah. It is. But enough with the depressing shit. While you two go get changed and cleaned up, Ansel’s going to help me eat. But then I want you to stay and have dinner.”
Cutting his eyes over to mine, William looked to see how I felt. After I nodded, he said, “That sounds wonderful. I appreciate the invitation.”
“Great.” Daddy turned his attention to me. “Sophie, get William a clean shirt from my closet or Ansel’s.”
“I’d already planned on it.”
Ansel started cutting up the lasagna Susie had made. “Never thought I’d be sharing clothes with my principal.”
We all laughed at his remark. William and I started up the back staircase. When we got to the top, I could tell there was something William wanted to ask, but he was hesitating. “What is it?”
“Your dad said Ansel was going to help him eat. Can he not feed himself anymore?”
“As you noticed before, his arms don’t move very well. It’s like they’re almost fused at the elbow. In a few months, he’ll almost be like a quadriplegic. But for now, he can feed himself, but he needs help cutting food. That’s not even things like steak. He wouldn’t have the strength to cut the noodles of the lasagna that we’re having tonight.”
“That has to be agony for a man who was once as active as he was.”
“It is. But he does his best to hide the pain or depression he has from us.
William gave me a sad smile. “Now I see where you get your amazing strength from.”
A totally uncharacteristic flush filled my cheeks at his words. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
“All I know is he has every reason in the world to be bitter and angry, but instead, he’s always smiling and happy. But he’s always been that way, so I suppose he wasn’t going to let the MD win.”
“That shows great courage and conviction of character.”
I led William into Ansel’s room, which surprisingly didn’t look like your stereotypical teenage guy’s room. “Who would have thought Ansel was a neat freak?” William remarked as I handed him a plain white button-down shirt.
“He’s totally OCD. He catches so much hell from his friends about it.”
William laughed. “I can imagine.”
“You can freshen up in his bathroom.”
“Thank you.”
“My room is just across the hall. You can either go on back downstairs or wait for me.”
“Okay.”
I leaned in and gave him a kiss before hurrying out of the room. After taking a quick PTA bath, or Pussy, Tits, and Ass, I hopped into a pair of yoga pants and threw on a Milton High T-shirt. When I opened my bathroom door, William wasn’t in my room. He wasn’t out in the hallway or Ansel’s room either.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered. When I had suggested that he go on downstairs without me, I hadn’t stopped to think about how Daddy would probably end up telling William some mortifying stories from my childhood. Hell, he might even have Ansel break out the photo albums.
I pounded down the stairs to find them sitting around the table, eating lasagna and drinking wine. They all looked curiously up at me considering the commotion I’d just made. “Sorry,” I muttered, as I went over to the table.
“Afraid I was spilling some of your secrets?” Daddy asked with a grin.
“That hadn’t even crossed my mind,” I lied.
“Sure it didn’t,” Ansel mused.
Daddy laughed. “You’ll be glad to know that the conversation was all focused on me and this horrible disease of mine.”
“Nice. Couldn’t you have found a less depressing dinner conversation?” I asked.
William poured me a glass of wine. “It’s my fault. I was interested in knowing about the disease. My only real frame of reference comes from all the Labor Day telethons with Jerry Lewis.”
“Yeah, Daddy is hardly a ‘Jerry’s Kid’.”
“Those poor kids.” After bowing his head, Daddy took a large sip of wine through a straw. Once he swallowed, he said, “If there is something to be grateful for, it is that I got to live a full and active life. I didn’t even have any symptoms until I was in my late twenties. Then my hands started cramping up when I was working with the rope. After I took a few tumbles, I went to see a neurologist.”
“And that’s when you were diagnosed.”
“Yep. Since I already had Sophie and Ansel, I was worried to death that I might’ve passed something on to them. But thank the good Lord that genetic testing proved that they didn’t have the disease and aren’t carriers of the gene.” He smiled good-naturedly. “It’s just me. I get to be the lucky one who needs help wiping his ass.”
William spewed out the wine he had just sipped. “Excuse me?”
Daddy laughed. “Have you ever read Tuesdays with Morrie?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe I have.”
“An amazing book. I read my copy until it became so tattered it was falling apart. Then when I couldn’t hold a book up anymore, I got the audio version. You see, Morrie has ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and with the help of one of his former students, he’s chronicling his last days of the final progression of the disease. While MD and ALS are different, they have a lot of similarities.” Daddy smiled. “But the point to my ramble was that Morrie talks about dreading the day when it comes to someone else wiping his ass. But when the time came, he tried to embrace it because it meant he got to be a baby again.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
“Yes, it is.” Daddy winked at William. “Two weeks ago, I tried to remember that quote when it came time for someone else to wipe my ass.”
While I shook my head in horror, William only laughed. “And did you feel like Morrie?”
“No, sadly I didn’t. Actually, I hated the fact that my cousin’s wife is seeing my ass now when it’s old and wrinkly. I wished she’d been able to see it when I was in my prime.”
“Honestly, Daddy,” I said.
“For your information, I had a pretty nice ass back in the day.”
“Thank you. If you need me, I’ll be dying of mortification under the table.”
Ansel snorted. “Why are you acting lady-like all the sudden? It’s not like this isn’t our usual dinner conversations.”
“Yes, but the two of you seem to forget that my boss is sitting across from me. That changes things slightly.”
“Just your boss?” Daddy questioned with an impish grin.
“Don’t start,” I warned.
“Actually, I’m not just her boss.” William smiled at me. “We’ve decided to try for more.”
“So you’re like officially her boyfriend or something?” Ansel asked.
“Yes. I am.”
With a groan, I put my head in my hands. “What happened to secrecy?”