SWIM by Eric Wat

Author:Eric Wat
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781579625900
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2019-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Saturday

Last night after Artie arrived, as the viewing was winding down, Big Uncle pulled the family together. Artie’s wife, Julia, wasn’t that interested in the family meeting, so she enlisted their two sons, James and Theo, for clean-up duties. They started toward the table, with the determination of suited-up hazmat workers, to tackle the leftovers. Natalie was asleep on a couch.

Big Uncle, Young Aunt, Artie, and Jolie brought and unfolded their chairs in front of Dad and me, forming an imperfect circle. Earlier Artie had walked into the hall and looked for his father straight away. I had a feeling that the discussion had to do with Por Por.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yes . . .” Artie said. “Well, Grandma is fine, now.” He started with the big picture before taking us in another direction to visit the not-so-neat details, in that doctor’s tone of his. “At one point, she didn’t think she was home, and she kept pestering me to take her home. I think I over-explained it. She asked for you . . .” He nodded at Dad. “. . . and you.” Then Artie nodded at me. “She didn’t ask for your mother. I made up some lie about you all being at dinner. She didn’t believe me, and she accused me of keeping her hostage. She even hit me. Not hard, but she hit me. She was freaking out the boys. They didn’t understand a word she was saying. I grabbed her hand, not hard, just to keep her from hitting me, but it made her even more frenzied. She started crying and saying how everybody had abandoned her. I told her you were coming back in another hour. That didn’t pacify her. It went on for a while. She’s fine now. Thankfully, Momo showed up and helped. We had to put her to bed early. She’s not going to remember any of this tomorrow morning.” He stopped, staring in the middle of our circle for a little, as if he was scanning Por Por’s chart in his mind. Then he looked past Big Uncle and Jolie to his boys, who would not have the benefit of amnesia.

Jolie saw that too and asked, “Are Theo and James okay?”

Before Artie could answer, Big Uncle waved her off brusquely. “That’s not what’s important here. We need to decide what to do with my mother tomorrow. We have two options.” He stopped for emphasis. This was the role he relished, head of the clan. “Ah Fong is still available tomorrow. She said she had set aside the day for the funeral anyway.”

Young Aunt interrupted him. “But she’d rather go to the funeral to pay her respects.”

Big Uncle waved harder than before. “She paid her respects tonight. The point is she’s available and she has babysat our mother before. The other option is to bring our mother to the funeral.” He looked at Dad in particular.

Dad said, “I’m okay with whatever you decide.”

“Sooner or later you’ll have to make a decision,” Big Uncle snapped at him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.