She was saying it like she was surprised, but I knew this was an act. I’d been coming here every week for over a year now. I had fucked Wendy in the parking lot a few months ago; her shift had been ending right when I’d been leaving. She was in her mid-forties, unhappily married, her body ravaged by multiple pregnancies. She had stretch marks, loose skin, sagging breasts. She could stand to lose about fifteen pounds, and her face was average, at best. But I wasn’t the sort of guy who only fucked hot women. I knew I could probably sleep with any woman of my choosing, and I certainly had been with plenty of gorgeous ones, but I also enjoyed the occasional romp with those who you wouldn’t necessarily consider fine physical specimens. Such as Wendy. She was wise enough to know that we weren’t in love and this wasn’t going to end with some happily ever after, but she could still enjoy it. And when you sleep with someone like Wendy, who knows they’re average looking at best, they are so grateful, so appreciative, that the sex usually ends up being quite phenomenal.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Decent,” I said. She was wearing lavender scrubs that I easily could have reached over and torn off, taken her right there in the elevator. “How are you?”
“Work has been busy. But I can’t complain. Too much, anyway.” She laughed, as though this were some sort of great joke. “Pete will be glad to see you. He’s seemed . . . I don’t know, more agitated than usual this week. It will be good for him to visit with you.”
The elevator stopped at the second floor, and the doors opened. A long, linoleum hallway stretched in front of us.
“Hmm,” I said. “I wonder what’s bothering him.”
“Well,” Wendy said, “my guess is that the anniversary of your mother’s death is coming up. Pete may not be able to communicate verbally any more, but he’s still very much aware of what is going on.”
Good. I was glad to hear it. If Pete was suffering from dementia or something, and his mind was so far gone that he had no idea who I was or no recollection of all the horrible shit he’d done to me, I probably wouldn’t be coming here. The fun was in the fact that he was the one suffering now. He was the one who was helpless to do anything about it, but just sit there and take it.
“You think he knows what date it is?” I asked as we walked down the hallway.
Wendy nodded. “Oh, absolutely. He goes down to the activity room every day, and there’s a big wall calendar where they list all the activities for that day. And sometimes he’ll be in the lounge when the news is on. I’m sure he knows what date it is.” Wendy leaned toward me, her arm brushing mine. “You might be able to help him,” she said.
“Oh yeah? How so?”
She stopped walking, so I stopped too. She looked to her left, then her right, as though making sure that no one else was walking down the hallway. When she saw that the hall was momentarily empty, she reached out and touched my arm. “Forgive him,” she said.
A look of surprise shot across my face that I tried to quickly rearrange into an expression of neutrality. Forgive him? How did she know everything that he’d done to me? Had he told her? But he’d come here after the second stroke, after he’d been unable to speak. Did he have another way of communicating that I wasn’t aware of? And: Did he really want my forgiveness?
“Now, I know Pete can’t come out and say it,” Wendy said as we resumed walking, “but it’s clear as day to me why he’s more agitated now.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not quite following. And why am I supposed to forgive him?”
“Because he didn’t mean it.”
“He didn’t mean it. And he told you this?”
“No, of course not. But it’s almost June twenty-fourth, and that’s the day anniversary of your mother’s death, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, still not following.
“And I’m sure Pete feels immense guilt because of it. The cause of the fire was a cigarette, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So you should forgive him. If you can find it in yourself to do so. It would give him some closure. Can you imagine having all this guilt within you, but not having an outlet for it? A way to express it? You could really help him come to terms with this.”
I nodded, feeling my shoulders relax a bit. Wendy had no clue about my childhood, that wasn’t what she was talking about at all. What she was talking about was the fact that after his first stroke, Pete was still able to smoke cigarettes, which he did, in his recliner, where he fell asleep with one still lit. The ashtray had tipped over or something, and the stack of newspapers, then the blinds, had caught on fire. The first stroke had been a minor one, so Pete had been able to get himself out, though just barely. My mother, who had fallen asleep upstairs, had not been so lucky. The living room had been right by the front door; had the layout of the house not been so, it was highly probable that Pete would not have made it out either.
Wendy must have taken my nod as a sign that I would do as she suggested; when we reached Pete’s door, she gave my arm a squeeze and said she hoped she’d see me on the way out.
“Sure thing,” I said.
Pete’s door was ajar. I knocked lightly, waited a moment, and then went in. He’d never given me the courtesy of a door knock when I’d been younger, but I wasn’t doing it out of courtesy now. Rather, I liked to think that he knew exactly who it was when I knocked—two medium, followed by two short, sort of like the start of “The Imperial March” (aka Darth Vader’s theme song)—and then pause for a few seconds, thereby allowing a beat or two of dread to form as a precursor of my entrance.
I stepped into the room. It was medium-sized, with a twin bed, hospital style, with side rails and the ability to adjust. It was made, the tan cotton blanket tucked in tight at the corners, the pillow fluffed. There was a side table, and then two chairs for visitors to sit in. There was also a dresser with a small flat-screen TV, a few paperback books that I don’t think anyone had ever read, and a couple folded newspapers. I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror that hung next to the dresser, and what I saw, of course, pleased me. It was a mild day out, and I was wearing a black T-shirt, fitted just enough that you could tell I was in really good fucking shape. The sleeves hugged my biceps. My jeans sat low on my hips, and were I to lift my arms high enough above my head, the bottom of my shirt would ride up just enough to give a glimpse of a very enviable V cut. My hair, which I’d kept buzzed short when I’d been in the service, had grown out maybe an inch and a half, and was slightly wavy, thus giving me a tousled bedroom look without any effort exerted on my part. I report all this not because I’m full of myself or because I even give a shit about how I look, but because my physical experienced screamed vitality and good health, and that was exactly what I wanted Pete to see.
His back was to me, because he was positioned facing the window.
“Hey there, Pete,” I said. I turned the wheelchair slightly. I could see the car out in the parking lot. “Hi, Pete,” I said again, looking straight into his face.
His mouth hung open on one side, drool periodically dribbling its way down his chin. He needed a shave. If I asked, I’m sure the nurses would have set me up with a razor and some shaving cream, but I wasn’t going to ask because I didn’t want to do Pete that kindness. I didn