Deeply Personal

Chapter 26

Paul

“Well, it may sound fine to you, but we’re not moving. And that’s final.” Pops didn’t speak as much as he growled. The man had giant hands, thick, hairy arms, and he stuck out his square jaw in total defiance of life, death, and everything in between. They were sitting in his grandparents’ screened-in porch in Seminole Heights, where Paul had been attempting to sell them on the idea of The Harbors.

As a warm Tampa Bay wind blew through the porch, Pops looked Paul directly in the eyes then adjusted one of his behind-the-ear hearing aids because it was squeaking. He was always adjusting that thing. He refused to get one of the newer models that worked a lot better. The man clearly had a problem with change.

“Right, Millie? We’re staying, right?” Pops scratched his unshaved face.

Gran stared first at Pops then at Paul. Wearing a floral blouse accented in greens and blues, she had a bad hip and was using a walker now. Surgery had made it neither better nor worse.

She squinted at Paul. “Oh, I don’t know. The weekly bridge club they have sounds fun. And their water exercise program could be good for my hip.”

“See?” Paul said. “Gran gets it.” He pointed a finger at his grandfather. “ You’re the one holding out. Come on, Pops. They’re reserving that apartment for you and Gran, and we have to make a decision. Didn’t you love the indoor pool?”

“I can go to the senior center for a swim anytime I want. It’s hardly more than a fifteen-minute drive away.”

Pops’ driving skills were another concern. A month ago, he’d backed into a neighbor’s mail box. Besides his driving problems, he had a heart condition and now, trouble swallowing. He had to cut all his food into tiny pieces before he ate it. Sometimes he even pureed it.

He wore his usual attire, a blue golf shirt and slacks, hair was always nicely combed and parted. He’d worked in construction his whole life, started his own company, and, after thirty-five years of laboring sixty-plus hours a week, finally sold it for several million dollars. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at him, or his surroundings. The house was falling apart, and calling a repairman was a blow to his ego. The stove in the kitchen was practically from the Bronze Age. Warped flooring, cracked and chipped paint on all the walls. The garage was a cluttered mess with old newspapers and boxes stored from years ago. Their one car was a worn-down Chevy with over two-hundred thousand miles on it. Neither Gran nor Pops seemed to mind. Paul had offered to help them re-condition their home, but they’d refused his money.

“I’m no charity case,” Pops had said every time Paul had offered to pay for an improvement.

“Pops, you’re not listening to reason,” Paul said now. “You’re having health problems, you and Gran both. The Harbors is perfect. You have twenty-four hour nursing staff, afternoon movies, bingo and—”

“Who gives a rat’s ass about bingo?” Pops growled.

“You’ll meet new people,” Paul replied.

“I’ve met enough people. I don’t need to meet any more people. If I leave here, I won’t have my garden, my roses, my Betty Priors to raise.” He pointed out toward his rose garden. “And that’s what I like doing most of all. Getting my hands dirty. At The Harbors, I’d be closed in, fenced in, forced to eat their meals, follow their schedules. You take me from this big house—which is almost three-thousand square feet—and downsize me into a thousand square-foot apartment, you might as well put me in an eight-by-twelve coffin.”

“Pops, that’s not it at all.” Paul looked up in frustration, and noticed what appeared to be a brand new water stain on the ceiling. “Gran, talk to him. Please.” Paul stood and paced, clenching his teeth as his throat clamped up.

“There is a lot of upkeep here, Ralph,” Gran said. “The roof, the plumbing . . .”

“I flushed the toilet, and it sounded like the pipes were about to explode,” Paul said.

“I didn’t hear that,” Pops said, blinking at him.

Paul had to be blunt. “That’s because you can’t hear.”

Pops tapped his hearing aid, no doubt the thing needed a new battery. “What?” Pops cupped his right ear. “What?”

Paul yelled, “I said you can’t hear!”

“You don’t have to yell. I hear well enough. Now, look. Sit down, son. You have to understand something.”

Paul sat down, crossed his arms, and jutted out his jaw.

“Me and Gran, I know we’re getting old and all. But we like it here, see? Seminole Heights? We’ve been here since the sixties. Gran loves to sit out on the porch and crochet. And I have my garden. It’s so quiet here. It’s just us. And we have friends like George Hadley down the street—”

“George Hadley died two months ago,” Gran said in a loud voice.

“What?” Pops leaned forward and put a hand behind one ear.

“George Hadley died two months ago!”

“He did? Well, I’ll be damned.” Pops’ eyes went wide.

“Yes!”

Pops grew silent for a moment and scratched his jaw. “Well, I swear. How ’bout that? Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m not going to live around a bunch of old people and that’s all there is to it.”

“ You’re an old person,” Paul pointed out.

“Yeah, well . . . .” he grumbled. “Not as old as they are.”

Paul rolled his eyes and found it hard to suppress a kind of confused sadness that flowed through him.

This was going to be harder than he thought.