Page 159 of Life Out of Order

My father is forty-three. I am forty.

I try to hide my panic. There is only a sliver of time between now and his death.

“What are you up to, in 2041?” he asks. “Everything okay?”

“Oh. Um, I’m working on a piano sonata.”

“For Oliver?”

“Yeah.”

“And how’s Zach?”

“He’s fine.”

“That’s good.” Oliver and Zach are abstractions to my dad; he will never meet either of them.

“What are you working on?” I ask, trying to divert him from asking about me. Papers are spread all over the desk.

“I’m making a will. Writing a letter. I’m trying to get organized, so when I’m gone, Clare won’t have to wonder . . . I’m just tidying up.”

I feel nauseous at the thought of him sitting by himself, so close to death, knowing. Then I remember: “Could you do something for me?”

“Absolutely. What?”

“Write down an address and clip it to your will.”

“Sure.” He rummages in a drawer and produces a notebook. I tell him the address of the Yellow House. He writes it in blue ballpoint pen, tears the sheet from the notebook and holds it up: “Does that look right?”

“Yeah.”

He tucks it under the paper clip on a sheaf of paper. “Done. What is it?”

“It’s a house, over in Ravenswood. It belongs to me. I’ve owned it since 1947.”

Dad laughs. “That’s a neat trick. How did you manage that?”

“I was in a house stealing some clothes and I found a hundred-dollar banknote in the lady’s underwear drawer. So I took it, and I managed to open a bank account.”

Dad is shaking his head, smiling. “I have so many questions. How could you open a bank account without anywhere to live?”

“I befriended the bank manager. Don’t look so skeptical! By the time I do this, I’ll be a little old lady; he never imagined that I was really a time-traveling burglar. It also won’t occur to my stockbroker that my excellent luck in the market is due entirely to hindsight.”

Dad’s expression is admiring, then pensive. “I grew up two miles from there. I wish I’d known, I might have dropped by.”

“Come now,” I say. “We can take a cab.” Suddenly it seems urgent.

“Not tonight,” he says. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

He looks the way I remember him from my childhood: white-haired, very pale, tired, clasping his hands together tightly, biting his lip. I say, “Do you want a Vicodin?”

He says, “The bottle is on my bedside table,” and looks relieved.

I get up and walk into their bedroom. It takes me back, the particular smell of their bed in the last days of Dad’s life, a vinegary, bandaged-flesh smell. I locate the bottle and bring it back to him. He shakes two pills into his hand and swallows them without liquid, even though there is a cup of coffee cooling in front of him. I go to the kitchen and get him a glass of water. He politely takes a few sips, sets it aside.

“Do you ever think this habit of keeping secrets is more trouble than it’s worth?” he asks.

“Probably,” I reply. “But I guess we have our reasons. What do you want to know?”