My brother took me off the guest list for his son’s promotion and told the base I was too sick from my hip surgery to come. Then he brushed by me at the pier gate in his old dress blues and said, “Go home, Ophelia, you can’t even do the pier.” So I reached into my coat for the other card.
The young sailor working the pier gate said it before I’d finished handing him my license.
“Ma’am, your name’s struck off the guest list.”
He turned the tablet so I could read it.
My brother’s name. His wife’s. Their son’s. A cousin I hadn’t spoken to since a funeral.
Mine had a line through it.
Beside the line, in the notes box, two words. FAMILY REQUEST.
“There’s more,” he said, and scrolled. “Your brother called protocol on Monday. It says you’re six weeks out from a hip replacement and not cleared for crowds. It says he’s your health-care proxy.”
He is.
I signed that paper in August, in the pre-op room, with a line taped into the back of my hand, because the nurse said somebody had to be on it and Harvey was the one standing there.
My cane was hooked over my wrist.
I’d practiced the walk from my car twice that morning, counting steps.
A shuttle van stopped at the curb and its door slid open.
Harvey got out first, in the dress blues he’s had let out twice since he retired. The ribbons sat crooked. They always do. I used to fix them for him before every ball.
Sudha climbed down after him, sunglasses pushed up in her hair, a cream suit with gold buttons.
Josh came last, in whites so new they still had the fold lines.
Harvey saw me and stopped.
Then he grinned with every tooth he owns.
“Well. Look who drove herself.”
“You told them I was sick,” I said.
“I told them you were recovering. Which you are.” He tapped my cane with two fingers. “Go home, Ophelia. You can’t even do the pier.”
Sudha wrinkled her nose at the cane like it had tracked something in.
“Honestly, Harvey, she’ll go down in front of the commodore and the whole day will be about her hip.”
Harvey turned to the sailor. “She ran the front desk at a clinic. She thinks these things are open seating.”
Josh wouldn’t look at me.
“Aunt Ophelia, Dad just didn’t want you getting hurt,” he said, to my shoes.
Then the three of them went on by.
Not fast. Not confused.
Josh’s elbow knocked my cane and he said sorry to the cane.
The sailor coughed into his fist. “Ma’am, could I get you out of the line for now?”
I stepped out of the line.
Then I opened my coat and took the blue card out of the inside pocket. It’s been in that pocket eleven years.
He read the top line and the tablet dropped flat against his chest.
“Captain,” he said. “Ma’am, I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have…”
“You did your job,” I said. “Don’t call anybody up there. I’d like to walk it.”
“It’s a long pier, ma’am.”
“I KNOW how long it is.”
By the time I got through, the band was already playing.
White folding chairs ran in rows down the pier toward the podium, with the gray water on both sides and a ship tied up at the far end.
Harvey and Sudha had the first row. She was laughing behind her fingers at something he said, and he kept touching his ribbons.
Commodore Cuevas came up to the microphone at the stroke of ten, and the pier went quiet except for the flags.
“Before we pin Lieutenant Commander Burrell,” he said, “the Navy asked one guest here by name. This is overdue.”
Harvey sat up straighter.
He fixed his ribbons again.
He was sure it meant Josh.
“I’d ask one officer to come up.”
The commodore looked along the aisle, past the chairs, past the band, to the back, where I was leaning on a cane in my brown coat.
“CAPTAIN OPHELIA BURRELL. PLEASE JOIN ME HERE.”
Sudha’s sunglasses slid out of her hair and into her lap.
Harvey’s mouth opened and nothing came out of it.
Josh stood up. Then he didn’t know why he’d stood up, so he stayed standing.
I began to walk.
Cane, bad leg, good leg.
Six weeks of therapy had taught me one thing about piers. The gaps between the planks are exactly wide enough to catch a cane tip.
So I watched the gaps. NEVER the first row.
Behind me the chairs creaked. Every sailor on that pier was getting to their feet, row by row, and I could hear it without turning around.
Halfway down, a chief in the third row said, “Ma’am,” as I passed. Just that.
I knew his face. I’d stitched his hand on a ship a long time ago.
Harvey could see all of it.
The woman who couldn’t do the pier, doing the pier, and two hundred people standing up for it.
I reached the podium. The commodore shook my hand and held it a second longer than he needed to.
Then he picked up a second page.
He didn’t read it to me.
He found my brother in the first row.
“Commander Burrell,” he said, close to the mic. “I’m told you’re the captain’s MEDICAL proxy. Would you stand, please.”
Harvey’s hand closed around his chair’s metal armrest.
And he didn’t get up.
The microphone
The second page was headed “Family arrangements.” Beneath it sat a note about Monday’s call and the medical paper Harvey had supplied.
Cuevas put his finger beside the caller’s name.
“Was that you, Commander?”
He wanted Harvey to identify himself as the man who’d changed the arrangements. That was why he’d asked him to stand.
I drew the microphone toward me.
“I’m able to answer questions about my attendance.”
Harvey stood then. Nothing gets my brother moving quite like somebody allowing me to finish a sentence.
He came around the first row, smiling at the people beside the aisle.
“Of course she can. We just need to get her sitting down.”
He reached the podium and put his hand over the microphone.
I took his wrist and lifted his hand off it.
“That’s where I’m speaking.”
His smile stayed put. The rest of his face wasn’t helping.
“Ophelia. Let’s not discuss your health in front of everybody.”
“You sent it ahead of me.”
A cough came from the chairs. Sudha stood and beckoned Josh forward with two fingers.
Cuevas reached for the switch on the microphone. Before he touched it, he looked at me.
I nodded.
That small courtesy nearly undid me. I’d spent the morning being talked around like a suitcase nobody wanted to carry.
“We can take a few minutes,” he said.
Harvey leaned close.
“Thank you. She’s overdone it.”
“I asked the captain.”
My brother’s fingers went to his ribbons.
I wanted him to explain himself where he’d embarrassed me. I also wanted Josh to have his promotion without his aunt and father conducting a livestock auction over the microphone.
So I agreed to move aside.
Harvey reached for my elbow.
“Don’t,” I said.
He took his hand away, then turned it palm up for the audience, as though he’d offered me a mint and I’d bitten him.
Beside the podium stood a chair with my name on it.
Harvey put his cover on the seat.
The chair with my name
I lifted his cover and held it out.
He didn’t take it.
“That’s for the presentation,” he said.
“It has my name on it.”
“Yes, well. They printed those earlier in the week.”
I set his cover on the podium and sat. My hip had begun to ache during the walk, and I wasn’t going to ruin six weeks of work to keep Harvey from enjoying a chair.
Josh came beside me. Sudha stopped on his other side.
There we were, the four of us, with my brother positioned nearest the commodore. Harvey could find the most important person in an empty room.
Three weeks earlier, Josh had brought the invitation to my house.
“One shoulder each,” he’d said. “You and Dad.”
I’d held the card against my knee.
“You want me up there with a stick?”
“I want you up there.”
“Then ask me the day before if I need an arm.”
He’d grinned. “You’ll tell me.”
“Correct. Try to remember that.”
Harvey had been putting my discharge papers back into their envelope. “I’ll take care of the arrangements,” he’d said.
Back on the pier, Josh kept rubbing the edge of his thumbnail.
“You didn’t call yesterday,” I said.
“Dad said you needed rest.”
“Thursday also had a telephone in it.”
He looked at his father.
I hadn’t wanted a tribute. I wanted to fasten the new rank on my nephew’s shoulder, stand beside him for a picture, and get back to my car before my hip began sending letters to management.
At sixty-seven, those were reasonable ambitions.
Cuevas held both pages together.
“Captain, I understood you’d asked to be excused from the presentation.”
Harvey moved between us.
“We were going to explain that.”
“Then explain it,” I said.
Sudha took her sunglasses from her lap and folded them.
“We had to settle things. Josh couldn’t keep changing his plans depending on how you felt.”
“I’m here.”
“Yes,” she said. “We can see that.”
Josh put a hand on the back of my chair.
His hand was close enough to take. I nearly reached for it.
Instead, I looked at him.
“Did you still want me to do your shoulder?”
Harvey answered.
“We’ve arranged for me to do both.”
Beside the band
Cuevas moved us a few steps behind the chairs beside the band, far enough that we wouldn’t need a microphone to discuss my private parts.
Josh carried my chair over. I followed with the cane.
Harvey waited until I sat.
“There,” he said. “Better.”
“Don’t congratulate yourself. Josh carried it.”
My brother glanced toward the audience. People were sitting down again. A few faced forward with the determination of people trying not to hear something they badly wanted to hear.
“We’ll straighten this out,” Harvey said. “You can stay. Nobody’s suggesting you can’t stay now.”
“You suggested it by the gate.”
“Because I didn’t know how you’d got here.”
“My car. Four wheels. Same arrangement as yours.”
Sudha touched his sleeve.
“Don’t get drawn into this.”
Cuevas stood where I could see him without twisting. He kept the pages at his side.
“Captain, would you prefer to discuss this with your family alone?”
Harvey said yes.
I said no.
The commodore stayed.
I pointed to the paper.
“My brother said I wasn’t cleared for crowds. Who told you that, Harvey?”
“That’s a medical matter.”
“Mine.”
“You were given restrictions.”
“Did my surgeon tell you I couldn’t attend?”
“He didn’t give me a list of naval ceremonies you could attend.”
“Did anybody?”
Harvey spread his hands.
“Common sense, Ophelia. You were taking pain medicine. You couldn’t put your shoes on. I drove you home from the hospital.”
“Six weeks ago.”
“I sat with you.”
“You did.”
“I picked up what you needed.”
“You did.”
“Then perhaps you could remember that before treating me like some criminal.”
I wanted to tell him that a ride home didn’t come with naming rights over the passenger. Instead, I thanked him for the ride.
Then I asked the question again.
“Who told you I couldn’t attend?”
His face reddened above his collar.
“Nobody had to tell me you weren’t ready.”
Josh bent toward me.
“Aunt Ophelia, we can put you in the first row. We can make that work.”
“I had a place beside you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He straightened.
Sudha stepped into the space he’d left.
“Harvey’s been looking forward to this for years. You’ve been to plenty of ceremonies.”
“So has Harvey.”
“His son’s ceremonies?”
“One shoulder each,” I said. “That was Josh’s invitation.”
Harvey pulled the cover closer under his arm.
“You’ve made your entrance. Everybody knows you’re a captain. Surely that’s enough.”
Cuevas looked at him.
My brother gave a short laugh.
“Family joke.”
I’d heard that phrase all my life. Harvey could knock down half a room, then put “family joke” over the hole.
I held out my hand for Josh.
He took it, but his eyes went past me.
“Tell them I answered you when you invited me,” I said.
“You did.”
“Tell them what I said.”
“That you’d come.”
“And did I call you to cancel?”
“No.”
For a moment, Harvey had nothing.
Then he put his hand on Josh’s shoulder.
“Tell her the rest.”
Josh’s fingers slipped out of mine.
Josh’s hand
Josh stayed in front of me, close enough that his whites blocked my view of the first row.
“I told them Dad could handle it,” he said.
“Handle what?”
“The family arrangements.”
“You knew my name was coming off the list?”
He worked at his thumbnail again.
“Josh.”
“Yes.”
There are answers you can hear perfectly well and still need another minute to understand.
I put my hand back on the cane.
Harvey shifted beside him.
“Because he trusted me. There’s nothing sinister about a son trusting his father.”
I kept looking at Josh.
“When?”
“Monday.”
“Your father called Monday. Did they check with you?”
“Yes.”
“And you said yes.”
“I said Dad was taking care of it.”
“You could’ve called me.”
“I thought he’d spoken to you.”
Harvey made a sound in his throat.
Josh looked at him, then back at me.
“He said he’d dealt with it.”
Sudha moved nearer her son.
“There were things to arrange. He has responsibilities.”
“So do I,” I said. “Getting myself here was one.”
Josh crouched in front of the chair.
“I didn’t think you’d drive out after Dad told you.”
“He didn’t tell me. A sailor by the gate told me.”
My nephew’s eyes closed.
“The man behind me heard it,” I said. “And the woman behind him. I stood there while somebody read my surgery off a screen.”
“I didn’t know they’d do that.”
“You knew they wouldn’t let me through.”
He stopped picking his nail.
That was the first time he looked at me without looking away halfway through.
“Yes,” he said.
I could’ve borne Harvey. I’d been bearing Harvey since he was old enough to say, “Let me do it,” and young enough to do it wrong.
Josh was the hand I’d reached for.
He stood when his father touched his shoulder.
That little movement hurt more than the answer.
Sudha opened her purse and offered me a tissue.
I didn’t need one yet, which offended me on top of everything else.
She held it out anyway.
“Please don’t do this to him today.”
“Do what?”
“Make him choose.”
“He invited us both.”
“And you’re both here now.”
She said it with the satisfaction of somebody finding the missing sock. Problem solved. Put the washing away.
Josh’s eyes were wet.
“I wanted it to go smoothly.”
“You could’ve called me,” I said again.
“I know.”
“No. You keep saying that as though I misplaced a message.”
Harvey stepped forward.
“Enough. He’s answered you.”
I pushed myself up from the chair.
Josh reached out. I held up a hand, and he stopped.
For six weeks, I’d practiced standing without hauling myself upright by somebody’s arm. I did it the way I’d practiced. It took longer than Harvey liked.
He looked at the band. Then at Cuevas.
“How much longer are we going to keep everyone waiting?”
Josh’s mouth moved before any sound came out.
“Aunt Ophelia, could you just sit with Mom?”
I stood there with the cane planted between my shoes.
“While your father takes my place?”
“We can talk afterward.”
Harvey reached around him and lifted the chair.
“Good,” he said.
He carried my name back to the first row.
The front of the pier
I followed him because my chair was moving and my hip was telling me exactly what it thought of standing.
There was no dignity in that part. Harvey carried the chair as though he’d settled everything, and I came behind it.
Sudha pulled her own chair sideways to make room.
“Here,” she said. “You can see perfectly.”
She patted the seat.
I wanted to knock her sunglasses into the water. They were expensive, and I wanted the splash to be small enough that she could still hope.
Instead, I stood beside the chair.
Harvey bent toward me.
“You’ve got what you wanted. You’re here.”
“Give me the paper you sent.”
He straightened.
“What?”
“The medical paper. Did you bring a copy?”
“It’s in the information I provided.”
“Give it back.”
Cuevas still held the pages. He’d followed us without joining the family procession.
“Captain, you can have this copy.”
Harvey held out his hand.
“I’ll put it away for her.”
I reached past him and took it myself.
The copy of my signature was on the back. I knew the slant of it. I’d signed with my wrist turned around the line in my hand.
Harvey tapped the signature.
“You asked me to be responsible.”
“If I couldn’t answer.”
“And I was there when you couldn’t do things.”
“I can answer now.”
“You can also overestimate yourself.”
Sudha stood close to his shoulder.
“She’s been doing that since she got out.”
I hadn’t seen her since she brought a casserole the week after surgery. It had arrived with instructions to return the dish.
Josh came back from the podium.
“They’re ready.”
Harvey touched his ribbons.
“So are we.”
I held the paper against my coat.
“No.”
People in the first row stopped pretending. A man turned fully around.
Josh looked from me to his father.
“Please,” he said.
That was all. No Aunt Ophelia. No explanation. Just the word, with the whole morning hanging off it.
I wanted to give him the easy version. I could sit down, smile with my mouth closed, let Harvey do both shoulders. Later, in my car, I could be as angry as I liked.
My hip would be grateful. Josh would be grateful.
Harvey would tell this story for years.
How I’d insisted on coming. How he’d found me a chair. How hard recovery was making me to deal with.
I sat.
Sudha put her hand over mine.
“That’s better.”
Josh went pale.
He knew my sitting down didn’t mean I’d agreed. He’d seen me sit after bad news before.
Harvey turned toward the podium.
“I’ll take it from here.”
I looked at Josh.
“Is that what you want?”
He glanced at the rows behind him.
“We should start.”
It cost me something I couldn’t get back: the moment I’d expected when he turned toward me, proud and smiling, and offered me his shoulder.
Now he’d always have to ask for it again.
Harvey set his cover on Sudha’s chair and held out his hand for the rank Josh was carrying.
My nephew gave it to him.
Monday’s words
Cuevas crouched beside my chair.
“Captain, would you like a moment away from everyone?”
“No.”
He pointed to the paper in my lap.
“May I see the front?”
I turned it over.
My thumb had been covering the bottom of Monday’s note.
The sentence there stopped me.
“At Captain Burrell’s request, Commander Burrell will perform both sides of the pinning.”
I read it again.
My brother hadn’t merely said I was too sick to attend.
He’d told them I’d asked him to take my place.
I put my finger under the words.
“Did you hear me request this?”
“No,” Cuevas said.
“Josh?”
He came closer.
“Did you hear me?”
“No.”
Harvey reached for the page.
“That’s how they wrote it.”
I moved it against my chest.
“What did you tell them?”
“That I was speaking for you.”
“Did you tell them I asked you to do both shoulders?”
He looked toward the audience.
“Don’t split hairs over somebody’s notes.”
Josh took the paper from me when I offered it.
He read the sentence with one finger under it, exactly as he’d read things aloud when he was little.
“Dad.”
Harvey reached for his sleeve.
“Your aunt was recovering. You needed an answer. I gave them one.”
“You told me she’d agreed.”
“I told you I’d handled it.”
Josh looked down at the page again.
The band began a few measures, then stopped. Whoever was directing it could see we weren’t coming back yet.
I stood and took the paper from Josh.
My legs weren’t going to carry me through another private explanation.
“Turn the microphone on,” I said to Cuevas.
Harvey stepped across my path.
“There’s no need for that.”
“There was no need to put my medical information on the gate list.”
“We’ve dealt with it.”
“No.”
He lowered his head toward mine.
“Do you want him to remember this every time he looks at his uniform?”
I nearly sat down again.
Then Josh said, “I gave them permission too.”
He was looking at the paper, not at his father.
“Yes,” I said. “You did.”
I walked around Harvey.
I didn’t want Cuevas to scold him for me. And I didn’t want two hundred people applauding because an old nurse could manage some planks.
I wanted the sentence read back in my own hearing.
At the podium, I laid the paper flat.
“Josh,” I said. “Come here.”
Harvey started forward with him.
“Just Josh.”
The two shoulders
Cuevas switched the microphone on and stepped back.
I put my hand on the paper.
“The change to this morning’s arrangements says I asked my brother to take my place. I didn’t.”
Harvey came to the other side of the podium.
“Ophelia, people don’t need to hear family business.”
“They heard I couldn’t come.”
“They heard you’re recovering, which you are. Nobody insulted you. Nobody said you weren’t welcome once we understood you were determined to attend.”
Josh stood beside me.
“You told the gate not to let her in,” he said.
Harvey turned toward him.
“Don’t use that tone with me.”
“I approved it.”
“Then you understand why I did it.”
“No,” Josh said. “I approved it without asking her.”
Sudha rose from the first row.
“Josh, your father has done nothing but try to make today special.”
Harvey put out a hand toward her.
“Sit down, Sudha. I’ll explain.”
She stayed standing.
He turned back to the microphone.
“My sister signed a document appointing me to help with medical decisions. She underwent major surgery. Those of you who’ve cared for a family member will understand that sometimes you have to make an unpopular decision.”
I touched the sentence on the page.
“Did I ask you to take my place?”
“You’re reducing six weeks of concern to one sentence.”
“Did I?”
“No. Not in those words.”
Josh stepped closer to the microphone.
“In any words?”
Harvey looked at him for several seconds.
“You don’t get to cross-examine me at your own promotion.”
“Then answer her.”
“No,” Harvey said.
The word went through the speakers and out across the chairs.
My brother reached for the page.
I held it down with my palm.
“And the clinic desk?”
He gave a short laugh.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. That was a joke. She knows it was a joke.”
Josh looked toward the gate at the far end of the pier.
“You said it to the sailor.”
“I was explaining that she didn’t know the arrangements.”
“She was a Navy nurse.”
“Nobody said otherwise.”
“You did,” Sudha said.
Harvey turned on her.
“What?”
She stood with her purse held against her stomach.
“You said she ran the desk. I was there.”
“And you said she’d fall.”
“I know what I said.”
The first row was close enough that nobody needed the microphone anymore. We had one anyway. Harvey had been very determined that morning to make our family information available to strangers.
Josh held out his hand.
“The rank, Dad.”
Harvey looked down at what he was holding.
“Let’s finish this. We can all apologize afterward.”
“The rank.”
“I’ve waited thirty-six years to stand beside you for something like this.”
“So did she.”
“She’s my sister.”
“And she’s my aunt.”
Sudha sat. She missed the center of the chair and had to move herself over. Her sunglasses fell from her purse to the boards.
Nobody picked them up.
Harvey kept the rank in his hand.
“I drove her to appointments. I rearranged my days. Where were you, Josh? You called when you could. I was there.”
Josh nodded once.
“You helped her. I should’ve helped more.”
“Exactly.”
“Give it to me.”
Harvey’s hand shook. He put the rank into Josh’s palm, then closed Josh’s fingers over it.
“You’ll wish you hadn’t done this in front of everyone.”
Josh opened his hand again.
“Aunt Ophelia, will you do both?”
I looked at the new rank resting there.
“No.”
His face changed.
Behind him, Harvey drew himself up.
I put my hand on Josh’s sleeve.
“You don’t hand me his half because you’re angry with him. Tell these people what you agreed to.”
Josh looked toward the chairs.
He swallowed, then moved to the microphone.
“I approved removing Captain Burrell from the guest list. I didn’t speak to her first. I let my father tell me what she wanted.”
He stopped.
I stayed beside him.
“She accepted my invitation,” he said. “She never withdrew it. And I walked past her by the gate.”
His mouth pulled to one side. He pressed it closed.
Then he turned to me.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Ophelia.”
I wanted to rescue him from the rest of it. I’ve always been quick with a tissue when a boy I love starts crying, even when the boy is thirty-six and has done something rotten.
I let him finish.
“I saw you standing there. I should’ve stayed.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Will you still stand with me?”
“Yes.”
Harvey took a step toward us.
“Then let’s get on with it.”
Josh moved between his father and the podium.
“From your seat, Dad.”
My brother looked past him at Cuevas. The commodore didn’t move.
Harvey looked at me.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“My shoulder hurt before my hip ever did,” I said. “You leaned on it for years.”
He opened his mouth.
I lifted the new rank from Josh’s hand.
“Sit down, Harvey.”
The photograph
Harvey sat in the first row beside Sudha.
His cover stayed on his knees. For once, he left his ribbons alone.
Cuevas brought my chair forward and put it beside Josh.
“Would this help, Captain?”
“It would.”
I sat to fasten the first shoulder, then stood for the other. Josh bent when I needed him to. Nobody fell into the water. The Navy survived an aunt using a chair.
My fingers fumbled with the second fastening.
Josh started to help.
“Leave it,” I said. “I’ve waited a while.”
He held still.
Up close, the fold lines in his whites were exactly as stiff as they’d looked by the gate. I’d wanted to smooth one down then. Now I did.
His eyes filled again.
“Don’t drip on my work,” I said.
He laughed once, badly, and wiped his face with the heel of his hand.
Cuevas finished the ceremony. Josh answered him without looking at his father.
When the applause came, I stepped back.
Josh caught my hand.
“Stay.”
So I stayed.
For the photographs, Harvey rose as soon as the first family group was called.
Josh held up a hand.
“One with Aunt Ophelia first.”
Sudha touched Harvey’s sleeve. He sat again.
I stood beside my nephew with the cane in front of me. He offered to hold it.
“I’m using it.”
“Right.”
The picture took only a moment. Josh’s hand rested on my shoulder, clear of the sore side.
Then he turned toward his parents.
“You can come up.”
Harvey came without Sudha. She was retrieving her sunglasses from beneath her chair.
He stopped in front of me.
“I suppose I’m no longer to help with anything.”
“You can offer. I’ll answer.”
“And the medical paper?”
“I’ll arrange to replace it. Until then, stop telling people you speak for me.”
“You’ll need somebody.”
“I’ll choose somebody.”
His eyes went to Josh, who stayed beside me.
“What am I supposed to tell people when they ask about this?”
“The same thing you told them through the microphone.”
Sudha joined him. Her sunglasses had a scratch across one lens.
She looked at my cane.
“I shouldn’t have said you’d fall.”
“No,” I said.
“I was worried about the ceremony.”
“I heard.”
She nodded and stepped beside Harvey for the photograph.
He leaned toward me before turning forward.
“You could’ve let me keep one shoulder.”
I looked at the rank on Josh’s uniform.
“You had one.”
The gaps between the planks
An hour after the band began, Josh walked with me toward the gate.
Harvey and Sudha were waiting for the shuttle. My brother lifted his hand as we passed, but he didn’t come over.
Josh kept his pace beside mine.
For a while, neither of us spoke. I put the cane down on wood, not in the gaps. Bad leg, good leg. The same pier, with the same opportunities to make a fool of myself.
At the halfway point, Josh said, “Can we stop?”
I looked at him.
“You’re the one with the original hips.”
“I know.”
We stopped.
He rubbed his thumbnail, then put his hand down.
“I told myself Dad wouldn’t say it if you hadn’t agreed.”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“I didn’t want an argument with him.”
“You got one anyway.”
He gave a small nod.
I let him stand there. There wasn’t a sentence I could give him that would make the gate disappear.
After a minute, he said, “Can I come by tomorrow?”
“To do what?”
“Whatever you need.”
“That’s a dangerous offer. There’s a fitted sheet involved.”
“I can do a fitted sheet.”
“No one can do a fitted sheet. You can have a go.”
He laughed, and this time it came out properly.
By the gate, the young sailor straightened.
“Captain. Did everything go all right?”
Josh answered before I could.
“I need to apologize to you too. My aunt was invited. I approved a change without checking with her.”
The sailor looked at me.
I nodded.
“Thank you, sir,” he said to Josh.
My nephew waited while I put the blue card back into my coat.
The inside pocket had held it for eleven years. That morning, I’d nearly gone home without taking it out. I pushed it down until my fingers reached the bottom of the pocket.
Josh stood beside me, his new rank on both shoulders.
“Will you need a ride tomorrow?” he said.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Past the gate, the pavement was smooth. I still had the distance to the car.
Josh bent his arm but didn’t reach for me.
“Would you like it?”
I put my hand through his elbow.
“Yes. Match my speed.”
If you’re experiencing pain after surgery, talk to your doctor.
If this one stayed with you, send it to someone who knows that needing an arm doesn’t mean giving up your say.
For more family betrayals that turn painful health struggles into public humiliations, read “My Daughter-in-Law Told the Whole Coliseum I Couldn’t Say My Name” and “My Husband’s Ex-Wife Told His Kids She Hadn’t Seen Me”. There’s also “My Son Gave His Wife My Debit Card Because I Couldn’t Drive”, another story about being taken advantage of when you need support most.
