Make it Right

I always knew my father to be a decent man. A good man. A well-intended man. He was simple, but in a charming kind of way. He was fly paper to the lost soul. A man who breathed life into another just by being present. That’s how I always knew James “Jimmy” Rush. It’s why being sat down outside the hospital room that evening and being told my father was dying by a very matter of fact spoken doctor felt so foreign. No body was matter of fact around my father. In fact, the economy of words was lost on those who lived in his widely casted net. To speak of Jimmy Rush in absolutes and finality was simply surreal.

    Two weeks ago, I was playing chess in the park with my father when two children tossing a frisbee let one get away and the errant toss clipped my father’s back. 82 years old and Jimmy Rush picked up that disc, put a pause on our chess game and jogged into the field with the kids to play a little catch. That’s who he was. Still as vibrant as ever that day. When the doctors called me to tell me my old man suffered a stroke, I didn’t even flinch. I thought, not my dad. He was just keeping up with teens in the park. I said they had the wrong guy. When they described the tattoo of my mother’s name in a heart on his left shoulder and I felt sick.

    “Mr. Rush, your father suffered a mild stroke which caused him to come in. Unfortunately, while in our care we uncovered a rare cancer present in his bloodwork. The stroke was a symptom of the aggressive nature of the cancer. We estimate your father has two weeks, best case scenario.” The Doctor, said.

    Two weeks. From where I stood in time at that moment I was as close to my father keeping up with youths in a field as I was to him no longer being alive. There was no use in searching for second opinions. No time for fighting whatever this was. When I arrived at the hospital my father’s doctor allowed me to enter the room to see my father, who was wired to a multitude of machines and the living embodiment of the color grey. His eyes shifted towards me; the left side of his face still slightly pulled from the effects of the stroke. 

    “Hey, pal. Quite the hand to be dealt, eh?” My father, said. 

    I hardly cracked a smile as I moved a chair closer to my fathers bed side. “Hey, pop.”

    We sat in silence and watched the minute hand tick through its rotations. Every few minutes my father would shift his eyes to me, and I would watch the heart rate monitor skip higher and higher. When he’d shift his eyes back to the ceiling, it would fall back into the 80’s where he appeared to be more comfortable. It was hard to explain, but this didn’t feel like my father. The room we were in, the tubes connected to his body, his face slightly drooping and the silence, the eerie silence. I had been around my father when he was hurt or unwell before, he was always Jimmy Rush, the keeper of cool. My father turned to me and opened his mouth before expelling a dry, sandy sounding cough as a nurse entered making the rounds.

    “Mr. Rush, I’m here to check your fluids and see if there is anything I can get you? And is this your son?” Nurse Melony, asked.

She was cute. Not yet worn by the world. Not yet cold and hardened by her career. I would have guessed a recent graduate and hire. “Yes, ma’am. I’m Jimmy’s son, Braeden. Thank you for caring for my father. Pop, do you need anything? Anything that Nurse Melony can help with?” I, asked.

    My father shook his head as Melony changed his IV bag to a fresh one and ran a few blood pressure tests while humming the latest Taylor Swift song to hit the charts. My father rolled his eye, just one when she wasn’t looking, and we shared a light smirk of amusement. 

    “Okay, Mr. Rush. You’re all set. Now, we don’t have you cleared for any solid foods quite yet, that’s part of what we have hooked up to you, so you don’t cramp. Water is fine, but in moderation for now until the doctor is back in to see you. In the meantime, if you need anything at all, just press the button in this remote and I’ll come running.” Nurse Melony, said.

    My father pressed the button the second she closed his room curtain and Melony returned confused. “Just testing.” My father, said.

    He never sounded so much like Harrison Ford than he did uttering that phrase. The growl and gruff nature of his voice lacked the tone and charm it usually carried. Still, even with all he had learned of his impending death, he displayed a bit of humor. Probably more for me than him, but nevertheless I appreciated it.

    I sat back down next to my father and again the silence of the space met the tunnel of my vision zeroing in on the minute hand of that damn clock. “Braed, I have to tell you something. Something I’ve told only God before.” My father, said.

    Braed was what he called me any time we were headed for a serious conversation and my father knew that even if he missed the necessary delivery tone that he prepped me right to handle the message. “They told me, pop. I already know.” I, said. 

    My father was trying to push himself to an upright position, an action his body and the tubes it was connected to persistently declined. “Pop, relax. Please. Just lay down. Tomorrow will be a better day.” I, said.

    “Braeden. Stop it! Listen to me. I have to tell you something and it will not be easy to hear. I need you to listen.” The more he spoke, the more the words slurred and the harder it appeared for them to escape. 

    “Okay. I’m listening, pop. I’m sorry. Go ahead.” I sat back down at his side and looked hard into his eyes. This was different. Those were not my father’s eyes that I had always known.

    “Twenty-two years ago. Your mother and I got into a fight. My pension was in jeopardy from the factory, and she was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to retire and that we would need help.”

    “Dad. Your pension was paid out. I’ve done your taxes for the last 15 years. Probably the only kid on the block who was doing taxes at 17 years old for their parents.”

    “It did. But how it did, is another story. See, I screwed up and it would have impacted our pension and reduced it by 70%. One little mistake. An oversight and it was going to cost our family our retirement.”

    “They paid you out. I’m telling you. Whatever you and mom fought about doesn’t matter. She’s been gone for six years.”

    My father struggled to control his animated hands despite the limitations due to all of the medical devices he had been hooked up to. His words were slower now and he concentrated hard to deliver them deliberately. “Please. Listen.” He, said.

    Fear. That was what was different behind his eyes. It was fear. An emotion I had never witnessed with my father in all my life. 

    “Twenty-two years ago, I got wind that our Union rep was meeting with board to discuss contracts for the next wave of hires. This was always a simple sign and stamp from the board. They never even read the documents. So, I forged an amendment document that would qualify me for my full pension and slipped it in the middle of my Union Reps pile.”

    “Dad, it doesn’t matter. You’re dying. This doesn’t matter. I promise. I do not care about your pension. I’m here now and I just want to be...”

    “Shh! Damnit, Braed! Listen!”

    My father let out that dry and sandy cough once again as the blood pressure monitor ran its scheduled check and began to tighten around his left arm.

    “Phil. The rep. The next day at work before he faxed the new contracts with the state and our legal department, he noticed my forged amendment letter and pulled me into his office.”

    My father began to cry and struggle with the remaining bits of the story. I remembered a man named Phil who worked with my father. I remember attending his funeral. Phil was a younger man. Younger than my father. It was a hard day for my father. Something he took with him from that day on.  

    “I…I…I just wanted what I felt I was deserved. I wanted to give your mother the life and retirement I promised. And when Phil told me he was going to shred the document and ask for my resignation, I…I just…”

    “Don’t say another word! Stop talking. Right now. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re old. You’re sick. You’re dying. And this is crazy talk, pop. Phil had an accident at work that’s all. It was an accident at work.” I, pled with my father to hold the rest of this secret.

    “I killed him. Braed, I’m so sorry. I killed him. I pushed him away and he fell and hit his head on the corner of the desk. He was going to shred my document, and I didn’t know what to do. It was an accident, Braed. A terrible accident. I saw the blood and I panicked. I put my document back in with the others, faxed it to the state and legal team and then drug Phil to the site floor and put a large rock by his head making people think it was unsafe material and just bad luck. I killed him, Braed. I killed him.”

    I held my father as he wept into my chest and continued to tell him everything was going to be okay. It was just an accident. Everything would be okay. My father’s vitals had been spiking causing Nurse Melony to come in and check on him. When she entered, she could tell we were having a moment, but of what kind was certainly unknown. 

    “I’m sorry. Your fathers levels were spiking. I have to ask you to give us the room. The doctor will be in shortly.” Nurse Melony, said.

    I hugged my father, unbeknownst to me for the last time. I told him that I loved him and that I promised we would make it right. While I waited in the hall, a code blue was announced over the speakers. The intensity of the already busy staff reached a level I had never seen. Nurses and doctors of all kinds were racing through stations, weaving in and out of small corridors, desk spaces and closets all entering…my father’s room. 

    Thirty-nine minutes later that same doctor, cold and quick had told me that my father had passed. He gave no detail and did not offer me a moment for questions. For him, it was all business, and he was already mentally prepared for the next family he had to visit. Nurse Melony, now wearing that sad reality nurses badge of honor witnessing her first loss came to me 10 years older than she was when I met her just hours prior.

    “Mr. Rush. I’m so sorry for your loss. The doctors did everything they could. Your father told us to make it right and we couldn’t, and I am so sorry.”

    “Make it right? He said those words? Make it right?” I, responded.

    Nurse Melony nodded and gave me a hug before telling me that I could enter the room in just a moment to say goodbye. 

    I knelt down next to my father’s cold body now devoid of all machine intervention and life. I held his hand in mine, and I told the physical remains of the most decent soul I ever knew who had just revealed to me his deepest indiscretion, “I will make this right. I will find a way.”

    The hospital staff, coroners and police met me outside the hospital doors before transporting my father’s remains to the morgue. They handed me his belongings and the wedding ring that never once left his finger. I thanked everyone for their time and gracious efforts with my father and informed them that I would be heading home for the evening and that I needed some time to process my father’s passing. 

    Inside the parking structure my heart fell heavy, and I began to cry. Six hours ago, my father was alive and as far as we knew, well. And all of a sudden, all I had left was his wallet, ring and this sandwich punch card with 9/10 punches completed. 

    It had been several weeks since we buried my father, and I hadn’t yet returned to work. Part of the perk of being the CEO of a successful operation is that I don’t need to be in the office every day and I can take the time needed to grieve and not have to worry about a paycheck. I spent most of my time battling versions of my father in my head. From the man who confessed his worst decision to visiting old places my father and I would go together and seeing old movies at the small two-screen in town. I struggled to grasp my father’s complete life and all that he held inside since that tragic day.

That’s when I walked by a little hole in the wall shop called, Montanelli’s Soups and Subs. I quickly opened my wallet and pulled out my father’s punch card from the night he passed. Montanelli’s Soups and Subs. Let’s complete this card, old man. I bet I can guess what you’d get. I thought to myself before I entered the shop. I wanted to share one last meal with just the version of my father that I had always known and for a moment, set aside his story.  

    “Afternoon, my guy. What can we do ya for?” The man at the counter, asked.

    I scanned the menu and smiled. “Let me get two pastrami sandwiches on rye, please. And I have this punch card, so I think that second one will be free?”

    The man at the counter took the card and looked confused. “Where did you get this, guy? Who gave you this card cause it ain’t you, pal. Only one guy ever came in here enough with this card and that guy ain’t you.”

    I took out my phone and I opened to a photo of me and my father at a ballgame. I showed it to the man at the counter and asked him if this was who he meant.

    “How you know Jimmy never in a Rush? That’s the guy. He’s out best customer. Or was. He ain’t been in for a while.”

    “Hah. Jimmy never in a Rush. That’s good. I like that. Jimmy is my…was my father. He passed suddenly a few weeks back.”

    “Ugh. I’m real sorry to hear that, guy. Jesus. The lord always takes the good ones too soon. Jimmy was a good man. Reminded me a lot of my father, you know?”

    “Thanks. He was. He was a decent man. Anyway, I never been here before and when they gave me his belongings the night he passed, this card was in it. I held onto it thinking if I ever stumbled by the place, I could go and have a sandwich for my dad and complete his card.”

    “I’ll tell you what, guy. Keep the card. The sandwiches are on me. Good taste, too. Your father always got the pastrami on rye.”

    I smiled, having known my father’s order well. “You don’t have to do that. That’s very generous, but I will gladly pay.”

    “Won’t make much of a difference either way, guy. This place will be closed in a couple months anyway, so you probably came at a good time.”

    “Closed?” I, asked.

    “Yea. The location is shit. No money for advertising or staff. I promised my mother I’d never work in the factory like my old man. Passed when I was a teen. Tragic accident. So, my mother never wanted me to work there. Conditions and all, you know? Well, this shop ain’t exactly bringing in the scratch I need, and I got a little one on the way so, yea. This one’s on me because the next time you come by them doors may not be open, know what I’m saying?”

    “Tragic accident? At the factory?”

    “Yea, some debris fell from one of the working areas. A rock or something. Fell from a height, hit my father on the head and next thing you know, lights out. Was a good man, though. I learned a lot. Was a lot like your pop. Why I always liked when he came through here. Jimmy never in a Rush was a character but he was a sharp one.”

    “My name is Braedon, by the way.”

    “Phil. Phil Montacelli.”

    “Well Phil. I think I can help you make it right, keep this shop open and keep you out of that factory…”