What Goes Around
“What is this place?” my father asked.
“It’s Seattle, Dad,” I said. “From up high.”
Lunch for two at the Space Needle’s revolving restaurant had seemed like a good idea when I’d wrested him away from his wife, Donna, that clear summer day. I’d hoped he’d be able to point out the marina where he’d docked his boat for years and lived aboard long ago, the places where he’d worked. We looked down at the tiny buildings and bug-sized cars. A ferry pulled out of the dock at Elliott Bay, container ships motored toward the port; sights we’d both seen many times albeit from a different angle. He tried, but the view meant nothing to him. His city, his waters, spread out before him, all just out of his mental reach.
Dad had been a sailor, out on Puget Sound from spring to fall each year. My summer birthday, my milestones, and then my children’s, all celebrated without him. Once he and Donna were back at home for the winter with the boat moored, they went back to their professions—he was a carpenter, she was a schoolteacher. I saw them at Christmas. We spoke on the phone. Donna was a constant presence, finishing his sentences and answering questions I’d intended for him. Seldom were he and I out together, just the two of us.
Before we left his house that morning, Donna handed me a tote bag with an extra pair of slacks inside. “See you in a few hours,” she said.
I’d been working on accepting my father’s frailty—his memory loss and shuffling gait— but extra slacks? The times I’d watched him at his house, he’d always made it to the bathroom. Donna was being overly cautious, but I knew better. I shoved the bag into the back of the car and left it there.
On the drive downtown, I tried to get Dad talking. I asked about his day and he struggled to answer. His memory seemed to have gotten worse in the two weeks since I’d seen him last. He couldn’t remember where we were going, but I hoped as soon as we got to the Seattle Center and he saw the Needle, all would come back to him. He’d remember the year he finished the work on the revolving restaurant; the long-ago day before the elevator was installed when he climbed the stairs to the top.
We pulled into valet parking and I jumped out and ran around to Dad’s side to make sure he had his cane.
“The Space Needle, Dad,” I said. “Remember?”
“Oh?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Maybe the Center had changed since he saw it last. Surely once we were inside and things looked the same as before, his memory would return. We rode the elevator up and were seated next to the window.
“What do you want to eat, Dad?” I asked him.
“Whatever you’re having,” he said.
He hadn’t even looked at the menu. Was that because he could no longer decipher the words? My stomach twisted. My dad—the prolific reader. The self-taught man, who recited poetry and brought home stacks of books from the library. I took a deep breath and launched into a hopefully foolproof subject. I pointed to the wall moldings. “Dad, you were the carpenter who installed the woodwork in this restaurant back in the sixties,” I said.
He looked up. “Oh?” he said. “Nice.”
I told him how my husband, Gary, used to treat our daughters to lunch at the Needle on their birthdays when they were growing up. How, as each girl’s birthday approached, a dress was chosen, shoes shined, hair bows set out. On the appointed day, I stood on the porch and waved goodbye as they skipped to the car and drove off with their dad. Later, after their trip to town, they bounced in the door clutching the requisite plastic Space Needle—in which a special drink had arrived at the table spouting dry ice vapor—and chirping about the elevator ride, the observation deck. About Daddy.
When night came, I’d tuck that day’s birthday girl into bed, her little body squirming with happiness, and listen to the details of her over-the-top day. I’d listen and be transported to my own childhood with a dad who routinely missed my summer birthday. A dad who—like the bumper sticker says—would rather be sailing.
In the sixties, the court determined the slice of my childhood I was to spend with my father: every other weekend and a week in the summer. But the court hadn’t got the memo: Dad reserved weekends for solo sailing trips. Our visits dwindled to a few hours a month, and no overnights. Once he married Donna, our contact lessened even more.
If he’d been grim or ill-tempered, I’d have been grateful not to see him. But those hours when we were together, when he joked and sang and held my hand, only made me ache for more. I’d spent some years trying to find a replacement dad—a fatherly teacher, an elderly neighbor man—never quite right but sometimes good enough. Now I was with the real guy. He might not be his old self, but he was here.
I didn’t tell him that day how hard I’d worked to bury my resentment. Instead, I chattered at him about the weather. Small talk was my strong suit; I could go on all day about nothing. It was the important things that stuck in my throat.
I demolished my fish and chips. Dad picked at his. He was happy enough. He smiled and told me how much he appreciated our lunch, but he might as well have been at McDonalds. The waiter took away our plates and brought dessert.
“Look, ice cream!” I said. His favorite.
Dad reached for his cane and turned in his seat, trying to get up.
“Where are you going, Dad?” I said.
“I gotta pee,” he said.
I looked for the restroom sign and found it nearby. We’d have to climb a long narrow stairway to reach the men’s. Not only that, we were sitting on the outer rim of a restaurant that was revolving 360 degrees per hour. Our table would soon be in a different place, nowhere near our current landmarks. The chances that Dad could find his way back alone were nil.
“I’ll come with you,” I said, adding, “I have to go, too.”
I followed him. I couldn’t help but hover. I took his elbow and put my hand on his back to guide him. The stairs loomed in front of us. People bustled up and down. The men’s room was off to the right of the steps about halfway up to the women’s room and the entrance to the observation deck. I followed close as he climbed the stairs. I’d have to let him go in by himself, and for the time it took him to finish, I wouldn’t be there to help if he needed something.
What had I done, bringing him to this place without backup? As if I knew what I was doing, thinking I could handle anything that came up. I hadn’t once let myself consider what Dad’s decline meant in real life. This was supposed to be fun, an elevator ride into the sky to look down at his city. But for my dad, the day had been disorienting, meaningless. He’d have been happier at a park. Why had I gotten it so wrong?
The minutes ticked by with no sign of him. Heaven only knew what was happening in there. He could’ve fallen, or worse. I watched the faces of the men leaving the washroom for signs they’d witnessed a disaster. Finally, I stopped a middle-aged man and asked if he’d seen my dad in there.
“Yeah,” he said, “he’s doing okay.” I breathed a little easier.
Soon Dad came out the men’s room door and started back down the steps. As he came closer, I noticed a wet stain on the front of his slacks. Not just a tiny little drip, but a splash that went from his front zipper down his left pant leg. It could’ve been water but… no. For a moment, I wanted to run away. Let someone else take care of this old man who so often couldn’t be bothered with me. But one look at him—confused, weary, and wearing wet pants, I pushed that thought away. I pictured the bag with the extra slacks inside 500 feet below us in the back seat of my car, wherever the valet had parked. Dammit. I didn’t know what made me feel worse, that I’d left behind Dad’s extra pants or that Donna knew him so much better than I did, or ever could.
Just then it struck me, the reason I’d been determined to make this day happen. Why hadn’t I seen it earlier? I’d told myself this lunch was a treat for Dad, a chance for him to enjoy the view. But my mind had played a trick on me. True, I didn’t have a party dress or dry ice or a plastic souvenir. I’d have had to wait until he didn’t have much choice in coming here. But I’d made it happen at last, my own special Space Needle date with Daddy.
I stepped forward to hold my father’s arm, and help him navigate the last few stairs. He brushed the wet spot with his hand as if to make it blend in somehow. I kissed his cheek. Gave him as big a smile as I could muster, and looked around to place myself in the ever-turning dining room. With luck, he’d forget about his soggy slacks by the time we reached our seats. Assuming I could find our table.
