I visit dad's on Good Friday with my sister. It's another wet day and they have the wood-burner stoked and hot, the lounge is an oven. We bring pizza and wine and my sister's shih tzu puppy, Freddie. My old cat, Mr Jones, sits up and watches the pup and doesn't seem too excited, but dad puts him outside anyway. As dad let Mr Jones out he called Sophie, the Labrador, to come in from her kennel. As we talked we also talked to the dogs, reassuring Sophie that Freddie was okay, not to be rough. Freddie went on bouts of exploring. Sophie followed him and lied down at a distance to watch. The Grey One, my sister's old cat, whom Penny is sure is a psychopath, walked across the terrace and looked in on us. He pisses on Penny's gumboots and leaves and we don't see him again that afternoon. He's just letting the pup know he's out there, dad tells us.Â
Dad's medical folder was on the coffee table and I read through it with Penny, she explained the black pieces of his cardiovascular map. They just have to fix some of the plumbing, dad says. The ticker is okay its just the plumbing.
My face becomes red. I take some of my layers off, and occasionally I go and stand outside near the rain to cool off. I talk to Mr Jones to see if he remembers living with me in the city and dad comes out to check I'm not smoking out there. I ask him if he's been sleeping at night and he tells me he's been sleeping fine but the medication has him getting up to pee during the night. Later in the afternoon he tells me about the dream he had a couple of nights earlier. He could see from above the surgical lamps as a surgeon was operating on him at the table. He wanted to call out and tell the surgeon not to cut where he was about to, but he couldn't speak in the dream.Â