Lending a Hand

My father sits at the kitchen table, buttering scraps of paper with a pen. He is humming, dipping his pen into the butter and spreading it carefully, going through a pile of paper scraps that he has collected from around the house.

"Is this going to be enough?" he asks. My mother stands at the sink, peeling carrots. Her eyes well up with tears, and she cannot go on with the peeling. She drops everything and sits down heavily beside me at the dining room table. "He sounds so honest, like a little boy." She shakes her head, sniffling.

Later, I watch out a back window. My father is washing the dining room chairs. He sprays one down with the garden hose, scrubs it with steel wool, then rinses it again. The lusterous finish is ruined. Once it is washed, he carries it to the clothes line. Already there are two chairs hung with twine from the line, out to dry. He takes a length of twine from his pocket now, tying the third chair up expertly to hang. He goes back to wash another, humming a merry tune.

I go to my mother, explaining what he is doing. "I know," she says. "I know." I look at her, and she looks down at me. In her eyes I see the pain of her understanding. She hugs me close to her. "He'll come around."

In comes my father, humming. "Where's the coffee pot, honey?" My mother points to a cupboard. My father resumes his tune, grabbing the stainless steel pot from its shelf and hurrying outside with it. I watch after him, my mother hugging me closer.

After the coffee pot he takes out the family photo albums. My mother wrings her hands at the sight of it, but feels there is nothing she can do. I run to the back window again. A fresh breeze meets me, lifting the curtains into my face. And there is my father, taking all the pages out of our oldest album. I see a page of my mother in her wedding dress, washed and clipped up on the line. Page after page, rarely have I ever seen him so industrious. Eventually he is forced to take down the chairs, to make room. I watch as he tests one, wiping a finger across the seat and nodding vigorously as he deems it dry. Up go the pictures of Niagara falls from their honeymoon, and the baby pictures, and pictures of my first birthday. The pages play in the breeze.

After the photo albums, he comes back inside. My mother intercepts him in the dining room. "Don't you think you'd better take a break? I could make up some coffee and toast." "No thanks honey. Not hungry. Besides, the coffee pot's still drying." He moves past us, into the living room. There he wraps both arms around the television, lifts it with a great heave, and comes back through the house. "Dad!" I exclaim. "You're not--" My mother interrupts me. "He just wants to lend a hand around the house," she says. Again I see the same look of compassion and understanding, and am confused.

"Could you get the door for me?" he asks. I hesitate, but my mother shooshes me along after him.