10
Shield of Feathers
When January 1 dawned like any other morning, it broke Dad’s spirit. He
never again mentioned Y2K. He slipped into despondency, dragging himself
in from the junkyard each night, silent and heavy. He’d sit in front of the TV
for hours, a black cloud hovering.
Mother said it was time for another trip to Arizona. Luke was serving a
mission for the church, so it was just me, Richard and Audrey who piled into
the old Chevy Astro van Dad had fixed up. Dad removed the seats, except the
two in front, and in their place he put a queen mattress; then he heaved
himself onto it and didn’t move for the rest of the drive.
As it had years before, the Arizona sun revived Dad. He lay out on the
porch on the hard cement, soaking it up, while the rest of us read or watched
TV. After a few days he began to improve, and we braced ourselves for the
nightly arguments between him and Grandma. Grandma was seeing a lot of
doctors these days, because she had cancer in her bone marrow.
“Those doctors will just kill you quicker,” Dad said one evening when
Grandma returned from a consultation. Grandma refused to quit
chemotherapy, but she did ask Mother about herbal treatments. Mother had
brought some with her, hoping Grandma would ask, and Grandma tried them
—foot soaks in red clay, cups of bitter parsley tea, tinctures of horsetail and
hydrangea.
“Those herbs won’t do a damned thing,” Dad said. “Herbals operate by
faith. You can’t put your trust in a doctor, then ask the Lord to heal you.”
Grandma didn’t say a word. She just drank her parsley tea.
I remember watching Grandma, searching for signs that her body was
giving way. I didn’t see any. She was the same taut, undefeated woman.
The rest of the trip blurs in my memory, leaving me with only snapshots—
of Mother muscle-testing remedies for Grandma, of Grandma listening
silently to Dad, of Dad sprawled out in the dry heat.