Here’s an excerpt from a new novel I’m working on. In this story, my protagonist Nathan’s father lies incapacitated in a care home, in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s. Initially unable to communicate with his father at all, and feeling profoundly alienated, over the course of many visits Nathan gradually learns to express, and to receive, love.
One day, without thinking where he was going, Nathan’s car found its way to Rockabye Manor. Climbing the stairs behind the lovely nurse in starched white with a crisp little sailboat perched on her head, he had the distinct impression of ascending onto a higher plane. But as he entered the room, his old man looked so frail, small, skeletal, he nearly wasn’t there.
Moved by a strange impulse, it occurred to Nathan to wash his father’s feet. Wasn’t that in the Bible somewhere?
The nurse, regarding him quizzically, brought an enamel basin of warm water, a bar of Dove soap, and a towel—all white. As Nathan lifted the sheet at the bottom of the bed, for a moment he envisioned himself in a morgue. Shouldn’t there be a little tag on the body’s big toe?
Instead he was surprised at the life he discovered. He could not recall having ever actually looked at his father’s bare feet. They were wonderfully expressive—as revealing, he thought, as hands or face—even more so from having been overlooked. Imagine all the places these oddly-shaped clubs of flesh-and-bone had been, the thousands of miles they had traveled, the hours and hours of being stood upon, their utter faithfulness in supporting the towering body above them.
A word came to Nathan’s mind: holy. These were holy feet. All feet were holy. All, like acquiescent burros, such silent, humble beasts of burden, willing to go anywhere they were commanded.
Yet no longer. These feet, now, were at rest. A well-deserved rest.
Nathan wondered what they were thinking. For it seemed that now, their physical tasks completed, they were at liberty to let their own thoughts awaken, to ponder, comb, reflect upon all they had experienced.
They were bicolored, composed of two very distinct hues: bone white and electric blue. Their skin was so white that it might never have been outdoors, and their veins so blue, and so numerous, that they might have been a communication network linked to some other planet.
As though he were examining a priceless Ming vase, Nathan lifted one foot and caressed it: felt its surprising weight, the equally surprising softness of skin, and the delicacy of the birdlike bones. He felt now just as close to his father—even closer—than when looking into his eyes. There was no need to speak; the silence between their two beings was radiantly eloquent.
Picking up a little water in his palm, he let it fall over the held foot. The skin glistened, glowed, almost smiled, as though it had waited a long time for this moment. Cupping more water, and more, he let it fall and fall over the dry, thirsty foot—far more water than needed, as though Nathan himself felt it laving his own soul. Then he took the soap, worked up a good lather, and again he rubbed and patted and massaged much longer than necessary, then took more water and this time splashed it freely again and again until this foot was as clean and new as a baby’s. And then he took the towel and rubbed it tenderly dry, and replaced it very gently on the bed.
And he did the same with the other.
And then he sat and looked at his father’s feet for a long time, even as he noticed the light beginning to change in the room, fading to the deeper glow of twilight. And more and more those feet seemed to fill with the light of Heaven.
Finally, Nathan kissed each foot, awed at both the coolness and the warmth, the frankness and the intimacy of those kisses. And then he replaced the sheet and left the room.
Without a word being spoken, it was the most wonderful visit he’d ever had with his father.
Perhaps with anyone.
Strolling back down the walkway under the oaks, he felt somehow like a new man, or like a child, even a baby—a baby with maturity and intelligence—taking its first good look at the glowing world.
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