A Game of Checkers
by Nikki Little
Once upon a time a father, mother, and daughter all lived together in a small house on a dead-end street that bordered on a long-abandoned and overgrown farm. It was a rather remote place at the edge of the city, and there were only twelve houses on the street. Three of the houses were empty, including the one on the left of the small house from the front porch. The front and back yards of the empty house were overgrown with tall grass and weeds. The vegetation was full of ticks, chiggers, and other nasty little critters. The father and mother were both 91 years old and the daughter was 60. The father and daughter were in reasonably good health for their age, but the mother was totally disabled and depended on the father and daughter to do everything for her. The father and daughter had been caring for the disabled woman for years. And every year seemed longer than the last.
The father did the care during the day while the daughter slept. While the father worked, the mother watched TV all day long. The noise from the TV made it difficult for the daughter to sleep. The endless parade of QVC, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Andy Griffith annoyed her to no end. The daughter got up in the evening and ate dinner with everyone else although often she did her own cooking for herself. The mother was finicky and wouldn't eat the daughter's fish or rice or stir-fries. The father put his wife to bed at around 11 o'clock and went off-duty. The daughter was the "night nurse." She did bathroom duties and household chores during the night so that her exhausted father could sleep. Night was the only time that the mother would tolerate her daughter doing bathroom duties. It took the father spending three days in the hospital before the mother relented and let the daughter do bathroom duties.
The father had collapsed at church. Useless Brother had brought Mother back home and rang the doorbell waking up the sleeping daughter who never went to church because she couldn't afford the loss of sleep. Taking care of Mother was a seven-day a week job with no days off. Ever. Brother looked annoyed as he rolled Mother's wheelchair into the living room and explained that Father had fainted at church and was taken away in an ambulance. Brother quickly split to go to the hospital. The hospital did three days of tests on Father and found nothing. Father's fainting spell had been from exhaustion. Daughter could have told the doctors that.
Daughter was alone with Mother for three days with no help. Brother never showed even once. Mother's needs were endless. Every 90 minutes or so Daughter had to maneuver a patient stand in front of Mother's wheelchair, get her into the stand, wrestle the stand to her parents' bedroom, and then maneuver Mother onto a "potty seat." Think cat litter box for humans without the sand. The stink when Mother had a number 2 was enough to gag a skunk.
Three days the daughter went without sleep taking care of Mother's needs. The endless noise from the TV assaulted Daughter's sleep-deprived brain. Brother never showed. Nobody called on the telephone to check. After three days, the daughter was exhausted and started looking for a respite center to put Mother in. Mother called the hospital.
"You have to come home right now because she's going to put me in a rest home!" wailed the mother. She didn't ask if Father was alright. She didn't ask if he still had tests that needed to be done. Her needs came first. Just like they had when Father had wanted to go to the funeral for his brother Jim in Kentucky.
Uncle Jim was Daughter's favorite uncle. Uncle Jim loved to play checkers and was the checker champion of the senior center in his small town in Kentucky. Mother said Father's first duty was to her. Mother expected Father to stay home and take care of her. Daughter volunteered to take care of Mother so Father could go to the funeral. Mother was not happy. Daughter had never seen Father defy Mother before. This one time was the only time it happened.
Daughter was ready to faint from exhaustion. Father called from the hospital to come pick him up. No bus service in the city. No taxis, either. Daughter, so exhausted she wobbled as she walked, drove to the hospital. She might as well have been driving drunk. The angels must have been watching because she arrived at the hospital in one piece. Father drove home.
Mother was full of complaints and devoid of gratitude. Father stepped behind Mother for a moment and turned off his hearing aid. "Yes, Dear, yes, Dear..." he said as Mother griped and complained. He nodded his head up and down. He didn't hear a thing. It was how he stayed sane.
Daughter bought Father a fabulous wood checker set and an exquisite wood red-and-black chessboard to go with the checker set for Christmas that year. Nobody made checkerboards anymore, and checkers players had to settle for a chessboard instead. A red and black chessboard was truly tough to find. The board was made of black wenge wood and reddish padauk wood. It was spectacular. A board fit for a world championship match. Daughter hoped to play an occasional game with her father.
Mother's needs were endless. Just keeping up with the housework and cooking was nearly impossible. Daughter and Father never had spare time at the same time. Daughter was always asleep when Father found a few spare moments. When Daughter found a few spare moments, Father was always busy in the kitchen, outside in the yard, doing laundry in the basement, or asleep in the night when Daughter was awake doing bathroom duty and household chores. The checkerboard gathered dust in Daughter's bedroom. Two years passed.
The inevitable happened. Father collapsed again. This time at home. Daughter called for an ambulance while Mother panicked. Who would take care of her? Who did she think?
Daughter cared for Mother as best she could for three days. Three days with no sleep. No rest. After three days Daughter started to call about respite care again. Mother called the hospital. This time the doctors did not let Father come home. They had more tests to run. They played with his blood pressure medication. They had him do stress tests. They had a patient with good insurance, and the doctors seemed intent on running up the bill as high as possible. Daughter could have told them it was exhaustion again.
Mother refused respite care. "This is my home and I'm not leaving!" Daughter lay on the floor and said she was too tired to move.
"If you want to stay in this home, you'll take care of me!" said Mother.
Daughter staggered upward and took Mother to the potty seat. The inane patter of QVC spewed from the TV. Every trip to the potty seat was about a fifteen minute production. Daughter finished cleaning Mother up and took her back to her wheelchair. Mother could get to the telephone from her wheelchair. Mother also had a cell phone on her vanity dresser that she could reach.
Daughter disappeared into the basement and headed to Father's gun rack. A shotgun, a 22 - caliber Marlin for rabbits, and a 30-30 Marlin for deer. Daughter pulled down the 30-30 Marlin, covered the round table with newspaper, and took out Father's gun-cleaning kit. Nobody knew it, but daughter had been studying how to use a rifle. She laid her cleaning checklist by the rifle and pulled out the necessary items from the kit. The kit was new and had everything necessary. Daughter knew this because she was the one who had purchased the kit.
Cleaning finished, Daughter went to a drawer in a vanity downstairs, and pulled out the 30-30 ammunition which she had bought the year she purchased the checkerboard. The ammunition had remained hidden behind a stored laptop computer for all that time. Daughter loaded up the 30-30 Marlin. Six bullets in the magazine. The TV blared upstairs. She pumped the lever to load the chamber. She went back upstairs one last time to check with Mother. Every step on the basement stairs took her breath away. She staggered into the living room. Mother was still watching QVC.
"You won't consider a few days in a respite center so I can get some sleep?" she asked Mother.
"You're just trying to get rid of me! This is my home. I'm not leaving!"
"Very well, Mother."
Mother seemed to gloat. As usual, she had gotten her way. Or so she thought. Daughter went back downstairs and made sure to close the basement door just in case Mother rolled into the dining room.
Daughter went back downstairs and picked up the loaded 30-30 Marlin. She walked out the back door to the porch, put the barrel in her mouth, cocked the hammer, switched off the safety, and pulled the trigger. No pain. No pain at all.
Mother heard the noise on the back porch, but thought that it was something from a neighboring home. The blare from the TV partly covered the noise of the gunshot. She waited for Daughter to return. She had to go to the potty. Daughter did not come. Where was that useless wench? Mother called for Daughter. No Daughter. Mother called the hospital. Father could not come home. Father said to call Brother. Brother did not answer the phone. All she got was voice mail. Mother started to panic and rolled her wheelchair as fast as she could to the dining room window. She leaned forward to see out the window. And fell forward onto the floor.
It was three days she lay there on the floor before she died of thirst. Yes, it can happen in three days. The telephone was in the bedroom and out of reach. Her cell phone was on her vanity in the bedroom. Out of reach. Brother never came to check on Mother or Daughter. He had a grueling six-day-a-week job and his own problems. He was too busy to help.
Father called the house four days after Mother fell from the wheelchair to have Daughter come pick him up at the hospital. Daughter was not available. No one answered the phone. Father called Brother and left a message. Hours later, Brother, looking annoyed, showed up at the hospital to ferry Father home.
Father and Brother discovered the bodies. Brother looked annoyed. Now he had to help plan two funerals. Father shook his head. Soul-crushing weariness pulled on his shoulders. "No funerals," Father said. "Considering the circumstances, immediate cremation and scattering of ashes for both."
"No service or headstone for either?" asked Brother.
"Nope."
Brother called for the police, and the mess was cleaned up. Both bodies cremated with no service or headstone. Father picked up the ashes at the funeral home and brought home the urns. He scattered Daughter's ashes in the back yard in the flower garden that was was always full of birds that she loved to watch. A wren lit on the fence just as he finished and began to sing. Father lingered a moment to listen.
Mother's ashes were spilled a little bit at a time in the toilet and flushed. "Good riddance, bitch!" whispered Father under his breath as he watched his wife's ashes swirl in the toilet with each flush.
After dealing with the ashes, Father walked into the living room, and turned on the TV to watch the evening news uninterrupted by any potty trips. He fell asleep on the couch while watching the news. He dreamed of playing a game of checkers with his daughter on the dining room table. When he awoke, he found the checkerboard and checkers pieces on the dining room table. The position appeared to be of a game just finished. Ever after that, once or twice a month, he would dream of playing checkers with his daughter and find the checkerboard on the dining room table after he awoke with the pieces in the position of a finished game.
The End
Version 3