Some Fruits Are Orange

The Avalon Literary Review, 2019

I was six, sitting on the kitchen counter, legs swinging and heels kicking the napkin drawer. It was already warm out. The neighbor was mowing his lawn. Dada held out an orange red yellow mottled fruit, with a tinge of green at the rounded tip. I took it and a wonderful aroma came off the stem end. Dada’s best friend, Uncle Jamie, had mailed the almost ripe mango the week before. It came in a shoebox with a note, “Enjoy!” and was wrapped in pages from the Los Angeles Times sports section. 

During the week the scent drew us back to the fruit basket to see how the colors had deepened. It must have been a Sunday in July, for Dada was slow and dreamy, wandering about the house until it was time for the big show. 

Dada took the mango and sliced it in half, skimming the narrow, flat central pit on one side then the other. He peeled that central slice and let me gnaw on the slippery flesh around the pit, an orange gold sweetness. The pit was white and lumpy with a swollen middle, and furry. I got strands of fur stuck in my teeth, but I didn’t care. The soft fruit melted in my mouth, igniting previously dormant taste buds. 

I scraped the pit clean and placed it on the cutting board. 

“What do you think?” 

“Heavenly!” My nanny said that word a lot, and it seemed right to try it out on this occasion. Dada’s eyebrows popped and he smiled a bit at hearing the word. 

“So good, right? Just wait. Your Uncle Jamie taught me this when I visited him last year.” 

Dada sharpened the small paring knife and took one half of the fruit. He scored the flesh in long parallel lines spaced just so, trying not to cut into the skin. He turned the fruit and cut into the flesh the other way, making a grid. He set down the knife and turned the fruit inside out. Now there was a hedgehog of mango flesh, a flavor grenade.           

He held it while I nibbled off one cube. He took a bite. We had mango juice on our chins, with no napkin in sight. We didn’t care. We feasted. It would be fifteen years before I ever saw the paintings of Gauguin. His pink sky over inlets, the laughter of full-bodied Tahitians with flowers in their hair at the water’s edge. But right there at the museum I suddenly remembered the red kitchen wall clock ticking as the robin sang its tune in the shade of the green maple just beyond the kitchen. And my mouth alive with mango. Art school, painting, color consulting, interior design, and painting again. Color has ruled my life, but I can’t separate it from tasting delicious foods. I credit Dada as he carried me on his shoulders so I could commune with the trees when I was too small to climb them. He would hand up one strawberry at a time, and I would drop each green collar behind us, leaving an ephemeral trail – green on green - as I tasted summer.

Much later, I would guide my own daughter through the gardens and farmers markets of the many cities we traveled when she was young. I never thought Peri would use her full name, Periwinkle Voss, but she became a jazz singer and it seemed preordained. She is named for that mutable blossom – pink, purple, blue – seen at some picnic with my father, when I told him I was pregnant and he cried more than I did. 

So many colors and years gone by, and now my father is living here with me. Now it’s just the two of us, like it was my whole childhood after Mama died. 

I seem to be most comfortable living with only one person at a time. On my thirteenth birthday I announced I was giving up calling my father by the odd paternal nickname ‘Dada.’ It was inspired by the art movement, a 1920’s jazz song, and my dislike of the way the word ‘Dad’ just ended abruptly. I would now call him by his distinguished first name, so after Dada came Robert. Again, his eyebrows popped and he gave me the half smile. After Robert it was Dory; then Suze; then briefly Evan who gave me Peri; then Peri for eighteen years; then Jean Paul; then unavoidable Matilda after the storm; and then Kazimir. Oh, Kaz, the one who got away! And now Robert again. 

It was sobering to move him here and have to bring in a hospital bed. While some of his furniture was being trucked across country, and he was taking his time traversing the country with Peri, I repainted the guest room a warm cream just this side of white, with the wall behind the bed a muted terra cotta.

I imagined the colors would ground him and keep him here, an invitation to stay among the living just a little bit longer. A liquid wish in a can. In that final countdown month, Peri shuttled back and forth between us, helping me make Robert’s room as comfortable as possible and helping him wrap up that long chapter of forested bliss back east. He was naturally sad at leaving his little red cabin in the woods, losing his independence, but excited at the prospect of coming west to be with me, and Peri so close too. She packed up and shipped three boxes of his music, old friends to welcome him in this new space. 

When the boxes arrived, I filled the new long shelves in his room with the CD’s and marveled anew at Robert’s eclectic taste. I chose something at random – Balinese gamelan – and the music filled the room as I put away his sweaters and light flannel shirts, which looked forward to embracing him once again as I did. There was the Irish sweater he had worn when he took me to college. It had been repeatedly repaired, but I knew where the tears had been. As the music went on I was transported back to my childhood backyard and the ‘listening parties’ he’d host for the neighborhood. People thought he was odd, seeking out strange music from parts unknown. Who else would travel the world like this? I was thrilled that he took me with him, made me curious about other places and other people. 

Robert’s most cherished books started to fill in empty spaces in the many bookshelves in the house. I turned to the kitchen and looked at recipes, simple things I could make to comfort his dwindling body. In short, Peri and I did everything we could prior to Robert’s arrival to ensure that settling in would go as smoothly as possible. This visit would slide into a stay and eventually, a different kind of departure. 

The day finally arrived. I got up early and lit a small branch of velvety white sage leaves. I blessed myself, asked for strength to be the kindest, best companion for my father. The familiar holy aroma instantly settled me. I waved the fragrant smoke in every room of the entire house, which would now become Robert’s refuge also. By the time Peri arrived with Robert later on, the fragrance had almost faded, but I could feel the house fresh and ready for this new phase. 

Peri and I helped him to his room, although he was walking well even after the long day of travel. We unpacked his suitcases and put the rest of his things away. The last thing was that old photo I used to look at all the time, the one of my parents laughing in a rain of rice at their wedding. Robert placed it on the bedside table just so. The hospital bed was made less clinical with the quilt and new flannel sheets, and I was glad I never put up those side rails. 

Peri and I left Robert to nap while we made lunch. I leaned into her, so thankful for such tender care of her grandfather. After eating, she too took a nap on the couch and then drove home. 

Robert has chosen not to fight, not to intervene with what is already in motion. His palliative care doctor here helps with pain management, but I know my father is already partly on the other side of an ever-widening river. Maybe it was always so? Or maybe he is just caught in the flow of cells migrating with their own logic while I stand on shore? 

I get up in the middle of the night to check in on him. I listen for his breathing and tiptoe in to stand by the bed without waking him. I feel my own heart and hear my own breathing, there in my pajamas. I remember checking in on Peri when she was young and think how often Robert must have likewise checked in on me when he was still Dada. I go back to bed and fall into a dream of walking in the woods somewhere beyond Robert’s little red cabin. I find a red cardinal feather. In the morning it takes me a while to remember my job now is to tend my father. 

Robert has some unusual cravings, and even when he doesn’t know what he wants, I try to bring him something new to taste. At least he still has a good appetite. There is a farmers market, within an easy walking radius. It is far enough to get a bit of exercise and escape the house of my father’s dying. 

Friends do visit, Robert’s and mine, so we are never stranded and strained for too long. And the nurses from hospice come often to help. Yet, I am not ready for this. 

Peri too is not ready, but by spring she will have a child, who will inexorably carry us forward. Unlike Robert, unlike me, Peri has freely intended single parenthood. She says that already it is her greatest creative adventure. Robert loves to put his hand to her growing melon belly and speak to the baby. 

He makes Peri and me cover our ears, saying that his message is private. Will he live long enough to meet this new one and pass the torch? 

One Thursday at the farmers market, I revel in the fullness of autumn. The sky is blue and while warm, there is poignancy to the light. A guitar player is playing her own songs today. Kids and dogs are running around. Relentless life here. I think ahead to dinner with Robert. Two of my artist friends are joining us. I fill my basket with some dinosaur kale, field mushrooms, and half a dozen local eggs – pale blue, greenish, speckled brown. A painter’s fan of soft tones. That and some bread and farmer’s cheese will do. 

I am drawn to the table of hachiya persimmons. Not as exotic as the dragon fruit, which looks like an ice dancer’s flaring magenta dress on the outside and specks of charcoal on snow on the inside. Or the waving many fingers of the exotic citrus, the yellow Buddha’s hand not clinging to attachment. But the hachiya is a perfect heart-shaped lantern that declares the season. On autumn drives through wine country, I have seen the astonishing persimmon trees. Bold goblin globes dangling from bare branches. I take one of each of these fruits and go home. 

I want to start a new painting. As I’m walking, I imagine the Buddha’s hand on a blue field reaching for something out of the frame. When I get home, Robert is asleep, so I go to the studio and turn the baby monitor on. The painting goes quickly, the Buddha’s hand the perfect model. When I hear Robert stirring I go to his room. He wants to see what I’m painting, and so I help him to the studio. The light is especially good in the golden hour, and he soaks it in. 

Three days later there is a perfectly ripe persimmon. I poke it gently and it feels pliable, almost liquid under the thick skin, like a breast. I break off the stem and sepals and place the persimmon on a blue and white Chinese plate. The colors sing in the early afternoon November light. I gather napkins and teaspoons and make my way to my father’s room. 

He is sitting up in the pale yellow armchair, wearing a slate blue sweater that brings his eyes back to sparkling. 

I place the tray on the table next to Robert’s chair. He gazes at the persimmon, then over to the painting of the Buddha’s hand fruit that I finished yesterday, approving of the colors, the shapes. He turns again to the hachiya plate. I pull up another chair, and it feels almost like normal. I realize how good it is to see my father in a chair, sitting up with his feet on the ground. “It looks like an upside down heart,” he observes. 

The hachiya does, almost pulsing in this light. 

His eyes travel to the wedding picture by the bed, then beyond it to the trees outside. We sit in the quiet, and I breathe slow and deep. I remember when this room was Peri’s, her drawings and posters everywhere. I wonder what it will become later. After. The hospice nurse reminded me the other day to just breathe, that I didn’t have to do much of anything when I was with my father. I could just follow his lead. After a while with his own thoughts, Robert pulls his focus back to the room. 

I circle back to the hachiya as an upside down heart. 

“Did you ever experience your heart flipping?” I ask him. “Twice. The first time was when I met your mother. The other time was when she died.” 

“Oh, Dada,” I say and lean over and squeeze his hand. I knew he had been at work in the city when she had the car accident, but he had felt her sudden absence at the exact moment of her passing. 

He turns his hands palms up now, as if to say, What can you do? As he does that, my hand rolls off his. I echo his gesture. This is letting go of what was never ours to keep. 

But now he begins to cry. And I remember I don’t have to do anything, but make room for my father, to guard his moments. 

“Oh, I should have brought a knife,” I say. “I’ll be right back.” When I return, Robert is composed and takes the knife. His hand is shaky, so I gently lift it from him. He doesn’t protest, but watches carefully as I score and peel the persimmon’s thick skin back, like petals. 

I dig into the fruit with my spoon. A jellied blob of persimmon held up to the light. “You must have the first bite, Dada.” I move it slowly towards him, and he closes his eyes and opens his mouth, blindly trusting in the goodness to come.