In this story, I wrote about a woman whose father has Alzheimer’s disease and has come to live with her and her husband. The story appears to revolve around a litter of wild kittens and the question of what to do with them.
“All the Love in the World” is loosely based on my father,who wasn’t as harsh as the father in the story but was pretty formidable and had no love for animals as pets. The kittens are made up, as are the characters and the arc, but my dad did hit a buck over the head with a 2X4 once, was prone to punching any guy I dated repeatedly in the shoulder, and did wander off often in his addled state. For years, the Iowa DOT let him keep his license and folks were forever driving him home because he couldn’t remember where he was and where he lived. The conversations are pretty much how they would go with my father. The final scene, where they take the dad out to the farm, is pretty true to an actual early evening outing with my father during which he was amazed at the fact he owned a farm and then turned on us for it allowing it to get in such poor shape. (I was living in Arizona at the time, in my defense.) Taking care of him ran mother down, and we finally had to put him in the Alzheimer’s unit at the Storm Lake nursing home. After he died, one of the nurses told me that he would try to climb over the fence at in the late afternoons because he had chores to do.
I’ve tried writing about my father a few times, but the nonfiction pieces never turned out as well as this one. Go figure.
It was great to work with the editors at The Bellevue Literary Review, who were amazingly helpful in catching some inconsistencies and asking me to fill in some holes. I had originally submitted the story for the magazines annual fiction prize. It made the (unofficial) final rounds, which made me feel very happy, especially since the judge was Jane Smiley, an author whose work I so admire. I am very happy that The Bellevue Literary Review is publishing my first piece of fiction. I encourage anyone who loves good writing to check out this fine publication.
Read an Excerpt:
The day after he chucked a beer at Marty, I took Dad to the doctor’s office, as if some good would come of it.
“How can I help you?” asked the doctor.
“I’m not a young man anymore,” my father said.
“His memory’s gone,” I said. We’d talked at the hospital before about my dad’s condition, but I wanted the doctor to hear for himself.
“That’s a bunch of phooey.” Dad stood slightly bent, with his hands in his pocket. “I call that baloney.” He started shuffling toward the door, muttering to himself.
“We really need to take care of this,” I said.
“You always were a worrier,” said my father, his hand on the knob.
I’d lost count of how many times he had slipped out of the trailer in the night. We lived within a stone’s throw of the river. Something was bound to happen. Dad grumped off to the waiting room, while I stayed and talked to the doctor, who refilled his medicine but pronounced him healthy as a horse. “Healthy, except for his mind,” the doctor said. “Those old farmers don’t quit.”
When I went out to the waiting room, Dad was gone. Good Christ, I thought. I hoped he was in the bathroom, so I knocked on the door. No answer. The receptionist told me he’d just left.
I ran out, but he wasn’t on the sidewalk in either direction. I hoped to find him sitting in my car, arms crossed, a frown on his face, cussing me out, but he wasn’t there either.
Dammit, dammit, I thought, jabbing the keys several times at the ignition before they slid in. I started the car and looped around the neighborhood twice before I saw him. He stood in someone’s front yard, in the shade of a maple tree, staring up at the house as though he were deciding whether or not to buy it.
I pulled over to the curb and unrolled the window.
“Dad,” I yelled. He didn’t respond. I got out and walked up to him. The grass was thick under my clogs, and flowers poked up along the sidewalk. “Dad,” I repeated, grabbing his elbow. “Why’d you run off like that? I was worried sick.”
He looked at me with pity and shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
