All stories › Family Drama › The Thursday Lid › Episode 1
The Water Pill
Episode 1 of 3 of The Thursday Lid by Linda Marchetti · free to read
The Thursday morning lid was full.
I had the organizer open on Dad’s counter, all fourteen lids up, the four bottles lined up by size the way I do it every Wednesday after work. Blood pressure, water pill, the statin for nights, the baby aspirin. Monday through Wednesday were empty, the way they should be. Thursday morning still had the little white water pill sitting in it like it had been placed there for display.
“You skipped Thursday,” I said.
Dad was in the doorway with his jacket on. He had been out to the garage and back twice since I got there. “I forgot.”
“You forgot the one that matters.” I turned the box so he could see.
“It’s a pill box, Jo. It’s not a bank vault.” He came over and looked at it anyway, the way you look at a thing you already know about. “One pill.”
“It’s the one that keeps the fluid off.” I said it the way the cardiologist had said it in April, and Dad heard the cardiologist in it and made a face.
The doorbell rang. Dad went to get it faster than a man with his ankles should. It was Rita Sheffield from across the street, holding the blue casserole dish she had borrowed from Mom two years ago. She brought it back full about once a month and took it home empty, and nobody had ever called that borrowing.
“Tell him seven-thirty,” she said to me, past him. “And tell him not to honk.”
“I don’t honk,” Dad said.
“You honk.”
He stepped out onto the porch with her and pulled the door most of the way shut. I filled six water pills instead of seven, since Thursday had one already, and then I picked up the bottle and counted, because that is what I do. Thirty tablets, filled two Wednesdays ago. Seven that day, seven last week, six today. There should have been ten left.
There were twelve.
Two pills had gone back into the bottle instead of into him. Plus the one still sitting in Thursday. Three Thursdays.
Dad came back in without the dish. “Rita says hello.”
“Rita said it to me. What’s seven-thirty?”
“Thursday. I take her to the store.” He took his jacket off, finally, and hung it on the chair. “She doesn’t do the highway anymore.”
“The store’s not on the highway.”
“Then it’s a short trip.”
I put the bottle down and put the lid on Thursday morning, with the pill still in it. “Dad. Three Thursdays. Where does the pill go on Thursdays?”
“Nowhere. I take it later.”
“Later when?”
“Later. Afternoon.” He opened the fridge and stood in front of it, which is what he does instead of leaving a room. “You can’t take that thing and drive, Jo. You know that. You take it at seven and you’re stopping at every gas station between here and anyplace.”
He shut the fridge. “I’m seventy-six. I know what I can drive on.”
That was the whole argument and it took about a minute. My phone buzzed on the counter while it was happening. Carol, my sister, two hours away. Did you count? I typed back All good and put the phone in my pocket. That was a lie and I knew it was a lie when I sent it, and I am telling you so you don’t think I am the honest one in this story.
Dad went out to the garage again. I heard the compressor start, which meant he was putting air in the tires, which he does on Wednesday nights now. I had not noticed that until this minute.
Carol wanted a copy of his insurance card for the file she keeps. She had asked twice. I went out to the car for it.
The glove box had the registration, a tire gauge, and a stack of parking stubs held with a paper clip. Visitor lot, the medical center on the highway, an hour from here. Three of them. Thursdays. In at 8:52, out at 12:40. In at 8:47, out at 12:55. In at 8:50, out at 1:10.
Under them was an appointment card for the infusion center. Thursdays, 9:00 a.m. I stood there in the garage with the compressor going and read the Thursdays four times before I read the name at the top. Dad’s last checkup was in April and it was clean. I had sat in the room.
The name was not his. Sheffield, R.
It was Rita’s card. He was the ride.