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“Harold Michaelis,” Dad answers. In my mind I can see him standing there with probably no clothes, gaunt and perfectly groomed.

“Pop, it’s me,” I say.

“Stanley!” He calls to Mom. “Honey, it’s Stanley!”

“I have that financial rundown you need. We can talk about it.”

“Sure, anytime,” he says. “Are Sandra and the kids coming?”

“Not this time. We would never get around to business. I thought we could come over Sunday after church.”

“Perfect. You are on your way now?”

“Yes, I’m almost there.”

“Perfect,” he says again.

“And Pop,” I add. “Pants for everyone. Tell Freddie and Moonglow.” They being my younger brother and his live-in girlfriend.

“If you insist,” he says.

I hang up. I can see him going to tell Mom. He used to bounce around like a rabbit, now he shuffles. He is only sixty-two and he shuffles. I don’t want to think about that. I am thinking about the financial arrangements I bring. They are fine financially, both retired from long-term directorships of large non-profit organizations, that, combined with their stringent frugality makes them comfortable. They can afford to support themselves and Freddie and his mate, Starburst or whatever her current name is. Not that Freddie doesn’t work, he does, he works hard paying little or nothing for anything he can sell online. Freddie doesn’t contribute to the household; they never require it.

Dad opens the door and throws his hands in the air. “He’s done it now!” Of course he has, someone has always done something. “If Congress doesn’t block him, a decade of work goes down the drain! Your mother is beside herself.” Naturally she is, for as long as I can remember.

“The Cubs looked good on the last home stand,” I say.

He stops, it dawns on him what he said, and he changes. Pop greets me with a kiss on the cheek, I hold him to me, and he is a warm and fragile skeleton. He is wearing shorts, so I am glad about that. His Colonel Sanders goatee is perfectly trimmed and waxed. It, like his swept back hair is salt and pepper but the once generous locks are now dull, sparse, and frayed. He is emaciated and I can hardly look at him.

“What did the Doctor say?” I ask.

“Ahh!” He waves a hand on a broomstick arm.

“Much appreciated if you put on a shirt,” I say.

“First pants, now shirt?” He asks with a smile.

“You’re so…” I look away but not before he sees the water in my eyes.

“Oh.” He looks at his emaciated bare chest, pats me on the arm and shuffles away.

I call after him, “Shirt for Mom too.” He waves a hand in the air.

A lumbering noise sounds from behind me. I turn and there is my brother, Free-Ride Freddie. He isn’t thin like Mom and Dad who deprive themselves for world hunger. Freddie can spout the views and even be sincere, but he isn’t going without anything he desires for any cause.

“Hey, kiddo.” Freddie kisses me on the cheek like our parents do. His damp, unwashed hair brushes my face and turns my stomach a bit, but he is my baby brother. Freddie’s live in, Sunchild or whatever she calls herself now, emerges from the back of the house and I say hello, she moves a hand a little and smiles. She’s been smoking hash, and the cloud follows her in.

“H…how are Sandy and the kids?” Freddie asks with his endearing stutter.

“Great. We are coming over on Sunday. So, you know.” He knows what I mean, hide whatever needs hidden and everyone wears clothes. He will do it; he may be a freeloader, but he is a thoughtful and considerate freeloader.

“Dad doesn’t look good,” I say.

Freddie’s eyes moisten and he rests a hand on my cheek. “No, kiddo. Re…remission is over.”

I wipe my eyes. “That’s why he wants the financials,” I say. “When does chemo start?”

“Pop says n…no more chemo,” Freddie says.

I am not surprised. The last round almost did him in and Pop said he wouldn’t go out that way.

Freddie continues, “L… look,” He adds, “I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s a good thing you are bringing the kids over. I don’t know how…how long he is…is going to be like this.”

“How’s Mom?” I ask.

“You know M… Mom, she goes on. She says it is part of life and she accepts it. Doesn’t like it but accepts it,” he says.

“How about you?” I ask.

He looks away and chews on his large lower lip. “I’m like M… Mom.” I think, yes you are, sans the self-sacrifice. “I don’t like it but what can be done? We will take care of him here. I’ll do whatever he needs. I…I…I will c…c…carry him in…in my ar… arms if…if I have…have to.” He breaks.

I nod. “I know.”

“They have so…so many friends.” He pauses a second. “And you…you…you of course. He will be on maintenance medications, morphine, you…you know. Starfall is an RN, she knows what to do.”

I am first taken back that Freddie’s longtime girlfriend who is now evidently named Starfall, is an RN. She has been around using various names for years and I have never seen a sign she did anything other than smoke dope, change names, and help my brother sell junk. But the astonishment I experience is belayed by the fact that a grown adult goes by the name of Starfall.

I consider it a good thing after all that they are here. Freddie will klutz around in his way, but he will help Mom and who knows, maybe Starfall has more going for her than I ever realized.

Freddie continues, “I’m more concerned about you. Y…you and Pop are so dependent on one another.”

I find this an odd statement as I don’t permanently live with my parents and rely on them for everything.

Freddie tries to explain, “I mean, you made him love you and he did the same. We are easy to love, me and Mom, like we’re all over the place, you know? You and him aren’t like that, you guys push forward in one direction, and you are there, right out front for everyone to see. And it’s all cool, because we are what we are and there is really no difference. It’s like two sides of the same coin, you know?” When Freddie talks like this, he can speak smoothly. “See all this stuff,” he gestures wide, I guess to include the whole world “it can come down on us, no doubt.”

 Freddie looks at me intently and continues, “The outside stuff, it turns out, doesn’t matter in the long run. It can’t really touch us, not where it counts anyway. See this thing he’s got, it’s just a thing and when it’s done with him, then he’s still Pop and nothing has really changed. We all go on being what we are.”

Freddie sees my puzzled look, glances at Starfall and gives up. “I …I… I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” She rubs his back and I shrug.

The folks come into the room, fully dressed, thank heavens, and Mom is talking. “I can’t believe this country elected that man.”

“Stanley is here, love,” Dad reminds her.

“Honey, you’re here!” Mom says and kisses me on the cheek. “Father says you are all visiting Sunday. How is your lovely wife?”

I have often wondered if it is hard for my folks. My wife Sandra is as I, a dedicated Christian believer who grew up in a militant nonbelieving home, but they love Sandra to pieces as they do me.

Things were not always this good between my parents and me. Long before Sandra, we had constant disagreements. I was uninterested in their causes and controversy, and they were rankled and dumbfounded by the beliefs I turned to in college. They could not comprehend my way of thinking any more than I could theirs. Once during a confrontation about my faith, I told them, “You have always said to accept differences, but I am different from you, and you don’t accept me.” Pop gave me a puzzled look and said, “You are our child, of course we always accept you.” He stopped talking, glanced at Mom, then me, then the floor, sighed, laid a hand on my shoulder and sat down. Mom smiled and we never argued again.

In the kitchen, Mom clears off the table and makes organic espresso, we all sit. The coffee is good as always. It is one of the few extras my parents enjoy. Freddie is fully himself as he and Starfall munch on packaged junk food.

We discuss finances for a while and then many other things. I watch Pop. I take in the way he talks, his laugh, his smiles, his looks at Mom. It strikes me that I am seeing nothing new. I recall something from a Shakespeare Sonnet that Sandra read to me the previous evening, “And that is this, and this with thee remains.” I see that it fits, and I know what Fred is trying to say.

When I drive away, Mom and Pop are on the porch. I see him, and yes, the disease is here with the frail and bent body, the paper skin and stick limbs. But Pop is here, and he is the same. He is not unfazed and not unaffected, yet he is unchanged.

My brother is right, we are here. We may sometimes be all over the place, we may be easy to love or not and it is true that we are present, out front and obvious for anyone to see. We prove our essence not as much by how we are but by what we are and by the reality that we are ultimately and undeniably here. It is the whole of us and will forever be. Whatever happens, whatever comes, we are here, and we are what remains.