But Iona knew otherwise. 'He'll need someone to take care of the bills.
No matter what happens, as soon as you get back to Joseph, go down to the bank and have Ed Gentry put you on as a signer on both the checking and savings accounts.'
'That's crazy, and you know it. Daddy'll never agree to having me as a signer on his bank account.'
'He'll have to,' Iona replied. 'He'll need someone to write the checks for him.'
'Write the checks?' Diana echoed stupidly. the, Diana,' 'Your father doesn't know how to read or write.' Iona explained. 'He never learned.
He never wanted you or anyone else to know, but if something happens to me, if I die, he's going to need someone to look after him.
Diana was dumbstruck. 'Daddy can't read?' 'No. I tried to get him to learn before we were married, but he refused unable to get the letters correct.'
'If he can't read, how did he keep his job all these years?'
'He's always been able to do math in his head, so nobody ever knew.
When there were receipts that had to be written up or reports of some kind, I always handled those.'
'Will he lose his job?'
Iona nodded. 'Probably, and the house, too. I'm worried about what will happen to him.'
'I'll take care of him,' Diana promised. 'I don't know how, but I will.'
Iona lapsed into silence. For a while, Diana thought maybe her mother had fallen asleep. Diana sat there stunned, still grappling with the sudden knowledge that her father was illiterate.
She remembered his angry tirade when she had told him she was going to go to the University of Oregon to learn how to be a writer.
'A writer!' he had roared. 'You, a writer?'
'Why not?' she had spat back at him, daring him to hit her but knowing that he wouldn't because the rodeo was just days away. Max Cooper couldn't afford to give his daughter a black eye just before the Chief Joseph Days Parade and Rodeo.
'I'll tell you why not. You're a woman, that's why not.'
'What does that have to do with it?'
'Was Shakespeare a woman?' he demanded. 'Were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John women? I'll say not.
They were all men, every last one of them, and let me tell you, sister, they're good enough for me!'
She remembered the conversation word for word, and all the time that lying bastard had been berating her about how good Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were, he couldn't read a one of them. Sitting there in the darkened hospital room, Diana felt doubly betrayed, not only because her father had fooled her, but because her mother had helped him do it.
'I'm glad you married Gary,' Iona said at length. 'He seems like a very nice boy.'
'He's not a boy, Mom. He's twenty-five, five years older than I am.'
'I so wanted ,Well, I just wish you'd start a family I wish to have grandchildren.' Iona's eyes filled with tears she wiped away with a corner of the sheet.
Diana didn't have the heart to tell Iona that her good Catholic daughter was a mortal sinner who had been taking birth-control pills for a year now, ever since the first week of December of 1963. Gary had just happened to know of a doctor who wasn't averse to giving single girls prescriptions for the Pill.
Now that they were married, she and Gary had agreed it wasn't time yet for them to consider starting a family, especially not until he finished his master's degree. He was thinking about applying for a creative-writing Program In Arizona. Diana still had two more semesters to go before she'd have her teaching credential 'He's a lot like Your father, isn't he?' Iona said.
Diana was offended by the question and didn't answer.
Gary wasn't at all like her father. She'd gone to great lengths to find someone as different from Max Cooper as he could possibly be.
Gary was smart. He had a good education and a sense of humor, and he had never once raised a hand against her in anger. Maybe he was a little lazy. If there was a right way to do something and an easy way, Gary would choose the easy way every time- Maybe in that regard there was a certain similarity between her husband and her father, but other than that, Garrison Walther Ladd was as different from Max Cooper as day from night 'Does he treat YOU nice?' Iona asked.
'He treats me fine, Mom. Don't worry.'
Relieved, Iona Cooper finally relaxed enough to fall . . asleep.
They did the surgery early the next morning the doctor came looking for Diana in the small waiting ' lit Of the news' room, his shoulders sagged under the weight As soon as she saw the haggard look in his eyes, Diana knew the prognosis wasn't good.
'How bad is it?' she asked.
He shook his head. 'Very bad, Diana. I'm sorry. It's already metastasized. Completely inoperable. There's nothing to do but take her home and make her as comfortable as possible.'
'How long does she have?'
'I don't know. A few months maybe. A year at the most.'
