Her home.
Grandpa’s.
Ours.
This really is
my room now.
Not a place to sleep for the summer.
Not a place
in case I made the company.
My room.
I make my bed.
And stuff dirty clothes into the hamper.
I tug out my ballet bag.
The toe shoes are tangled.
I wrap each one carefully.
My skirt is a wadded ball.
I smooth it out and hang it
in the back of the closet.
The whole ballet bag fits perfectly
on the top shelf of my closet.
I shut the door.
We are all starting a new life.
I’m ready to go see Grandpa.
It’s nice to pass that emergency sign
and park in the visitors’ lot.
An ambulance zooms by.
Somebody else’s life is changing.
Maybe ending.
Mom stops me outside the door.
“Even though he isn’t in ICU,
I don’t want you to be shocked
by his appearance.”
“Okay.”
“What I mean is that
he looks pretty normal,
but he isn’t going to be able to respond to you.”
“Okay.”
“So act normal.”
“Come on, you two.” Dad steers both of us
through the door.
“Dad!” Mom bubbles
and gives Grandpa a huge hug.
I hang out at the end of the bed.
Can’t even see him yet.
“You are looking
so much better today, Lawrence,”
says Dad in a louder voice than usual.
They both take a seat
on either side of the bed.
“Grandpa?” I say, all trembly.
At least he has his glasses on,
and most of the tubes and wires are gone.
His eyes focus on me,
and half his face smiles.
The other half
looks dead.
“Give Grandpa a kiss, Clare.” Mom leans away
so I can reach him.
I kiss
the side that works.
Warm and soft.
He reaches up
and takes my hand.
“Watch his IV,” says Mom.
“Martha, Clare knows to be careful.”
Dad gives me a wink.
“Yep. I had one of these
a few days ago.
Right, Grandpa?”
“Auuuughh,” he says
and drools.
I gasp and look away.
I thought that was only part of the stroke.
He’s going to keep drooling?
A tear leaks out of my eye.
“Clare.
It’s important
that we keep control,”
Mom says sternly.
But Grandpa rubs my hand.
I look at him again.
Mom finishes wiping his mouth,
but he has a tear now too.
“Would you stay here, Clare,
while we check in
with the doctor?”
“Sure, Dad.”
I sit down next to the bed.
For the first time ever,
I’m nervous to be alone
with Grandpa.
“So, this
is a nice room.”
He grunts.
“At least no one is in the bed next to you.
You get some privacy.”
“Hellooooo!” A nurse busts into the room.
“And how are we, Mr. Leary?”
Oh, great.
We again.
Somebody’s mother, I’m sure.
Grandpa smiles
half of his half-smile.
“You can wait
on the other side of the curtain,” she says to me.
“Okay.”
I stand by the window
as she flings the curtain around the track.
I take a peek over my shoulder.
There’s an open space I can see through.
She takes his blood pressure,
his temperature,
checks under his gown.
Why does she have to do that?
I look away fast.
Oh, I bet he’s got a catheter!
That’s got to be
what that tube was
coming out from down there.
The one draining into the bag
hanging over the bedside.
It was yellow liquid all right.
Yep, pee.
I bet he’s grossing himself out!
“Your bag looks fine, Mr. Leary,” she says,
“I’ll be back in an hour.
Buzz me if you need anything.”
She tugs down Grandpa’s gown,
snaps up the sheet,
and slides the curtain aside.
“All done!” She bustles out the door.
“Well, it’s sort of private,” I say under my breath.
Mom scoops some pudding
into Grandpa’s mouth.
Most comes out.
“That’s all right, Dad.
It will take some time
to relearn a few things.”
She scrapes it off his chin
and smooshes it back in his mouth.
I’m totally sickened,
but I don’t want anyone
to know.
I watch,
but
my stomach’s squeezy.
“You’ll be going home with us soon.”
Dad grips Grandpa’s foot
through the sheet.
“And we’ll be back tomorrow for a visit,”
says Mom.
“Bye,” I say.
Grandpa reaches his arm up.
But he’s not waving good-bye.
He’s asking us to come back.
“Soon, Grandpa.
Soon.”
I choke a sob.
“He needs physical therapy
and assisted living.”
Mom’s voice is squeaking.
“I don’t know how we are going
to handle this, Dwight.
The bills will be enormous.”
“Take a deep breath, Martha.
Let’s get you to the house
so you can sleep.
Everything will seem better then.”
She sniffles.
“I’ll check in at the bookstore.
Clare can straighten up
while you rest.
Let’s take this day by day.
Okay?”
She stares straight ahead.
What will the days
be like?
Now I know.
We have breakfast together.
Dad goes to work.
Mom and I go to the hospital.
I read to Grandpa and work the crossword
so he can see it.
Mom scoops in his lunch.
Then she goes with him to physical therapy
to learn what exercises
she’ll do with him at home.
That’s when I smooth out his bed
and water the flowers
his church friends have sent.
Throw out the dying ones.
Then I flip on the TV and chill for a while.
We get Grandpa back into his bed
and say good-bye.
That’s the worst part.
Then we head to the house.
I clean up and do laundry.
Mom works over the bills and insurance.
I garden.
Which is the only time I even think about ballet,
and how different my life is
wit
hout one plié.
Mom and I cook dinner.
Dad gets home.
We eat,
read, watch TV,
then get to bed early
to start again.
Over and over.
Day by day.
I dig out all the daylilies
along the front of the house.
The bulbs are clumped tight.
I pull and cut them apart carefully
and lay them in the wheelbarrow.
The pulpy white roots dangle exposed.
I pick the grit out from under my nails
as the work truck pulls into the driveway.
Two construction workers
bang an ugly ramp together
in a few hours.
It runs long to get a gentle slope
up to the big front porch.
They had to take out the side railing
for the landing.
Mom writes a check and they pull away.
I get down in the dirt
and replant the flowers
next to the ramp.
I’m trying to break up that long line.
Everything else in Grandpa’s garden
is planted to make gentle curves.
Even the house has the sloped Tudor roof.
The daylilies don’t help much.
The ramp is one long eyesore.
The moving company
cleared everything
out of our apartment
and dumped it here
in one day.
I didn’t even get a chance
to say good-bye to my room.
Not that it was all that special,
but still.
It’s something I always do
before we move.
How do I know
they got
all my stuff?
I step around the boxes
stacked in the living room.
At least the big furniture is still out in the garage.
How will we fit
all our stuff in
with Grandpa’s?
Somebody is going to have to
get rid of things.
Especially with our giant book collection.
I slide a couple boxes to the wall
to make a path.
Mija sharpens her claws on a cardboard tower.
At least someone
likes this mess.
“Donation
or storage,” says Dad.
“Or garage sale,” Mom adds.
Dad glances at me. “What do you think?”
I look over Mom’s itemized list
of our stuff and Grandpa’s.
There are a lot of twos
running down the quantity column.
“I think we should save
as many of Grandpa’s things
as we can.”
“Me too,” says Dad.
“It will make Lawrence feel like it’s his home
even though we’ve moved in.”
“I’d like to keep
my kitchenware, though,” says Mom.
“He won’t notice that,” I say. “But
let’s keep his couch and definitely his chair.”
“Absolutely,” Mom says.
“Then we can donate or have a sale
to get rid of what we don’t want.”
“That sounds like a plan,” says Dad.
He puts his arm around us both.
It’s good to have a plan
we all agree to.
Too bad Grandpa doesn’t get a vote.
I drop into bed,
surrounded by boxes.
At least we got the kitchen unpacked.
I can work in here
tomorrow.
Even if everything is out of sight
it’s nice to have my stuff close by.
Grandpa’s got to be anxious to come home soon
and be near his own stuff.
Grandpa can
halfway smile,
hold and squeeze my hand,
listen,
make grunting sounds,
chuckle,
drool,
dribble food,
and get from the wheelchair
to the toilet
and then back to the chair
if someone helps.
(Not me.)
But that means no catheter!
Which is great.
Um …
That’s
about
it.
We go for a walk.
Not on a trail around a lake
or up a mountain path.
Grandpa and I
walk
around and around
the twelfth floor
of the hospital
in the brand-new wheelchair
Dad got him.
I walk and push,
and he
rides.
“Again, Grandpa?”
He grunts and points.
We go again.
I dump year-old candy into the trash.
The movers definitely brought everything
from my old room.
Oh, here are all my posters.
I open the tube and tug them out.
Dancers spread across my bed.
A hotness sears my stomach.
Maybe I can store these or something.
No way can they go up on my walls.
And I can’t dump them.
It’d be like tossing out a part of me.
Only because I’ve had them forever.
I stack the curling posters.
I might as well add Baryshnikov to them.
That corner’s still peeling up.
I tug the poster off the wall
and add it to the pile.
The roll slides easily back into the tube.
I toss the whole thing into a storage box.
The last box is empty.
Finally.
I flop onto my bed.
It looks different
from my room at home.
I like this old bed Grandpa had in here.
It’s more comfy than mine,
which is why I told Dad I wanted it instead.
And the antique dresser.
Everything’s less crowded,
even with the rest of my books from home.
So much stuff ended up in storage.
All the ballet trinkets and knickknacks.
My bulletin board is empty.
What will I put up there now?
No ticket stubs from performances.
No photos of famous dancers.
It’s absolutely blank.
Kinda scary.
Oops. Those sticky blobs where my poster was
are still up there.
I dig my thumbnail under each
and peel them up.
Little oil circles are left behind.
I’ll have to get some other poster to cover them.
Some other thing I’m into.
What was Dia going to try?
Lacrosse?
No way does that interest me.
Will anything ever?
“What is it, Grandpa?”
He points and grunts.
“Candy?”
He shakes his head and points.
“The flowers?”
No.
I get up and go over to the corner
he’s looking at.
“What? The book? You want me to read
out loud?”
No.
“Ugh. This is so
frustrating.”
He keeps pointing.
“The clock?”
No.
“I wish you could tell me,
could say it.”
I scoot the flowers around
and look for something
he sees that I don’t.
“If you could talk, Grandpa,
I’d listen to every one of your stories,
even the super-duper long ones
I’ve heard a zillion times.”
He smiles.
“The crossword?”
No.
“Oh, look at this cute teddy bear.”
He nods.
“You want the bear?”
No.
He points at me.
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
“We believe your father will be ready
to be released next week.”
The doctor snaps the cover of the file
closed.
Mom jumps.
“Physical therapy will need to be continued,
but he is completely stable,
and there is no reason
he can’t go home.”
“Excellent!” I say, and relevé
up on my toes.
Yikes. Mom didn’t see,
she’s still talking to the doctor.
But
Grandpa did.
And he’s smiling
at my feet.
Dad divvies up the teriyaki.
“Hey, a little more over here.”
I shove my plate closer.
“It’s nice to see you eat, Clare.”
He loads on more meat.
“Mm. Thanks for picking this up, Dwight.”
Mom wipes sauce off her lips.
“Well, we needed it.
After the work we did this week,
combining two households,
we all deserved a treat.” Dad takes a big bite.
“This is delicious,” he says.
I swallow. “Yeah,
it’s Grandpa’s favorite teriyaki takeout.”
“Was this the restaurant on the corner of Main,”
asks Mom,
“or the one by the high school,
or the one by the grocery?”
“The one by the German bakery,” Dad and I say.
Mom grins. “Western Washington is being
taken over
by coffee stands and teriyaki takeouts.”
“Perfect to me.” I crunch into an egg roll.
“Okay, we’ll do this when Dad’s home.
With the hope that he’ll work up to
eating solids again.”
“Right.” I scoop some rice onto my plate.
“He’s the one
who really needs a treat.
And this one
he’s sure to love.”
Mom takes a sip of coffee
and pushes her empty plate away.
“It is bizarre
living in my childhood room
with my husband,” says Mom.
Dad chuckles.
“Don’t you think it’s weird for me?”
She smiles. “Absolutely. It’s one thing to visit
or sleep over,
but another to actually move back in.”
“That’s why I picked the guest room
when I first came,” I say.
“I thought it was spooky
Grandma never redecorated
after you left, Mom.”
“She liked everything the same.
No changes,
anyway, anyhow.” She pauses.
“Seeing Dad like he is
would have torn her up.
I’m kind of glad she isn’t here now.”
“Probably best.” Dad licks his fork clean.