Seeing Things, page 20
My mind went blank. I wanted to defend myself, but what was there to defend? Huck mocked surprise and bewilderment.
Fletcher set a glass of water on the table and told me where it was. I loved that boy.
“On the other hand,” Suzanne said, crossing her arms, “these sorts of episodes can be aggravated by an underlying medical condition. It wouldn’t hurt to have a complete physical; and if that doesn’t reveal anything, it’s time to call in a neurologist. They’ve developed some very good medications.”
How easy all of this would have been if Huck had remained within the boundaries of Charles Bonnet Syndrome. A simple explanation of the syndrome and collaboration from the Internet would have settled my children’s minds. But Huck had strayed way beyond a polite appearance to excite an old woman’s senses. Some might argue I should have spilled the beans right there and then, accepted the support and help of my family to uncover the mystery around Huck, but a big part of me feared that making such an admission would mean the end of my hikes in the mountains and the freedom I enjoyed to explore the world. And if Huck happened to stick around, I couldn’t see how plodding a trail with Huck was anyone’s business but mine.
Instead I said, “You’re blowing this out of proportion. I’m quite fine. Really. Never better. I’m tip-top and cheery-o!” I smiled weakly.
Suzanne spoke to Fletcher. “Your father and I can’t help noticing how protective you are of your grandmother. That’s quite noble of you, but your actions may be hurting her rather than helping, especially if she has an undiagnosed condition. You know, Fletcher, it makes perfect sense to us that some of your behavior lately has been affected by your grandmother. Once we understand better what you’ve been dealing with, our plans for your schooling could very well change.”
Huck leaned close to Suzanne’s ear and nearly growled. “I suspicioned you was a meddlesome shrew.”
Fletcher hung his head low. “Grandma and me, we’ve been keeping a secret from you.”
Huck jumped back, jaw slack with surprise. Andy and Suzanne leaned toward Fletcher. Diane wrapped a strand of hair around her finger and pulled. Butterflies wearing hiking boots tromped around my gut.
“Grandma’s been teaching me how to waltz. I’m really sorry, Suzanne, but we roll back the rug in the great room. We’re careful. We dance in our stocking feet, not to scratch anything. I guess I was embarrassed. A girl from school invited me to the prom.”
Suzanne sat up straighter. “Do we know this girl? Who are her parents? What do her parents do? When were you going to tell us this?”
Fletcher told them about Mi Sun. “I’m real sorry I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t until I made it all the way through ‘Moon River’ without stepping on Grandma that I was sure I was going.”
I rubbed my sore toe along the back of my boot.
“When is the prom?” Suzanne said.
“Saturday.”
“Saturday?! Have you ordered a corsage? A tux?”
“It’s all taken care of. I ordered a corsage online, and I’m going to wear the suit I wore to the surgeon-of-the-year banquet.”
Huck raised his clasped hands over his head like a triumphant prizefighter. “He warn’t bullyragged. That boy laid a humdinger of an ambuscade.”
“You most definitely are not wearing that old thing. Do you know what this means to a girl?”
“Mi Sun isn’t your typical girl,” I offered.
“You know her?”
“Mi Sun and I have it all figured out,” Fletcher said. “We’re going to have a good time, not to show off. She borrowed a dress from a friend. We’re having dinner with her parents.”
Andy finally spoke with a hint of sadness in his voice. “You could have dinner with us, Son.”
“Well . . .”
Suzanne flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Then we’ll do dessert. I’ll call La Madeleine Patisserie and ask her to create something out of this world. And the party planner, what was her name? I have her number at work. She’ll make the table amazing.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Diane hugged Fletcher from behind. “You’re doing this whole high school thing on your own terms. I congratulate you. You’re the man. What sounds good to you, Fletcher?”
Huck waved over his shoulder as he sauntered off toward the bedroom.
“Grandma could bake—” Fletcher started. I assumed every eye at the table sent darts into the poor boy.
“Andrew, get on the phone to the contractor, now,” Suzanne said, rising from the table. “The kitchen must be done before Saturday.”
Andy reached for his BlackBerry. Fletcher stopped him with a touch. “Hey, everyone, it doesn’t matter. It’s cool. Mi Sun won’t mind a little dust. We’ll have sundaes or something. She loves ice cream.”
“I have so much to do.” Suzanne walked toward the planning desk in the kitchen. “We’ll use the Waterford. Everything tastes better in crystal.”
I reached out my good foot to tap Fletcher’s knee. He returned the gesture. At least for now, Huck had been set aside in Suzanne’s mind, which meant Andy wouldn’t be thinking about him either. And I had Fletcher to thank.
But what was I to do about Huckleberry Finn?
Chapter 31
Diane leaned into my embrace as we sped toward Denver International Airport in the backseat of Suzanne’s sedan. Andy drove. “I’m putting in for a transfer as soon as I get back to Dublin,” Diane said.
“Over my dead body.”
She probably saw my legs swinging over the edge of my grave. A spark of anger threatened to ignite, but airport good-byes were no place to indulge anger. Diane sucked in a sob.
I pulled her head to my shoulder. “Your willingness to make such a sacrifice honors me,” I said, “but sticking with this project until the bridge is finished will honor me more. And that is some bridge you’re building. My friend reads me the updates from the Internet. I saw some pictures. There’s no more beautiful bridge in the world, darlin’. I’m so proud of you. Now, if you want to make me a happy mama, see that I’m one of the first to ride over that bridge. And I wouldn’t mind sailing under it either.”
She raised her head, wiped at her eyes. “I can arrange that. When can you come?”
“Let me get this ankle a bit stronger.”
“You should bring Emory. We have plenty of room.”
At the thought of tramping around Ireland with Emory a warmth settled in my gut. “You’re outrageous.”
“Don’t wait too long. I’ll be off to Dubai the first of the year.”
I caught a glimpse of the royal blue horse statue at the entrance to the terminal. “Let me pray for you.”
“You know I don’t—”
“He believes in you, darlin’.” I took a deep breath and entered into God’s presence. “Bless this girl with all that is good. Keep her healthy. Fill her life with love. Give her a boatload of friends, and give her eyes to see the beauty of your world. Bring us back together real soon, Father. Amen.”
“I should be praying for you.”
“Promise me you will, Diane. Promise me you will.”
Chapter 32
Suzanne had given the construction foreman his marching orders: The kitchen was to be perfect by five o’clock Friday. Whatever she’d said to them certainly upped the activity in the house. To escape the buzz of power tools and paint fumes, Lupe and I took our coffee out to the patio. Already the day was shirt-sleeves and sandals, at least on my healthy foot. I wished I’d packed some shorts. But then, this being Denver, if I waited five minutes, I’d need my down parka too. I preferred to pack light.
Midmorning coffee had become a ritual for Lupe and me, unless Suzanne came home to transcribe her medical reports. Then Lupe sterilized the toilets, and I listened to yet another book Fletcher had downloaded onto his iPod. Listening to White Fang made me terribly lonesome for Bee, but I’d asked Fletcher to choose a book he’d read for school, so we could discuss it. I was hoping for Jane Eyre, which shows how very close to craziness I hovered. I’d been thinking about all the things Suzanne had said at the family inquisition, trying to reconcile what I knew about Charles Bonnet Syndrome and the dementia she had hinted at. Nothing added up.
I felt a camaraderie with Lupe, and that’s not an insult to her. Lupe was transparent as crystal, and I didn’t need to see her face to know how she felt about any topic. She blasted her opinion—political, social, or religious—with a ferocity that belied her stature. No one could accuse Lupe of being an enigma, and for that I loved her. Besides, her coffee was heavenly. The swelling of my lip had reduced enough that I didn’t dribble it down my chin anymore.
Lupe tossed a Grand View Cottage pamphlet toward me. “Forget that one. No jetted tub, no Lupe. It’s all or nothing for this princess.”
“Well, this princess has decided there’s no harm in staying just one night, jetted tub or not.”
“If someone offered me a fancy-dancy cottage with a jetted tub, I would have moved in there yesterday. And then I would invite all of my sisters to come for a visit. While they watched The Price Is Right, yelling at the TV, telling the contestants that they’re stupid, I would listen to Gilberto Santa Rosa’s El Caballero de la Salsa, with the jets pounding my back to the salsa beat. And sing? The tiles would all fall down off the walls. Mi hermanas—”
“In English, please.”
“Let’s just say, my sisters wouldn’t stay long, not even Sister Corazon Barbara.” She fanned herself with the remaining pamphlets. “You got bubble bath?”
I preferred showers. I never saw much sense in sitting around in something I scrubbed off my body. Time was too precious. “Stop by on your way home. Bring your bubble bath and a radio. You can sing all night long if you want to.”
Lupe crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “So you are going to let them lock you away, just like that?”
“I thought you said—”
“But you’re not me. You are not the kind of woman who sits in a fancy cottage all day.”
“The activities director will bus me anywhere I want to go, and they have a recreation room and classes, like line dancing and yoga.” I poured more coffee. “I haven’t made a final decision.”
“The food probably tastes like—”
“Residents order off a menu, like a restaurant. Ms. Carlyle said the chef was trained at the New England School of Culinary Arts. That’s a prestigious school, all right.”
“And he’s cooking at an old folk’s home? It makes you wonder. Maybe he didn’t do so good at that school—maybe burned the water, forgot the salt one too many times.”
She had a point.
“When mi esposo is fishing with his stinky buddies, I don’t cook for myself. The food looks too small for the pan, and then I get lonely, so I call one of my sisters and we go out. I always regret asking them, because I end up loaning Dolores money or listening to Pilar gripe about all the rich parents, how they keep their kids up all hours of the night or buy them fancy cell phones to bring to school, and her teachers can’t teach them nothing. I didn’t have a phone until I married Ernesto, and then we saved for a year for the deposit. Things are so different now. But you know all about that, no?”
I missed my computer terribly, and I depended on my big-buttoned cell phone. “Kids should play outside more.”
“You know, Birdie, you’re too young to live with those old farts—maybe not so much on the outside, but on the inside you’re probably younger than me.”
She meant this as a compliment, and that’s how I took it. Besides, I’d had some time to wrestle with Ms. Carlyle’s scare tactics. Either I believed Jesus when he said he’d always be with me, or I didn’t. There were countless “maybes” in my future, some of them good and some of them horrible, but I didn’t have to face them alone. And that made all the difference in the world.
“I promised Fletcher I’d pray about the decisions I was facing.”
“Good, because I have some things to pray about too. My husband’s brother’s wife’s sister is having a baby. She miscarried lots of times.”
I bowed my head. “Let’s pray.”
“And my sister’s husband’s mother is having a hernia operation tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She gripped my hand fiercely. “Wait. This is really important. My grandson, he is going to Iraq.”
“We’d better get started.”
FLETCHER UPENDED THE SHOPPING bag, sending its contents clattering, rattling, and thudding onto the workbench. A cool breeze scattered Fletcher’s plans, so he closed the garage door and turned on the light. “The hardware store had everything except something that looks like logs for the raft base. Maybe I’ll trim some branches off a tree or something. Here’s the wood for the planks. It’s pretty rough, but I don’t think lumber in the 1880s was smooth like it is now. I want the raft to be as authentic as possible, even though it’s only a model. I downloaded some pictures from the Internet. None of them look how I pictured the raft after reading the description, but I think this one comes closest.”
I leaned into the drawing, using a magnifying glass to sweep the page for details. “If this is what you saw in your mind’s eye, that’s what your teacher is looking for.”
“The guy at the hardware store tried to talk me into dowel rods for the logs, but then I’d have to paint them. That would take too much time.”
“Something will show up. When is this due?”
Fletcher sorted his supplies. “Tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“Not to worry, Grandma. I got this under control.”
“And the poem?”
“It’s almost there.”
That meant he hadn’t started the poem yet either.
“Do you have stones for the fire ring?” I asked.
Pebbles bounced on the workbench. “I picked these up at the park.”
“Did Mi Sun help?”
“Tootsie has completely forgotten how to stay.”
“You showed him who’s boss, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is Mi Sun excited about the dance?”
He threw up his hands. “We had this all planned. Now the whole thing has taken on a life of its own. She totally changed her mind about borrowing a dress. She went shopping with her mom, and got a purse and shoes to match. She’s all excited because she got an appointment to get her hair done.”
“You might want to get a haircut.”
Fletcher slumped on the stool. “This is getting too complicated.”
“Do you know the color of her dress?”
He put up his hands like stop signs. “Tomorrow. I’ll have time to do all that tomorrow.”
Time lacked meaning to this generation, so I had to ask, “Since you’re just starting the raft, and the poem is still in development, will you have time to go to youth group tonight?”
“No problem.” Fletcher measured lengths of planking for the raft. “Do they have a youth group in Ouray?”
“Yes. It’s not as big. And, of course, Mi Sun wouldn’t be there.”
Fletcher studied the drawing of the raft. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll like it.”
I played with the pebbles, forming a circle, a line, a pile. “I’ve decided to give the Grand View Cottages a try this Friday.”
Fletcher pounded the workbench. “Ouch!” He cradled his hand. “If Dad and Suzanne tell me to jump, I have to jump. I’m not smiling when I do it, but what’s with you? You don’t have to do anything they tell you.”
“Sometimes we do things—” What? To avoid a fight? To leverage a deal? To calm nagging fears? “Your dad is making a generous offer. He’s trying to take care of me. I owe it to him to at least try this place out.”
Fletcher tightened the vice to hold the wood for cutting. He spoke through his teeth. “Dad gets generous when he wants something.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I did what I could to help Fletcher with the raft model. I distressed and sanded the planks to make them look rough yet well worn, just like me.
Meanwhile Fletcher recited statistics as calming as a lullaby. “James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell. Played in the Negro leagues from 1922 to 1950. Earned his name at age nineteen striking out slugger Oscar Charleston.”
Tapping a handful of planks on the workbench, Fletcher asked, “Now, this staying at the cottage is all about appeasing Dad and Suzanne, right? You’d never actually move in there. We have our plan.”
What a sneaky one, my own grandchild, mumbling and sawing, all the while measuring what I’d not-so-casually announced about staying at the cottage. Nothing slipped by this one. Under the Einstein T-shirt, there beat the heart of a man—a young man, yes, but still a thoughtful heart. And way too early in his life, sort of like Huckleberry Finn, he was alert to ways to survive, to find the upper hand, to tame the currents of his life.
Chapter 33
The next morning Fletcher set the raft model on the counter where I was drinking my second cup of coffee. I’d stayed up until eleven to help him before shuffling off to bed. I wasn’t sure Fletcher had slept at all. Ah, to be young again.
“I think it turned out good.” A lightness lifted his voice.
I ran my hands over the raft. “It turned out great, but did you sleep at all?”
“I’m tough, Grandma.”
“Tough or not, you have to eat breakfast. Grab a bagel or something.”
As big as an atlas, the raft didn’t miss a detail. The tiller balanced on a y-shaped twig; he’d furnished the wigwam with blanket rolls made out of Lupe’s dust rags; the firebox he’d finished after I’d gone to bed was filled with sand and circled by stones, including a teepee of twigs ready for a match.
“I can see Huck lazing his feet in the water while Jim manages the tiller. This is just how I imagined it, Fletcher. All that’s missing is the Mississippi.” I thought about showing the raft to Huck then scolded myself for giving the apparition the time of day. Reality demanded my full attention.
