by Justin Olson
It’s early afternoon, and I haven’t made contact with Seth yet. Instead I’m walking with Tickles through the nursing home. Well, trying to walk through the nursing home. A bigger lady with a blanket over her lap in a wheelchair says, “What a beautiful dog. Can I pet him?” After five minutes of talking with her and letting her pet Tickles, I say we have to get going.
Not ten feet later an old man is hobbling down the hallway with a cane. “What in the holy hell is that thing?” he asks, and pokes at Tickles with his cane. “Rose? Come out here. This kid’s walking a robot. Now I’ve seen it all.”
Tickles attacks the cane and then rears back and growls. “Hey, leave the dog alone. Come on, Tickles.”
I don’t see Susan at the nurse’s station or on the way to my grandma’s room. Maybe she has the weekend off.
“Knock, knock,” I say as I enter Grandma’s cave. Today we’re going to start the puzzle that I brought her last time.
She turns and smiles. “Charlie, my dear.”
“What? Did you say my name, Grandma?”
She then looks absently at the wall. I shake my head, thinking it was my brain playing tricks on me.
“Look who I brought,” I say, gesturing to Tickles.
Her smile grows. She puts her hand out. “Come here. Come here.”
I’m starting to wonder if she’s having a lucid moment. “How about some light in here?” I open the blinds and briefly check the sky. The ferocious heat wave has finally ended.
I look at the clock, and it’s exactly on time. “Oh, Grandma, look at that.” I point to the clock. “It’s on the right time! I don’t know the last time that’s happened.”
I grab the puzzle from the windowsill and go back to the spare chair. “How about we start our puzzle? Want to go down to the rec room?”
She turns her head away from me in defiance. I figure it’s easier to just start the puzzle here than fight her on moving.
Tickles sits down by my feet.
I spread out the pieces on her rolling table. It’s not ideal because it’s pretty narrow, and we’ll have to move the puzzle before I leave. But it’s the only surface available.
“See what the picture looks like?” I hold up the box and point.
“A bridge,” she says without any hint of mental confusion. And her eyes. They’re clear and connecting with mine.
I smile. “That’s right. So we need to find the corner and edge pieces first.” I set the box down beside my chair.
“I know how to put together a puzzle, Charlie.”
I look back up at her, and she’s looking at her thumbs. I stare at her for a brief second. Am I going crazy? The doctor said he didn’t think she’d have any more lucid moments, but I guess I’d like to think she still can.
I’m searching for pieces when she asks, “How’s your father? I’m not sure I’ve seen him since shortly after your mother left.”
I look up, startled. I’d almost believe she was saying these things if she would keep her inquisitiveness when I look at her. Instead I find her gazing into another world. A world for one.
She turns to me and stares into my eyes. “I am no longer living.”
A shiver runs up my spine. “Grandma?”
“Charlie?”
Holy shit! “You’re having a lucid moment? Grandma. Oh my god!”
She shakes her head. “I’m wasting away in here. In this chair. This”—she looks around the room—“is the carcass of my once grand life.”
Holy shit! My grandma is having a conversation with me. That hasn’t happened in more than a year. My eyes fill with tears. “That’s not . . . You have a lot more to live for. It’s all in your perspective.”
“Why doesn’t your father come visit?”
“He’s . . . busy.”
“Still drinking? Fishing? Ignoring the world?”
I nod. “Yeah. He hasn’t been the same since, well, you know.”
“Charlie.” She reaches out to me. I take hold of her hand. Some of the tears are streaming down my face.
“I miss you, Grandma.”
“I love you. You know that, right?”
I nod. I nod.
“You take care of yourself, Charlie. You’re so special.” She squeezes my hand. She smiles and then pulls her hand away. She looks out the window, and it’s almost like I can see the haze fill her mind again. Her eyes become the same vacant expressionless eyes that I’ve grown used to.
“Do you want to continue with the puzzle?” I ask.
She tilts her head and smiles at me as if I’m some sideshow curiosity.
“The puzzle, Grandma.” I hand her a corner piece. And she looks at it curiously. “Put it right there.” I point at a spot on the table.
As I keep searching for other edge pieces, she coughs. She doesn’t stop coughing, and I look up at her. The puzzle piece is gone from her hand. “Where’s the piece, Grandma? Where is it?”
I shove the chair back and stand quickly. Tickles stands and barks. Grandma’s hands are grasping at her neck.
“Help! Somebody help!” I yell.
No one’s coming, and I’m growing more worried. “Dammit! Somebody, please! Help!”
Finally a nurse runs into the room and asks what’s happening. “Choking,” is all I can say. He stands behind her. I need to learn the Heimlich maneuver, I tell myself as I watch him dislodge the puzzle piece, which flies out and lands in the pile of pieces on the table.
I swipe all the puzzle pieces back into the box. Dumb idea. The nurse helps Grandma into bed.
Fresh tears cloud my vision.
* * *
I sat at the kitchen table reading a book. The house had just started to die. To become a tomb. But I didn’t know it at the time. I hadn’t yet fully realized what had happened or the consequences of it. Grandma was in one of her amazing outfits. She always looked so good, proper, and put together when she left her house. “Never leave your house unless you look like someone worth seeing,” she said to me many times when I was growing up.
My dad was in the garage, or the backyard, or somewhere outside and not in the house.
My grandma stood in the kitchen with me. She was making some kind of casserole for dinner. “Want to help, Charlie?”
I shook my head and closed my book.
“Charlie. This has nothing to do with you.”
I nodded.
“Don’t for a second think it does.”
I didn’t. I didn’t think about it for a second.
A little later I was in my parents’ room looking through a trunk that my mother had kept at the foot of the bed. In it was a collection of pictures, postcards—past lives of my parents. I pulled out a picture of my parents’ wedding day: my mom in her white wedding dress and hair done up, my dad in a black-and-white tuxedo, hair combed and parted on the side. They held each other around the waist at the front of the church. They smiled outward. To the others. To the photographer.
A moment, real or fake, caught forever.
I held the picture. I studied it. I wondered if there were any signs of cracks or fissures, of what would come between this man and woman.
I couldn’t find anything.
I heard my grandma and dad arguing in the kitchen.
“She needed help! And what did you do, Steve?”
“I did help.”
“You were too busy in your own world to reach out. Drinking. Working all the hours you could get.”
“I’m trying to care for this family.”
“You couldn’t care for the woman you loved.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Where were you when she was going downhill? You weren’t there for her. You’d yell and tell her she was an embarrassment.”
“I was trying to help.”
“You pushed her away.”
“Get out. Get out of my house!”
I jumped when I heard a glass break. A door slam. A silence then washed over the house.
I quiet
ly put the picture back into the trunk. Closed the lid. And went away.
HE’S GONE
• • • • •
I forgot the dog carrier, which seemed to work in keeping nurses off my back last time. So I pick up Tickles and tuck him under my arm and quickly trot down the hall to Geoffrey’s room. When I enter, I see that it’s empty. I don’t see any of Geoffrey’s belongings. My chest constricts.
I turn around and head back into the hall.
I look into other rooms to see if he’s just been moved. I get to the nurse’s station. A nurse looks busy and I don’t want to interrupt, but I clear my throat. “Excuse me? Where is Geoffrey Smazinski?” My heart is beating a million miles a minute.
When the nurse turns around she frowns. “Haven’t I told you no dogs before, young man? I will ban you from this hospital if I see that dog here one more time.”
My face flushes red. “Yes, sorry.”
She turns, picks up a blue folder, opens it, and says to the wall, “He’s being taken home.”
“What?” I ask excitedly. I look down at Tickles and bounce him. “Did you hear that? He’s going home! Isn’t that great?”
Tickles barks and squirms.
“No dogs,” says the nurse as she glares at me.
I run out of the hospital. I can’t get to Geoffrey’s quickly enough.
* * *
On the way to Geoffrey’s my phone vibrates.
Seth.
I can’t continue to ignore my best friend. So I answer. “You won’t believe the day I’ve had.”
Seth sounds like he’s been crying. “Charlie? Do you hate me?”
I stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk. “What? No. Why would I hate you?”
He sniffs. “That’s what I was wondering. But last night . . . and you’ve been ignoring me.”
I dig my foot into the cement. “Yeah. Sorry. I guess I was just upset last night. I don’t know what got into me.”
“So we’re good, then?”
I hesitate briefly. “Yes. We’re good.”
I know it doesn’t sound possible, but I hear him smile. That makes me smile. “Want to hang out tonight?” he asks.
I nod. Then I realize he can’t see me, and say, “Yes. I’d love to.”
“Just us. You and me. And no other jerks.”
I laugh. “No other jerks.”
* * *
It feels like a weight is lifted from my shoulders, and relief washes over me when I see Geoffrey on the green couch again. It’s like the world has corrected itself.
Tickles, I think, is relieved too. But he runs his little butt to the kitchen to eat some food and drink some water.
“Charlie!” Geoffrey says upon seeing me enter his house. “How are ya?”
“I should be asking you that.” He actually looks a little thinner. Whether that was a side effect of the infection, I don’t know.
“Oh, I’m great. Haven’t felt better.”
I’m pretty sure that’s a lie. I’m sure there was a time when he felt better, when he wasn’t so heavy, but I don’t say anything.
“Thanks for taking care of Tickles.”
“I’m actually a little sad to lose him. He makes for good company.” I hear Tickles chomping on the food in the kitchen.
“Well, I’m sure he’s sad to be back to this stinky old place.” Geoffrey smiles. Then he looks down and then back up at me. “Yes, sir,” he says, with a strong commitment in his voice. “I’m going to turn my life around. More exercise. Healthier food. The hospital visit was a wake-up call for me.”
“That’s great news.” I’m excited for Geoffrey. Maybe someday he can go on walks with me and Tickles.
SPLITTING IN A FLASH
• • • • •
Seth dribbles a basketball around in his driveway. He shoots from the grass at the far end, and the ball hits the rim and bounces out.
“Just warming up?” I say as I ride up to him.
Seth laughs. “Came with the house. Want to go swimming?”
“You’re really pushing this swimming thing.”
“What good is summer without swimming?”
“The nearest pool is in Butte.”
“I was thinking like a river or lake?”
“Nothing super close. There’s Delmoe Lake up in the mountains. Not sure how we’ll get there.”
“My mom’s car?”
“And I don’t have swimming trunks or a towel with me.”
“Anything else?”
I smile and shake my head. Seth tosses me the ball. “I’ll be right back.” He runs inside, and I’m left holding the basketball, which feels awkward. I look at the basket and steady my aim. I throw the ball, and it hits the backboard like a brick. I pretend that I didn’t just do that, and let the ball roll into the grass.
Seth comes out with his backpack. “Bad news. My mom won’t let me take the car.”
“So we can’t go?”
“Not there. Is there like a creek around?”
“A creek? I mean, there’s a small one a few miles out of town. But if we don’t have a car?”
“Then it’s a good thing we both have bikes.”
“And swimming trunks?”
Seth pats his backpack. He’s ready.
“Fine,” I say.
* * *
As we’re riding our bikes out of town on the side of a two-lane highway, I say, “This is kind of dangerous.”
“Great, right?”
I mumble to myself, “Sure. Great. As long as we don’t get smashed by a car.”
“What was that?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
After the fourth mile Seth is a few yards behind me, trying to keep up, and is groaning with every pedal. “Almost there,” I say.
We reach the creek, and he quickly scans the area. “It’s like one foot deep.”
“It’s a creek.”
“How are we going to swim in that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve got an idea.”
I follow Seth as he walks a few yards down the bank of the creek. He turns to me and asks, “What are you doing?”
“Ah. Following you?”
“I’m trying to change over here.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Here.” He throws me a pair of swimming trunks. “My old ones. I think they’ll fit you.”
When we both have our swimming trunks on and our shoes and socks off, Seth wades into the creek. “Oh! Shit. This is a lot colder than I thought it’d be.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Seth smirks at me. “Are you going to help?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to build a dam.”
“A what?”
“A dam.”
I was just making sure that that was what he said. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Charlie, just come help.”
I watch Seth dig around in the water, which is about up to his knees. He finds rocks, picks them up, and places them a few feet downstream, where it’s just a tad more shallow.
“Fine.” I wade into the shockingly cold water and help build the wall of rocks, which after about fifteen minutes is really starting to stop some water.
Seth says, “If we can’t find a deep spot to swim in, we’ll make one.”
The spot we make doesn’t ever get exactly deep, but the water ends up three or so inches higher. Or maybe we just clear away three inches of rocks from the bottom. Either way, we can sit in the water, which is what we are doing. I’m shivering as I listen to Seth, and I move my arms periodically to keep warm. His feet occasionally graze my feet. Sometimes his hands graze my legs. But I figure it’s just the small confines of our “pool.”
The sun is starting to set.
“I want to take more pictures of you,” he says.
“Of me? Why?”
“Like, pictures of you just doing random stuff.”
“Um. I gue
ss,” I say with a clenched jaw. My body shivers.
“Ready to get out?”
I nod vigorously.
We wade out of the water, and Seth grabs the two towels and tosses one to me. He drops down to the grass near the creek. “Ahhh.”
I stand there trying to dry off as my entire body continues to shiver.
“Join me.” He pats the grass.
I hesitate before I sit. Then I watch Seth lie on his back and look up at the sky as it changes colors. It’s amazing, the various colors that show off when the sky moves from blue to black.
After some moments of silence, Seth says, “I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“What is so intriguing to you about UFOs? Like, why are you always searching for them?”
“I’m not.”
“Charlie, I know you better than that.”
I sigh. “Fine. You won’t make fun of me?”
“Promise.”
Though it’s hard for me to say any of this out loud, I don’t want to keep any more secrets from Seth. I take a deep breath. “I want to be the first person to fully document the existence of aliens. Because they do exist.”
Seth turns to me and gives me a Come on look.
“See all those stars?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“That’s, like, not even one one-billionth of the stars in the universe. And we happen to be the only planet that has life? Hardly.”
Seth scrunches up his face.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“I mean, it’s amazing that you want to be the first to prove that aliens exist. But that doesn’t really tell me why.”
I sit silently next to him. I feel guilty about keeping my reasons a secret. Even when I want to tell my secrets, it’s hard to actually do it. Life is weird. How could the same information cause me pain if I tell it and then pain if I don’t tell it?
Seth sits up, his hand brushing mine, and suddenly I find our shoulders touching.
I become aware of the creek bubbling as I turn to Seth, who seems to be staring at me longingly.
“What is it?” I ask nervously.
He shakes his head as he holds my gaze a second longer.
The night sky is cloudy on the ride back to town. There are so many mysteries in life. I’m starting to believe there are more mysteries in my own life here on Earth than there are in the vast universe. There are so many unanswered questions. So many alien moments with even the people I know.
