The Summer of Owen Todd

by Tony Abbott

  Do it, Owen, do it.

  Then something crashes down that I should have seen coming but didn’t.

  It’s just before supper Wednesday evening.

  I’m trying on my new shorts after a shower. Every time I get dressed or undressed I think of what Sean told me. Then I hear my mom suddenly sob into the phone. “Oh, my gosh, no!” I run down to the kitchen. She’s staring out the window and turns to me, still holding the phone. Her face is white, her eyes red and wet and burning into mine.

  “Your grandmother,” she says, “she di—she died.”

  “What? No,” I say stupidly. “No! She was just here. You were just there! The doctor, the tests? What happened? No,” I say, and, “No, Mom, no!” All of which is meaningless. What do you say? You try to deny it. It’s idiotic. You try to explain how something that just happened couldn’t happen, that it’s impossible.

  Except it isn’t. I should have seen it, the skinny shoulders, the emergency at the puppet show, her wobbly tiny little body. I sit next to Mom at the table as she listens glassy-eyed to someone, Grandma’s doctor maybe, or one of her neighbors, I don’t know who. It’s a low voice, technical, long sentences, so a doctor or a nurse or someone at a hospital.

  “How did it happen?” I whisper.

  Mom shakes her head. “It was sudden. She simply … fell.”

  “Fell? How do you fall and just—”

  Mom stands up from the table, shakes her head, puts her finger in her ear to hear the caller. “Repeat that, please?” She listens to another long string of words. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Yes. Thank you.”

  “Mom?”

  She turns, her eyes streaming. “It was probably a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. In Macy’s in the mall near there. They have to do … They’ll find out later.” Then all she can say is “My mommy!” She cries on my shoulder. Something in my chest collapses and I feel drained and empty. My throat seizes as I hug her. Now is the time to let my mom hug me for as long as she wants. Everything’s dripping inside me. My eyes sting with tears. We hold each other until she pulls away.

  “I have to call Daddy. We have to go to Hanover.”

  Minutes later, she’s just connected to my dad at the track when Ginny comes running in, whistling “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” She’s wearing her Peter Pan shorts and the new bright-red T-shirt she got today. She looks like a Christmas card. Mom gives me a glance. Right. She’s just about to tell my dad and doesn’t want Ginny to learn that way.

  “Hey, come here,” I say.

  “Why are you crying? Why is Mom crying?” But she follows me into the living room. “What’s going on?”

  I want to say anything but the truth because I know she’ll go nuts, but that’s stupid and rude. Mom’s voice cracks loudly in the kitchen. Ginny’s looking back and forth from the kitchen to me, and then stares at me the way she did when Grandma was sick at the puppet play, mouth open, thinking something’s wrong, ready to shriek.

  I say, “I don’t know. We have to go to Hanover for a couple of days, I think.”

  She looks all over my face for what that might mean, then shakes her head as if to say “What?” but not saying that, not saying anything.

  “Grandma,” I say. “She was sick when we saw her. Sicker than we thought she was. Remember at the puppet show? Well … today she … passed away.”

  “Owen!” she screams, just like at the theater. She pushes me with both hands. “Owen?” I try to put my arms around her shoulders, like Mom just did to me, but Ginny tears into the kitchen shouting and hears Mom say “… plan the service at her church…” Then the phone is back in its cradle, and Ginny crumples into my mother’s arms.

  I think about the last days with Grandma, and her small wrinkled hands, and a black space opens up and I see it everywhere like floaters taking over my eyes. I can’t get rid of them. My head feels light. Ginny is squirming on the kitchen floor now, angry. Mom on her knees, trying to comfort her, saying to me, “I’d like to go soon, in the morning, first thing. Your aunt and uncles are driving down. It’ll be a couple of days, maybe more. Owen, maybe call your coach?”

  And my world comes back. “Sure, Mom.”

  It’s only then, after all that, when I’m back upstairs, dialing Coach on the upstairs phone and leaving a message about missing the game on Saturday, that I realize my plan for Sean has been blown off the rails. He doesn’t know it, of course. No one knows it but me, but it means more days of doing nothing to help him. I try to figure out how long I’ll be away, but I don’t know how long it takes when someone dies. Mom’s siblings live in Maine, a bit of a drive, so they’ll be around for a while. Then I think to call Kyle about what happened because he was with us at the show.

  He listens quietly. “Owen, man,” he says. “I’m sorry. She was so funny. I liked her a lot.”

  “I know. She liked you, too. Thanks.”

  “I was really thinking I’d see her again, lots this summer.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Good thing she was just here, right? I guess she was sick, and we didn’t know how bad.”

  “She kept being funny,” I say.

  “Funerals are tough. Call me when you get back.” And he’s so calm and kind I want to start crying again.

  Finally, I can’t put it off anymore. I call Sean. It’s suppertime now. It rings four times. He picks up.

  “Hey, Shay. Look, bad news. I have to go to a funeral.”

  “Mine?” he says.

  “Not funny,” I whisper into the phone.

  He snorts. “’Cause if it’s mine, make sure I’m wearing sunglasses.” He laughs as if it’s a joke, then says, “Just kidding, what’s up?” because maybe his mother’s near the phone. I hear her voice in the background. I clear my throat.

  “My grandmother died today. We’re all going to Hanover. She wants to be … to be buried with my grandfather in the cemetery there. I have to go.”

  “Oh, sorry. She was old, though, right?”

  “Not that old. No. When did you last see her?”

  “I don’t remember. Heart attack?”

  “No. I don’t know. A stroke maybe. Or a heart attack. Mom’s not sure. She fell in a store. Macy’s in Kingston, she told me. They think it might have been a stroke, but we’ll know later. Ginny’s a mess. Grandma was a good person. She always liked you, you know.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. When? When are you going?”

  “In the morning. The funeral is Friday. Maybe I’ll be home Saturday, maybe not.”

  Then he says, “Sorry. Those things are gross. I mean, I’ve never been to one, but I guess they are—wait. Tomorrow and Friday? Oh. I thought we were going shopping. My mom told me.”

  “Yeah, I was going to ask you to hang out with us tomorrow, but…” I just drift off.

  A long breath from the phone. “He’s coming tomorrow and Friday and every day for a while. Never mind. You’ve got all this stuff to do.” I feel the crash in his voice. It’s like he’s been punched. The air goes totally out of him. He swears into the phone.

  “Shay, you have to tell somebody about what Paul is doing.”

  “I did! I did. And now you have to shut up about it or you know what.”

  “Stop saying that!” I can’t be loud on the phone or someone will hear. Sean swears a few more times. He never used to. My grandma always said he was brought up in a good house, and it’s true. He was. But his house isn’t good anymore. The bad guys have found a way inside.

  “Sorry, Shay,” I tell him. “I’ll call you when I can.” But he’s already hung up.

  EIGHTEEN

  Grandma died and I can’t go through with my plan to spy on Paul. It hits me that it doesn’t matter that I can’t control it. It doesn’t matter, because what’s the difference between not being able to go and simply not going? Nothing. I can’t go, or I don’t go, it’s all the same for Sean.

  I’ve failed him, either way.

  And again that idea that makes you crazy, that any dum
b, stupid freak thing—being late for a puppet show, a lightning strike, somebody falling in a store—can bomb your plans to hell. I scream inside. I shriek.

  But no, no. I’ll go next time Sean is tortured. That’s plenty good enough.

  * * *

  We get up early Thursday morning. No one slept. After being all packed the night before, Ginny now starts taking stuff out of her roller bag and putting in other things, then taking them out and staring into the empty suitcase.

  Dad tries to help her pack for real, but she starts thrashing around, saying “Grandma! Grandma!” and stomping her feet, so Mom takes over.

  “Come on, honey. We have to do this.”

  I keep looking at the clock, wondering if Paul Landis is at Sean’s already.

  We finally get on the road at half past nine. On the way we pass through Kingston. There are signs for the Macy’s where Grandma had her stroke. Ginny is quiet by this time, doesn’t see the signs, probably doesn’t even know about Grandma and the store. I hope the casket isn’t open. Mom said it might be, that she wanted it to be, at least for us. I’ve never seen a dead person before. They didn’t let me see Grandpa because I was too young, I guess.

  First we meet up with my mom’s relatives at a hotel. She has two brothers and a sister, all younger than her. We don’t see them often because it’s a five-hour drive to Maine. My aunt has twin babies. For a while Ginny perks up about seeing them, then gets sad. My uncles have no kids yet.

  I don’t know why our family doesn’t stay in touch more. Five hours isn’t that far, after all. Maybe they didn’t get along as kids, my mother and the rest of them. As far as I can tell, my aunt has put herself in charge of stuff, including the funeral arrangements, while her husband, a guy who doesn’t say much, deals with the babies.

  There’s a wake at the funeral parlor that afternoon. Grandma’s coffin is closed. I’m relieved. There is an early rush of Grandma’s neighbors and old friends. I shake hands with mostly old women. Maybe this means their husbands are dead, like Grandpa died before Grandma did. I look at the clock on the wall as I stand in line with relatives, and I realize it’s been hours since I’ve been to the bathroom. I excuse myself. By the time I get back, the room has thinned out, and I find the flowers are making me retch. I stifle it. There is a wide curtain hung from the ceiling behind her. It’s pleated and ruffly like a theater curtain. I think of Grandma on the risers, on the path. Ginny’s just sitting next to Mom, leaning into her. Her little face is red, her eyes puffy. I sit on her other side, and she switches to leaning on me. After two hours of up and down and shaking hands and being hugged by strangers, I’m exhausted. I can’t control my own thoughts.

  Then this.

  A handful of my mom’s old friends come in, and the minute she goes to talk to them, Ginny sits up. “You’re mad at Mommy,” she whispers to me.

  “What? No, I’m not. Why?”

  “Because of Grandma. Mommy went to take care of her, but she died anyway.”

  “What? No. That’s not … No, Grandma was sicker than anyone thought.”

  “Not me? You’re not mad at me?”

  “Ginny, of course not.”

  “Then Sean.”

  I look at her. She’s twisting a tissue in her fingers and looking back at me. Big eyes, like my dad’s, but so red now. “Not mad. It’s different. A little mad, maybe. It’s mostly something else, something different.”

  “Boy stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  She inserts the end of the tissue in my nostril and I snort it out, and she starts laughing softly. It’s nervous, odd to hear, but she’s beyond exhausted and can’t stop laughing until my mother hurries back and puts her arms around her and it turns into crying.

  While the other families stay in a hotel they booked, we spend the night at Grandma’s little house in Hanover. It smells like her. Not a bad odor, like stuffiness or mothballs or stale breath, but the homey, close, old-person smell she usually had. I pack it in early, wasted, but assured that tomorrow might not be as bad or as long. First the church, then the reception. Ginny is conked out on the other side of the room on a folding cot my dad found and made up with fresh sheets and pillows. I don’t mind being in a bedroom with my little sister. While she’s snortling, I lie awake and imagine that Sean’s day is over, too.

  * * *

  The morning’s not better. It’s worse.

  After thinking we’re going straight to the church, I hear we’re going back to the funeral parlor to pick up Grandma’s body. Not actually pick up, of course, but we’re going to follow the hearse to the church.

  Ginny’s in a strange mood, often looking at me with those searching eyes, but not saying very much. Then Mom lobs a bombshell.

  “We’re going to take one last look at Grandma,” Mom says. “To say good-bye.”

  “Look at Grandma? Mommy?” says Ginny. Again, my mother’s arm is around her shoulders.

  Dad smiles a sad smile at me, shrugs with his face. He’s been quiet through the whole thing mostly, dry-eyed. His face is gray, though, and I can tell he’s sinking under the sadness and suddenness. He lost his mother when he was small.

  We go into the parlor. It’s the same as last night. The flowers are still full of scent and maybe more now that they’re aging. The coffin lid is open. No one but the funeral-home guys are there, all in black suits.

  Mom goes straight to the casket and kneels in front of it, looking in. She prays, then makes the sign of the cross. Dad kneels next to her, his arm around her shoulders. While I watch them, Ginny goes to Mom’s side and looks in the casket. Her little pocketbook drops to the floor. Mom pulls a limp Ginny to her, folds her into herself. Dad gets up, Mom shifts, Ginny kneels. All this is silent. I think of myself, too young to be there for my grandfather’s funeral. Ginny’s maybe a year older than I was then.

  A long few minutes pass. Mom makes another sign of the cross, and Ginny repeats it. Dad looks out the window. It’s a great big sunny day. I wonder if he’s thinking about the track. But no, he’s not a jerk. He’s here with us, or with his own mother, which is okay.

  One of the undertakers looks at me, a kindly look, I think. He waves me forward. Another man takes his hands from his pockets, checks his watch.

  It’s time.

  I don’t want to, but I go to the kneeler. I look down and see my grandmother, white as snow, shrunken into the silky fabric, tinier than I’ve ever seen her, her face relaxed, her wrinkles, some of them, smoothed out, her thin hair wafted up and styled. She’s wearing a pink dress, a little string of pearls around her neck. Her hands are folded heavily over her waist. She is a white stone statue made up with a human face that I’m glad I saw alive so recently. The insides of my own face, throat, and chest are gushing.

  “I love you, Grandma.” I make the sign of the cross and get up. My dad’s hand is on my shoulder. The undertakers move in, smile questioningly at us, at Mom, then close the coffin. The waving guy waves us to the door and into the waiting limousine.

  There aren’t too many people at church. Mom’s brothers, along with my dad and the undertakers, carry the casket up the church steps to a rolling stand, which they usher to the altar rail. The priest seems to know who my grandmother was, says a few words about her, how she loved her family, the knitting club, the garden club. Mom and my aunt sit in the pew while their brothers give short speeches. I remember nothing of what they said but a few funny things Grandma did when they were small, and the laughter of her friends in the congregation. All in all, the service is short. The summer choir’s thin and raggedy, like at Old Sailors.

  In the car again, we leave the parking lot for one final ride.

  Ginny is quivering. I find myself twisting a tissue and trying to put it in her nose, but she swats it down, staring out the front at the hearse driving ahead of us.

  “Where is Grandma going now?”

  “Heaven,” my mom says. “But she’ll still be with us.”

  “She’s always with us,” Dad sa
ys. “In our hearts.” It’s strange to hear him say this kind of thing. “We can think about Grandma every day.”

  “No. She’s in the black station wagon. Where is she going?”

  “To the cemetery,” I whisper to her. “Remember?”

  “Oh, right. After church is the cemetery. Then we go home?”

  “First, lunch with your uncles and aunt,” Mom says.

  “And the babies?”

  “And the babies. Then we go home.”

  Ginny yawns. “I remember now.”

  * * *

  At the cemetery the priest mostly reads from a prayer book, then blesses the casket, but it doesn’t go into the ground. Afterward, Mom’s brothers take us out for a big meal. Besides us, there are a few people who I saw at the funeral home and some from the church. My aunt and mother have lots to drink. It’s nearly suppertime now and it seems to be going on too long, and I think of Sean at home. I ask my mom for her cell to call him. I know enough not to ask for Dad’s, because if I ever do go to Sean’s with it, I don’t want him remembering I asked for it now.

  I go out to the lobby to make the call. He picks up on the third ring.

  “Hello, Mrs. Todd,” he says when he picks up.

  “Shay, it’s just her phone.”

  He laughs. “I figured.”

  He sounds okay, not depressed or mad like Wednesday.

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sounds normal. Or, not normal, exactly. But I almost feel us going back to the time before any of this happened. “Is … he there?”

  “Who?”

  “Who. Paul. The babysitter.”

  A pause on the line. “Yeah. It’s just the usual Friday. Nice day. We’re out in the backyard. How’s the funeral? I mean, it’s sad, right? It’s probably sad? Without you at the game tomorrow, I feel like we’ll win. Ha-ha. Too bad you won’t see my home run. Home runssss, plural. Blam, blam, blam!”

  I wonder if I’m hearing him right or, for a second, if it’s even him on the phone. Then I guess that he’s talking like this because Paul is listening. I scan the dining room. People are talking quietly, some of them. Others are drinking. A lot are drinking, especially my aunt, who somehow finds it possible to whoop a big laugh. Three or four ancient people have nearly disappeared into their chairs, surrounded by somebody’s grandchildren.