The Way Back Home

by Allan Stratton

“Well then, would you, please?”

  “Why? It’s plain foolish.”

  Dr. Milne makes a note. “Instead of questions, let’s play a game. I’ll give you three words, we’ll talk and then I’ll ask you for the words.”

  Granny gives him an eyebrow. “You get paid to do this?”

  “An easy life, hunh?” Dr. Milne jokes; Granny grips my hand harder. “Now the three words I want you to remember are: boy, box, pencil. All right?”

  “Boy, box, pencil,” Granny repeats over and over under her breath.

  “So,” Dr. Milne says casually, “I had a good breakfast today: eggs, toast and coffee. What did you have?”

  “Boy box pencil — the same — boy box pencil.”

  “Your fall must’ve surprised you.”

  Granny nods, her lips going boy box pencil boy box pencil. Dr. Milne suddenly points out the window. “Is that a deer?”

  “What?” Granny turns her head. “A deer? Where?”

  “By the bushes.”

  “Which bushes?”

  “Darn, it’s run off,” Dr. Milne says. “So, Mrs. Bird, could you please tell me the three words?”

  Granny glares at him. “Boy, box … boy, box … boy, box and the other one.”

  “Good. And the other one?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Mother,” Dad goes. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Don’t tell me what I know and what I don’t know. You don’t know nothing, Mister Know Nothing.”

  “Then tell the doctor the three words.”

  “BOY, BOX, PENCIL,” I yell. “STOP BEING SO MEAN!”

  “You tell ’em, Zoe! Boy, box, penicillin!” Granny bangs her fist on the bed rail. “You think I don’t know what these questions are about? You think I’ve lost it. You think I’ve gone loony. Hah! Where’s my car? I’m getting out of here.”

  “She drives?” Dr. Milne asks.

  “Yes, she drives,” Granny spits. “How do you think she got here?”

  Dr. Milne looks to my parents. “Perhaps we should move to the hall.”

  “Perhaps you should go to hell!” Granny yells as he leads them out. “Don’t think you can talk about me behind my back.” She goes to get out of bed.

  “Granny, the tube. You’ll hurt yourself. Don’t worry. I’m here. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. They want to put me away.”

  “No. The doctor just wants you to stay overnight. They want to make sure you’ve recovered.”

  “Oh, do they now?”

  “Yes. Please, Granny. Trust me. Stay for tonight. That’s all. Tomorrow you’ll be back home and we’ll sit on the veranda and laugh.”

  Her eyes are scared. “I’d rather be dead than trapped in Greenview Haven.”

  “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. Not ever.”

  “Promise?” she pleads.

  “Yes. Promise.”

  6

  We cross the parking lot. Dad has Granny’s purse and her clothes in a bag for washing. “What you did back there was a disgrace.”

  “I was standing up for Granny is all.”

  “They could hear you screaming all the way down the corridor,” Mom says. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life.”

  What else is new?

  We pile into the car and Dad starts the engine. As we pull onto the highway, Mom fans herself with the map from the glove compartment. It’s quite the show, ’cause yeah, the day’s been all about her. I want to kick the back of her seat so hard she’ll fly through the windshield.

  “You’re not the only one who loves Granny,” Dad says. “For Pete’s sake, she’s my mother. I’ve been responsible for her and your grampa before that — and it hasn’t been a picnic, let me tell you.”

  “So?”

  “Zoe, we’re not the enemy. We only want what’s best for her. I hardly sleep. You’ve no idea all there is to stress about.”

  “This morning you told Mom things weren’t that bad.”

  “And look what’s happened since then.”

  “What’s happened is you barged in looking for trouble.”

  Mom swings round and shakes the map in my face. “If you used your head, you’d be worried sick about your granny having fires, heart attacks, strokes—”

  “She has a phone.”

  “Much good it did today,” Mom snaps. “And what if she wanders? Mrs. Glover froze to death last winter.”

  “Granny’s cell phone has a GPS. It’s in her purse. She wears it all the time, even in bed.”

  “Forget emergencies,” Dad says. “What about her diet? Her hygiene?”

  “We can look after that.”

  “Oh, really? I’d like to see you try and give her a bath.”

  “I could if I had to. Better that than Greenview Haven.”

  “If only it were that simple.” Mom pulls out her phone. “Jess, Carrie here. We’ve been at the hospital. Tim’s mother collapsed … No, she’ll be fine, whatever ‘fine’ means. She’s skin and bones. And who knows when she did her toenails last. They’re so long they curl right under her toes. It was so embarrassing. Thank God the nurses are going to clip them … Well, of course she’s not in her head, but the doctor says we can’t place her unless she’s a danger.”

  Hooray!

  “Yes, I know, it’s crazy, totally crazy. I’ve been dealing with crazy all day,” Mom says. “At least he pulled her driver’s licence.”

  I grab the back of Mom’s seat. “He took Granny’s licence? How will she get around?”

  “Enough!” Dad’s like he’s ready to plow us into the ditch.

  “Granny’s safe! She drives slow!”

  “I said, enough!” Dad yells.

  “Anyhoo,” Mom says sweetly, “the county’s sending someone in the next few days to check that her place is senior-friendly. I need to spruce things up or they’ll think we don’t care, and we do. If I had a nickel for every time I tried to clean and got my head chewed off, I’d be a millionaire. You’d think her dust and dirt were heirlooms. Please, please, could you give me a hand? I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone else.”

  I’ll bet Aunt Jess is doing cartwheels. She loves being shocked as much as Mom. It’s their favourite hobby.

  “Thanks,” Mom says. “See you in a jiffy.” She hangs up.

  “I’ll help too,” I say. “I know where everything goes.”

  Mom snorts. “You’d make a bigger mess than we started with.”

  “Cow.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Cow. I’m looking at the cow in that field, do you mind?”

  Apparently she does.

  * * *

  Back home, Mom tosses Granny’s skirt and sweater in the wash and her underwear in the trash, then grabs some garbage bags, cleaning stuff, and a bottle of hand sanitizer and heads out to meet Aunt Jess.

  Dad takes Granny’s car keys out of her purse and puts them in the old cufflinks box in his bottom dresser drawer. “Whew boy.” He turns on the TV, sits at one of the sink chairs and dries his sweaty feet with a hair dryer.

  Whew boy: no kidding.

  Mom phones at six to say she won’t be home for dinner; Dad and I have leftover meatloaf. She drags herself through the door at nine: “They should put me on a stained-glass window. I stink like the Bird House.”

  Mom goes to the bedroom to get ready for a shower. Dad follows her. I look at her counter of hair sprays. She talks about stink? I eavesdrop from outside their door.

  “The filth, the clutter. We worked so hard and it hardly made a dent,” Mom says. “How can she live like that? How is that not a danger?”

  “Carrie, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

  Mind your own business, that’s what. Who cares if Granny’s old and different. At least she’s free.

  7

  Next day before class, I’m getting stuff out of my locker, when—

  “Bird Turd.”

  I whirl round. The hall
’s packed; I can’t tell who said it. I hear it again between math and science. At lunch, I speed-walk to the back of the caf and sit with my back to the world. My favourite girl band, Suckhole and the Suckhole-ettes, come over.

  “We just want to say we’re here for you,” Suckhole says.

  “Yeah,” from Katie, “if I were you, I’d be freaking out.”

  “Hunh?”

  “Your grandmother,” Suckhole whispers solemnly.

  “Granny’s fine. She had a fall, that’s all.”

  Suckhole takes my hand like she’s a nurse or something. “We know she’s okay as in she didn’t break anything. But her mind. Aunt Carrie says it’s like the furniture’s gone and she’s down to the wallpaper.”

  “What?” I yank my hand away.

  “Come on. She couldn’t tell the doctor what day it was. She didn’t even know the season.”

  “She did too. He asked stupid questions. Granny tossed it back.”

  “Don’t be mad,” Katie says. “It’s not like we’re judging.”

  “No, we’re not judgey at all,” from Caitlyn. “You being mental makes sense now. You’re stressed. I mean, we’ve seen the Bird House, but the other stuff!”

  “Don’t be ashamed,” Suckhole says. “It is what it is.”

  I pull my hand away. “Granny’s fine. I see her every day.”

  “Then you know about the hole in the back of her comfy couch. Aunt Carrie thinks there’s a squirrel living inside.” She takes a heavy breath. “And you’ll know about the pee stains.”

  “There aren’t any pee stains.”

  Suckhole bites her lip. “Well, all I can say is, don’t sit on the chairs in the dining room. Mom said, ‘She must have run out of Depends, poor thing.’”

  “Stop making stuff up.”

  “Our moms scrubbed two cans of Ajax in the toilets: the streaks at the bottom still wouldn’t come out. They also had to throw away her carpet runner and half the rugs ’cause they were too gross to send to the cleaners. Seriously, they were so scared of disease and fungus, they had to wear oven mitts.”

  “If Aunt Jess told you that, she’s a liar!”

  “Mom didn’t tell me anything,” Suckhole says. “I was there. I saw.”

  “You were at Granny’s?”

  “I came over to help after school. I went through her drawers. I had to ditch her underwear. Ew.”

  “When Madi was clearing your grandmother’s crap, where were you?” from Katie.

  “She was at home,” Suckhole goes. “Aunt Carrie didn’t want her there.”

  I jump up. “Shut your hole!”

  “Zoe, people are watching,” Caitlyn says.

  “Who cares?” I pound the table with both fists: “I love Granny.”

  “Really?” Caitlyn says. “Madi does all the work and you do nothing.”

  “Eat shit and die.” I stomp out of the caf with a toss to the tables: “What are you butt-nuggets staring at?”

  8

  When I get to Granny’s, my insides fall out. Her Corolla’s at the end of the drive; the For Sale sign in the window has our phone number. Granny’s sitting behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. She’s in her plaid dress and black sweater, cleaned, her red purse slung over her shoulder.

  I hop off my bike and into the passenger seat. “Granny.”

  Her face lights up. “Zoe! What’s the magic word?”

  “Rhubarb.”

  “Pie.” Granny beams.

  “What are you doing out here in the car, Granny?”

  “I don’t know. I must have been going somewhere. It’s a good thing you came when you did or you’d have missed me.” She goes to take her car keys out of the ignition. “What happened to my keys?”

  “You probably left them in the front vestibule,” I lie.

  “Well, isn’t that a stupid thing.” Granny gets out of the car and leads me towards the house. “You know, Zoe, all day I’ve had the strangest notion that I’ve been at the hospital. It feels so real, but here I am.”

  “You had a fall. They kept you at the hospital overnight. Mom and Dad brought you back this morning.”

  Granny lets out a sigh of relief. “So I haven’t gone crackers after all.” She opens the door and we step inside. Granny freezes. “Where’s the carpet?”

  “I think Mom sent some rugs out for cleaning.”

  “Well, she’d better bring them back. People take things, they never come back.” She sticks her head in the den. “Something’s wrong.” She looks up the stairs. “It’s wrong.” She runs into the living room and grips the back of the piano. “Floors. Why am I seeing floors? Who stole my rugs?”

  “It’s okay, Granny. Mom’s just moved things around.”

  “Where? How am I supposed to find anything?” Her hand flutters to her chest. “I have to get out of here. I need air. I can’t breathe.”

  I follow her to the veranda. We rock on the glider till she calms down.

  “Zoe,” she says, “can I ask you something? Just between the two of us?”

  “Sure.”

  Granny looks over her shoulder like people are eavesdropping. “Are your parents spying on me?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To know what I do. Where I go. They want an excuse to put me away. To steal my place. You’d tell me if they were spying, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Granny thinks a bit. “Can I ask you something else?”

  “Anything. Always.”

  “The truth, now.” She stops the glider. “Am I losing it?”

  If anyone else asked if Granny was losing it, I’d say, Don’t be stupid. Only this is Granny asking. I stare at my feet. “That’s a strange question.”

  “So I am.”

  “Just sometimes, Granny. And so what? I forget, too. Forgetting’s normal.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Besides, you’re older. You have so much more to remember.”

  Granny tries to smile. “I do, don’t I? When I tilt my head, memories fall out my ears.” We listen to a blue jay. “Zoe, there are times like now, when I know what’s what. But between you and me, this morning’s a dream and I’m afraid how I’ll be tonight.”

  “This morning doesn’t count. You were at the hospital.”

  Granny looks off. “Your grampa and I came here to look after his father. Then I looked after him. Now it’s my turn and there’s no one.” She smooths her dress. “Oh well. Guess I just have to put on my Big Girl pants.”

  “I’m here for you, Granny,” I say in a small voice.

  “Yes, you are. You’re just like Teddy.”

  “You said that yesterday.”

  “Did I?”

  “You never talk about him. Now you’ve said his name two days in a row.”

  “I guess I have,” Granny says. “I think about him more and more. Isn’t that strange? The older you get, the more you think about the past. Why is that?”

  “’Cause every day there’s more past to think about?”

  Granny chuckles. “You.” She looks over the yard. “Your grampa and I brought Teddy and your dad here every summer to visit your great-grandparents.”

  “Were there elves in the drain spout back then?” I grin.

  “Oh, yes,” Granny grins back. “Elves have been leaving candies in that drain spout since forever. Teddy had china elves he played with, too. Your grampa was so mad when I got them.”

  “Did Dad play with the elves?”

  Granny rolls her eyes. “Just once. He thought they could fly. Teddy was upset, but your dad was only two, so he forgave him. Anyway, by then, Teddy was a teenager: out of elves and into knitting.”

  “What did Grampa say about that?”

  “What didn’t he say? I told him to zip it: If more men knit, the world would be less tangled.” Granny’s face melts like butter. “Teddy made the most beautiful sweaters, gloves, winter socks. He stitched us a pair of matching scarves once, yellow and orange with bursts of purple — they w
ent all the way down to our knees. Teddy. If he was around, he’d protect me. But he’s gone.” Her lips move as if she’s talking to someone.

  “Granny,” I whisper, “want me to make you a sandwich?”

  She nods, but not like she’s here.

  I go inside. Mom and Aunt Jess have stocked the fridge and put fresh sheets on Granny’s bed. There are boxes of Depends by her dresser and a drawer full of new panties and old-people socks. The bathrooms are cleaner, too. Good. A little help’s all Granny needs.

  All of a sudden I know what to do.

  9

  Back home, I concentrate on being polite. I set the table without being asked. I close my eyes when Dad says grace. Instead of grabbing stuff, I ask: “Could you please pass me the casserole?”

  Mom looks at me weird. “Certainly.” She hands it to me.

  “Thank you.”

  “So …” she says, “you were at Granny’s today?”

  “Yes,” I answer nicely.

  Mom rearranges her bum like a hen on eggs. “Maybe from now on, you could wait until after school? I’ve been getting calls from the attendance secretary.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” I smile and chew. And chew. And chew.

  My folks frown like they’re trying to figure why I’m so polite. The eyes of the kitchen owl clock go back and forth between us.

  I finally swallow. “You and Aunt Jess really worked hard at Granny’s. The bathrooms and kitchen look amazing.”

  “Why, uh, thank you. It’s a start anyway.”

  “Madi says she cleaned out Granny’s underwear drawer.”

  Mom’s eyes flicker. “It was Aunt Jess’s idea. I had no idea she’d be there.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. Anything for Granny.”

  Mom sits back. For the first time in ages, Dad actually breathes.

  Time for my pitch: “I know I’ve been a problem for you guys. I’ve made things way more stressful than they need to be, which isn’t fair, especially knowing about your rashes and alopecia and whatnot. So I’d like to say I’m sorry and I have an idea for making life easier.”

  “Oh?” from Mom.

  “We’re all ears,” from Dad. They lean forward for the Miracle at the Dinner Table.

  I take a deep breath. “I was thinking: What if I moved in with Granny? I can bring her meals from here and sleep in one of the guest rooms. That way you won’t have to worry about her, and I’ll be out of your hair.”