They're Always With You

by Mary Clare Lockman

  I thought about how I could find out who the mysterious Daniel was. Maybe Aunt Florence’s boyfriend really was named Daniel and he dumped her and broke her heart until a wonderful nurse hugged her while she cried.

  It could have happened that way I suppose, but as I said before, my mom said the boyfriend’s name wasn’t Daniel and why was Aunt Florence with a nurse anyway? It just didn’t make any sense. Where would she have seen a nurse? In a Dr.’s office? Or a hospital? Was she sick years ago?

  Anyway, I knew she didn’t have any disease now. She never called in sick for work because she never was sick. Colds or flu germs did not find Aunt Florence, or maybe they did and she just repelled them immediately in her business-like way. And then they found their way to the rest of us, and we coughed, sneezed, and blew our noses until Aunt Florence made comments like, “I suppose we’re going to need more tissues. It looks like we’re out. Tsk, tsk.”

  I decided to just go to bed since there wasn’t anything else to do so I yelled downstairs to my mom that I was going to sleep. I turned off the light. I thought for a while about what the big game would be like and whether I would play and whether we would win.

  I closed my eyes to picture myself shooting the winning hook shot and must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew the sun had risen, the birds were chirping, and my alarm pierced my eardrums with its insistent chiming.

  Chapter Nine

  Grandma Rose

  The week flew by as Gramps always said. I practiced basketball after school until dinner every night. The practices were more intense since the big game was almost here. We had scrimmage games where we played each other. Coach Brennan really got into it. He blew his whistle, yelled out plays, and ran up and down the court.

  I liked it because I wasn’t always playing with the Bloomer. I got to play with the eighth grade starters. Klein was another forward and she could really pass the ball. It was wonderful to wait by the basket and have the pass actually come right to me. Schmit was one of our best guards and she liked to block my shots. She sure didn’t let you get an easy lay-up. You had to work for it against her. I especially liked playing with Doyle since she was the best player on the team. She could dribble, she could pass, she could shoot, and she could rebound. Plus, she was our jump ball person. Sometimes, I just watched in awe.

  After dinner every night, I worked on my story about Gramps. I had gone to the library and found a book about Ellis Island. There was a picture of a man having his eyelids pulled down just like Gramps had described. I imagined Gramps in the big noisy room filled with people. It amazed me that he had been there.

  Sunday came and we did our usual going to church and then eating at the diner. Gramps and I had our date set for one o’clock in the sunroom just like the week before. I had my notebook ready with questions about Chicago, my Grandma Rose, and then how he got to Red Wing, Minnesota.

  Gramps waited for me in the sunroom. I walked in and sat in the loveseat. “Here we are again, Gramps.”

  “Here we are again.”

  I opened my notebook. “I think we left off at you going to Chicago.”

  “Yes. I left New York and took the train to Chicago. Cousin Beto was happy to see me. He told me to learn English and get my high school diploma. He signed me up for English lessons right away. He said otherwise I could be taken advantage of. The day I got my high school diploma was wonderful.”

  “Did you work too?”

  “I did day work. I would take jobs for the day; anything they had available. A lot of the jobs were laying railroad tracks in the city. There were over 2000 miles of track so I got to know parts of Chicago very well.”

  “How long did you live with Cousin Beto?”

  “For a year. Then I rented a room from a woman named Angella. I lived with her until Rose and I were married.”

  “How did you meet Grandma Rose?”

  “On Saturdays I delivered prescriptions for Mr. Rheinberger who owned a pharmacy. One day, I couldn’t find the street I was looking for and I asked a lovely young woman for directions.”

  “That must have been my grandma.”

  “It was. I can still see every movement of her face and hands. She had the most beautiful slate blue eyes I had ever seen. For me, it was truly love at first sight.” Gramps smiled. “I walked by her house every couple of days trying to see her again. Finally, a month later, I saw her again. She introduced herself as Rosemary O’Keefe and said I could call on her on Sundays.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes. I spent most of my Sunday afternoons with Rose and her family.”

  “For how long?”

  “For two years. They called it courting in those days.”

  “Did her family like you?”

  “Her mother, Marie, liked me. Sean and Liam, her two brothers, didn’t pay much attention. Rose’s father, Paddy, wasn’t too sure of me. I had to win him over. When he realized that I would never do anything to hurt his daughter, we became great friends. I can still picture him sitting in front of the radio. He listened to all the mystery shows. There was one called The Shadow but his favorite was Sherlock Holmes. Everyone had to be quiet so Paddy could hear all the sound effects.”

  “He sounds fun.”

  “He was fun. He said at least I went to Mass every Sunday even if I wasn’t Irish.”

  “You still do, Gramps.”

  “Mass has always been important to me. Paddy liked that. And he liked the fact that I became an American citizen. I asked Paddy for Rose’s hand before I asked her to marry me. On November 3, 1928 Rose and I were married. It was the most wonderful day of my life.”

  “Where did you live?”

  “With Paddy and Marie. I still had a year of pharmacy school left and Rose had to quit her job as a secretary after we got married. That’s the way things were in those days. Married woman couldn’t work. So Rose helped her mother at home and thought of ways she could make a little money. It was hard for her.”

  “Did you keep delivering prescriptions?”

  “On Saturdays. Mr. Rheinberger had encouraged me to go to pharmacy school. He told me that someday we could be partners if I became a pharmacist. I planned on working for him until I could buy into the business. When the stock market crashed in 1929, we didn’t realize what it meant for a long time.”

  “Did you lose your job?”

  “Not right away. But people couldn’t pay for their prescriptions so they either didn’t get the medicine they needed or Mr. Rheinberger told them to pay when they got the money. He had a stack of IOU’s in the back of the pharmacy.

  “Mr. Rheinberger taught me how to make leather mittens for the cold like he had when he was growing up in Germany. After we had ten pairs made, I would go out in the streets and sell them for a dime apiece. We split the money so we each got a nickel. In July, 1930, Mr. Rheinberger told me he was going to close up completely. He said he didn’t want to owe any more money.”

  “What’d you do then?”

  “I had been looking for any day work I could find but so were hundreds of other men. Mr. Rheinberger told me about a pharmacy with a soda fountain for sale in a place called Red Wing, Minnesota. He said I could probably get it really cheap with the state of the economy.”

  “So that’s how you ended up in Red Wing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Grandma Rose want to move?”

  “She was sad. Paddy suggested that Rose and I take the Great Northern train to Red Wing to look at the business and the town. Rose was expecting your mother at the time. We knew if we didn’t travel right then she wouldn’t be able to for months. Rose was quiet on the train but once we got to Minnesota, she loved it. She had all kinds of plans. She liked the town and we both thought it would be a good place to raise a family.”

  “Were you glad to leave Chicago?”

  “I didn’t like leaving certain people but I had never planned on living in a big city. I lived there because that’s where the jobs were. Ros
e’s parents, Paddy and Marie, said they would help us buy the store. We waited until after your mother was born. She arrived on December 28, 1930. I left for Red Wing in January, 1931. Rose and Paddy came a month later.”

  “I bet you were happy to see them, Gramps.”

  “I was so happy. I promised Rose I would make it work for us. She corrected me and said that the two of us would make it work. So it became a great partnership.”

  “Did she help at the store?”

  “She jumped right in. She did the bookkeeping and loved working in the soda fountain. But it was the Depression and I found myself in the same situation Mr. Rheinberger had been in. Not enough money to pay the bills. Rose had the idea of giving free Cokes or phosphates to people while they waited for their prescriptions. It saved us running to people’s houses and while they waited, sometimes they bought ice cream or something else. I always said Rose made the business grow.”

  “How smart.”

  “She was very smart. It was simple idea but it made a huge difference.”

  I had closed my notebook halfway through our conversation just like the week before. I liked watching Gramps face when he talked about people in his past. His whole face got kind of soft looking when he talked about Grandma Rose. He must have really loved her a lot.

  “I think I have all I need for my paper, Gramps. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk like this again.”

  “Sure, anytime.”

  “I wish I would have known Grandma Rose.”

  “She would have loved you as much as I do, Bella. Come here and give me a kiss.”

  I snorted like I always did when he called me that.

  Gramps laughed. “You’re funny. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  What was amazing to me was that people really do live on through other people. Even though Giovanni had died almost 50 years ago, he still had a place in Gramp’s heart. I wondered if 50 years from now I’d be telling my grandkids about the Bloomer and Sally. And maybe they’d be telling their grandkids about me. One thing was certain though; Gramps would always be with me.

  Chapter Ten

  The Hospital

  Monday, after practice, Coach Brennan gave us a pep talk about how proud he was of all of us. He said to just get out there at the championship game and play like we had all season. If we lost there was nothing to be ashamed of because that was the game; someone had to win and someone had to lose. He said he had enjoyed coaching us all year and he was going to miss us because we were the greatest bunch of girls he had ever coached. His eyes filled with tears. Then Coach Brennan cleared his throat and thankfully, his eyes went back to normal. He dismissed us early and told us to have a good dinner, get a good night’s sleep, and he would see us tomorrow at 6:00 pm.

  I grabbed my book bag and left the gym. To my surprise my mom pulled up in the car. She honked and motioned for me to get in. My mom didn’t believe in honking at people when she picked them up so I tried to swallow but I couldn’t; my mouth was too dry.

  “Get in, Colette. Gramps had a stroke.”

  I threw my book bag into the back seat. My heart pounded and it hurt to breathe. All I could think of was that Gramps was going to die and I would never see him again. I couldn’t stand the thought. I squeaked out, “Is he alive?”

  “Yes, he’s alive. He’s in the hospital and they’re running tests right now. Florence and your dad are with him.”

  “What happened?”

  “I came home from school and Gramps was lying on the living room floor. I ran over and saw he was breathing but he didn’t open his eyes when I yelled, ‘Dad.’ So I called the ambulance and then I called your father.”

  I pictured poor Gramps lying on the floor all by himself, maybe for a long, long time, and none of us even knowing he was there. I wiped my eyes because I didn’t want my tears to escape and start streaming down my cheeks.

  “And then I didn’t know what to do. If I should call Florence at work or call at school and have someone go get you or if I should sit on the floor next to Gramps. I decided I’d sit and hold his hand. I sat on the floor and held his hand until the ambulance came.”

  “That’s what I would have done too, Mom.”

  “Now you realize Gramps is going to look different than he did this morning.”

  “How?”

  “The left side of his face droops and his left arm and leg are limp.”

  We walked into the hospital and stopped at the information desk.

  “Excuse me, can you tell me where Mr. Rossini is?” my mom asked.

  “Let’s see, Mr. Rossini. He’s still in the Emergency Room. There’s a waiting room down there,” the woman said. She looked up from under her very red, large, ratted hair. None of her hairs moved even a fraction of an inch when she moved her head. I wondered how she could sleep on it. Did she just put more hairspray on when she got up in the morning? “You can take that hallway and just follow the signs,” the woman said as she pointed to the hallway on the left. Her red lips kind of grimaced and revealed some very large teeth.

  As my mom and I walked towards the hallway to the left, I glanced back at the information lady. The phone rang and she picked it up efficiently, looking just the right amount of serious. She answered the person’s question and then hung up. She put two of her fingers in her mouth for a second, licked them and smoothed down a couple of hairs she thought were out of place. She reached under the information desk, pulled out her purse, and took out some red lipstick and a small mirror. She put more lipstick on, pursed her lips together, took out a tissue, and puckered her lips together into the tissue. Her lips didn’t seem any redder after the new lipstick but I didn’t think any lips could get redder than the information lady’s. She looked over at my staring eyes and winked. If it hadn’t been for Gramps being down in the emergency room, I would have laughed.

  We found Aunt Florence and my dad down in the Emergency Room. Gramps hadn’t opened his eyes yet but Aunt Florence said that wasn’t unusual with a stroke. He also had had something called an EEG. That was short for a really long, hard to pronounce word. The word just rolled off Aunt Florence’s tongue. No problem.

  Mom, Dad, and Aunt Florence talked about my Grandma Rose and how hard it was on Gramps when she was sick. She had had a stroke but also had a lot of problems with her heart. I lost interest after a while since all of this happened before I was born. While they talked I said a little prayer, which I didn’t do often, and asked God not to take our Gramps away from us.

  One of the nurses came out to talk to us. She knew Aunt Florence since this was where Aunt Florence worked. “We’re going to move your father to the ICU now,” she said. “His blood pressure has stabilized and his other vitals are fine. He’s still not responding but you know that can change quickly.”

  “Are they going to do more tests?” my mom asked.

  “Not right now. I think the plan is to get him to ICU, put him on a monitor, and watch him carefully. The doctor will come out to talk to you before he leaves,” the nurse said. She turned back and said, “Sorry about this, Florence.”

  The doctor came out and told us pretty much the same information the nurse had. He added that it was hard to tell how extensive the stroke was and it became a wait and see approach. I guess everyone was supposed to watch Gramps for any kind of response. He said something about some kind of medicine to keep the blood from clotting and another to keep the blood pressure down. Aunt Florence nodded. How can you live in the same house with someone and not even know that they knew all about basketball and special kinds of medications to prevent blood from clotting and others that kept the blood pressure down?

  The nurse said, “ICU is ready for Mr. Rossini.”

  When I saw Gramps being wheeled out, I felt like crying. I swallowed hard and blinked my eyes a couple of times. Gramps had tubes running from two places in his good right arm to dripping glass bottles hanging on poles. A person was pushing a big green tank with a bottle attached to it. There was bubbling water in
the bottle and a tube connected to it. Aunt Florence said it was oxygen and that Gramps needed it right now. The other end of the tube went into a mask that fit tightly over his nose and mouth. The oxygen hissed as the bed moved. Gramp’s eyes were closed and I could tell when I looked closer that the left side of his face kind of hung down a little. His skin looked whiter than it had ever been even in the longest winter.

  Anyway, I didn’t know where to touch him since he had the bad side now and the other side was filled with tubes so I just walked next to him. A machine beeped out the rhythm of his heart and made this up and down line on a long skinny piece of paper. One end of a lot of wires connected to the machine and the other end was under Gramp’s hospital gown. The paper just kept printing and printing. I found myself watching the paper and being happy that his heart was beating away.

  Gramps was upstairs in the ICU or Intensive Care Unit in no time, and boy, were the nurses up there busy. We stayed outside the room while they got Gramps in his bed and hooked him up to their own beeping heart machine and oxygen tank. All I could see was two pairs of sturdy white nurse’s shoes moving under the curtain. As the curtain slid aside with authority, there was Gramps looking small and white in his hospital bed.

  “Hi, Florence,” the nurse said. Then she turned to the rest of us. “My name is Maggie and I’m Mr. Rossini’s nurse. Are you all family?”

  “Yes,” my mom said.

  “You can all go in for five minutes. I’m going to check the orders and I’ll be around if you have any questions. Okay?”

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

  “He’s stable right now and we’re watching him carefully,” Maggie said.

  I had been thinking about this since my mom picked me up so I had to ask. “How can a person like Gramps be so healthy and then all of a sudden he can’t walk, talk, or even move?”