Love, Aubrey

by Suzanne LaFleur

  She nodded at me as she dialed. “Hi, Janet? Yes, it’s me again. Yes… Aubrey would like to talk to her. In a few minutes? Sure. We’ll be here. Thanks.”

  Gram set the phone on the table by me. “She’s going to call in just a minute.”

  I nodded, to show that I understood.

  At least five minutes passed. I stayed right there, waiting.

  When the phone rang, I jumped. I pressed the Talk button and held the phone to my ear. I didn’t say hello.

  “Aubrey?”

  It was my mother’s voice, but it was heavy, the way it had been since the wreck.

  My heart was pounding in my ears. Maybe she could hear it.

  “Aubrey, sweetheart?” she said again. “I’m so sorry.” She was starting to cry. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  I listened. I could hear something soft like breath, and something rustly like tissues brushing against the phone.

  Can you hear me, Mama? Can you hear what I am asking you?

  Clinging to the phone, I listened for the answer/ not-an-answer that she was not giving.

  I don’t know how long it was. Two minutes. Ten. Twenty.

  I took the phone from my ear. It gave a small beep as I clicked the Talk button. I set the phone down on the table.

  When I heard my own gasping breaths, I realized that I was starting to cry, too. Then Gram’s arms were around me. “Come on, come on,” she was saying gently. She held me, and then made me stand up to go upstairs. She put Sammy back in my hands, and when we got to my room, she took the container and poured him back into his bowl. I climbed into bed, and Gram patted my hair as I cried. Then I was ready to do what I had fought against the night before, and I fell asleep.

  It was even darker out when the door pushed open. A small figure stood outlined in the bright light of the hallway.

  Bridget.

  She stood, just waiting.

  “I’m not mad,” I said. “You can come in.”

  Bridget kicked off her tennis shoes, wiggled her arms out of her coat. She left her things by the door, which she closed behind her. She ran for the bed. I lifted the edge of the blanket, and she snuggled against me.

  “I’m sorry, Aubrey,” she said. “I had to.”

  “I know,” I said. She rested her head on my chest. My fingers found their way into her hair. After a few minutes I said, “If I had gone all that way, I still wouldn’t know.”

  “Wouldn’t know what?”

  But I couldn’t say. Eventually the question faded into the dark quiet of the afternoon. Bridget fell asleep first.

  “Where do you want to sit today?” Bridget asked.

  We stood at the edge of the cafeteria, Bridget with her tray of school lunch, me with my brown bag. Searching for a seat in the cafeteria wasn’t fun, but usually we could find a table where we could sit by ourselves.

  I thought guiltily of what Amy had asked me to do. I was going to see her the next day, and would have to tell her that I didn’t manage to have lunch with anyone new.

  That was when I noticed Marcus sitting by himself, drumming his plastic spork on his lunch tray.

  “Let’s sit over there,” I said.

  “Where?” Bridget asked.

  “There. With Marcus.”

  “Who?”

  I nodded toward him. Bridget raised her eye brows. “Why?”

  “Just ’cuz,” I said. “He’s all by himself.” Really, I didn’t know whether I wanted to do what Amy had said, but it was possible Marcus had to do things for Amy, too, and so, of all the people in the crowded cafeteria, he seemed like the most comfortable choice.

  “Okay,” Bridget said. I led the way over to the table.

  “Hi.” He looked at me carefully. “Au-Bree.”

  I nodded to show he got it right. “Can we sit?”

  “Welcome, welcome!” Marcus said in an extremely loud voice. Bridget raised her eyebrows again but put her tray on the table and sat down. I sat down, too, and took out my ham sandwich and my orange and my chocolate pudding. After his big pronouncement, Marcus had gone back to playing the imaginary drums on his lunch tray.

  “You guys are in the same homeroom?” Bridget asked. Marcus and I nodded.

  No one said anything for a few minutes after that.

  A girl came by. She was going from table to table with a box. “Hi, I’m Tia Fergus and I’m running for class office. Do you guys want buttons?”

  Marcus shrugged and Bridget said, “Thanks! That’s great.” She took a button and pinned it onto her shirt.

  “Where do you stand on the issues?” I asked.

  “What issues?” Tia asked, confused.

  On the inside I laughed, but I kept my face straight. “Sure, we’ll take some buttons.”

  Tia didn’t smile as she put two more buttons on the table. “Um, remember to vote next Tuesday.”

  After Tia left, I let my button just sit on the table, but Marcus picked his up and started flipping it around. Then he opened the pin clasp and looked at the pin.

  “Want to see something?” he asked.

  “Okay,” said Bridget.

  Marcus took his unopened can of orange soda. He set it on its side and rolled it to me. I didn’t understand what he was up to, but I rolled it back. Then Marcus picked up the can and shook it. After a good minute of shaking it, he set it back down on its side on the table. He took the pin, pressed it into the side of the can, then pulled it back out.

  A foot-high fountain of orange soda shot out of the can as a fizz of orangey foam slid down its side. Bridget and I laughed, and Marcus smiled a big goofy grin.

  The lunchroom aide rushed over. The aide was a male teacher who did not seem to think anything about the situation was funny, even though Bridget and I were still laughing. He asked Marcus, “Do you think puncturing a soda can is funny or safe?”

  Marcus, still grinning, shook his head and saluted us as he was led to the office.

  “Well,” said Bridget, opening my pudding and taking a bite with her own spork, “that was definitely the best lunch so far.”

  I had to agree.

  I sat in Amy Carlisle’s office for the fourth time. I’d only been to our appointments, never in between, but I kind of looked forward to them.

  “I spoke with a few of your teachers, and they told me you’re pulling above-ninety averages in their classes,” Amy reported. “That’s wonderful!”

  I wondered if she was going to follow that with “Have some M&M’s.” My eyes must have flickered to them, because Amy gave a light laugh and said, “Go ahead. I don’t mind if you have your treat a little early.”

  I took the M&M’s jar and put it in my lap, eating one colorful chocolate at a time.

  “Have you and your grandmother been able to spend any good time together lately?” Amy asked. “I remember you mentioning it before, and it seemed to be something you missed from before you lived with her.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Sometimes I guess I feel bad because I get so mad at her when she’s trying to be …”

  The word stuck inside me.

  “A parent, you mean?”

  I nodded.

  “I think we have discovered your next assignment,” Amy said. “I’d like you to try to do something with your grandmother, in a grandmother-granddaughter kind of way. Go to a restaurant, go to a movie, play some games, go for a walk. You guys must have had a special relationship before, and it is different now, but it’s important to spend some good time together to remember that relationship is still there, underneath, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Great. I’d like you to try that, then.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll try it. And if Gram doesn’t feel like it … ?”

  “Maybe she can only be ‘parent’ right now. But I think it would mean a lot to both of you to spend some fun time together. Okay?” She waited. “So, I’ll see you next week, then.”

  “Sure.” I got up to leave.

  “Aubrey?”


  “Yeah?”

  “Leave the M&M’s jar, please.”

  * * *

  Fridays had gotten sort of boring now that Bridget’s soccer team either practiced or had a game, so I had spent the after noon sitting on the porch with Martha, getting my homework out of the way. The leaves were changing and it was beautiful outside, but as everything turned golden in the setting sunlight, I put my things away and went inside because it was so chilly. It was cold enough that I kept my fleece on inside the house.

  I helped Gram set the table for dinner. She had made pot roast, which seemed just right for the weather. She brought the whole pot to the table and we sat down.

  “School okay today?”

  “Yeah, it was fine.”

  “Hand in all your homework?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you tired? You stayed up kind of late last night working on that—what was it?”

  “My time line.”

  “Right, right. The time line. It came out all right?”

  “Yeah. Well, it looked better than some of them.” I thought of Marcus’s timeline. He had skipped some of the dates on his poster and stuck them on with Post-its later.

  “If you stay up late to work on your projects too often, we’re going to have to set a bedtime, to make sure you aren’t getting tired. You’ll have to set aside a little more time in the afternoon to get your homework done.”

  I wanted to tell her how good it made me feel to stay up late working, because then I slept a safe, dreamless sleep that lasted all the way until my alarm clock rang in the morning. I poked the veggies in my bowl.

  “Hey, Gram?”

  “Hey, Aubrey?”

  “Do you think we could do something fun this weekend?”

  “Fun? What did you have in mind?”

  “You know, something that would be fun for us to do together.”

  Gram wiped her mouth with her napkin and set her fork down to think.

  “You know what you used to love, little girl?”

  “What?”

  “The Rolla Rink. You don’t remember?”

  “Only a little.”

  “Oh, you used to love the Rolla Rink. Want to go there?”

  Roller skating. Hot dog. But if it was something we used to like to do together, then maybe it was just the right thing.

  Like bowling, we had to hand over our shoes at the counter. Rental skates cost two dollars a pair. The teenager at the counter stuffed our tennis shoes together into a little square cubby and gave us a number on a slip to pick them up again.

  Gram and I walked in our socks to a bench to put on our skates. They were made of yellowing white leather with frayed red laces. I tied mine really tight and then stood up.

  “Whoa!” I said, rolling away from the bench. I reached out to grab it, but Gram caught my hand instead.

  “Stand up straight,” she said.

  I straightened up and realized that the skates were not like ice skates or Rollerblades. I didn’t have to worry about tipping over. I just had to worry about leaning forward or backward.

  Despite her directions, once Gram stood up, she rolled back toward the bench, catching herself just as she plunked back down. She let out a great laugh.

  “Okay, I got it,” she said, getting to her feet again. We held hands as we approached the wooden floor inside the rink.

  A pair of sisters skated together. I imagined Savannah skating around the edge of the rink.

  I decided I had to do some pretending. I am out with Gram, and Mom, Dad, and Savannah are all back at her house. Pushing the memories from my mind, I sent them to Gram’s house so that I could meet them there later. For now, I am out with my grandmother, like the old days.

  “We’re going to have to let go,” Gram said. “Or we’ll pull each other down.”

  I let go of her hand and leaned forward, lifting one foot and setting it down, then taking slow, gliding turns with each foot until I had circled the rink, avoiding the other skaters. My body remembered skating.

  Gram’s body was a different story. While it might have remembered skating, it seemed to be a little timid about doing it. As I came up behind her on my second loop, she had her arms out for balance and was moving slowly.

  “I need to be careful,” she said. “Or I am going to end up on my rear. On my bee-hind.”

  “Try, it’s okay,” I said. I looped the rink again. In the minute it took, a thought sped through my mind: if Gram got hurt, who would look after us?

  By the time I got back to her, she had landed on her bee-hind. “Ouch!” she cried.

  I circled in front of her. She was laughing silently. “Ooh, my!” she said when she’d had time to catch her breath. Tears of laughter gathered in the crinkles of her eyes.

  “Get up,” I said, tugging on her arms with both of my hands. Skaters around us were having to veer at the last second to miss us.

  “You’re going to fall, too, pulling on me like that.”

  I felt a bubble of laughter rising in my stomach and fell to my knees in front of her with a hard thump.

  We were both laughing too hard to get up.

  “Gram! We’re in everyone’s way!” I gasped as a boy and girl on either side of us clasped their hands together above our heads.

  We crawled over to the wall of the rink and pulled ourselves up. Gram wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.

  “I’m a lot more steady now,” I said. “It might be okay to hold hands.”

  We took each other’s hands again and stepped back into the rink.

  * * *

  After an hour of skating, I had beads of sweat on my forehead, my face hurt from smiling, and my stomach ached from laughing. I was also hungry.

  “There’s a snack bar up front,” Gram said.

  When we stepped off the rink, the regular floor felt funny. We stopped to take off our skates.

  Gram ordered something I never would have expected: chili-cheese fries and two really tall Sprites. We got a booth and sat for our snack.

  The Rolla Rink insisted on playing oldies. Gram knew all of them and sang along.

  “You know a lot of songs, Gram.”

  “That I do. Did you know when I was younger, roller-skating was really cool? They used to have lots of places like this then. They had parties, like dances, for the kids. And at some diners the waitresses brought your food to your car on roller skates.”

  “Why’d they stop that?”

  “I guess people got hurt. The waitresses, I mean. As for the parties, I guess teenagers just became interested in other things.”

  “How long do you want to stay?” I asked.

  “Let’s stay another hour or so after our snack.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  * * *

  Two hours later, with very sore legs, we limped onto Gram’s porch.

  “You know, baby doll, I am going to be so stiff tomorrow,” Gram said. Then she chuckled. “Let’s do that again sometime!”

  I held on to Gram’s arm as we walked. I could tell that underneath her jacket sleeve, her skin was soft and a little saggy, and that under that, there was still some strong muscle and bone.

  The magic wore off when we got back in the house. The empty house. Gram shuffled to the answering machine. Even though the light wasn’t blinking, she pushed the Play button anyway. The machine said, “There are no new messages.”

  Gram’s face returned to its slack, worried look. Pretending had only worked for a little while. I felt the heaviness creeping back into my stomach and my heart.

  “I’m going up to bed,” I said.

  “Good night,” Gram said. She took the coffeepot and filled it with water.

  Part of me wanted to offer to stay up with her, to hold her hand, to play cards, to try to remember some jokes, but these things wouldn’t have helped. So I turned and walked my body upstairs.

  Dear Amy,

  Is it okay if I write you a note?

  I just wanted to say thanks, because I
got my grandmother back for a few hours, and I realized how much I missed her.

  I don’t think that anything’s different, but I guess trying was a good idea.

  Love,

  Aubrey

  Gram made a super-good dinner. It was leftover meat loaf—meat loaf is better leftover—on soft hamburger buns with ketchup, and veggie medley—that’s peas, corn, carrots, and green beans—and for dessert, four different kinds of Jell-O—lime, blue raspberry, strawberry, and orange—cut into cubes and served all together.

  While I was still sitting at the table, stuffed, before we cleared the dishes, Gram said, “Aubrey, I want to talk to you about something.”

  I suddenly realized that only someone with something very important to say could find the time to make four kinds of Jell-O and cut it into cubes and serve it all together.

  “I’m going to go on a trip,” Gram began. “To visit your mother. Just for a couple days.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Were you going to ask me to go?”

  “I’m not sure what it will be like there. It’s probably better if I go alone this time.”

  “Fine. I’ll be okay here by myself. Just get me some groceries, and I can ride the bus to school, so stay as long as you like.” I decided to clear the table. Maybe that would be a sign of how fine I would be, on my own again.

  Gram laughed. I turned and looked at her in surprise. “Of course I’m not leaving you by yourself!” she exclaimed. “No, no, Uncle David is going to come stay with you.”

  “Is he bringing his family with him?” I asked. Uncle David was my favorite relative, but I didn’t want the house all full up of company.

  “No, just him,” Gram said. “Sound okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sounds okay.”

  On Saturday Uncle David’s clunky car pulled into the driveway.

  “Uncle David!” I called from the porch. I ran across the yard, meeting him halfway. He caught me in a hug, lifting me off the ground. When he set me down, he kept his arm around me as we walked to the porch. Gram stood there, waiting. She had her luggage with her. Gram hated flying, but she was going to take an airplane to Virginia. Two airplanes, actually, each way.