“Shad, shut up. Grandma’s sick.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, she’s sick? Where is she?” He started toward the kitchen.
“Wait,” I said.
He went into the kitchen and then backed out, knocking into me. Outside, I heard the ambulance siren. “What’s the matter with Grandma?” He looked like he was going to cry.
“I don’t know. She fell off her chair. I think it’s a stroke.” I didn’t know I was going to say that. I didn’t know that I knew that.
“Bunny, is she dead?”
“No. I think she can hear things. It’s her eyes.” I went over and knelt next to Grandma again. “Grandma, they’re coming. They’re coming soon. Shad’s here. See, he came right back, just the way he said he would.” I kept talking to her.
It seemed so long since I’d phoned for the ambulance. It seemed like hours, but when the doorbell rang, I looked at the clock and I saw it was only fifteen minutes.
I opened the door. Two people in whites were there with a rolled-up stretcher. “Hello.”
Why did they say hello? I didn’t want them to be polite. I didn’t care about manners or politeness. “My grandmother—she’s in there.” I pointed to the kitchen. They walked in. I wanted them to run. Everything they did seemed too slow and then it seemed too fast.
I watched them put Grandma onto the stretcher. Her eyes stared up. Now her eyes were talking to them. They put a blanket over her.
“Anybody else home?” the man asked.
“No. Just us.”
“Don’t worry, love,” the woman said. She had an English accent. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“Can I go with you?”
They looked at each other. “Well, you know, it’s just going to be sitting around the hospital all day. Where’s your mum?”
“She’s in a meeting at the convention center.” The second time that happened to me. I said something I couldn’t think of before.
“Well, does she know? Why don’t you call there?”
“Yes, I’m going to.”
“Then she can come home and go to the hospital with you. That would be best.”
I nodded. I kissed Grandma and they took her out. Shad sat down on the couch and started playing on a little tin flute. I went into the bedroom and called the convention center. It took a long time to find someone who understood what I wanted. “I have to give my mother a message. It’s important.” I finally got a woman who said she’d find Mom and tell her.
I went back into the living room. Shad was still sitting on the couch, blowing into the flute. He kept playing the same tune over and over. “Yankee Doodle went to town, aridin’ on his pony.…”
“Don’t,” I said. Shad put down the flute, but a moment later he picked it up again and started all over. “Yankee Doodle went to town.…”
I went into the kitchen. I washed the dishes. I tried not to make a lot of noise. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to walk on the floor where Grandma had been lying. I tiptoed around the spot. It looked the same as the rest of the floor, but I couldn’t put my foot on it.
I found some meat loaf and made two sandwiches. “Shad, I made you a sandwich.” I put pickles on the plate and brought the sandwiches into the living room. “Sit on the rug,” I said. I didn’t want to mess up Grandma’s couch. “What’d you do?” I asked Shad.
“Outside? I bought this flute.” He took a bite of the sandwich, then a bite of pickle.
“Anything else?”
“I went into a pet store. That’s where I stayed mostly.” He brightened up. “You should see that place, Bunny! I’ll take you there. They had little dogs in the window.”
“Oh, no. Too corny.”
“Six of them. They were all black. Do you think—”
“No,” I said. “You know what Dad says. It wouldn’t be fair to a dog to leave it at home alone all day.”
“It could have the whole backyard to play in,” Shad argued. He got that stubborn look on his face, which meant he was going to argue with me until I said he could have a dog.
“Shad. It’s not up to me.”
“You could tell Dad. He’d listen to you.”
“Where do you get that idea? He wouldn’t.”
“He would. More than he listens to me.”
Then Mom walked in. She pulled off her coat and threw it down on the couch. “What happened? Bunny, they told me—I didn’t even want to take the time to call. I just came home. I got a taxi, and—did the ambulance come? Did she fall or—”
I got up and went to her. “Mom. Grandma and I were just sitting in the kitchen and talking.” My throat got thick. “And, and she lit a cigarette and then—” I wanted to tell her everything, but my throat was so tight I couldn’t speak. “Oh, Mom.” I put my arms around her and started to cry.
Chapter 17
The next day, Mom and Dad were on the phone for a long time. Then, Mom sat on the couch with me and we had a conference.
“You know, I want to be with Grandma while she’s in the hospital,” Mom said. “Probably ten days. Maybe two weeks. So the question is, What about you and Shad? Here’s our options. First, you and Shad could stay right here. Well, the problem with that is, what would you two do every day? Besides, I don’t like you missing all that school.”
I nodded. “Especially Shad.” Shad is gifted. He’s really smart. You would think he could miss tons of school and it would be okay. But it doesn’t work that way. He gets bored and cranky when he’s not in school.
“Right,” Mom said. “Especially Shad. So that doesn’t seem like such a great idea. You could stay on until Tuesday, when Dad will be home. Just miss a couple days of school. That’s not bad. What do you think?”
I thought about staying in Toronto. And I thought about going home. And I told Mom that if Shad and I went home, it would be the best plan. “Then we don’t miss any school. We can take care of ourselves for two days at home. I’ll make meals and all that stuff. It wouldn’t be any different if we stayed here. Because you’ll be in the hospital all day, anyway.”
“Yes, but I’d be here at night. You’ll be home alone two nights.”
“That’s okay.”
“You think you can handle it? You don’t have to do this part, Bunny. You know you’re going to have to take over for me, anyway. I’m sorry to say it, but Dad doesn’t have a clue about the house. I’ve spoiled him.”
“I can handle it, Mom.”
“What about Shad? Do you think he can get along okay without me or Dad around?”
I nodded. “Mom, I’ll take good care of him.” I felt sort of solemn, like I was taking a vow or something. For a minute I even forgot about Grandma—that she was the reason Mom and I were having this discussion—and I felt really proud and happy.
Mom said she’d have to talk to Dad again and later that night I heard her on the phone for a long time. The next morning she drove us to the bus station.
In the bus, I let Shad have the window seat. The trip seemed really long, even with him to keep me company. I kept thinking about Grandma. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see her lying on the floor.
Mom had given me money for a taxi when we got back. I was glad. I just wanted to be home.
When I gave the taxi driver the money, he looked at it and said, “Don’t break your heart.” He drove off.
“Did you give him a tip?” Shad said.
“I paid him what the meter said. Fifteen dollars for a little ride home!”
“You’re supposed to tip him, Bunny.”
“How do you know that?” I shoved him toward the house. “Mom didn’t say anything about it.” I unlocked the front door and we went in. I dropped my knapsack on the floor and took off my jacket. It was late. It was dark. The house felt empty.
I hung up my jacket and turned on some lights. Shad was still standing in the hall, looking around like he didn’t even recognize our house. “Will you sleep in my room tonight, Bunny?”
“No, I don�
��t like the smell in your room.”
“What smell?”
“All your little pets smell, Shad.”
“Not to me.”
“Well, they do to me.”
He went upstairs to his room. I walked through the house. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever been home without Mom and Dad. I tried to pretend it was just another evening when they were out visiting friends, but it wasn’t the same thing. I don’t know why, but the house even sounded emptier, as if the rooms and the walls and the furniture knew that Mom and Dad were really somewhere else, far away.
I called Emily. I told her what happened. “Oh, Bunny! Your grandmother.” When I told her about the empty sound, she said, “I know. It was just like that after my father left.”
Shad came down the stairs.
“You can sleep in my room, if you want to,” I said. “How’s the petting zoo? Are they okay? Did they drink up all the water?”
“They’re pretty hungry. And I have to clean their cages.”
“Well, go ahead and do it.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m hungry. We didn’t have that much to eat on the bus.”
“Okay, make yourself something.”
“Bunny, if I’m hungry at night, Mom always makes it.”
I went into the kitchen. There wasn’t that much in the refrigerator. Usually, we shop on Friday night when Mom gets paid. I found a frozen pizza and put it in the oven.
Mom phoned before we went to sleep. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “Did you see Grandma?”
“I was at the hospital all afternoon.”
We talked some more. Then she talked to Shad. Right after she hung up, Dad phoned and we both talked to him, too. Shad was on the upstairs phone, I was on the downstairs phone.
“I’m sleeping in Bunny’s room, Dad,” Shad said.
“Good,” Dad said. “That’s a really good idea.”
The next morning, it was kind of fun being in the house alone. Shad and I could talk as loud as we wanted to. Usually, in the mornings, Dad is sort of grumpy. Even if we’re whispering, he’s always saying, “Kids, please, would you tone it down!”
Breakfast was okay and I was thinking everything was going great until Shad couldn’t find his science book. We spent half an hour looking for that book all over the house. We finally found it on top of the refrigerator. “How’d it get there?” I said.
“I bet Mom put it there. Remember the time she put my milk money in the freezer?”
“Now we’re both going to be late for school.” We ran out of the house, then I had to dash back to lock up, which I almost forgot to do.
I never thought I was a big worrier, except about my name and my teeth. But all that day in school, I worried about a lot of things. About Grandma first. And then about all the things I’d have to do to take care of Shad and me, and would I have enough time for everything. “You will, you will,” Emily kept saying. And I kept saying, “I hope so, but I don’t know, Em.…”
On the way home, I had to buy food for supper, and then I worried that if something held Dad up in San Diego, we wouldn’t have enough money to buy anything else. When I called Emily later, she said, “Bunny, your mom could cable you money overnight.”
I adjusted the phone. I had it stuck between my ear and my shoulder, while I peeled carrots for supper. “How do you know all that stuff?”
“It’s no big deal. It’s just that my father did it for us one time when Mom was sick.”
That was the second night we were in the house alone. “Do you want to sleep in your own room?” I asked Shad, while we were eating supper.
“Maybe.”
“We better clean up the kitchen tonight.” We hadn’t washed the dishes from last night or this morning.
“We could do it tomorrow.”
I was tempted. Then I thought, What if Dad comes home early and everything’s a mess? “No, tonight,” I said.
We were just loading up the sink with soapsuds when Dad called. Shad spoke to him first, then I did. “Hello, Dad. Where are you? Still in San Diego?”
“Yes, this is the last day, honey. Shad sounds good. Are you okay?”
“Uh huh. We were just cleaning up the kitchen.”
“Okay. I talked to Mom earlier today. Grandma’s improving a little bit.”
We talked for a while more. Then we finished the dishes. I knew Mom was going to call, but it was later before she did. I was just getting out of the shower and Shad was watching tv. Mom wanted to know everything, how we were, what we ate for supper, if we got to school on time, and did Shad take a shower.
“Not yet. I’ll make sure he does.”
“Okay, honey. Good.”
I thought she was going to hang up. “Mom, wait. What about Grandma?”
“She was more alert today. We don’t know the full story yet. They’re still doing tests.” She told me more things about Grandma. That the stroke had paralyzed her left side. That Grandma still wasn’t talking. Then Mom said the worst thing of all. “She keeps crying. The doctors told me that it’s typical of stroke patients, but still.… You know Grandma. She was always so peppy. And now.…” Mom’s voice trailed off.
I didn’t say anything. I had this awful feeling in my chest. I didn’t even want to talk to Mom anymore, and we hung up a few minutes later.
After he showered, Shad came into my room. He was wearing his bathrobe and slippers. He was carrying one of his white rats, petting it.
“Bunny? What’s going to happen to Grandma?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Mommy say?”
“The doctors are still finding out things.” I wished he would stop asking me questions. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about Grandma crying.
He stood there with the white rat in his palm, petting it.
“Who’s that?” I said.
“This is Zelda.” He put her on his head, like a hat. “Is Grandma going to die?”
I wanted to shout at him, and I couldn’t. It was like being with Grandma again, in the kitchen, when she was lying on the floor, looking at me and looking at me, and I was so scared, and I couldn’t say it. “She had a stroke, Shad. That’s not dying.”
“Are you sure?”
Of course, I wasn’t sure. I opened my mouth, then I shut it. Shad looked so little to me. I don’t mean he looked small or short, but like a little boy. Young.
“Mom says people recover from strokes. They get therapy and stuff.”
“Oh. Okay.” Shad sat down in the rocker and put Zelda on his arm and played with her, until it was time to go to bed.
Chapter 18
Grandma was in the hospital in Toronto for ten days. Mom called home almost every night. First she’d talk to Dad, then to Shad and me. Sometimes we’d all get on the phone together, Dad in his study, Shad in the kitchen, and me in Mom and Dad’s bedroom. Then, for a few minutes, with all of us talking at once, telling each other things and laughing, I’d almost forget about Grandma. But at some point, every day, Mom would say, “Well, let me give you my report on Grandma.” And then she’d say something like, “She’s getting along.” Or, “Today I saw an improvement over yesterday.”
A couple of days after Grandma was discharged from the hospital, Mom drove back home with her. Even though Grandma could get the best care and therapy in Toronto, Mom didn’t want to leave her there. “It would be like leaving her alone,” she said. “I can’t do that.”
And Dad said, “Don’t even discuss it, Lorraine. Just bring her here.”
When I heard Grandma was coming home with Mom to live with us, I was happy. I really was. The way I thought about it was this: Grandma had been in the hospital, she’d been sick and now she was better, and just had to get really well. Which she would do with us.
I don’t know what I thought about how she would look. I didn’t really think about it. Didn’t let myself. Maybe I just expected her to look the way she always had. Sometimes I remembered her lyi
ng on the kitchen floor with her leg tangled in the chair. Whenever that came into my mind, though, I’d quickly think of something else.
I’d think of a camping trip our family took a few years ago. How one time we stopped at a place called Crystalline Lake and Dad and I stood on the little bit of sandy shore and pitched stones into the water, just as the sun was going down. The water was like dark, rippled paper.
Saturday, Dad and I worked all day fixing up one of the downstairs rooms for Grandma. The good thing about it was that it was on the south side of the house, with three windows facing the backyard. The bad thing about it was that it was a mess and besides cleaning up, we had to take out an old red velvet couch that breathed dust and weighed a ton.
We half dragged, half carried it out. Dad was puffing. First he was cheerful and kept saying, “I ought to take up jogging again.” Then he got less cheerful and kept saying, “Careful of the floors. Don’t scratch them.”
I vacuumed the room and Dad washed the windows. There were quite a few spider webs in the corners. When the room was clean, we took apart one of the beds in the upstairs spare room, carried it downstairs, and put it back together again.
Emily called, but I didn’t even have time to talk to her. We put clean sheets and blankets on the bed. We brought in an easy chair from Dad’s study, and his and Mom’s tv, and a lamp.
“My arms are sore from all that lifting and carrying,” I told Emily when she called in the morning.
“But how lucky that your grandmother is coming to live with you.”
“I know. Wait, Emily.” I had the phone clamped between my ear and shoulder again. I got the broom and swept the kitchen floor while Emily and I talked.
“When was the last time the famous grandmother came to visit you?”
“You mean, the famous Toronto Blue Jays fanatic. It was, umm, two years ago. Don’t you remember? We all went to see one of those old Walt Disney pictures. Fantasia. That was it. Maybe we’ll all do something together again,” I said.
Late that day, Mom came home. It was almost seven o’clock. We were just finishing supper and wondering where Mom was, when we heard the car horn honk. Dad jumped up like a kangeroo and ran out.
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