“Keep getting after him. Get after him!”
Abby got brave, thumped Bubba again, and tightened the reins. Together, with Ellie still leading Bubba, and Damian in a full extended trot under Ellie’s one-handed stranglehold, they made their way down the side of the arena and around the turn. Bubba tried bolting again, a maneuver that sent him careening into Damian’s shoulder. Damian pinned his ears in retaliation and tried to bite him. During all this something caught Ellie’s attention. Something shiny. Something high. Something in the hayloft.
One second it was there. And the next, gone.
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
Ellie loosened her hold of Bubba’s rein coming out of the turn so she could straighten his head and urged Abby to keep him moving. When both horses were striding strong, practically in tandem, Ellie ventured another glance over her shoulder into the rafters. Nothing.
Another trip around, still nothing. “I’m going to let you go now, just keep him trotting. Okay?”
Abby nodded with a tremendous look of determination on her face. From this point on, it was just a regular ride. Bubba behaved himself beautifully. Damian, on the bit, was his usual handful. Working from opposite ends of the arena, both horses, upon Ellie’s lead and Abby’s following, went through the paces of walk, trot, and canter on command. Abby even trotted Bubba over the cavalletti, still set up from someone’s schooling session earlier in the day.
“That was awesome!” she said, smiling proudly. “And I didn’t get dumped!”
When they’d both cooled their horses and rubbed them down and put them away, Ellie headed out into the arena for another look in the rafters. Abby was right on her heels. “What do you think you saw anyway?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at her watch. If her dad was on time, and wasn’t he always, he’d be arriving at the nursing home right about now. She had to leave.
* * *
Grandma Betty looked up and smiled as Ellie entered the room. Ellie’s father had his back to them and was staring out the window. When he heard footsteps, he turned and acknowledged Ellie with his trademark greeting; an exhaustive sigh. Always, that sigh. Ellie searched Grandma Betty’s eyes for a sense of how the visit was going, how the good-byes were going, the farewells.
“I was just telling your grandmother that’ll she probably outlive me,” her father said, coming over and giving Ellie a kiss on the cheek. “She looks marvelous. Doesn’t she look marvelous?”
Ellie nodded. She did look marvelous. Leave it to Grandma Betty to look this good to die.
“The aide is heating up a little something Jewel sent for dinner.” No sooner said, than a bowl of chili-con-carne arrived. Jewel’s specialty.
“She’s sorry she couldn’t be here today.”
Grandma Betty nodded and took a whiff.
“She wonders if Saturday would be a good day to visit.”
Grandma Betty shrugged her frail shoulders. Two days from now, perfect. An empty room is all they’d find. “Tell her not to feel bad if I’m not here. It’s nothing personal.”
Ellie’s father shook his head. “Now, Ma…” he said, her one and only son, her only living child. “Didn’t we just talk about this?”
Grandma Betty nodded dutifully. Then much to Ellie’s surprise, she blew on a spoonful of chili, held it for the longest time in front of her, wobbling, without spilling a drop, and brought it slowly to her mouth.
The aide left the room. Ellie turned as her dad followed the woman out. “Here,” she heard him say. “Just a little something as a way of saying thank you.”
The woman stared at the $5 bill. “No, really. That’s not necessary. Besides, we’re not allowed to….”
Ellie edged closer to her grandmother’s side. “Grandma, you don’t have to eat that if you don’t want.”
“I know. It’s rather good though,” Grandma Betty said, doling out another spoonful and this time spilling quite a bit along the way. “I like the cinnamon she puts in it.”
Ellie sat down next to her bed.
“Would you like some, dear?”
Ellie shook her head.
“He’ll be leaving shortly anyway.”
True. Within a minute, to be precise. “Can’t you stay a little longer?” Ellie asked, for her grandmother’s sake, for her sake.
“Actually, I would if I could. You know that,” her dad said, glancing at his watch. “I’ll try and stop back. Right now I’ve got to get across town and be there within the hour.” Ellie waited outside the room and then walked with him as far as the nurses’ station.
He seemed genuinely moved by whatever Grandma Betty may have said to him in private, but not to the extent that it changed his plans. “She’ll be fine,” he assured Ellie. “She’s a tough old broad. She always has been. It’ll take a lot more than this to do her in.”
“A lot more of what?” Ellie wanted to ask. But it wasn’t often she saw her Dad emotional. It rendered her speechless. She watched him walk down the hallway and make the turn. He didn’t look back and wave. He didn’t look back at all.
Grandma Betty had finished the bowl of chili-con-carne by the time Ellie returned to the room. Another surprise. “It was really very tasty.”
Ellie smiled. She looked so happy, and yet at the same time…. “Do you still want to go?”
“Oh yes,” Grandma Betty said, wiping her mouth with a tissue. “I’m ready.”
~ 12 ~
It was no easy task, getting Grandma Betty out the door. First, she had to be put back into bed to have her clothes changed, her diaper changed, and her medications administered. She had to be bundled up so as not to get a chill. She had to have her nitroglycerine patch updated. She had to have her shoes removed and her slippers put back on, since her feet were swollen and starting to hurt. She had to have a moment to catch her breath, and then another minute or two to “get her bearings.” All the while she kept saying please and thank you to the aide and nurse, like a good little girl. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Until finally, she was deemed ready, and then not one spare wheelchair could be found. Two aides searched everywhere. Grandma Betty didn’t have one of her own and Physical Therapy was locked up tight for the evening, so they ended up borrowing one from another resident. The man let them use it begrudgingly.
“Don’t adjust the legs!” he barked. “They’re just the way I like them. That’s my wheelchair.”
Grandma Betty heard the fuss. “I’ll bet I could walk with my walker,” she insisted.
“I’m sure you could,” Ellie said. “But I’d feel better this way.” Not to mention the floor nurse’s insistence that this would be the only way. The woman removed the footrests.
“I really wish you’d change your mind. When will you have her back?”
“Uh….” Ellie looked to Grandma Betty.
“An hour, hour and a half. Why? It’s not like I’ll be missed.”
“Oh, Betty, you’ll be missed. Trust me.”
Ellie brought her car around to the back door and rang the buzzer. She peered in the window. Grandma Betty had been parked in the hall by the nurses’ station, and looked so tiny, so weak; her feet dangled halfway up the legs of the wheelchair. Her head was tilted to the side, her hands in her lap.
Ellie rang the buzzer again, overcome with a sudden urgency. “Now. Let me get her out of here now.”
An aide appeared from one of the rooms and wheeled Grandma Betty toward her.
“Ellie? Ellie, is that you?”
“No, your granddaughter’s right outside. Here she is.”
The transfer from the wheelchair to the car was not without its own share of drama. Grandma Betty was in such a hurry to stand on her own two feet, she gathered up all her energy too soon. The nurse’s aide hadn’t locked the wheelchair firmly yet. It started to move backwards, taking Grandma Betty with it, half in and half out. And even though it moved at a snail’s pace, it caught the aide and Ellie by surprise. Each little paddle-shuff
le of Grandma Betty’s feet sent her sliding further and further away and closer and closer to the ground.
It struck Grandma Betty as funny and she started laughing, which added momentum and only made things worse as the aide scrambled to avoid stepping on her feet and right the situation, and her. “Be serious, Betty. Now cut that out.”
Grandma Betty laughed even more. “I am serious! As serious as a heart attack,” she said, and loved saying that. It was one of her second husband Dutch’s favorite sayings. Dutch. How long had it been since she’d thought of him. Oh, what a man. Oh, what a lover. When she stopped laughing, there was still a smile on her face from thinking about him
“Now don’t do that again,” the aide said. “Understand?”
Grandma Betty nodded. It was because he was such a good lover that that slut Wanda was always after him. Even after he and Betty had been married for years. “The bitch!” Always cooking up things for him at the Legion when Betty wasn’t around, and….
“Who me? You calling me a bitch? I’m only trying to get you in the car. Here, put your hands around my neck.”
“It’s Wanda,” Grandma Betty said, clasping her fingers behind the aide’s neck and holding on for dear life. “She was the bitch.” Course, Dutch would have had to at one point show her just how good a good lover he really was, and…. “Good lovers back then didn’t mean doing all that fancy stuff they do now either. That man could do it with his eyes. He had bedroom eyes,” she said. And now it was the aide who laughed.
“Betty, you crack me up sometimes.”
“Me, too,” Grandma Betty said, while being plopped into the passenger seat of Ellie’s car. As little as she was, she was all dead weight. “Where’s my granddaughter? Ellie? Ellie, did you leave?”
“No, Grandma, I’m right here.” Ellie felt a wave of apprehension wash over her. What had she gotten herself into? She glanced over her shoulder into the nursing home. It wasn’t too late to change her mind.
Yes, it was.
Grandma Betty folded her arms across her chest and stared straight ahead. Woman on a mission.
“Now Betty, you behave,” were the aide’s parting words. “You hear.”
Grandma Betty saluted her. “Ariva derche.”
Ellie got in behind the wheel.
* * *
First on the agenda was Grandma Betty’s request for a drive-by at the American Legion Hall. “A drive-by.” That’s just how she’d put it, voice low, and her peering out the window with her tiny little head barely clearing the dash. “Go slow, please. I want to see if I recognize any of the cars.”
Ellie smiled sadly. It had to be at least fifteen years since her grandmother had been to the Legion. Did she really think…? Ellie slowed traffic to a virtual halt. When the car behind them honked, she motioned for its driver to go around. The man flipped her off in passing.
His actions barely got a glance. “You okay, Grandma?”
She looked paler all of a sudden, weaker.
“I don’t recognize a single one.”
“Maybe it’s too early.”
“Nah, maybe it’s too late. Maybe they’re all dead.”
Two more cars passed
“I’ll tell you though. We had some grand parties after some of them funerals. There’s nothing like a military funeral, Ellie.”
“I thought you didn’t like funerals, Grandma.”
“Oh, I never said that. When they play them Taps….” She pressed her hand to her heart. “It gets me every time.”
Ellie smiled. Grandma Betty was still straining to see over the dashboard. “Do you want to go look again?”
“You don’t mind?”
“No.” Ellie drove around the block. She approached the Legion even more slowly this second time. “You sure you don’t want me to drive in?”
“Yes. It’s a hard parking lot to maneuver.”
Ellie chuckled. Grandma Betty had a reputation for being hell on wheels. Stone boulders, detour signs, garage doors, buildings, they’d all been fair game. “Maybe if I’m careful.”
“Okay, but it’s pretty tricky in the back. You’ll have to watch.”
The rear parking lot was little more than an alley, definitely a challenge. Ellie could only imagine the mishaps if someone had experienced a few too many spirits.
“Oh, look!” Grandma Betty said. “There’s Kalamazoo’s station wagon.”
“Kalamazoo?”
“He was from Michigan. Big guy! Sloppy as can be, but nice as hell.”
Ellie nodded. The description fit the car’s MO. “It’s a little dirty.”
“The man was a pig.”
Ellie laughed. The car looked abandoned.
“He’d have to at least be in his late 80’s, early 90’s. I can’t believe he’s still driving.”
He’s probably not, Ellie thought.
“Good old Kalamazoo. That man could sing like Dean Martin.” Her voice cracked, as memories swirled in her mind. “I’ll tell you, Ellie. He sounded just like him.”
“Do you want me to go see if he’s inside?”
“No.” Grandma Betty wiped her eyes. “Do you have anything to write on? Maybe I’ll leave him a note.”
Ellie found an old envelope; it would have to do, and leaned close. She loved her grandmother’s handwriting. It was so elegant, even with the slight tremor in her hand. “Good handwriting is the sign of a true lady,” she’d read once.
Dear Kalamazoo, Betty Boop here. I saw your car and just wanted to say hello!
“Betty Boop?”
Grandma Betty shrugged. “If I put my real name, he might not remember me. Betty Boop he’ll remember.”
Ellie secured the note under one of the station wagon’s windshield wipers, and got back in her car to the rumble of distant thunder. She glanced at the gas gauge. Half empty, half full. “Where to now?” Grandma Betty had mentioned the cemetery earlier, but Ellie wasn’t sure if she’d been serious or not.
Apparently she was. Grandma Betty yawned. “Might as well get it over with.”
Grandma Betty dozed on the way and looked smaller and smaller, frailer and frailer, at each intersection. The cemetery was near the lake, a little over a half-hour drive, and easy enough to find. It was in the direct path of the storm.
“Closed at Dusk,” the sign read, but thankfully there was no gate to keep them out. The honor system. “Grandma.” Ellie touched her arm gently. “We’re here.”
Grandma Betty opened her eyes and looked around. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look where I ended up.”
Ellie laughed.
“And on such a lovely evening.” A big bolt of lightning tore through the sky. “Take this road to your right.” It wound around a mausoleum, behind a maintenance shed, down a little hill, and dead-ended into a barricaded drop-off to the lake. “Right here.”
Ellie parked close, took her hands off the wheel, and there they sat, as if they were going to spread wings and fly.
Both were silent for a moment. Ellie wondered what Grandma Betty was thinking, and Grandma Betty not thinking much at all. It was the most peaceful feeling she’d had in years; away from the nursing home, away from the sick and dying, the endless days.
The storm was about to hit, the waves offshore picking up momentum. “I love the rain,” Grandma Betty said. And just like that, as if giving thanks for her devotion, here it came!
Something in the rearview mirror caught Ellie’s eyes. A flock of crows scattering. She smiled.
* * *
Ellie’s father returned to the nursing home to find them gone, and had a fit. He didn’t have time for this nonsense. His mother and daughter knew he was coming back and they shouldn’t have left. He had fifty million other things he could be doing, needed to be doing, besides sitting here at this “goddamn nursing home.” He’d cut a client short on the phone. He’d missed a fax that he’d have to drive all the way back to the office to get. He needed to have it with him for his flight first thing in the morning. He’d left a pile o
f proposals stacked on his desk….
A nurse brought him a cup of coffee, the third since his return. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon. Your mother was not doing well. She’ll tire easily.”
He nodded and sighed.
“Perhaps you’d like to watch a little television.”
“Do you have cable?”
“As a matter of fact, we do.” The nurse turned the set on, handed him the remote, and left the room.
The reception was bad. The cable connector wasn’t screwed in all the way. He fixed that, then adjusted the color. It had too much green. Then he flipped through the channels, found the one he wanted, and sat down in his mother’s chair. It smelled like her. All powdery, flowery. What was that perfume she used to wear? He watched the message scrawl across the bottom of the screen. One of those annoying weather alerts. The weather people never got the forecast right anyway, so why bother paying attention?
He leaned his head back. It had been a long day. A good day, but a long day. He’d accomplished a lot. Again, he thought of the downside, everything he’d left undone or missed to rush back over here. And now, to make matters worse, he just realized he hadn’t eaten lunch, let alone his being late for dinner. He got up and looked in his mom’s fridge. Pudding, Jello, cheese strips. He checked her top drawer, the most likely place for a spoon. There were several. A chocolate pudding, a cherry banana Jello, and two cheese strips later, he sat back down and changed channels. John Wayne, one of his earlier ones. He looked like he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
Two nurse’s aides started into the room and backed out.
It felt odd, his sitting there without his mom. Without his daughter. Ellie was almost always there when he’d visit. Where the hell were they? He glanced at his mom’s slippers under her bed. Red, fluffy and red. If he remembered correctly, Jewel had bought them for her.
Jewel, she’d be waiting. He glanced at his watch, eight-fifteen.
He finished his coffee and just sat there. The one thing he never had to do was worry about Ellie. Not in the usual sense that is. She had her strange ways, but overall never gave him trouble and, “Always managed to land on her feet.” Jewel had done the best she could to fill Ellie’s mother’s place. She’d stepped right in after they married, took her under her wing, and did a good job raising her. It’s not every woman that would accept another woman’s child as her own. But Jewel was special that way. He hated it whenever he disappointed her, like now, with her waiting dinner. If his mother and daughter weren’t back by eight-thirty, he was just going to have to leave.
Ellie's Crows Page 7
