Twice a Child

by Ann Elia Stewart

  “Got to stretch,” he had said, but before she could do anything about it, he was already out of the car and attempting to walk among the block of vehicles.

  Just thinking about it put her into a mild panic.

  If it had not been for a kind commuter who quickly put on her four-ways and rushed Grandpa back into the car, there would have been more than just the usual amount of congestion commuters had to contend with that day: ambulance, police cars, “man down in the middle of the interstate . . .”

  “What were you thinking, Grandpa?” she had asked him when she clicked his seatbelt.

  He smiled that weak little grin of his, knowing he had done something wrong. “It was a parking lot, and I had to get out of the car to stretch,” was his reply.

  Tina settled into the drive, Grandpa snoring beside her, Joshua sleeping soundly in his car seat. The first leg of the trip had been pretty much without incident except for Grandpa’s sudden departure in the middle of a traffic jam. Early into the drive, she had enjoyed his stories about traveling to Pittsburgh with Grandma to visit Eddie at college, taking in a Pitt game once in a while. He had remembered the tunnels and still marveled at their construction through pure rock. But as the trip progressed, Grandpa grew quieter. His confusion about his whereabouts surfaced occasionally, still not enough to alarm her. He had just lost his wife after all, she told herself, and we’re driving cross country. Of course he was confused.

  The sun shone through the windshield as they entered Springfield, where they took a little suite in a Holiday Inn so they could kick back. Tina brought in some KFC—grilled because she knew the strict regimen Grandma adhered to when it came to keeping Grandpa’s heart healthy—mashed potatoes, green beans and those yummy biscuits. Almost felt homey.

  As she lifted the last bag of food and luggage and headed into their suite, she heard Grandpa talking. She hesitated, then slowly opened the door to see him gesturing and engaged in quite an animated conversation.

  “I’m telling you, those trucks are huge! I mean like buildings, for God’s sake.” He reached to pluck something out of the air. “I don’t hear much from you back there, Mamie. Guess you’re okay.”

  She swung the door fully open.

  “Hey Grandpa, who ya talking to?”

  He looked at her with wonder.

  “I was just telling—I was just tellin’—saying that the trucks on the highway are so big now. Really big.”

  “Were you talking to Joshua?”

  “Who?”

  Tina saw the baby right where she had left him, on the floor in the little living room, in his car seat, asleep. “The baby!”

  “We don’t have a baby, why we’re not even married yet.”

  “Grandpa, here, sit down. Let’s have some food.”

  As they ate, Grandpa stayed quiet, but he seemed quite comfortable, she thought.

  “Grandpa? I wanted to talk about Grandma.”

  He chewed a piece of biscuit. “She died.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. She died. And I think of her all the time, too. I even talk to her, tell her about Joshua, about this tri—”

  “What? Are you nuts? You can’t talk to her. She’s dead.”

  Both the baby and Grandpa were down for the count that night, but Tina couldn’t sleep. She tried a few games on her phone, even took a run up two flights of stairs and back, still she couldn’t settle.

  A growing panic began in the pit of her stomach. And then her mind let go: torrents of scenarios, all of them deadly. She paced the tiny living room, her breath growing shallower as her thoughts conjured everything from Grandpa taking a notion to walk out onto a major interstate traffic jam to never finding Eddie, or worse: finding him but not being able to actually get through to him.

  She checked how much farther they had to go before reaching southern California. Halfway. Driving twelve hours a day, with a ton of stops in between, she calculated the trip would take at least another four days or so. If she turned around and headed back east, at least five or six.

  The KFC didn’t sit well. Her stomach grumbled and groaned. The next thing she knew, her head was hanging over the toilet. Another heave produced nothing but bile.

  Confident there was no more left to void, Tina brushed her teeth and climbed into bed next to Joshua, snug in his baby seat. Grandpa snored in the bed next to hers. That night, she dreamed she wore a heavy, ill-fitting coat that she tried to shake from her shoulders, but it didn’t budge. The more she tried to shake it off, the more twisted her arms became within the bulky, rumpled fabric.

  When she awoke, she found her pillow damp with sweat.

  eight

  “Are we going in circles?”

  “What do you mean, Grandpa?”

  “That sign there said Springfield. I thought we already passed Springfield. And you should slow down, girlie.”

  “Better get used to it. I hear if you’re not going eighty on California freeways, you’re too slow.”

  “Now where are we going?”

  “I’m taking this exit to find a McDonald’s or something. Joshua needs to be changed. Phew! Can’t you smell that?”

  “I figured it was just manure.”

  “Well, so to speak.”

  What’s with this floor? It keeps moving. If I sidestep that square, I can make it onto the next one, that one looks flat. At least it’s not floating.

  There. Solid ground.

  Now all I have to do is balance this tray and look for the next flat square and—

  “Shit!”

  “Sir, sir! Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right! Why would you put a goddamn floating floor into a place like this? It tripped me up and now look—”

  “We’ll replace your order, sir. Can you stand?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Where’s Tina?”

  “If it’s the young woman and baby you came in with, they’re in the rest room.”

  Just like him to leave when things got a little dicey. Leave me holding the bag. “You go in there and tell him that there’s still four hours left to quitting time!”

  Certainly took them long enough.

  “Grandpa! Why is your shirt all wet?”

  “Goddamn floor floats! I was trying to sidestep the ones that popped up and I guess my foot caught the edge and down I went. The drink, the sandwich, everything went flying!”

  She’s looking at me like I’m crazy.

  “Hey, hey, I’m fine, honey. Just a little misstep, that’s all. Now, tell me, where the hell are we?”

  “We’ll have to get you a fresh shirt.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but what about this Springfield business? Did you get lost?”

  “No, here’s what I found—”

  “What’s that?”

  “My phone, Grandpa.”

  “You found out about something on a phone?”

  “Yes, you can do all kinds of things now on your phone. So, here’s what good ol’ Wikipedia says about Springfield, Missouri. That last Springfield was in Illinois: ‘The origin of the name Springfield remains unclear; however, the most common view is that the city was named for Springfield, Massachusetts. One account holds that a James Wilson, who lived in the then-unnamed city, offered free whiskey to everyone who would vote for naming it after his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts.’”

  “Oh, hey, this is interesting: ‘ In 1883, the historian R. I. Holcombe wrote, to the contrary, "The town took its name from the circumstance of there being a spring under the hill, on the creek, while on top of the hill, where the principal portion of the town lay, there was a field." He went on to note, "This vers—’”

  “This Wikkowski guy sounds like he’s full of himself. C’mon, let’s get out of here. People are staring at us.”

  nine

  They settled in after a long, uneventful ride at a clean little place right in the heart of Oklahoma City. Tina thought it odd for the motel to be located in town, but looked forward to the morning when she c
ould see more of it; get a feel for living somewhere other than Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She had been thinking about that a lot lately, not wanting to act on it while Grandma was still alive. Grandpa and Grandma had been the only parents she had ever really known, with her dad taking off before she was out of high school and her mother so wrapped up in meeting Mr. Number Two, that if it hadn’t been for Grandma’s steady cooking, Tina would have been alone most every night of her high school career.

  When she had enrolled in Penn State’s School of Nursing to earn her Registered Nurse degree, she’d often bunk on Grandpa and Grandma’s sleeper sofa after finals or semester breaks. Waking up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and Grandma’s blueberry-bran muffins erased any anxiety she may have endured during the grueling months of study, and besides, she cherished her grandparents’ interest in her life. There she could slip into adolescence if but for an afternoon, knowing they would not complain if she indulged in repeated episodes of The Brady Bunch or I Love Lucy on the TVLand channel. Grandpa and Grandma often would join her and laugh along.

  It was during Christmas break of her final year when she finally gave into Quincy T. Hammond, a bull of a young man who resembled a dock worker more so than the RN he aspired to be. From her first anatomy class on through to molecular bio and every course in between, Quincy showed up bright and early to get a good seat, next to her.

  He was smooth, a sloe-eyed hulk of a boy sporting cornrows and a Kentucky Colonel’s patch of braided beard ending in a single green bead that dangled above his clavicle. “Green’s my favorite color,” he told her later over the Coke he bought her when he finally got her to acknowledge his friendly overtures, having tried through three pre-med classes and at least that many class registration days. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, God knows every time he removed his hoodie and revealed arms as massive as two prized hams her insides would turn to a quivering mass. And it wasn’t because he was black: she had always been partial to African-American men, enjoying their playful flirtations, their confidence in their masculinity. But she had no time in her plans for romance. Besides, she knew where a relationship could lead, having been privy to her parents’ shouting matches and her father’s final, dramatic departure. Who needed that?

  So, she kept Quincy T. Hammond at arm’s length, enjoying the odd friendship that grew between them, allowing him to help her with her toughest math classes, and allowing herself to help him with his, which were anything having to do with writing, literature, or English.

  They celebrated 4.0s of their last undergrad semester, taking in a hip-hop marathon in Harrisburg. It was the first time in their three years of friendship that she had allowed herself to go out on the town with him. She didn’t want anyone to pair them as a couple, because in her mind they weren’t. They were simply good friends who both shared a head for science. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the surprisingly sensuous manner in which Quincy moved the mass of his body when he persuaded her out onto the dance floor, but when they returned to his apartment that night everything felt natural and destined. And there, beneath the little Douglas Fir they had strung with red lights and green glass balls they had found at the Salvation Army one snowy winter’s day, she gave herself to him, already planning how she was going to tell Grandpa and Grandma that she had found the man with whom she was going to spend the rest of her life.

  Six weeks later as they tackled clinicals, she told him about the pregnancy over tuna salad sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria.

  “We can fix that,” was his reply.

  Though it was difficult to complete the year, she graduated summa cum laude from Penn State University, sailed through her boards, got a job in the ER of the St. Francis of Assisi Hospital in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and gave birth on August twenty-seventh, three and half weeks prior to her due date, to a nine-pound, one and a half ounce, eighteen inches long boy whom she named Joshua Franco Lillo. As she held him to her breast for the first time, he watched her with the same sloe-eyed gaze his father used to capture her heart, but this time she knew it was for keeps.

  Tina checked on the baby once more, finding him sound asleep in the crib the motel had provided. As she crawled into her own bed beside him, she realized that until now she hadn’t thought about Quincy T. Hammond since his declaration to “fix” what he considered to be a blip in their relationship rather than accept the beauty of making a child with her. That side of him had never surfaced: why would he want to destroy a human being, his child, when he was studying to help people? She had no intention of spending any more time thinking about someone who ducked his responsibility as a father. Besides, she had to concentrate on getting Grandpa to California and keeping him in the passenger seat. Until now, she had allowed him to drive only a small portion, but he had insisted on this leg of the trip because it was flat, and she had been too tired to fight him. She wrapped his reading glasses inside a sock and put them in the side pocket of her duffel. He would be doing no more driving.

  The red numbers on the clock showed three-fifty. Tina blinked to see if somehow they had slept well into the next afternoon, which would explain why Grandpa was sitting on the bed next to hers, fully dressed, ready to go.

  “Grandpa? Did you not go to sleep?” she whispered.

  “Sure I did. Feel great! Let’s go get some breakfast and get on the road. I figure we’ll make Texas by the end of the day, always wanted to see Texas—”

  It was four in the morning. By her calculations, they had been asleep for only five hours. If she was going to drive, she needed more sleep. Joshua lay on his back in the crib, his mouth open, his arms flung out: so peaceful and content. “Grandpa?” She whispered again and crooked her finger to bring him closer. She cupped her hand over his good ear. “It’s very early in the morning. Four. I need more sleep, Grandpa. And Joshua’s still asleep, which is a miracle. Can you go back to bed?”

  She smelled his shaving cream and toothpaste. When did he do all that?

  He looked at her with a quizzical expression, as if to say, “You gotta be kidding,” but sat back on his bed, removed his shoes and lay down. Before she dozed off, she saw that his eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling.

  Later that morning, they found a little diner outside of town, “a silver bullet,” Grandpa called it. Twelve booths in all lined the walls and corners, the counter able to seat about twelve singles. Since it was a weekday, much of the breakfast crowd had already passed through, just a few locals left sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes, shooting the breeze with the cook.

  Joshua played with sugar packets, pushing them around on the table. He got really excited when Tina pretended the packets were cars and trucks and set up a roadway of straws and salt and pepper squares to follow. He’d bang his chubby little hands on the highchair tray and squeal in utter delight. He even had the old guys at the counter laughing along with him. That’s how it was, that small town, back road peacefulness of every day existence—Grandpa trying to read the menu, Tina playing sugar packet cars with her baby, old men yukking it up at the counter, the grill sizzling with their order of pancakes and sausage, some cheesy tune from the sixties playing off a jukebox in someone else’s booth.

  When the waitress had brought the check, Grandpa whisked it away from Tina.

  “I have to change Joshua, anyway,” she said. “Just stay here until we get back, okay?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  When they had returned, she found Grandpa at the counter flirting with the waitress and exposing a wad of cash as he counted off the bills, one by one, to pay the check.

  She caught him just as he was about to hand the waitress a fifty dollar bill.

  “That’s a fifty, Grandpa, I think you may want to give her a twenty.”

  By that time, every head in the place turned in their direction. All she wanted to do was get out of there. Fast.

  “C’mon, time’s a wasting!” she chirped as she took Grandpa’s elbow, hiked Joshua up on her hip and shuffled them out of
there as quickly as she could.

  As she placed the baby in his car seat, she saw from the corner of her eye a skinny young man about the size of a middle-schooler approaching, his hand stuck in his jacket pocket.

  “Grandpa! Get in the car, NOW.”

  Without buckling Joshua into his seat, she flew into the driver’s side, turned on the ignition, slammed it into reverse and squealed out of the parking lot on down the road. She stopped at a nearby gas station only when she was certain she was not being followed.

  As she buckled Joshua into his seat, and made sure Grandpa’s belt was also fastened, she relaxed.

  Grandpa’s eyes were wide with terror.

  “Never, never, never display a wad of cash like that, Grandpa.”

  “I was just paying the bill.” His voice barely registered.

  “No, you were showing off. Why—Grandpa! You were flirting with that waitress!”

  He sunk down in his seat.

  “That’s the only time you had taken the money out, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Right?”

  He shrugged. “I took it out to count it when you went to the bathroom.”

  “Oh, Grandpa.” She reached across the seat to take Grandpa’s hand in her own. It fluttered like the fireflies she’d catch long ago: alive but helpless in her clutch.

  ten

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t think she heard me. It’s like that a lot lately, people asking me over and over, “What?” when I speak. Mamie did that, too, come to think of it. “Frank,” she’d say, her mouth set in a line. None too pleased with me. “Get the marbles out of your mouth and speak up!” First of all, I didn’t know I had marbles in my mouth and second, I was speaking up.