“Walking,” he said.
“Walking? Where? Mom says you’ve been gone three hours. She was worried. You told her you were only going out for a little walk, hours ago.”
Breathing hard, he looked at her over his steel spectacles. “I’ll apologize to your mother,” he said. His manner was entirely gracious. His hooded eyes were clear.
Jenny walked alongside him. “You feel good, don’t you?” she said happily. “Did you go any place special? Were you down by the canal?”
“No,” he said, “just walking. Getting out the kinks.”
Jenny noticed the edge of a road map sticking out of his pocket. It was the kind given free at service stations. “What’s that for? What’s it a map of?” she asked, reaching for it.
He fended off her hand. “Me to know and you to wonder.”
He went up the steps to their house, moving quite briskly. Jenny followed, happy and dazed. He was her own Grandpa again, brisk, curt, commanding. Would they dare send him to the Home when he was so splendid?
“So there you are,” her mother said.
“Just lost track of time,” he said. “Sorry, Amelia—”
Mrs. Pennoyer cut him off. “You had me worried half to death! I was thinking of calling the police to look for you.”
“No need to worry about me,” he said.
“Isn’t there? Jenny, set the table now.”
Jenny, automatically counting silver, answered her own question. Yes, they would dare send him to the Home. There would be a lot of talk about “senior citizens” and people who were “failing” in their later years. No matter if he entered on his own two feet or on a stretcher, one way or the other Grandpa was going to the Home.
Chapter 17
Going into Frankie’s room, the old man lay down on his bunk bed, overheated and sweating. His mouth was dry. He needed a drink of water, but he had to rest first. He had barely gotten to the room without showing Amelia the weakness and trembling in his legs. He rubbed his kneecaps. His legs felt like stretched-out rubber bands.
You fool, old man, he said in his mind, you do nothing for weeks, then walk five miles in one afternoon. But he felt pleased, triumphant. He had tested himself, walked fifty city blocks. He had counted them, letting the numbers ring in his head as they added up. Ten! E-leven! … Twenty-one! … Thirty-four! … And pushed himself to forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty! Fifty city blocks. Five miles. Not bad for an old, sick man. Not bad at all. Sick? Ha! Tomorrow he would walk again, walk out the aches in his muscles and in his back. Walk with his chin set into the wind, hands behind his back, aware of everything in the world.
Fifty blocks. Five miles. True, he’d had to stop, rest, catch his breath, but he’d done it. He rubbed his knees. Aching. He didn’t care. He could do it. Could walk away from all the hypocrisy and disrespect. Didn’t have to bend his neck to any man. He thought of the farm and it was like thinking of God. Blue light before dawn … cows complaining deeply … wet grass covering bare feet …
He’d been young there once—young, strong, happy. He’d never be that young again, but he wasn’t as old and weak and sick as they’d been telling him. The weakness that had made his legs tremble and his voice quiver had come from defeat and fear, from believing that he was as helpless and cracked as they said. A man didn’t have to be that old.
Chapter 18
Jenny offered Ethel a spoonful of strained applesauce. “Delicious, honey,” she coaxed and stuffed the spoon in Ethel’s mouth. Ethel opened her mouth and let the applesauce trickle down her chin onto the highchair tray. “Ethel, you ought to be feeding yourself,” Jenny said. Ethel grinned, put her hands into the spit-out applesauce, then brought all ten gloppy fingers into her mouth. “Very pretty,” Jenny said. “You want to eat that way? Be my guest.” She dumped the rest of the applesauce on Ethel’s tray and went back to her bedroom to find sneakers and socks.
Dressed, her Saturday housework done, Jenny knocked on Frankie’s closed door. “Grandpa?” she called. But only her mother was in the room, washing the woodwork. “Where’s Grandpa?”
Her mother wrung out her soapy rag over the yellow plastic bucket. “He went out a few minutes ago. Said he was going to take a walk again. That man! We’re going to find him sick on the streets one of these days. What if he falls down? What is all this walking? What is the purpose of it? Every time he goes out I worry that he’ll get sick, or lose his way, or be hit by a car.”
Jenny had heard all that before. She wasn’t worried about any of it, but a twinge of fear touched her. Why had Grandpa gone out without her? They had always walked together on Saturdays, and now that he was well again … Didn’t he remember that today was Saturday? “Can I go now?” she said, tapping her foot impatiently. “I’m done with my work. I did everything you said.”
“Not so fast, young lady. Bring me four sheets and two pillow cases from the linen closet. Not the new flowered ones, the blue muslin ones on the third shelf. Did you hear me, Jenny?”
“Yes, yes, I heard,” Jenny said over her shoulder. A feverish feeling was building inside her, a thought that she was groping for, an idea eluding her. There was something about Grandpa and all of this walking, this sudden energy after his sickness, and the secretive, pleased smile that had flitted over his face several times in the past days. And then that road map she’d seen him studying …
She brought her mother the linen and laid it on the bureau. “Can I go now?” She shifted from foot to foot until her mother nodded.
In her bedroom she tied on a scarf and tore her jacket from the closet, sending a hanger clattering to the floor. For three days now, Grandpa had gone walking for hours and would say nothing about it, not even to her. Where’d you go, Grandpa? Oh, just walking. Walking? See anything? Nothing much, nothing much. And then that odd little smile that made Jenny want to smile too, but at the same time puzzled and teased her. Where is he going? What’s he doing? Where is he now? Where? That smile … as if he were going to do something special.… She stood stock still in the middle of the room, nearly quivering. He was going away! Going away and not coming back, not going to the Home. That was it. That was the meaning of that sly cat smile. He wasn’t going to be led to any Home!
She laughed, wanted to spin around and scream with joy. Grandpa! Grandpa! Good for you! Oh, wonderful!
Then it struck her—he was going away without her. Without having said goodbye, leaving her behind. Oh, no, he couldn’t be allowed to do that. She wouldn’t let him. She would find him, go with him. Wherever it was that he was going, she would go, too.
“Jenny, did you go out yet?” her mother called from Frankie’s room.
She dug in her drawer, tossing aside underwear and socks, gathering up the bills and coins she threw in there whenever she babysat or had money left from her allowance.
“Jenny, come here, please, I have something else I want you to do.”
She didn’t answer, shoved the money in her pockets and moved quickly through the house. “Jenny, didn’t you hear me?” her mother called.
For a moment she was drawn by the command in her mother’s voice, then she opened the front door and went quickly down the porch steps. On the sidewalk, she wondered which way to go. Then she remembered the direction he’d come from on Tuesday—Fifth Street. Try that. At the corner of Fifth and Grove Avenue, the bus for downtown stopped.
She walked rapidly, dodging around the clumps of kids playing hopscotch and jump rope, whizzing up and down on their bikes. “Hey, Pennoyer,” a boy called. A truck rumbled past, dripping oil. She felt impatient and scared. What if she didn’t catch him? What if he hadn’t gone this way at all? She began to run. Frankie had told her that jogging was better than running at top speed; if you were in shape and hit the right pace you could jog indefinitely. At the corner of Fifth she turned, and it occurred to her that this was the route Grandpa used to take to the tobacco store on Lyons Avenue.
Could buying tobacco be the big secret? That cat
smile passed through her mind. No, it was more important than tobacco. Her feet slapped the sidewalk—heels first, Frankie had said, heels first, don’t run on your toes. Her hair flew out behind her, she was hot, and wanted to throw off her jacket. “Oh, look at her run,” someone said. There was a pebble in one of her sneakers, and the wind, shifting, blew grit into her mouth. Then, as she passed South Street, she saw Grandpa ahead of her, moving slowly in his long black coat. She came up behind him and like a child clutched him around the waist.
“Grandpa! Where are you going? Wait for me. I’m coming with you.”
He disengaged her hands. He didn’t look pleased. “Go home, Jenny.”
She shook her head. “You’re going someplace, aren’t you? Someplace away, you’re going away.”
“What?” he said. “What?”
“You heard me, Grandpa! Don’t be like that,” she pleaded. “Tell me where you’re going. I want to come with you. Wherever it is, we’ll go together.”
“Don’t be foolish, child.” A city bus was approaching and he stepped out on the curb and waved his hand to stop it. The doors swung open and he climbed stiffly up the steps. Jenny followed, dropped her coins into the box, and found a seat directly behind him.
“Go home,” he said, without looking at her. “Next stop you get off.”
“No,” she said. She could be as stubborn as he was. She sat back, arms folded, her mouth set tightly.
He didn’t say anything again until the bus jerked to a halt to pick up more passengers. “Now,” he said without looking at her. “Off. You can get a bus home across the street. Shoo! Scat! Scram!”
“Stop yelling at me,” she said into his ear. “People are looking. And save your breath, Grandpa, you can’t get rid of me. That’s that.” A woman in a green and blue plaid coat sat down next to Jenny, and Jenny leaned back in the seat. Gears ground, the bus lumbered away from the curb, and the sickening smell of exhaust fumes drifted through the interior.
“They won’t let you,” Grandpa said, three streets later, throwing the words over his shoulder. It was his first admission that she was right, that he was going away.
Jenny leaned forward. “I’m not asking their permission,” she said fiercely. The woman in the plaid coat was looking at her curiously. Jenny glanced out the smudged window, only half seeing the city moving by. Where was Grandpa going? She imagined the two of them living in another city, a room together, taking care of each other. Could they do it? Grandpa didn’t have much money, she had to go to school …
“Alliance, Common Center,” the bus driver yelled, jerking the bus to a halt. “End of line. All out.” Jenny moved forward behind Grandpa, down the metal steps, out onto the street. Downtown was packed sidewalks, the smell of caramel corn and bus exhaust, a policeman’s whistle cutting sharply through the moist air.
“Across the street, Pittmann Street bus,” Grandpa said, pointing with his chin.
“All right, suppose I go home. Then where are you going?”
“Now, Jenny, I’m not going to say. I don’t want them coming after me.”
“Grandpa.” She was deeply hurt. “I would never tell. Never.”
He looked at her, faded eyes considering her, then nodded. “The farm,” he said.
“Oh!” Of course! The farm. She had heard about it so often, imagined it so vividly—the turkeys, the cows, Grandpa’s grandfather with his funny glass eye. But of course all that was gone now. Still—“Grandpa, that’s a wonderful idea.” She hugged his arm as they walked. “I can go there with you. We’ll both go.”
“No,” he said roughly.
“What are you going to do there?”
“Live,” he said simply.
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“No, you’re not. I’ll live with you.”
“Ha! What will you do there? A child.”
“Stop that, Grandpa. I’m not a baby. I’ll live with you, go to school, help you—we’ll be together.”
He crossed Adams Street, into the sun. A car coming too fast around the corner headed straight for him. There was a furious horn blast. Jenny grabbed her grandfather’s arm and pulled him back. As the driver sped past, he showed an upraised fist and yelled “Stupid old man!”
They threaded through the cars and walked on the sidewalk again. Then into the bus depot, a dirty brick building smelling of dried fish and bathroom cleanser.
“This is as far as you go,” Grandpa said. He went to the ticket counter. “One way to New Sayre.” He pulled bills out of his pocket, wet his fingers, and counted them slowly.
The ticket agent counted the money again. “Nineteen fifty-eight, just right, old man,” he said. “Bus leaves in half an hour.”
Jenny moved up. “One way to New Sayre.” She glanced at Grandpa. “I’ve got money,” she said. She had twenty-one dollars. She spilled coins and bills on the counter. Grandpa watched her from the side, his mouth working silently. She took her ticket, put it in her jacket pocket and followed him to a bench.
“They’ll worry about you,” he said.
“You, too.”
He snorted. “Don’t be foolish. They’ll be glad to be rid of me.” He fingered his ticket. “Bring your ticket back; tell the man you made a mistake.”
She set her mouth stubbornly, sat more firmly on the bench. She wouldn’t let any questions, ifs, ands, or buts, intrude into her mind. If he was going, she was going. Without him at home, she didn’t want to be home. It was that simple.
“Bus for Hamilton, Freeland, Cambridge, Bundysburg, New Lyme, and New Sayre now loading at the West Gate.” The metallic voice echoed through the room. “Bus for Hamilton, Freeland, Cambridge …”
Grandpa stood up, mouth working. “West Gate …”
Jenny pointed to the West Gate exit. “Over there, Grandpa.” A crowd had collected. The bus, panting like a huge beast, slowly swallowed the people. “Get your money back,” Grandpa said, shuffling forward with the crowd. “Still time.”
Jenny pressed closer to him. “Now stop picking your nose,” a woman exclaimed, slapping her little boy’s hand. A girl with a knapsack on her back smiled. A young couple leaned on each other, kissing intently. The bus gulped, swallowed, the crowd shrank.
“Far enough. Let’s stop this. You leave now,” Grandpa said.
“I’m not leaving, Grandpa.” She took her ticket from her pocket.
He turned, old man’s mouth thin, sour. “I have no authority with anyone. Not even you!” His mouth worked over the words.
Jenny fell back. “Do you really want me to go?” Her throat ached. “Grandpa—” She grabbed the roughness of his coat. “Don’t you understand?” A smell of mothballs and stale tobacco rose from the coat. “Grandpa, I can’t leave you. I love you.”
Someone behind pushed her in the small of her back. “Move. You’re holding up the line.” She shuffled forward, still clutching Grandpa’s coat, then released him to go up the metal steps of the bus.
Chapter 19
The old man leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, giving himself to the throbbing motion of the moving bus. It was good to be sitting down again. The strain and excitement of the morning, of actually leaving, of arguing with Jenny, had tired him. But now he was on his way to the farm. Behind his eyelids, golden lights danced. He saw vast fields of green and yellow, a white house with black shutters, a red barn, a cow standing by a barbed wire fence, tall maples shedding a soft green shade over a comfortable front porch with an oak-slatted swing moving in the breeze. That was the way the farm had looked years ago when he was a child. Seventy-five years ago.
Tenanted, and then empty since that time, the place would have run down, would need repairs. But it was a house, a real home, a place where he could be independent, care for himself. Depend on no one else. He had his social security check every month. He’d grow his own food (squash, potatoes, carrots, cabbage—all things he could store in bushel baskets through the winter in the cold cellar). He’d heat with wood an
d coal; buy a cow, milk her twice a day; add a few chickens for eggs.
He shook his head in wonderment. Why had he waited so many years? Oh, yes, he remembered—Frances had hated the country, the silence, the smell of manure, the dusty roads. When Frances died, he might have gone to the farm, but there had been tenants on the place. Then, when they left, three years later, Jenny was firmly in his life. He could no more have left her than cut off his right arm. But now he had to go.
He stirred, feeling the scratchy fabric of the seat at his neck. He opened his eyes enough to see her sitting next to him, looking out the window. He’d meant it when he tried to send her back. It wasn’t his idea to take her away from her family. But what could he do? She’d followed him, stubbornly insisted she was going with him. Where had she got that stubborn quality? From him, likely. The way he felt, he’d had as much to do with her upbringing, her character, as anyone. And he was proud of her. Not that he’d ever tell her—what for? So she could get a swelled head?
He decided he’d let her come along for a few days, then send her back. Or maybe—might Frank allow her to live with him? He toyed with the idea, thinking of his son, feeling a knot in his chest at the memory of his son’s betrayal. He got out his pipe, clamped it in his mouth, chewed on the stem. No need getting upset over his son anymore. There wasn’t going to be any Home for him. No home but his own home.
Chapter 20
What the hell were you thinking of? Jenny could hear her father’s voice in her ear. Running off with Pop. Are you as crazy as he is?
She pressed her face against the window. They had left Alliance behind them, were passing through Grigg’s Corners. Wire link fences separated the slashing through-way from the geometric rows of neat houses and trim yards. A little boy teetering on a bike waved at the bus which thundered along the highway, dwarfing the cars. Mile markers flashed by. Jenny caught glimpses of other lives, other places: a woman on her stoop shaking out a dust mop … a long, dirty brick factory pouring columns of white and black smoke into the air … a dead dog, bloody and stiffened by the side of the highway … a billboard picture of a girl with a dazzling smile holding up a bottle of liquor …
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