A Blind Guide to Normal

by Beth Vrabel

In a why-are-you-still-here tone, Gramps said, “Logan here is a Boy Scout. Interviewing me for a service project so he can earn his Eagle award.”

  “You’re the service project? Is it, like, an expose on why people have things like yard horses?”

  Gramps turned his back to me. Logan piped up, still not looking at me, “I’m working on promoting a center for people who’ve lost a family member. Widows, widowers, and kids. I’m interviewing people to find out what they need most.”

  “Oh,” I said. Because what else could I say, standing there in my underpants while the kid I dismissed as a loser reveals he’s doing something fantastic for the community. Then I had another thought: Jocelyn. “Are you interviewing him about Jocelyn’s brother?”

  Logan’s face shot to me, but he clearly remembered I was almost naked and his eyes flipped back to Gramps. “No.”

  Gramps sighed again. “No, idiot. He’s interviewing me. A widower.”

  Logan cleared his throat. “I got names from the senior center. That’s how I heard about Mr. Raymond.”

  “Oh.” I just stood there like … well … an idiot. A self-centered idiot who didn’t remember for a second that his own grandma was dead. “I’m going to go get dressed.”

  “You do that,” Gramps said. Logan puffed air through his cheeks in apparent relief.

  A few minutes later, I walked oh-so-casually down the hall wearing actual pants. My plan was to grab a granola bar and seize control of the TV while Logan occupied Gramps. Instead, by the time I was where the hallway met the kitchen, I found myself leaning with my back against the wall, listening to the old man.

  “… met her when I was about seventeen, married less than a year later.” I heard a creak as Gramps leaned back in the kitchen chair and also the scribble of Logan’s pencil across his notebook.

  “Why get married right away?” Logan asked. “I mean, you were so young.”

  “Cah, cah, cah! Young fools, I guess.” Then Gramps’s voice dipped, the words trickling out in the pause of Logan scribbling notes. “She had this laugh, you know? One that was only for me, when I was the one doing something she thought was funny. That laugh—I’d do anything to hear it.”

  There was a pause and the flipping of pages. I guess Logan was looking for his next question. But Gramps added, words gushing faster, “Good thing, too, that it was darned easy to make her laugh. I mean it. She’d laugh at just about anything I’d say or do. Funny faces, stupid jokes. The sillier the better.” He laughed softly, and then his words rushed out, “You should’ve heard her when I got a whoopee cushion under her seat at the movies on our third date! She giggled through the whole movie. By the end of the film, I knew that was it. She was mine.”

  What was her laugh like? I wanted to know. But Logan didn’t ask, so I didn’t know if it was soft and rippling, like the sheets Mom would hang to dry in the sun when we were camping, or if it was loud and popping, like a balloon bursting. Or was it a laugh mostly felt in her eyes, the way Jocelyn’s narrowed and tilted upward when I did something funny?

  “So,” Logan said, “you married her so you could make her laugh?”

  “People marry for stupider reasons all the time, kid.” Gramps sighed. “’Sides, Marlene, she didn’t have such a great life. Lived in a foster home, you know. Not a lot of love there. When she turned eighteen, she’d be on her own anyway. Sort of made it my job to make her happy …” Again I heard Gramps shift in his chair. Quickly, like he was swallowing medicine, he added, “To make up for all of that. To give her all the love she lost growing up, and then some.”

  For some stupid reason, that made me think of Max.

  “But you don’t want to hear all about that,” Gramps said.

  “Actually—” Logan started, but Gramps cleared his throat, cutting Logan off.

  I peeked around the corner. Logan, sitting facing me, gaped but didn’t say anything, just shook his head slightly. Gramps sat with his back mostly toward me in the cramped kitchen, but I could see his profile. His lips were pursed, like a dam blocking in his memories. Soon enough, the dam burst. “We got married,” he said as Logan scribbled in his notepad. “Wish you could’ve seen her face a few years later, when we got this here house.”

  “She was excited?” Logan asked.

  “Spent hours pulling furniture into place, only to move it all an hour or so later, maybe even to another room. Putting a vase just so on the corner of a table. Adding flowers here, taking down a picture there. Always fixing it up. Made it into a show house.”

  Sure enough, Logan was scanning the house, no doubt noticing that it looked like nothing had changed at all in about forty years.

  “I don’t have an eye for that stuff,” Gramps said lightly.

  “Huh. Now, when was your son born?”

  “Nineteen-seventy-six.”

  “Same year your wife died?” Logan flipped pages of his notes, like he was searching to make sure he hadn’t messed up and written the wrong year.

  “Same day,” Gramps said softly. My throat felt too tight suddenly. I knew Dad’s mom died from cancer when he was a baby. I hadn’t realized it was the day he was born.

  “Did she die in childbirth? The profile you filled out said she had cancer.” More rustling paper.

  Gramps leaked out a long, low breath. “I guess you could say she died of both. Found out she had breast cancer about two months into her pregnancy. The docs all said to end the pregnancy. To live, get treatment, and try to have another baby. But Marlene, well, by then we had heard the little heartbeat. Her own heart …” Gramps sucked in more air. “I think it’s sort of like she grew an extra heart along with that little body growing inside her, a heart that just was his. Totally his.”

  “Did you …” Logan’s voice was shaking a little. “Did you want her to end the pregnancy, too?”

  “Didn’t matter what I wanted.” Gramps sort of laughed. “I knew better than to try and argue with her. I don’t think I really knew how sick she was, either, ’til it was too late.”

  Logan didn’t say anything for a minute. Gramps shuffled in his seat. “Even when docs said she should have the baby early, that he’d likely survive and she’d have a shot at living a few months or a year, she refused. Was so sick, in so much pain she couldn’t hardly move.”

  “Why—”

  “She was determined that the baby make it even if she couldn’t stick around to meet him proper. Marlene parked herself in that recliner in there, facing out the window, watching the neighbor kids playing. Sometimes that’d make her smile and she’d say, ‘Richie, promise me. You promise me that our boy will laugh and play, no matter what.’”

  Logan’s pencil stopped. “You know, Mr. Raymond, I didn’t mean to pry here. I just wanted some general information. If you don’t want to talk about this—”

  “If I didn’t want to talk, I wouldn’t talk,” Gramps said, his voice cold. A slurp of coffee later, he added, “Today’s the anniversary, you know. Guess I’m a little sentimental. Plus, been decades since anyone asked me about her.”

  “Anniversary? Of when she passed?” Logan asked.

  “No, of when she was diagnosed.”

  “Oh.”

  Shifting again, Gramps’s crowing laughter rippled across the room to where I crouched in the hallway. “You know how I found out? I mean, about it being terminal?”

  “How?” Logan asked, but in a way that sounded a lot like he’d rather not know.

  “I come home to find her on the phone, calling horse farms all over town trying to find someone willing to let a pregnant, dying woman ride a horse. Cah, cah, cah!”

  “What?” Logan asked, or maybe it was me.

  “She’s sitting there, crying that she never got to have a horse. Over the years, you know, she had told me she loved horses. Said it was her Christmas wish every year. Wanted to ride one of her own someday. I thought it was just a fantasy. A joke, you know? I worked at the factory. Buying this house, it wiped out any savings we had. Add to it the cos
t of her treatments, what it took to take care of the baby … well, that was that.”

  “Is that why you have the thing out front?”

  “The yard horse?” Gramps asked in his casual, of-course-it’s-a-yard-horse tone.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I took over making calls for Marlene. Found this guy, this horse farm owner, who said he’s moving to Florida, just got rid of all his horses. Says the only thing left was a five-foot-tall stone horse. I said, ‘I’ll take it.’ Got it delivered, set it up to be right outside her window. Even dressed it up for her, with flowers and chocolates.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “Wish you could’ve heard her laugh.”

  Soft. Rippling. That’s how I heard it.

  “Toward the end, she’d rub that big belly—looked so strange to see a body swelling like that while the rest of her faded away—and talk to the baby. ’Bout our lives. Telling him how much she loved him. How much I loved him.”

  “Did you, though? Love him, I mean.” Logan cleared his throat. “I bet it was difficult.”

  Gramps laughed, a strangled, rattling, broken chuckle. “By the end, I did. When I realized he was the only thing keeping her hanging on—not me, not some stupid yard horse, not anything. When she was too weak to talk to the baby, I would, my hand on her stomach. I told him I’d make sure he’d know her—always be surrounded by her—the way the baby was then.”

  I let my eyes wander around the house again, knowing now why Gramps wouldn’t so much as move a picture from an end table. I didn’t even lie to myself and say the wetness on my cheeks was Artie acting up.

  “I loved the kid. ’Course I did. But the day he was born was the day she left. New love here, old love gone. Just gone. And Marlene did her best—lasted longer than anyone thought—trying to give Tom a healthy start. But he was born a little too soon. A little too weak. Almost lost him, too.”

  Logan coughed, like he was trying to change the topic, but Gramps kept barreling on.

  “Can you imagine? Asking the funeral director to hold on a few days, in case we needed to bury a baby, too?” Gramps’s voice strained, became high-pitched. “After I knew he’d make it, I tried to show him I loved him the way I had shown her—by making him laugh, being silly—but every time I saw him, I saw her, too.” He sighed again. “Think I could’ve done a better job of hiding that.”

  I realized then that I wasn’t crying for Gramps. I was crying for my dad, never knowing his mom, never really knowing his father, either. I covered my mouth with my hands, trying to stay silent.

  “Well,” Logan said after a pause, “part of this project is finding ways to help people sort of move on after someone they love dies. How did you move on?”

  A long, thick pause blanketed the room. “I kept going on, you know?” I heard Gramps’s chair push back, his heavy footsteps as he moved to the sink. The water turned on and he must’ve been rinsing out his coffee cup. My ankles were burning from crouching so long but I couldn’t get up yet. I needed to hear what he said next. “Took care of our boy, you know?”

  He moved back to the chair and settled in. “Marlene, her last words were, ‘Keep laughing.’ Can you imagine that? I try to do that, to make everyone laugh.” My mind flashed images—Gramps buzzing me with his handshake shocker, flirting with the school office ladies, signing me up for quilting. All the things that annoyed the crap out of me.

  Logan didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he cleared his throat and said, “No, um. I guess the question wasn’t clear. I was wondering how you moved on?”

  “Well, I keep her memory alive. I dress up the horse, you see, in case it makes anyone else laugh like she did. Keep the house the way she liked it.”

  “But—”

  I got up before Logan could press the question again. “Am I like her at all?” I asked, entering the kitchen.

  Gramps’s eyes widened as I burst into the room. He scanned me, from toes to head. “You have her eye.”

  I know, I know. It’s a terrible joke. Not even funny, and I would’ve delivered it a thousand times better. But I snorted, then couldn’t stop laughing, especially when I saw how totally uncomfortable Logan was, his eyes twisting between Gramps and me.

  In fact, I didn’t pull myself together until after Logan had gathered up his notebook and pencil, said an awkward bye, and left (but first Gramps thanked him for stopping by, adding, “Wish I had a grandson like you.”).

  “I mean it,” I said, the click of the screen door shutting acting like a period to my sentence. “Am I like her?”

  “You have her laugh, too, I guess.” Gramps smiled down at his hands.

  Loud. Popping. Now I knew exactly what she sounded like.

  Alice FaceTime pinged me three times before I answered.

  “Why are you dodging me?” she asked, her eyes darting as she held the screen. She has a habit of holding the screen way too close to her face when she’s nervous or upset, so I only saw her eyes.

  “Back up, Porcelain,” I mumbled. “I’m not dodging you.”

  Alice cocked an eyebrow.

  “All right. Maybe I’m dodging you a little. I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Like what?” she asked. She put the iPad on the table for a second and picked up Tooter. The dog snorted and licked at her chin, then put its head on her shoulder in a limp sort of way.

  “How is he?” I asked. More than a year ago, Tooter had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was slower growing than the vet had originally thought, but I knew—and Alice knew—the pup was on borrowed time.

  Alice burrowed her cheek against Tooter’s side. “Won’t be long now. In fact …” she shifted a little and moved a towel under Tooter. “He pees on us all the time.”

  This uplifting little chat wasn’t really helping with the I’m-such-an-idiot feeling. “Look, doll, I’ve got to go.”

  “Ryder,” Alice scolded. “What’s going on?”

  Alice had this strange ability to make everyone share their life stories with her even when they didn’t want to. I’ve seen it in action many times. In fact, she won this huge town essay contest because of it. Anyway, I found myself whispering, “I’m a jerk.”

  “You’re not a jerk.”

  “I am. I’m a jerk.” I squeezed shut my eyes and just blurted, “I thought Gramps was pathetic when he’s really just lonely. I picked a fight with probably the nicest guy in the whole school. I’m jealous that my parents love each other more than they love me. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. And—prepare yourself, Porcelain—I’m not funny.”

  Alice burst out laughing.

  “No, you misheard. I’m not funny.”

  Alice bit down her laughter. “You’re rambling, Ryder. Slow down. What’s the first thing you said—about Gramps?”

  I opened my eyes. I saw my best friend, sitting there, holding her dying dog, and looking at me with nothing but interest. Nothing but a feeling of wanting to help. Like what I had to say was worth hearing. Worth working out. I looked away. One thing you should know about Alice: she always tells the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it.

  Sucking in a lungful of air, I grinned. “Great chat, Alice! Feel better now. See you later.” I hung up before she could reply.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Here’s a joke for you: What’s five foot six, one hundred and fifteen pounds, and completely clueless about life?

  I’ll let you ponder that for a minute.

  My head started pounding the minute I woke up Monday morning. I thought about telling Mom, but I knew if I stayed home from school there would be no way she’d let me go to sparring, and I didn’t want to miss my first day. Instead, I swallowed two (okay, three) Advil.

  It worked for a while, but by my second class, it felt like this little old man had moved into my skull and kept rearranging furniture. It’s just from not sleeping much, I told myself.

  All this self-deprecation I had been wallowing in had seriously affected my ability to keep up with homewo
rk. I had spent hours reading Angela’s Ashes, falling asleep with it covering my face and dreaming about the River Shannon, only it was filled with eyeballs.

  I told the little old man to flatten the bit of my brain that kept wondering if this headache was like the headaches I had when I was a kid, before Artie.

  Making my way to history class, I didn’t even try to count the doors. If I didn’t find the door on the first try, I’d just keep walking. But there was a bright green strip of duct tape covering the doorframe of one room. I had noticed the same green strip outside Miss Singer’s class in biology, which I chalked up to her upcoming frog dissection (she had been decking out everything in the room green for the occasion). I stopped and walked in. Sure enough, it was history. There was Max sitting in his usual spot right by the door.

  Have you ever seen someone actively trying not to notice you? Like looking literally everywhere in the room but at you, even though you’re literally in front of him? That was Max in this moment. His backpack was open at his feet. There was a roll of electric green duct tape hanging out from it.

  “That was your doing?” I asked, thumbing toward the doorway.

  Max, still not looking at me, shrugged.

  “Why?” I asked. I mean, the guy hated me, right?

  “Does it help?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, man. It helps a lot.”

  Max shrugged again. “That’s why.”

  And there you have it—the answer to the non-joke above.

  Me.

  I was a giant marshmallow.

  While more advanced Waters Martial Arts fighters had black sparring suits, I was still in my white uniform. Add to that white foam feet protectors and white foam gloves. The foam helmet—also white—had a clear face shield, which, thankfully, blurred some of the other fighters’ reaction to see they were about to take on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

  Master Waters tightened the straps on my helmet. “All right, son,” he said. “One thing missing.” Then he unknotted the white belt cinching my waist. He handed me a folded-up yellow belt, bowing as he slapped it into my hand. I bobbed back, not really sure what was happening.