Adams nodded and moved into the seat next to Hobbs. He reached across the place setting and held her hand in his. The tears shed earlier had abated. On Hobbs’s face was a look of resilience, an anger that had shifted to softness.
“I’m telling you this, Dean, because…” Her voice drifted off as she took note of the distractions surrounding them – waiters bustling among the tables, a clattering in the kitchen, diners seating themselves, eating food, paying checks.
“Because…” Hobbs continued, staring at his face the whole time. If he was getting impatient, he didn’t show it. He looked interested, his eyes tender, his rakish gaze frozen on her.
She took a few deep breaths and tried to settle herself. Her thoughts were racing, clouding her good judgment, yelling at her. Jump! Jump! Jump! As if her ability to protect herself had become a labile barricade – protected for so long and now carelessly tossed aside.
“Because I’ve fallen for you,” Hobbs finally said. “I don’t know if you think I’m too old for you or it’s strange that we work together. There are probably a million reasons for us not to be together. But don’t let my indifference be one of those reasons. If I’ve acted like it’s casual to me, or that I don’t care, or that I don’t really want this, it’s not true. The truth is that I’m in love with you and I want to be with you.”
Hobbs sat forward in her seat, still staring at him, still clasping his hand. Her thoughts were still muddy, her heartbeat racing; her stomach felt like a pool of slurry. It was as though she had jumped from a cliff after all.
But the funny part was – as Hobbs waited for him to respond, she also felt a sense of peace. It almost didn’t matter whether he would reciprocate or not – whether they would spend the night together or whether he would form an expedient excuse and swiftly duck out of there. Hobbs knew what lay beneath her and it wasn’t jagged-edged limestone or craggy rock. After taking the leap, all she could feel was the exhilaration of forward momentum, the echo of her voice – as clear and sharp as ever – and the safety net of self-reliance waiting for her at the bottom.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
October 11, 2016
There was a knock at the front door of Avery Place and then the shrill melody of the doorbell. Greta placed Olivia on the floor of her bedroom and trotted towards the front of the house. “Coming!” she cried out.
When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Griffin. He looked handsome as usual but also a bit haggard – unkempt hair and a slouching stance.
“What are you doing here?” Greta asked, and realized just as the words cascaded out of her mouth how unfriendly she sounded. It wasn’t that Griffin wasn’t welcome in his former house; it was just odd to have him ringing the doorbell on a Tuesday morning.
Back before John was driving, when the custody agreement dictated a sporadic paternal visit, Greta would drop off John at Griffin’s residence on the east side of town, and Griffin would return John to her home on Sunday evening. Not once did either parent venture outside of the car. They co-parented like distant acquaintances, each maintaining their own insulated orbit around the other.
“Nice to see you too,” Griffin said.
“I’m sorry,” Greta responded, opening up the door wider to allow him entry into the split-level foyer.
“How are you?” Greta asked, once she closed the door behind him. Then, before giving him time to respond, she added, “Congratulations on your wedding, by the way. John had a great time; he told me all about it and showed me some pictures from his phone. You two look very happy together.”
Greta’s sentiment was sincere and she hoped it came across that way. Griffin’s new wife was in her mid-twenties and blonde – someone who could have been confused for Greta from a distance. Even though Griffin looked tired this morning, he had looked ecstatic in John’s pictures – a wide grin in every shot, blue eyes sparkling as they rested on his bride.
“Thank you,” Griffin responded stiffly. “And congratulations to you on your baby.”
“My baby is over three years old now,” Greta said with a smile. “But thank you.”
That was all the conversation she could think of to cover the vast span of time since they’d last spoken – a mutual congratulations on the milestones they’d been informed about through John. Just as Greta was starting to think about how to gently nudge him to give a reason for his visit, Griffin blurted out, “My mother had a stroke a little over a month ago. I wanted to make sure you knew.”
“Oh no. I’m so sorry,” Greta said. “Is she going to be okay?”
Griffin shook his head. “I’m afraid not. She’ll need constant care so she can’t live alone anymore. Her Lake Michigan house is going to be empty for awhile – I just got finished firing all of the help – and I’m moving her into an assisted living facility closer to here.”
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry Griffin,” Greta repeated. She thought about Marcia Brock and how incongruous it was to imagine the iron-fisted woman in an assisted living facility. Marcia had always been so sharp – laser-tongued, quick witted. It was difficult to imagine the older woman soliciting help from anyone other than her trusted cache of butlers.
“Thank you,” Griffin said. “I wanted to let you know because she’s lost her eyesight but she’s…she can…” Then he paused and stared down at the tile. Greta thought he was about to become emotional – the most typical response she could imagine, given the circumstances, but Griffin remained stoic. He pressed his palm against the wall, took a breath and continued. “My mother can still speak and the other day she asked about you and John. She said she wanted to see you.”
Greta was caught of guard by her own immediate physical response – a distention of the heart, a rising of her spirits. She never knew she cared that much for Marcia until the words came out of Griffin’s mouth. Although she could be difficult, Marcia was good-hearted and benevolent towards the charities she cared about. She hadn’t come through for John when Greta had requested help, but Greta knew the older woman profoundly loved her grandson.
“I’d like to see her too,” Greta said. “And John isn’t home right now but I know he’ll want to see her when he gets back.”
Griffin then nodded, reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. It had a name written across the top: Northman Assisted Living Facility. There was a room number, a caregiver’s name, hours for visiting. Griffin took a few steps back and seemed just about to turn around and walk out the door but instead he stopped.
“Something else…” he said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a little while…I noticed that John has been reading lately.”
“Yes,” Greta agreed. “It’s been a long journey but he can finally read.” She expected him to thank her or to acknowledge the difficult road John had faced.
Instead Griffin said, “And to think that all he had to do was work harder. It was that simple.”
Greta let out a surprised laugh. “Griffin, it was not as simple as that. John always worked very hard…but he attended a school that completely failed him – for years – until he didn’t see any hope for himself. I tried for so long to give him the one-on-one instruction he so desperately needed but he always pushed me away. Only after he was attacked and thought about where his future was headed did he allow me to work with him. And that is what we’ve done every single day since. It’s been so hard, Griffin. Some days we can barely get through the lesson but we always push through. So, yes, he can read now. But don’t you dare try to simplify it by saying he just needed to work harder. When I look at him I see a boy who is finally equipped with the skillset to overcome his struggles – after so long. To me, John is a hero.”
Griffin paused and looked at her but didn’t argue with her. Greta knew he viewed her as some sort of howler monkey – always yelping and wailing, prone to hyperbole. And she knew that trying to make him see things from her perspective was a futile endeavor.
So instead of pushing her viewpoint, she ended the conver
sation by thanking him for coming by, repeating that she and John would visit Marcia and closing the door behind him.
Greta had to chuckle as she headed back up the stairs. This had been their first face-to-face meeting in years, and they couldn’t even last five minutes without squabbling. At least she was divorced and Griffin’s antics weren’t something she had to worry about anymore.
***
Three weeks later, on a cold, dusky-gray Saturday in November, Greta and John visited Marcia Brock at the Northman Facility. The building was newly constructed – a ten-story rectangle of orange and yellow siding that offered partial views of the Mississippi River.
The outside was bright enough, but as soon as she walked inside, Greta was imbued with the sense of gloom. First there was the smell – a mix of pine cleaner and antiseptic. Then the faces of the residents who were sitting in the front lobby – expressionless, weary or half-asleep already. Most had wheelchairs and oxygen tanks that were tethered to their nostrils. It was a far cry from the pillars and rolling topiaries at Marcia’s previous home.
Greta and John signed in and made their way to Marcia’s room. Once inside, Greta had to suppress her lament from the sight of her former mother-in-law. Marcia was a hunched wraith – an emaciated figure in a blue hospital gown, with a white bandage wrapped across her eyes. She was sitting in an upholstered chair while a middle-aged woman with wispy brown hair was crouched next to her, stirring a bowl of applesauce.
The caretaker turned her head. “Are you relatives of Marcia?” she asked.
“Yes,” Greta said. “I’m Greta, her daughter-in-law, and this is John, my son.”
“Greta and John, you’re here!” Marcia exclaimed. “Oh, sit next to me! Johnny, sit next to me.”
John did as he was instructed, assuming a seat on the couch, and the caretaker took Greta aside. “She’s been blinded by the stroke but she’s otherwise in alright shape.”
Greta nodded. “Okay.”
The caretaker went on. “But she’s a bit emotional, still adjusting to her new setting I think. She’s having a hard time with it.”
Greta looked around at the apartment. It was large for apartment standards, with a kitchen, long hallway and sweeping views of the River. But it was miniscule compared to Marcia’s former house and held none of the woman’s personal accents – not that she would have been able to appreciate them anyway.
The largeness of this apartment only made it seem emptier. And Marcia, who had once been such a commanding presence in her house that she carefully choreographed where her own personal servants would stand – now was a hindered figure in the corner of the room. It seemed like a tremendous transition to have to accept.
“I can understand she would have a hard time,” Greta said.
The caretaker nodded, picked up the bowl of applesauce and left it in the sink. “I’m going to let you all have some time alone,” she said, then left the apartment.
Greta walked over to the living room and crouched next to the chair. “How are you, Marcia?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m terrible, just terrible,” Marcia responded. “I can't read my books. I can't call anyone. I can't figure out how to use this telephone. I can't see the television screen. I can’t see anymore. I used to watch the light come into the room in the morning. Did you know that?”
Greta patted the older woman’s hand. Her skin seemed translucent – the blue veins protruding and intersecting each other. “I didn’t know that,” Greta said. “ It sounds very peaceful.”
“Oh, it was,” Marcia said. “I’d get up before the sun and then sit by my window with a book. I could watch the sun rise over the lake – brilliant hues of red and gold. There was something so special about it – starting out in the dark and then being lifted by the sunlight every single day.”
“I bet it was…” Greta paused and thought of what to say. Eventually, she said, “I bet it was magic,” because she couldn’t think of how to describe it.
“I didn’t realize it at the time,” Marcia said. “Because it’s just what I did. But now I can’t do any of it. I can’t get up and walk to the window. I need Elizabeth, my caretaker. I can’t watch the sunlight. I can’t read any of my books. This is how it’s going to end, I guess. The last part of my life will be in the darkness. I guess this is how it’s supposed to be.”
“Marcia…” Greta said and reached out so she was holding both of the older woman’s hands. She thought of what to say – how to appease her former mother-in-law. She had always considered Marcia Brock to be so finicky and hard to satisfy. And now – when Marcia was mourning the loss of a basic human facility looking for Greta to mollify her – Greta still couldn’t find the right words to say.
Instead, John spoke up. “I can read to you,” he said. “If it’s your books that you’re missing.”
Greta gasped and looked over at John. It wasn’t just his suggestion – a show of compassion completely divorced from the behavior he displayed in his early teen years – it was those five words: I can read to you.
Those were words she had never heard him say to another person – not herself, not a teacher, not a counselor. Reading had been so wrapped up in feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing for his entire life.
Now all of that had changed. Greta wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, pick him up off of the couch and twirl him around like a whirling dervish. But she knew he hated when she made a big deal out of things so she refrained from saying what she really wanted to say: Look at how far you’ve come. Look at what you can do now, what you’ve accomplished. I think you’re exceptional, John, and I always have.
“That’s so kind of you to offer, John,” Greta said.
“That would be lovely,” Marcia agreed. “You can select a book from the shelf in my bedroom. I would love to hear you read it.”
John stood up and walked into the bedroom and Greta moved further away to give him space to sit down next to his grandmother. When John came back, he was leafing through a hardcover of a few hundred pages. The image of a boy and a pirate at the helm of a ship was on the cover.
“You gave a copy of this book to me a few years ago,” John said, kneeling down next to Marcia. “Treasure Island, do you remember?”
Marcia smiled. “Yes, of course I remember giving it to you. Did you ever read it?”
John laughed. “No, I think I threw it away. But I’ll read it to you now.”
He opened the book and balanced it on his lap, while moving his finger across the first page of text.
“Squi…squire Tre…tre…lawney, Doctor Lively…no…Doctor Live-sey, and the rest of these gen…gen..tle…gentle…men having asked me to write down the whole… whole… par…tic…u…lars about Treasure Island …”
Greta listened carefully while John read. He stumbled over several words, got a few vowels wrong, paused between phrases…and his pacing was slow. But he was moving through the book after all, and Greta closed her eyes and listened to him.
John continued for another thirty minutes and then slapped the book shut. “I think I’m getting tired,” he said. “I hope that was okay.”
“That was wonderful, John,” Marcia said. “The highlight of my day, really. Can you come back tomorrow?”
John took his phone out of his pocket. “I have to work at the auto shop tomorrow, but I can come by and read more later in the week.”
“Yes, please, grandson,” Marcia said and then she called out, “Greta! Are you still here?”
Greta walked over. “Yes I’m still here.”
“Where are your hands?” Marcia asked.
“Right here,” Greta said, and she placed her hands once again over Marcia’s.
Marcia turned her palms upward and held onto Greta. “Thank you,” the old lady said softly – her voice so faint that Greta wasn’t even sure she’d heard correctly. Then Marcia whispered – louder this time, and with a sudden strength, “Thank you thank you thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
&
nbsp; June 5, 2017
Marcia Brock’s health steadily declined. Each month that passed since the stroke seemed to offer a new array of health concerns. The winter brought pneumonia, bronchitis and a lung infection that kept Marcia isolated and confined to her bedroom. Family was allowed to visit, provided they were healthy and wore a mask at all times.
Greta got into a rhythm of visiting once a week, and John went by himself three or four times a week to read to his grandmother. Greta knew that John’s visits meant everything to Marcia. She could tell by the way the old woman responded to John’s voice – the way she stirred and smiled, followed along with his reading, and leaned towards him like a plant bending towards sunlight.
Still, every time Greta visited, Marcia made it a point to pull her former daughter-in-law closer to her, to lean forward and whisper in a feeble voice. She told Greta that John’s visits were the best part of her day, that he provided motivation for her to wake up each morning.
Greta worried about the type of pressure this placed on her eighteen-year-old son, but for his part, John seemed to enjoy these visits with his grandmother. It took three months to finish Treasure Island, and in winter he moved on to The Great Gatsby and other classics.
Now it was early May, John had finished the last pages of Jane Eyre and the temperature outside had been steadily in the 70s. There was hope that summer weather meant fewer viruses – that Marcia could accept more visitors and spend some time outside.
But the morning that John and Greta visited, it was clear that Marcia would not be rising out of bed anytime soon. The old woman looked just as debilitated as ever, lying on her side in a loose coil, her hair matted and her eyes glazed.
Elizabeth explained that Marcia’s health had taken a turn. In addition to the chronic bronchitis, Marcia had a kidney infection and was in pain in her limbs from arthritis.
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