Just Like Jackie

by Lindsey Stoddard

  And it feels pretty OK being a natural. So OK that I loosen up my arms a little bit and rock her kind of slow and she stays sleeping. And I’m feeling calm as cruise control.

  I ask Grandpa if he wants to hold her and Harold says, “Of course he does!” He lifts the baby out of my arms and I stand up and let Grandpa have my seat.

  May makes Grandpa look even older because she’s so fresh and new and Grandpa’s face is all worn and creased like an old-timer’s baseball glove. He’s looking down at May and whispering, “Hello, May. Hello.” And I’ve never heard Grandpa sounding so soft. “It’s a big world out here,” he whispers. “Your daddies are going to protect you.” When he looks up his eyes are all red and watery.

  “It’s OK, Grandpa,” I say, and I pat his shoulder.

  Then the baby starts crying and Harold says, “Uh-oh. Better give her back to the natural.” And before I know it I’m holding her again and she’s cooing and dribbling and looking up right at me.

  “Good job, Robbie,” Paul whispers.

  And when I’m looking at her, I can’t help thinking about how this little tiny May already has so many branches on her tree. She has Harold and Paul and two sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides who are all on their way to see her before she’s even two days old.

  Harold walks us to the lobby of the hospital, and I reach out for a fist bump.

  “Good job with the name,” I tell him. And I’m thinking how when she’s big enough I’ll teach her all about Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants and his twelve Gold Glove awards and how he’s in the Hall of Fame. And how maybe I’ll even call her Willie.

  chapter 14

  In the hospital parking lot, Grandpa and I hop in the truck and wave to Harold, who’s still watching us from under the entrance awning.

  Grandpa starts the truck, and I pull the seat belt across my chest. Harold keeps on waving and smiling, so I wave back one more time. Finally he turns and heads back through the automatic front doors of the hospital.

  Then the engine of the truck revs so loud it kind of startles me and then revs again and again, louder.

  “Grandpa!” I shout, and I didn’t mean to yell it like that, but the revving kind of scared me. “It’s in park!”

  “I know!” And I don’t think he meant to shout either, because now he’s shaking his head like he’s trying to get all the parts in his brain realigned right. Then he pulls the shift down to reverse and backs out of the parking spot slowly. I’m looking to make sure Harold isn’t watching, but he’s gone.

  When we get to the first stop sign, I say kind of softly and to my shoes, “Left.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” He’s frustrated with me for trying to help, so the rest of the way home I just reach over and flick on the directional for him so the green arrow blinks left or right on the dashboard pointing us home. He used to let me be in charge of the directional when I was little, before I knew how to do all the parts of driving. He doesn’t argue about me reaching over, just nods and says it’s fine.

  Grandpa parks the truck in our driveway and pats my knee three times like he does sometimes, and I know that means that he loves me and everything’s going to be OK. And with him calm like this, I’m thinking about what Ms. Gloria said and that maybe this is a good time to try asking him again.

  “Grandpa?” My stomach is all full of bases-loaded nerves. “After we collect the sap, do you think I can ask you a couple of questions?” The grooves in his forehead dig deeper. “It’s for school,” I tell him.

  He nods. “Of course.”

  I unbuckle my seat belt. “I’ll go get your ax.”

  “Two hands,” he says. “And grab my flannel.”

  I run fast to the house to change into my boots and get Grandpa’s red flannel shirt that he’ll button up over his navy blue jumpsuit from the garage. But the shirt isn’t hanging on the black hook inside the door where it always is. And it isn’t in the dirty clothes hamper in the closet, and it’s not draped over the bench where Grandpa sits to pull on his boots in the morning.

  I’ve never seen his flannel shirt anywhere else, so I don’t even know where to look, but I run up the stairs and check his bedroom. It’s not hanging on the hooks where he hangs his towels, and it’s not in any of his drawers.

  I run back downstairs and slide on my socks into the kitchen. Out the window, Grandpa’s standing by the sugar maples in the yard, lifting the hoods on the metal buckets to check how much sap we have, which makes me feel relieved because he’s not circling in the woods back and forth across the Appalachian Trail.

  I’m looking for that stupid flannel shirt in crazy places now, and fast, because I don’t like spending too much time away from Grandpa when it’s almost nighttime. It just makes me feel better when I’m right there at his right hand.

  I open the top cupboards where we keep the boxes of cereal and mac and cheese, and the drawers where we keep the silverware. I even open the refrigerator and the microwave. I don’t know why anyone would put a dirty outdoor flannel shirt in a kitchen, but sometimes Grandpa’s wires get crossed when he’s changing his clothes and putting things away.

  I keep checking for Grandpa out the window as I open the bottom cupboards where we stack the pots and pans, and that’s when I see the red of Grandpa’s flannel poking out from between the skillets and pasta pots. And I get these blasts of two feelings at the same time. I’m so mad at Grandpa’s brain for making him put his outdoor flannel in the kitchen cupboards when he knows it’s supposed to hang on the black hook by the door. But I’m sad too. I’m so sad at Grandpa’s brain because I don’t know how to diagnose his malfunction, and I don’t even know if he knows that his check engine light’s on.

  I pull on my boots and run to the garage to get our work gloves and carry Grandpa’s ax, sharp side down, with two hands, to the chopping block in the backyard.

  “Here you go, Grandpa.” I hold out his shirt.

  I watch his dark fingers push the buttons through the buttonholes, and even though I want to shake him by the shoulders and ask him why his brain thought it was OK to fold his shirt and put it in the cupboard with the pots and pans I don’t say anything.

  “Thanks, Robbie.”

  “I got your back, Grandpa,” I say, and follow him to the sugar maples.

  He pours the sap from the metal buckets while I hold the funnel and cheesecloth over the big plastic holding jugs.

  “That’s ten more gallons just from today,” Grandpa says.

  “Yes!” I cheer. That means we have enough gallons collected to make a fire in our pit and boil our sap into syrup, which is the best part.

  Grandpa hangs the bucket back under the tap on the tree, walks over to the chopping block, and picks up his ax. I put a piece of wood up there for him and position it just right so it’s not wobbly, then I back up three big steps. “We’ll need lots of chopped wood for the fire,” he tells me, then lifts the ax high above his head and brings it down on the wood. It splits easily, and two pieces fall to the ground. I pick them up, toss them on the pile under the eaves, and set up another piece for Grandpa to chop.

  There are little pieces of splintered wood and tree bark stuck to Grandpa’s thick red flannel shirt, and I try to make a little reminder to myself to watch Grandpa when we go inside so the shirt ends up on the black hook where it’s supposed to be.

  And even though I want to give his memory a rest, I’m also scared that if I wait any longer to ask him questions he might forget all the answers. Then I’ll never know. And I won’t have a family tree.

  Grandpa swings the ax high up over his head again and drives it through the piece of wood, and it’s another easy split right down the middle. When I’m setting up the next piece of wood on the chopping block, I take a deep breath. “Can I ask one of those questions now? For school?”

  “Sure.”

  I take another deep breath and say it right to the hard thick bark on the piece of wood I’m adjusting on the chopping
block because I don’t want to see if Grandpa shakes his head.

  “What was my mom’s name?”

  It feels like a whole minute before he says anything, and I just keep pretending to adjust the piece of wood even though it’s sitting sturdy on the chopping block and is ready to be split.

  Finally he answers. “Edna Rose Miller.” He says it slow, and I can’t help but look up and see that he’s shaking his head and massaging his temples with his big fingers. “Edna Rose Miller,” he whispers again.

  And I can’t believe he actually told me, that he said her name out loud, and now I know it and get to know it forever.

  Edna Rose Miller. I say it a few times in my head and I want it to be perfect, but it sounds all wrong. It’s girly and flowery and she didn’t even have our last name. My mom’s name was supposed to be Sam or Jo. Her last name was supposed to be Hart.

  “Why doesn’t she have our name?” I ask.

  Grandpa shakes his head and raises the ax up high and brings it down hard on the piece of wood on the chopping block. But it’s a tough piece, not a smooth split. It’s got a knot curled hard at its core, so Grandpa pulls the ax up high over his head again and again and again, but the sharp edge just gets caught up in the knot each time.

  “Dammit!” Grandpa shouts, and he slams the ax into the ground. “That’s enough, Robbie. It’s getting dark.”

  He starts his side-to-side walk back to the house. I hear the door close and then it’s quiet. And I want to yell and punch something hard, so I try counting to ten or taking three deep breaths, but I don’t care about that crap. I want to know why Grandpa won’t tell me anything else. Why he has to get like this.

  My face feels hot, and I try not to think of the stupid family trees that everyone in my class is busy making with lots of branches sticking out all over, but before I know it I have Grandpa’s ax in my hands and I’m bringing it up high over my head like I’ve watched him do a million times, and I let it fall, swinging hard down into our old stump chopping block.

  I want to just leave it there, cutting deep into the tough, thick bark around the stump, but it’s my job to put the ax away in the shed, so I grab the handle and pull hard, wiggling it up and down until I can free it from the chopping block. It leaves a big gash in the protective bark.

  I carry the ax sharp side down, with two hands, back to the shed, then head inside.

  I pull off my boots and check the black hook for Grandpa’s red flannel shirt. It’s not there, and it makes me so mad that I can feel the hot rise up in my face.

  “Grandpa!” I call out. Then I run up the stairs, saying a Hall of Famer’s name on each step. Ty Cobb. Lou Gehrig. Roberto Clemente. Jackie Robinson.

  He’s sitting in his room on the edge of his bed, still wearing his navy blue jumpsuit from the garage with his red flannel wood-chipped shirt buttoned up over it. His black suitcase is at his feet.

  “Grandpa?”

  “I’m ready when you are,” he says and pats the suitcase at his feet. “Ready for the big day.” His dark eyes are wide and glassy and confused, and his thick fingers are tapping out something on his knee. “Ready for this baby to come.”

  “Grandpa, what are you talking about?”

  He’s scaring me, and I don’t ever get scared by anything, but there’s something really wrong and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it and I can’t ask Grandpa for help. My heart is beating fast.

  “Grandpa? It’s me. Robbie. Robinson Hart.” I lay my hand on top of his to make it still.

  He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close, up onto his lap, where I haven’t sat for so many years I can’t even remember. With my legs draped over his and my head tucked under his chin, I kind of feel like a baby and it feels OK. And I wouldn’t even care too much if he rocked me back and forth a little like I rocked May in the hospital.

  “I know that,” he says. “I know you’re Robbie. I’m not a hundred years old.”

  He holds me for a second or two more before he puts me down and stands up slow. Then he pretends to walk around like a humpbacked, toothless one-hundred-year-old with a cane and we both get to laughing. “You think I’m a hundred years old?” he asks in a trembling old-man voice.

  I laugh because it makes him laugh, and I love Grandpa’s laugh because it comes all the way up straight from his belly and makes tears spill from the corners of his eyes. But I’m still scared. Scared that he packed a suitcase and said he was ready to go. Scared that he didn’t know who I was. And I’m wondering where he thought he was going. What was the big day he was remembering? What baby was coming?

  And I wonder if he’ll try to take that suitcase and wander back in time to when Edna Rose Miller was alive and there was some big day to look forward to.

  “Come on, Grandpa,” I say. “You didn’t even take off your flannel. Let’s go hang it up and eat some dinner.”

  He starts walking out of the bedroom and down the stairs and I shove the suitcase into his closet so he won’t see it when he comes back up. Maybe he’ll forget he even packed it. That he wanted to go somewhere else at all.

  chapter 15

  The next morning before school I’m sitting on the kitchen stool playing with the rubber bands for my hair as Grandpa brushes out all the knots from sleeping. He tries to hold my hair tight in his hand as he brushes so it doesn’t tug at my scalp, but there’s always one hair that pulls and makes my eyes water.

  He divides my hair down the center and braids the left side first, breaking it into three separate sections and crossing them over and over one another until he asks for a rubber band. I hand one back to him and he wraps it around the bottom of the braid.

  “One done,” he says. Then I feel him separate the right side into three parts.

  I’m trying not to think about last night, but I can’t help it. I keep seeing Grandpa’s blank face and his packed suitcase and wondering where he thought he was going and if he thought I was Edna. And if that means I look like her.

  And I still want to know why her name wasn’t Hart because Grandpa always told me she never got married and that I never had a father. So wouldn’t that make her a Hart? And even though I know it’ll make me feel like crap, I still want to know what happened when I was born. How she died.

  I can feel that one hair that tugs at my scalp every time Grandpa tightens up the braid.

  And I don’t know if it’s because Grandpa’s standing behind me and I won’t be able to see if he shakes his head or if his eyes get glassy and faraway, or if it’s because I know that his memory is doing OK because it’s morning but it could get worse fast and then it’ll be too late and I’ll never get to know anything else about my mom. But before I know it I’m asking him again.

  “Grandpa, that thing for school,” I start. “I have to know some family stuff. We’re making a project.”

  He keeps crossing my hair over and over, and scoops up the runaway curls at my neck and tucks them into the braid.

  “What do you need to know?” he asks.

  I take a big breath because I’m scared again. Scared that I’ll send him into a bad place where he forgets who I am and where he is.

  “Why was my mom’s name Edna Rose Miller, and not Hart?”

  That one little hair pulls hard at my scalp. “That was your grandma’s last name,” he says. “Miller.”

  “My grandma?” I ask. Grandpa never talks about her, just like he never talks about my mom. “Who was she?”

  He clears his throat. “Edna’s mom. Your grandma Lucy. Lucy Miller.” He says her name all soft and slow and I kind of feel like maybe she was the love of his life, but there was no way I was going to say love out loud.

  “So then why—”

  “That’s enough questions, Robbie,” he says and asks for the rubber band. I hand it back to him and he wraps it tight around the bottom of the right braid.

  “But for my project I—”

  “Go get your book bag. Time for school.”

  When I tur
n around, Grandpa’s eyes are red and watery. And I don’t want to make him shake his head or wander off or pack up his suitcase so he can travel back to before I was born, but I do want to cut away at Grandpa’s hard, thick bark because it feels really scratchy and crappy to keep rubbing up against it.

  “Fine,” I snap and grab my book bag and a banana from the counter and start toward the front door, but Grandpa’s voice stops me.

  “Your mom was Edna Rose Miller, not Hart, because your grandma and I never got married. We never even lived together. Your grandma Lucy’s parents named your mom Edna. Insisted she not have my name. Insisted she be a Miller.”

  His voice is shaky, and I can’t tell if he’s going to get mad or sad, but I hate both of those feelings on Grandpa. “They didn’t approve of me, of Lucy and me, and they definitely didn’t approve of us having a baby.”

  I turn around. “Why?” But as soon as I ask it, I know. Because of Grandpa’s skin. Because he didn’t fit right.

  And now I’m mad at my grandma Lucy, which feels messed up because she died way too young, before I was born, and because I think she was the love of my grandpa’s life, and I only just learned her name. But still, she should have married my grandpa and let him raise Edna as a Hart.

  “Why didn’t she just tell her parents that they’re not the boss of her and that they’re stupid and wrong?” I ask.

  Grandpa smiled. “Not everyone’s as tough as you.”

  “OK, Grandpa,” I say. “And thanks.” There are a hundred more questions I want to ask, but I think that’s enough for today. Grandpa’s memory needs to rest.

  The braids feel good and tight like they always do at the beginning of the day. Everything’s always better at the beginning of the day. Before school. Before I see Alex Carter. Before Grandpa’s memory gets tired and he starts mixing up his words and his places and his people.

  I pull on my Dodgers hat and jump over the three steps of the porch to the gravel driveway. When I turn back to wave good-bye to Grandpa, he’s standing out on the porch watching me walk.