He combs my hair with his fingers and parts it down the middle, then gathers the right side, separating it into three pieces.
“Tight, Grandpa.”
He smiles at me in the mirror and crosses the groups of hair over each other and pulls them tight to my scalp. Tears burn behind my eyes, but it also feels good to have it pulled tight and intertwined like nothing could get between the strands to loosen it up and make it fall apart.
I hand him a rubber band and he wraps it around the bottom of the first braid. Then he braids the left side, crossing the hair over and over and pulling it tight to my scalp.
“Thanks,” I say. And before I close his bedroom door I stick my head back in and say, “Hey, Grandpa. Everything’s going to be OK.”
I want to say what I always say, that I’ll see him in the morning, first thing. But I don’t want to lie to Grandpa.
I’m waiting for him to remind me about Grace and Harold coming over with doughnuts before school, but he just nods and smiles. “Sleep well, Robbie.” And I wonder if he remembers.
“You too, Grandpa.”
Wearing my outdoor clothes in bed feels weird. My jeans keep twisting around all wrong and I can’t get comfortable. It’s dark and the wind is whooshing past my window. I’m going over the plan in my head and looking at my hiking pack leaned against the far wall. It already has my sleeping bag in it so it kind of stands up on its own. I repeat the plan again and again, step by step, in my head to keep me awake until I hear Grandpa’s snores through the wall.
When the alarm on my watch beeps four thirty a.m. I blink my eyes fast and let them adjust to the dark. That was part of the plan so I don’t fumble around and wake up Grandpa. Then I push off my blanket, hoist the pack over my right shoulder, and tiptoe through the hall and downstairs. I lean my pack against the front door and tiptoe to the kitchen.
The cupboards squeak even when I open them slowly to feel for the loaf of bread. A slant of light shoots across the floor from the refrigerator as I reach in for the cheese slices. I make a sandwich and wrap it tight in plastic wrap like Grandpa taught me so the cheese doesn’t slide around and off the bread. Then I turn on the water just enough that it’s barely leaking out of the faucet to fill my water bottle as quietly as I can.
I grab the first-aid kit from the hall closet because Grandpa says you never go into the woods without it and stuff it in the pack on top of my sleeping bag. When I hoist the pack up this time, it feels way heavier than I thought it would. But I can carry it.
I adjust my headlamp around my head and pull on my boots, and just when I’m about to turn the doorknob I hear Grandpa cough and shift on his old mattress upstairs. Then I imagine him waking up and not knowing where he is or where I am and maybe packing his suitcase again and wandering off. And I won’t be here to follow him and find him and bring him back home.
But I can’t be here when Grace shows up to tell me her plan and take me away. And she’ll be here soon. If I just disappear for the morning, disappear from Grace and the Department for Children and Families, I can come back and get Grandpa and then we can make our own plan.
Grandpa needs me with him. I’m his right hand.
The light on my watch glows 4:58. Two hours until Grace will be pounding on our door with doughnuts. I have to go.
I turn the knob quietly, but I just can’t push the door open and run. I try again to get the guts, but I can’t. I can’t leave Grandpa here with no one listening for his breathing and snores through the wall.
I need a new plan.
When I inch the pack off my shoulders, it hits the floor with a thud. “Crap!” I whisper and slap my hand over my mouth as I tiptoe back to the kitchen.
This time I make a sandwich with an extra slice of cheese and slather it with mayonnaise and mustard the way Grandpa likes. The other water bottles are out in the shed, so I fill Grandpa’s soup thermos with water, even though it’s heavy and will probably kill my shoulders in the pack. But we’ll need it. And I can carry it. I grab the blanket off the back of the couch and stuff that in too.
Tiptoeing back up the stairs makes me nervous. I don’t want to startle Grandpa because it’s still dark and early and his wires will be all crossed and confused.
I knock softly on his bedroom door but he keeps on snoring. I knock a little louder and walk in. He snorts and rolls over. “What? What? Who is it?”
“It’s me, Grandpa. It’s Robbie.”
“What?” He sits up on the edge of his bed and shakes his head, but he doesn’t shake anything into place because he’s calling me Eddie and wondering if I’m going to come to Vermont. “Eddie, Eddie,” he pleads. “Come stay with me in Vermont until the baby’s born.”
“Grandpa, it’s Robinson.” I take his hand and help him stand up. I want to remind him that my mom died so he’ll snap out of it and stop calling me Eddie and go back to being normal. But I don’t want to make him sad, so I just forget about it. “It’s time to go,” I say. “Come with me.”
I pass him his clothes and he slouches into his shirt and pulls his pants up over his hips. “I’ll teach you how to sugar,” he says, “if you come.”
“I know how to sugar, Grandpa. You taught me. Remember?”
He rubs the grooves on his forehead and pats me on the shoulder. “Eddie. I’m so glad you came. I can’t wait to be a grandpa.”
Then I realize he’s talking about me. And for as many times as I’ve asked him to tell me what happened to my mom, it feels weird and wrong and a little scary having him talk about her now, when his memory is so tired.
He holds me tight and whispers in my ear, “I wanted to be there when you were growing up, Eddie.” Then he squeezes me tighter in the hug and says, “But you’re here now and I’m going to be the best damn grandpa in the world.” Then he rubs my belly over my sweatshirt and jacket.
“You are,” I tell him. “You are the best grandpa in the world.” He nods his head and loosens his hug.
“Ready?” I ask and grab a pair of thick socks from his drawer. I put his hand on my shoulder to lead him downstairs to the front door.
“Ready,” he says. His voice is gruff and sounds stale, like he hasn’t cleared the morning out of it yet.
That’s how his memory is too. It’s clear by the time the sun comes up for breakfast and he’s braiding my hair before school, but it clouds up again when it gets dark and it’s time to make dinner and go to bed.
But we can’t wait for the sun to rise and his memory to clear. We have to get out of here now. Then we’ll be OK and Grandpa can help me think about what we’ll do next.
“You’re going to need your flannel and a jacket too, Grandpa.”
I take his flannel from the hook, but when I turn back around he has one bare foot in his boot and he’s trying to pull his sock over the muddy toe.
“Socks first, Grandpa,” I remind him. “Socks, then boots.” It makes me mad and sad again at the same time that he doesn’t know that. How can he forget the simplest things? All the things he taught me when I was a little kid. He’s just staring back at me like he doesn’t understand, so I reach over and start unlacing his boot. “Socks first.”
“Stop it,” he huffs. “Stop it, dammit. I can do it.”
His eyes are those deer-caught-in-the-headlights eyes, and I just want him to snap out of it and go back to being the grandpa who makes sense, because he scares me when he’s like this. But we have to get out of here before Grace from the Department for Children and Families comes to take me away.
chapter 23
The snow crunches beneath our boots and our breath hangs heavy in the air.
“We’re going for our little hike, Grandpa,” I say. “You remember our favorite route? Up to the hiker shelter on the Appalachian Trail?”
The pack is digging into my shoulders already, and we haven’t even made it out of the yard and into the woods.
“You came on the train?” he asks. He’s crunching along behind me, side to side, side to side. “
Let me take your bag, Eddie. You’ve come a long way.”
“It’s OK, Grandpa,” I say. “I can carry it.” I keep trudging a couple of steps ahead of him so he can follow my footsteps. “Let’s find the trail, Grandpa. Then we’ll follow it to the shelter.”
Our headlamps are bouncing light across the dark morning ground.
“You’re going to love it here,” he says. “It’s the best place to raise a little girl.”
He still doesn’t understand that I’m me. I’m Robinson.
It scares me that he thinks I’m my pregnant mom, but I also want to know the ending. What happened after my mom came to Vermont to live with my grandpa? What happened when she had me? What went wrong?
“What happens?” I call back to him. “What happens when I’m born? What happens to Eddie?”
He stops and takes a deep breath and squints into the dark morning like he’s looking for the answer. “I don’t know,” he says.
It’s like an icicle in the gut because I think he really might not know. Maybe he stuffed it so deep that he actually forgot, and I’ll just never find out. I’ll never know what happened to my mom.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Eddie,” he says and starts walking again.
It feels like I’m hiking through the woods with a stranger, except I’ve lived with him my whole life.
I keep saying over and over in my head that I’m Robinson and he’s my grandpa, Charlie, and we’re escaping the Department for Children and Families and Grace and Harold and everyone else who thinks they know what’s best for us. No one knows my grandpa like I do, and he can’t live without his right hand.
I’m weaving through the sugar maples and trudging uphill, shining my headlamp on the snow, looking in the melting snow for the snowshoe tracks of the people who walk this stretch of the Appalachian Trail in the winter.
“Stop!” Grandpa yells and it echoes off the sky.
I whip around fast. “Shhhh!” I whisper. Even though I know Grace probably isn’t even awake yet, I imagine her following our footsteps and tracking us down.
“Stop, stop, stop! Don’t leave me!” he calls. And I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Eddie or someone else his memory stirred up.
“Come on, Grandpa,” I whisper. “It’s OK. I’m not leaving you.”
“Come back!” he shouts and he starts to cry and yell and I’m more scared than I’ve ever been because I want him to stop yelling and crying, but we can’t go back. “Come back!” he sputters. I don’t know why he’s crying, if he just wants to go home or if he still thinks I’m Eddie and he’s begging her to return, which is impossible because she’s dead.
He falls to his knees. “Come back! Please! I’m sorry!”
“It’s OK, Grandpa,” I say. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere without you. Let’s walk together.” I reach out my hand and wait for him to catch up. Then we walk side by side, hand in hand, together up the hill until we reach the Appalachian Trail where Grandpa and I have hiked so many times. He’s limping pretty badly on the right side and he keeps mumbling under his breath to please come back, please come back.
“We’re close,” I tell him and we continue on together up the trail, our things weighing heavy on my shoulders, but I know I can carry them all the way until the end.
We get to the sign that reads .1 mile to shelter and an arrow points down the trail.
“Almost there, Grandpa. Then we’ll rest.” And the sun will rise up, I’m thinking, and you’ll be good as new.
There’s no one in the shelter this time of year. All the hikers go through with their big beards and their big packs in the summer, so it’s just Grandpa and me now.
“Here we are,” I say and drop the pack on the wood floor of the shelter. In the summer, it’s a good thing that the shelter has only three sides. This is where Grandpa and I stop to eat our lunch on warm afternoon hikes when school’s out and where we dangle our feet from the edge of the shelter and take off our hiking boots and wiggle our toes. Plus, all the hikers who are going a long way with big packs smell like moose crap and I wouldn’t want to be shut in anywhere with them. Today, though, I wish that there was a fourth wall, a front to the shelter so the wind wouldn’t find its way inside to us.
I unpack my sleeping bag and the blanket from the couch. “Here, Grandpa, take this.” I hand him my sleeping bag because it’s warmer. “We’ll just have a little breakfast and rest for a while. Then we’ll go back home.” I look at my watch. 7:04. If we can just wait until eight, then the coast will be clear until Grandpa and I can make a better plan.
Grandpa unties his boots and pulls his right foot into his lap. A big blister bubbles from the back of his heel, probably because he didn’t tie his boots tight enough and it’s hard walking in snow. I should have told him to lace them tighter, but I feel good that I at least remembered the first-aid kit because I can cut Grandpa a piece of Moleskin and wrap his heel with a Band-Aid and medical tape.
“That’ll help,” I say. He pulls his sock back on over his sore, wrapped blister.
Then he zips himself feet first into the sleeping bag and I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and huddle in close to him. The hair on his chin is rough and scratchy but feels good pressed up on my cheek.
We eat cheese sandwiches and drink water from the water bottle, and I’m thinking any minute now the sun will come up and Grandpa’s memory will snap back to normal. But he’s rubbing his head and mumbling.
“It’s OK, Grandpa,” I keep saying. “We’ll go home soon.”
Then he looks right at me, but I can tell it’s not me he sees. “Eddie? Eddie. You can’t leave us, Eddie,” he says. Then he pushes the sleeping bag off his legs and stands up so fast that he wobbles on his socked feet. In one hand he grabs my pack and cradles it in the crook of his arm like it’s a baby. With his other hand he grabs my arm hard. “Come on,” he says. “I have to get you to the hospital. Wake up.” And before I know it he’s pushing me out of the shelter and into the woods.
“Grandpa, your boots!” He’s sinking far into the snow in just his socks, and he’s zipping the pack into his jacket like he’s trying to keep a baby warm and pulling me along.
“We don’t have time! We should have gone yesterday. Eddie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” And he’s crying again and pulling me deeper into the woods until I can’t see the shelter anymore and we’re not on the trail and I don’t know if we’re getting closer to home or farther.
Now I’m more scared than ever because I think we’re lost and Grandpa’s memory has never been so bad. He’s not just misplacing his flannel or keys; he’s misplacing his whole self, and I don’t want to lose him. I want him to look right at me and say, Robinson. I want him to say he’s cold and he needs his boots and that we should go home and what are we doing up here anyway? I want him to put his arm around me and say, Everything is going to be OK, Robinson. Everything is going to be OK.
But he’s not. He’s running wild like a spooked animal and pulling me hard through the woods.
“Hospital,” he’s panting. “Stay with me. I’ve got the baby.”
I look at Grandpa cradling the pack as he runs, and he’s looking down inside his jacket to check. And I know he sees me in there. He sees little baby me. And I wonder what happened to Eddie, what happened to my mom? Why was it too late? But I don’t even care anymore. I’d rather have Grandpa back to normal than learn what happened. I want him to stop. He’s hurting my arm and he’s shaking and scared and his eyes look like he’s in so much pain remembering.
We’re walking in circles and we’re walking fast and I’m crying now too and yelling, “Grandpa! Grandpa!” And I want it to be all over, so I pull back hard on my arm and we both topple into the snow and he clutches hard around the pack in his jacket, protecting it from the fall. And I yell, “It’s me. It’s Robinson! Eddie’s dead!” I unzip his jacket and pull out the pack and shake it in front of his face. “I’m grown-up, Grandpa. I’m grown-up and I’m fine and I’m righ
t here.”
He’s crying big cries and I’m hugging him hard and there are cold tears on my cheeks that feel like they’ll be frozen there forever. He’s shaking from the cold and I know I did a bad job of taking care of Grandpa. I don’t even know where we are anymore, and his socks are soaking wet from the snow.
“We have to go home,” I say.
I pull him up from the snow and we walk hand in hand, following our footprints backward. Grandpa walks ahead through the thin cold branches, and they whip back fast to lash me on the face. Each cold branch on my cheek feels like a punishment for taking him out here. For making his memory worse.
I finally see the roof of the shelter and I point. “Over there, Grandpa,” I say. We duck beneath branches and make our way back to where we started. I help him sit on the edge, and he pulls his boots over his wet socks. I roll up the sleeping bag and blanket and stuff them back in the pack and hoist it over my shoulders. Somehow it feels heavier than when we started.
The sun is beginning to shine down through the branches of the maple trees, and if we wait for one more hour we’ll probably be safe from Grace and the Department for Children and Families, but Grandpa is shaking from the feet up and I don’t want him to be scared and wild anymore, so I say, “Let’s go,” and we follow the Appalachian Trail back down toward our house.
chapter 24
I squeeze Grandpa’s hand hard as we step out of the woods and into our backyard. She Roll is parked in the driveway, and I can hear Harold banging on our front door and hollering, “Robbie? Charlie?”
We keep walking slowly, side to side, side to side, across the yard until we can see Harold and Paul on our front steps. Then Grandpa raises his hand above his head. “Here!” he calls. “We’re here!”
He squeezes my hand back and says, “I’m sorry.”
I’m squeezing as hard as my cold fingers can and even though I’m telling Grandpa that it’ll be OK, I don’t know that it will be.
Just Like Jackie Page 13