Just Like Jackie

by Lindsey Stoddard

  Harold rushes toward us and takes Grandpa’s arm. “Where were you? Are you OK?”

  “Fine, fine,” Grandpa mutters.

  “Just out for a walk,” I say.

  Harold looks at me with eyes full of worry, but he doesn’t ask any more questions.

  “There you are,” Paul says, patting my shoulder. He has May in that backward-book-bag carrier thing, and she’s fast asleep on his chest. Together we help Grandpa up the front steps and inside.

  Grandpa’s shoulders are still shaking a little, like a chill got into his bones and he’s trying to shoo it off.

  Harold puts a kettle of water on to boil while I get Grandpa’s boots off and unwrap the bandage over his blister.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  He looks up and I don’t know if he sees Eddie or me, but I can see him searching for his words.

  “No,” he says. Then he pats my shoulder. “No, Robbie.”

  And my eyes get all watery because I got my grandpa back.

  Harold’s pouring a kettle of boiling water into a basin in front of the couch, so I walk Grandpa over, help him sit down, and lift his feet into the hot water.

  Harold sits down in our chair near him and rocks May as she gurgles awake. “How’s that feel, Charlie? Temperature OK?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Grandpa grumbles. “I don’t need all this fussing over. I’m not a hundred years old, you know.” He shrugs off the blanket I put around his shoulders.

  He’s sounding more like the real Grandpa already.

  Then I hear a car pull into the driveway and I know who it is and I’m not going to the door to welcome her in even though that’s how Grandpa raised me. To be polite.

  I take the kettle from Harold and go to the kitchen to fill it up and boil some more.

  Harold greets Grace at the door and she says hi to my grandpa and Paul and goo-goo-gah-gahs over May. I can hear her unzip her jacket, and I’m thinking, Keep it on because you’re not staying long.

  Then before I know it she’s in the kitchen standing next to me. “Your grandpa told me you are one remarkable girl,” she says. “Now I really see what he’s talking about.” I turn on the faucet full blast because I want to drown her out.

  Yeah, pretty remarkable, I’m thinking. I woke him up in the middle of the night when I know his memory is most tired, I got him all confused and turned around, and I almost froze him to death out in the woods.

  The water starts overflowing from the kettle, so I turn off the faucet and put the kettle on the stove. The gas clicks as I start the burner and the flame jumps up. “He means a lot to you,” Grace says. “And I know you’d do anything for him. In fact, it seems like you have been doing quite a lot for him for a while.”

  I think about all the times I’ve put his flannel by the door so he wouldn’t have to find it in the cupboard and get mad at himself, or how I sometimes turn the blinker on in the truck before the turns come up so he knows which way to go. I think about finding the ends of his sentences.

  “You mean a lot to him too, you know,” Grace says. “He loves you so much.”

  I stay facing the stove so I don’t have to look at her. And I’m starting to think about Grandpa trying to get my mom to the hospital and how he held that bundle, me, so close to his heart in his jacket. And I’m thinking about all the lines on my stupid family tree that don’t mean anything. Except Grandpa.

  And before I know it I’m saying, “He’s my only family,” except I say it more to the kettle than to Grace.

  “I know,” she says, and puts her hand on my shoulder. The steam from the kettle is starting to whistle through the spout and it feels good on my face. “Why don’t you bring that hot water to your grandpa,” she says. “I bet he wants you to sit by him.”

  That’s the truth. I’ll sit right at his right hand.

  I take the kettle into the living room and pour it into the basin at Grandpa’s feet. Then I sit down on the couch next to him and let him put his arm around me and I lean into that rough sandpaper on his chin.

  Grace is opening a bag of piping hot fresh doughnuts. I take one and break it in half—one part for me, one for Grandpa.

  Harold’s sitting across from us with May in his lap, feeding her a bottle, and Paul is next to him and both their eyes look a little watery.

  “Can you help me with a problem, Rob?” Harold asks. And it feels like we’re back in the garage and he needs me to check under the hood of a sedan to make sure he’s done everything right and didn’t miss anything.

  “Second opinion?” I ask.

  He nods his head. Then he starts telling me that Grace and a nurse spent some time yesterday morning with Grandpa and there’s something in his brain called Alzheimer’s and that’s what’s making his memory so tired.

  “It will get better if I act better,” I tell them.

  Grace says no, that’s not how it works. That this has nothing to do with me. “It happens to some people when they get older. It’s nobody’s fault.”

  Just hearing that makes me feel like I dropped a heavy pack off my shoulders, and I take a big bite of the doughnut and it’s as good as it smells.

  “How can we fix it?” I ask Harold.

  Grandpa sighs heavy, and I can feel his breath on my face. It smells like donuts and coffee.

  “It’s not going to get better,” Harold says. “That’s the hard part.”

  He reaches over and pats my knee, but I’m shaking my head and sitting up and looking right at Grandpa. “That’s not true,” I say. But Grandpa’s eyes are getting watery like Harold’s and I know that Grace is getting ready to take me away to a place for kids who have no family at all.

  “We can’t fix it, Robbie. No one can fix it,” Harold says. “But we have a plan, and we need your second opinion.” He puts down May’s bottle and rocks her in his arms.

  The whole room looks like it’s underwater.

  “You and your grandpa are doing great here together right now,” he says. “But there are some times when he needs a little more help, like at night, when he’s more forgetful. We were thinking of having a really nice nurse come to help you guys in the evenings with dinner and getting ready for bed.”

  I want to say no way, that I can make dinner and help Grandpa just fine. But I remember Ms. Gloria and think about Harold’s plan for a full count to ten. And each count I feel more OK.

  “And you’ll keep an eye on him at the garage?” I ask. “Just in case?”

  “Of course.”

  My eyes are burning, but I’m still listening.

  “Then when Charlie’s memory gets too bad and it’s too hard for him to be here at home, he told us he wants to go live somewhere that will help him full-time,” Harold says.

  “What? Grandpa, where?”

  Grandpa squeezes my shoulder and says. “Just a place for old guys like me up the road,” he says. “It’s nice there and you can visible . . .” He shakes his head. “Visible me.”

  And I know he means I can visit him. “Every day?” I ask.

  Grandpa nods his head yes.

  “What’s it called?” I ask.

  Grandpa opens his mouth but shakes his head and looks up to the ceiling like he’s searching for the name up there.

  “Mountain View,” Grace says. “It’s only a ten-minute drive from here.”

  “But what about me? When he goes to . . . where will I . . . ? I can’t go with him?”

  “Robbie.” Something catches in Harold’s voice and he wipes his eyes with his shirtsleeve over sleeping May’s little face, and Paul reaches out and grabs his hand. They hold hands tight, fingers all interlaced like the braids Grandpa makes.

  “Robbie,” Harold says, and he waits until I’m looking right at him before he starts talking again, but his eyes look all watery and I’m shaking even though I’m not cold. “Paul and I were hoping you’d come live with us when your grandpa decides to go to Mountain View.”

  “We love you so much,” Paul says. “And
we already think of you as family.”

  I’m shivering hard and the tears trapped in my eyes are running now. I can feel them dropping off my chin.

  “And we’ll be visiting your grandpa every day anyway,” Harold says. “And May would be lucky to have you as a big sister.”

  My voice is shaking, but before I know it I’m saying yes. Yes to visiting Grandpa every day and yes to living with Harold and Paul and being May’s big sister and yes to continuing working on cars in the garage and teaching Harold how to boil sap so we can bring some syrup to Grandpa in case they only have the fake stuff at Mountain View.

  “Whenever you two are ready,” Harold says to Grandpa and me. “We’re here.”

  Grace is nodding, and even her eyes are a little watery and I’m starting to think she isn’t half as bad as I thought before.

  Harold holds out his fist to me and I bump it with mine. “Deal,” I say.

  Grandpa’s kissing my face and telling me that we’ll never really be apart and that there’s no chance he’ll ever forget me, even if it seems like it sometimes.

  “You live here in me,” he says and taps his thumb at his heart. “Not here,” he says, pointing at his head. Then he brings his hand back down and rests it on his chest. “And I’ll never lose this.”

  I lean back into his sandpaper chin and Harold comes across and sits next to us and Paul does too and May’s reaching out for my finger and I let her, and before I know it I’m smushed between them and it feels pretty OK. Really OK.

  chapter 25

  It’s easy to talk Grandpa and Harold and Paul into letting me take the day off from school. They’re all feeling pretty mushy, so mushy that I bet they’d buy me my own Toyota Tacoma if I asked them nice.

  “As long as you do your homework,” Harold says. And he’s doing that practice dad thing again, which isn’t so annoying anymore because I know he’s just practicing for me.

  I walk Grace and Harold and Paul out to their cars, and Grace tells me that a nurse will come by at five thirty every night, starting tonight. “Her name is Katie and she’s the best.”

  She tells me how Katie will help Grandpa transition from afternoon to evening and into bed at night, and how she’ll make sure he has clean clothes, and help with dinner. I tell her that’s fine, but really I’m thinking that I’m still going to squeeze the cheese into the mac no matter what because that’s my job. And that Grandpa can still braid my hair in the morning.

  Harold gives me a hug good-bye while Paul puts May in her car seat and says to call if I need anything.

  Back in the house I help Grandpa empty the water from the basin at his feet. It’s not hot anymore, but that’s fine because we’re not shaking like we were before.

  “My memory might be rusty,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I forgot about that homework you have to do. You’re not getting any free day out of me.”

  I remember the pact I made with Alex. That even though it stinks and we don’t want to do it we are going to finish this stupid family tree project so we can pass the fifth grade. And so he can make his dad proud. And it’s due tomorrow.

  “Will you help me?” I ask.

  Grandpa nods so I go to my book bag and take out my notebook and a pen and drop it on the kitchen table. He walks over slow and pulls out a chair to sit.

  My stomach is growling. That cheese sandwich we had in the shelter already feels like days ago. Even the doughnut from Grace feels like yesterday. “I’m going to make some oatmeal,” I tell Grandpa.

  “Make it two,” he says.

  I stir in the oats and turn down the heat so it doesn’t boil over, then I grab two bowls and spoons from the cabinet.

  “Don’t forget the syrup.”

  I smile at him because we both know that no one worth knowing can eat oatmeal without maple syrup. But when I go to pour it over the oats in our bowls, the slowest, skinniest stream dribbles out.

  “Guess we’ll have to boil soon, then,” Grandpa says. “A refrigerator without syrup is no good at all.”

  And I don’t know if he remembers when Derek and his mom came over, and if he remembers about his hands and spilling half the sap.

  “How about this weekend?” he asks.

  “Perfect.” I’m already thinking that I’ll go out today after I finish this stupid project to collect sap from the buckets and get ready.

  I let the last drops fall from the maple syrup jug and bring the bowls of oatmeal over to the kitchen table, where Grandpa is sitting with my unfinished family tree draft.

  And that’s when I get the idea for my project.

  chapter 26

  I’m sticking my work gloves into the cracks of the sugar maple tree and pulling off pieces of bark and snapping twigs from the branches and collecting it all in an extra sap bucket.

  “I don’t have any poster board or anything to put it on,” I say.

  Grandpa starts walking to the shed and waves me along. “Let’s see if we can’t find something in here.”

  Our shed is a mess. Grandpa’s workbench is covered with tools and old car parts and bottles of oil. Spare tires are stacked in the corner, and my baseball bats are sticking up out of them.

  Grandpa’s digging through an old metal shelf and I’m thinking there’s no way he’s going to find anything in this place when he holds up an old green Vermont license plate like the ones on our truck. “How about this?”

  I’m thinking he must have forgotten what he was looking for, because how can I use a license plate as poster board for my family tree? But then he says, “We’ll need some Gorilla Glue too,” and starts digging through his toolbox. “Aha! Here it is.”

  We bring everything back inside and lay it all out on the kitchen table. “Let’s make that tree,” Grandpa says.

  So I turn the license plate the tall way and start laying the bark out on it for the trunk and then add the twigs for the branches. They stick out off the sides of the license plate.

  It doesn’t look like a perfect sugar maple or anything, but it’s way better than the stupid lines in my notebook. Grandpa’s turning over the bark, squeezing Gorilla Glue, then I press the bark hard into the license plate and Grandpa presses his hands down on mine to make the glue stick. “This should strike . . .” he says, but he shakes his head and presses harder down on my hands.

  And it does. It does stick just fine. So we glue each piece and all the twigs pressing hand over hand over hand over hand until there’s a miniature sugar maple glued on the old Vermont license plate. And even though this project is stupid and I don’t like artsy things that much at all, it looks pretty OK since I like cars and maple trees.

  “Look at that, Robbie!” Grandpa admires, pointing at the project.

  But I know it’s not done. I still have the hard part left to do. I still have to put on the names.

  I push my notebook toward him and say, “This is what I have so far.”

  Grandpa looks at my draft and runs his finger over Eddie’s name. And then over Lucy’s name. Then he laughs at “mean old lady” and “mean old man.”

  “They were kind of mean,” he chuckles. “But Lucy. Lucy was a gem. Just not so strong as Eddie and you.” But then he gets all quiet again just when I was thinking he was going to tell me more. But he closes up tight instead, and I can tell he’s not going to say any more than that.

  “Forget it,” I say. “I don’t want to put any of them on my tree because I don’t know a thing about them.” Heat rises up to my face. “I can’t just hand in a stupid piece of bark.” I push my notebook clear off the kitchen table.

  “Robbie,” he says.

  And even though I feel bad that I trudged him through the stupid snow this morning, I’m mad he won’t actually help me with my family tree. So I say forget it, I’m going outside to collect the sap from the buckets and I don’t need his help.

  “Robbie—” he says.

  “Forget it, Grandpa!” I yell. “Forget it. Just keep everything inside and to yourself until you
don’t remember anything anymore.” And what I’m thinking is that Grandpa needs Group Guidance with Ms. Gloria to teach him how to tap deep through his hard bark and open up.

  The door slams behind me and the cold air feels good. I take my time emptying the buckets and packing the snow back up around the plastic collection jugs, but I can’t stay out very long because I rushed out mad without my jacket and I’m starting to shiver again like this morning.

  When I go back inside, Grandpa’s coming down the stairs. “Sit,” he says and points to the kitchen table.

  “I’m not doing the proj—”

  “I said sit.”

  I slump hard in the chair, but I grab my Dodgers hat out of my book bag and pull it down over my face.

  Grandpa sits down too and before I know it he’s sliding a picture across the table. I can’t see anything past the brim of my hat, just this picture of a woman with a boy-short haircut, skin the color of sugar maple bark, and a big pregnant belly. In the picture my grandpa’s got his arm around her and he’s smiling big. He looks a lot younger and like he’s not confused about anything at all. Like he knows exactly where his flannel is and where the bathroom is when he gets up in the middle of the night to use it.

  Then Grandpa taps his finger on the woman. “That’s your mom,” he tells me. “That’s Eddie.”

  “Where were you keeping this? Why didn’t you ever show—”

  “It’s here now.”

  I don’t want to be mad at Grandpa, but I am. He had a picture this whole time and who knows if he has any more and who knows all the things about my mom he’s keeping from me?

  And I think of Ms. Gloria telling me to use the family tree project to help me talk to Grandpa. It hasn’t worked that well so far, but it has to work today. It has to work today because I can’t wait anymore and I don’t know when Grandpa will go live with the old people at Mountain View, and because my family tree is due tomorrow.

  “I need to know more for this project,” I say. He nods. “When we were in the woods this morning, you kept calling me Eddie,” I remind him. “You said you had to get to the hospital.”

  I look up at him from under the brim of my hat.