God is in the Pancakes

by Robin Epstein

  When my cell phone rings ten minutes after school ends, I look at the call screen and get another surprise. “DAD,” it reads, like a punch to the gut.

  I drop the phone back into my book bag and continue unlocking Big Blue from the school bike rack. I hop on my bike and don’t stop pedaling even when the alert of a new voicemail sounds. It only makes me pedal faster toward Hanover House, despite the fact that I now feel the contents of my lunch rumbling around in my stomach.

  Dad has left messages before. But I’ve always deleted them. When I pull into the Hanover House parking lot, I hop off my bike, thread the lock through the front wheel, and leave it in the space next to Jeff Potts’s cherry red Kawasaki motorcycle. It’s only when I get to the big porch on the main building that I take the cell out of my bag and look at the flashing red message icon.

  I exhale, then hit the voicemail button, deciding today is the day I’ll finally listen to what he has to say for himself.

  “Hi, Grace, it’s me . . . Dad? Remember m—”

  Delete.

  The ladies’ room isn’t far, but I wonder if I’ll be able to make it there without throwing up. Thankfully I manage to get into a stall, turn around, and bend over the toilet before the contents of my stomach come heaving out of my throat. I spit the metallic remains of stomach acid and nasty school lunch into the bowl before flushing the toilet. When I’m sure my stomach is entirely empty, I flip down the lid of the toilet and stand on the seat. Crouching on top of the bowl, I grip my hands around my stomach and rock back and forth trying to recover from this shock to my system.

  “Come on! ” I say, looking up, angry now. “What is going on here? Are you doing this for some special reason?”

  “Wouldn’t be any fun if you knew the plan,” a voice replies.

  I’m so rattled by the sound of the voice I lose my footing on the toilet seat and bang my hip against the metal toilet paper roll. When I get back on my feet, I open the door and see an old woman with bright white hair pinned in a loose bun at the top of her head. Her hand is up to her mouth and from the crinkle around her eyes, it’s pretty clear she finds this all very amusing.

  “Forgive me,” the woman says. “I think I interrupted you in a private moment.”

  “Well,” I reply, instead of yelling something to the effect of: “No kidding, lady, I’m in the bathroom!”

  “Were you praying?” she asks.

  “Sort of.”

  “That’s what I thought,” the woman says with a nod,

  “which is why I spoke up. I like the idea of answering prayers,” she says. “Plus, I figure I’m so old, I could have been God’s babysitter.”

  I look at her and she’s smiling. I can’t help but laugh a little myself.

  “Good,” the old woman replies, “I’m glad you laughed. You know, a lot of people around here don’t have any sense of humor at all. They would have said, ‘Oh, you’re not that old!’ And then I’d have to explain that I know I’m not that old, I was merely trying to make a joke, which would make the whole thing just absurd. When you have to explain why something’s funny . . .” She trails off. “You know what I mean?”

  “Too well,” I reply, smiling. I can’t remember any of the other lady residents making me laugh—especially not in a place or time like this. I stare at the woman and try to place her, but she doesn’t look familiar to me. “Did you just move to Hanover House?” I ask.

  “No, I’m part of the cottage community around back.”

  “Oh, are you sick?” She doesn’t look sick, but I think sometimes it can be hard to tell with old people, and I wonder how this would affect her status as one of the cottage folk cool kids.

  “No,” she replies, pausing and looking down in a way that makes me realize I probably shouldn’t have asked the question. “Just visiting. But how rude of me! I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Isabelle.” She straightens her back a bit, then extends her hand to me.

  “I’m Grace,” I reply, returning her surprisingly firm handshake. It sort of feels like the woman could crush rocks if she—

  “Grace!” Isabelle says. A mischievous smile reappears and makes me wonder if she’s about to make a pun on my name. Everyone thinks they’re the first to tell me “You don’t look graceful.” Instead she simply says, “Well, it’s so nice to meet you officially. I’ve heard great things about you.”

  “You have?”

  Isabelle nods. “You shouldn’t sound that surprised,” she says, “it’s a dead giveaway that you’re really an awful person.”

  “What?”

  “Grace, I’m teasing you!” Isabelle laughs. “What happened to that sense of humor you had a minute ago?”

  “Sorry, I guess I’m a little off today.”

  “Mmm, I’ve had a lot of those days recently,” she responds. “Anyway, my husband mentioned you by name to me, which means he thinks you’re quite special—my husband never remembers anyone’s name.”

  “Oh, thank you.” I smile.

  “I’m heading home now,” Isabelle says. “But if you have a moment, please come visit us.”

  “Sure,” I reply. “What’s the room number again?” I think this is a pretty clever way of getting out of admitting that though I may have made some sort of impression on her husband, he was just a muddle of white hair and wrinkles to me.

  “Three twenty-three. Wait.” She pauses. “Is that right? Maybe it’s two thirty-two. Numbers confuse the hell out of me, always have, and don’t let them convince you that trigonometry will ever be important in your life. It’s a damn lie.”

  “I always had that suspicion.” I nod, deciding that whatever else I was supposed to be doing, I’d make it a point to stop in on Isabelle and her husband.

  “Anyway, ask one of the nurses and I’m sure they’ll know the room number,” she replies. “Just ask for Frank Sands.”

  “Mr. Sands?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not Mr. Sands, Mister Sands?” I repeat, wanting to add, My Mr. Sands? The man who never even once told me he had a wife?! Yes, okay, he’d spoken of having a wife, just like I’d spoken of having a father. But I’d assumed she was out of the picture too. Where has she been all this time?

  “Unless there’s someone else here by the same name,” she replies with a laugh. “You seem surprised. Did Frank tell you he was single so he could woo you?”

  “No! He just doesn’t talk about you a lot.” This gets an even bigger laugh from the woman standing in front of me. “I mean—”

  “Don’t apologize, this sounds very much like my Frank. You know what, Grace? I was just on my way out, but I think you and I should walk into his room together and we’ll let him explain himself. Come,” she commands, wriggling her arm through mine and leading me down the hall.

  When we’re a few feet from Mr. Sands’s room, Mrs. Sands stops. “Grace, you know Frank hasn’t been doing well recently,” she says, and I nod. “I don’t know when you last saw him, but I just don’t want his condition to come as a shock to you when we go inside.”

  “Thanks,” I reply, realizing Mrs. Sands must have no idea how frequently I visit her husband. “But I don’t think I’ll be too surprised.”

  And yet when we walk in and I see Mr. Sands lying on his bed in his pj’s, his eyes closed, an oxygen tank pumping air through a tube connected to his nose, the wind gets knocked out of me yet again.

  “Frank Sands, are you sleeping or are you just playing possum?” Mrs. Sands says in a loud, clear voice.

  The muscles of Mr. Sands’s cheeks pull slightly in the direction of a smile as his eyelids slowly open. Mrs. Sands moves us both closer to the bed, and when Mr. Sands registers that she and I are standing there together, he’s the one who looks surprised.

  “Oh boy,” he says, his reply actually sounding somewhat boyish despite the hoarseness of his voice.

  “That’s right,” she replies. “Grace and I had to meet in the bathroom, no thanks to you. And do you know what this lovely young lady told
me? She said you’d told her you didn’t have a wife.”

  “No! I never said that!” I answer, not knowing whom I’m supposed to address. “I just said you never mentioned her.” I look between Mr. and Mrs. Sands and realize that didn’t come out exactly as intended either. “Tell her!” I say to Mr. Sands pleadingly.

  “Okay, okay,” he replies slowly, accompanied by a half chuckle, half wheeze. “This is hard for me to say, but Isabelle, Gracie and I are running away together. We would have told you sooner, but we needed to secure the passports first.”

  I turn to Mrs. Sands, who doesn’t look entirely amused. “That’s not true.”

  “Well,” she replies, “I’m on to you both now. And if I weren’t so distracted by all the attention I’m getting from Victor, the young handyman who comes to help me change lightbulbs, I might be very upset.”

  “Oh, there, there, Iz,” Mr. Sands interjects. “I’m sure Grace would be willing to share me.”

  I nod, knowing they’re joking with each other, but feeling a bizarre tension in the room nonetheless.

  “Well then, Grace, I’ll leave him to you now since I’ve already had my time with our man here,” she says, keeping her eyes on Mr. Sands. “You’ll be okay, Frank?”

  “Thank you, honey,” he replies, and strains to reach out to her. Mrs. Sands sees this too, and wraps her hand around his arm, giving it a good squeeze as she smiles down at him.

  “Good.” She turns to me. “Grace, it was lovely to meet you at long last. And now I understand why my husband here wanted to keep us apart. He probably suspected if I saw how fetching you were, I would insist on a chaperone for your visits.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Sands,” I reply, forcing a smile. She smiles back, winks at her husband, then turns to go. After she passes through the door, I turn back to Mr. Sands. “You never—”

  “I know.”

  “Because I thought—”

  “I know,” he repeats, cutting me off again. “I wanted you to think that.”

  “Huh?” I take a step back from the bed.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be here, Grace?”

  “Um, well . . . no.”

  “Can you imagine how miserable it would be to have your world shrink to the size of a hospital bed?”

  I shake my head.

  Mr. Sands closes his eyes and continues. “It’s not like my life was some big, grand thing, or that I was a terribly powerful or important man,” he says, reopening his eyes and finding mine. “But I loved my life, Grace. I loved getting up at five forty-five every morning and going to work. I loved building my business from nothing into something. I loved the idea that I was making decisions that mattered. Spending time with my little girls and watching them grow into strong-willed, independent women. Loved that I had a hand in shaping them. I was active in the community. In local politics. I played sports. I went to games, and the movies and concerts. I never did much traveling, but I always imagined I would. And now, look at this. Look at me! All I have is this bed, and the only place I go is into that wheelchair—and the goddamn solarium if I’m lucky! Can you imagine living like this?”

  “Mr. Sands,” I say softly.

  “I know it was juvenile of me not to have introduced you to Isabelle earlier, but I have no independence or privacy anymore. I’m an adult—and yet I can’t do anything by myself at this point. I don’t have the strength to open a bottle of pills on my own,” he says, sadness and anger making the rasp of his voice sound even huskier. “For Christ’s sake, I can’t even go to the bathroom without having someone help me. So if I tried to have a friendship with you separate from the one I have with my wife and with all the other people around here who have to wipe my nose and my ass for me, it’s because spending time with you alone has let me feel like . . . like a person again. I even flatter myself to think that maybe you’ve even come to see me as a father figure of sorts. Do you know how important that is to me? To feel useful to someone?”

  I nod, not sure of what to say, but getting it.

  “So that’s why I never particularly wanted you and Isabelle to meet, Grace. I just wanted to feel like I had some privacy. Some sense of dignity as a man. Can you appreciate that?”

  “Sure,” I say, thinking about the word dignity, and knowing how important the concept is to Mr. Sands. Whenever we spoke about his adventures in the Marine Corps, he’d always talk about the significance of doing one’s duty as a soldier while “acting with dignity.” It wasn’t just some abstract notion or random rule to him. To Mr. Sands, having dignity meant consciously choosing the way you wanted to live, and possessing the character required to make those decisions for yourself. “Is that why you asked me to help you instead of asking her?”

  “Please, Grace,” he replies, “I still feel terrible about that. I should never have asked you. It was a low moment, to say the least.” Mr. Sands’s eyes close. “Please let’s not speak of it again, okay?” He’s exhausted, that’s clear.

  “I’m going to let you rest,” I say, and he gives a quiet moan of response. I keep my eyes on him as I back out of the room. Though it’s not an official rule, I know the staff prefers the doors on this hallway to remain open. But I want to give Mr. Sands the privacy and dignity he deserves, so I close the door behind me.

  It’s not much, but it’s all I can think to do to help him right now.

  I need to focus on something new. A change of scenery. A drastic modification. If a person’s aura has a particular color, what I’m looking for is something to help me get to the other side of the rainbow. But right now the selection of a new hair color at the Fulton Pharmacy is going to have to suffice. As I walk there from Hanover House I try to reassure myself that like the ads promise, a new hue will give me “a whole new outlook!”

  Before heading to the hair care section, I pick up a sour apple Blow Pop from the front stand and stick it behind my ear flower-style to keep both hands free for box comparison purposes. Maybe I was born to be a golden blonde but got colored by the wrong cosmic crayon? I glance at the rounded shoplifter mirror that hangs above the shelf to see if I can envision myself as “Platinum Ice,” but instead of seeing myself, the image I see reflected in the mirror is Lolly’s boyfriend, Jake.

  Normally seeing Jake wouldn’t particularly bother me. Sure, he’s a turd, but usually he’s a turd easily sidestepped. Not today. Right now I can’t seem to take my eyes off him in that mirror because Jake is standing there kissing a girl.

  A girl who is not my sister.

  This is not good. And, even worse, the girl Jake is kissing happens to be Natalie Talbot. The girl from Milk Bar. Pretty Natalie Talbot. Popular Natalie Talbot. Everybody loves Natalie Talbot. I’m barely blinking as I stare slack-jawed into that mirror. Jake’s got his hand around her waist and he’s moving it up and down. The only thought that occurs to me in the moment is “Run!” because the last thing I want to do is be seen by that two-timing dipwad mid-two-time. I put the hair dye box back on the shelf without making any sudden movements, then head for the door. I don’t look back, I just keep my eyes on the parking lot ahead of me, and finally exhale when I arrive at the second row of parked cars. As I comb my hands through my hair, the sour apple Blow Pop drops from behind my ear and falls onto the asphalt.

  Oh, dammit!

  I pick up the wrapped lollipop and realize I’ve technically just stolen it. I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my day, but this is officially the first thing I’ve lifted. People intentionally shoplift all the time. This was a total mistake. It’s a twenty-five- to fifty-cent mistake at most, and I know it’s not that big a deal . . . yet I also know that if I don’t go back and give the cashier the money, I’ll obsess about it later. I’ll worry that any good karma I’ve built up will be erased, and my prayers will be dismissed for the price of a Blow Pop.

  I walk back into the store. Grace, don’t let your eyes wander, just keep staring at the woman behind the register.

  Thankfully there’s
no one in line ahead of me, so I set the lollipop down on the counter. “I accidentally walked out of the store without paying,” I explain, digging a quarter out of my pocket and holding it out to her. “But it was a mistake, I swear.”

  “What is this, a joke?” the cashier asks.

  “No, I just—” I start to say, then realize it’s not worth it. I just need to get out before Jake and Natalie spot me. But when I hear two aluminum cans being set down on the counter behind me, I know it’s game over. I turn around.

  “Hi, Jake,” I say, pronouncing his name as if I were saying the word fuckface.

  “Oh, hey.” He nods trying to look casual as he slides both energy drinks closer toward him. “Blow Pop, huh?”

  If he makes a joke about me practicing blow jobs on the Blow Pop—and seriously, he has that kind of sense of humor—I might “accidentally” pop him in the nuts.

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  “Sour apple.” Natalie nods, stepping out from behind Jake to take a look. “Those are my favorite too. Hey, Grace.” She smiles.

  Hey, Grace? Natalie Talbot knows my name?

  “Sour apple is so much better than watermelon,” she adds. And she’s right. I wonder if she also knows my sister is dating the bonehead she was just kissing.

  I nod.

  “Oh, man, Jake, you should have seen the last project Grace did in our art class. It was so funny, it was this collage of celebrity faces framed by a border of words, from articles about their scandals,” Natalie says, pulling at the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Cool, maybe you can show it to me sometime,” he says with a smile. If he thinks that’s enough to buy me off, he’s sadly mistaken. When Jake gets his change back from the cashier, he turns to Natalie. “We should go.”

  “Okay.” She smiles again. “See ya, Grace.”

  “Later, G.M.” Jake nods.

  I am completely stunned. I wait for them to get into Jake’s Mustang before I walk out of the store myself. I’m already composing the conversation with Eric in my head. He’s going to love this. I look at my watch and assume practice will probably be over, so I grab my cell and call his home number.