Luckily, we don’t live that far from the hospital, so the trip is short.
My dad is waiting at the door with a look of concern on his face. “So how’s the old guy doing?” he asks as my mother walks into the house.
“They said he’s resting comfortably, if you really want to know,” Mom says.
I should probably explain here that this is something of a sore subject with my parents. Great-Uncle Ted has pretty much kept to himself all these years, never once coming to the house or seeing my dad or me or my sister. But Mom has always visited him, bringing him meals, keeping him company. Sometimes, when I was really little, she used to bring me with her. Even though he wouldn’t even come to my parents’ wedding, Mom still wanted to name me after him. Considering how little Great-Uncle Ted seemed to like him, my dad wasn’t too thrilled, but still, I’m named Ted, so I guess my mom won out.
“Well, that’s good, right?” asks Dad.
My mom looks at him and shakes her head. “Artie, you know as well as I do that when an ICU nurse says someone is ‘resting comfortably,’ what it really means is ‘It’s just a matter of time.’ ”
My dad comes over and puts his arms around her. She rests her head on his shoulder. My dad may not do everything right, but I’ll give him this: he gives great hug.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Mom says to him. “I didn’t even ask. How did your dinner with what’s-his-name go?”
“Graham. Just fine. He’s a very…impressive guy.”
As if having my great-uncle in the hospital weren’t enough, my dad has a new boss. The chairman of the English department of the college where Dad works retired this year. Everyone thought Dad would get the job, but instead they brought in this fancy guy from New York to take over.
So Dad didn’t get the big promotion he was expecting, which hasn’t helped the mood in the house.
This being summer, Lila should be home to help defuse all the tension, but Lila being Lila, she of course got something called a fellowship, which means she gets to stay at Harvard and assist some graduate student in their research.
When Dad told me Lila was going to be a fellow this summer, I tried to get him to say “She’s a smart fellow, she felt smart” five times fast, but he didn’t think it was funny.
Anyhow, Dad met his new boss tonight.
“He said he looks forward to working with me,” Dad says.
“That sounds good,” my mom says.
My dad squeezes her. “Mandy, you know as well as I do that when your new chairman says he looks forward to working with you, what it really means is it’s just a matter of time.”
They both laugh, and then Mom sighs. “I’ll be in the laundry room if anyone needs me.”
Dad and I exchange relieved glances. This is a good thing. Mom loves folding laundry. It calms her down. It seems to make her happy to see all those dirty, messy things become a pile of warm, neat, clean goodness.
Sometimes I wonder if this is some secret Japanese thing, like folding origami.
Of course, Mom isn’t technically Japanese, she’s from Hawaii.
So probably not.
With any luck, she’ll feel better after she’s done a few dozen socks and pairs of underwear.
“I think we’re all a little stressed out right now,” says my dad, king of understatement.
I know what’s coming next. Dad calls out to the laundry room: “Do you know where—”
“Under the newspapers on the kitchen table,” my mom’s voice comes back.
He doesn’t even have to finish the sentence.
In times of crisis, we all turn to different things for comfort.
Like how little kids have a favorite stuffed animal or pillow. And maybe some kids still have one now, even though they’re big—like a dinosaur puppet named Gerald that they got when they were two but that they still take out now and then and rub on their face and it— Anyway, maybe they still do. I’m not going to judge them.
Grown-ups are no different. Only with them, it’s books. Some of them turn to the Bible. Or if you’re Jewish, the Torah.
My dad has a different Holy Book. The Purely Provence catalog.
Now, I would agree that it’s a little weird, what with him being an English professor and everything, but I swear to you, he spends more time looking at the Purely Provence catalog than at any book in his library.
Instead of stories, it has page after page of beautifully photographed rooms in the South of France. My dad calls it a lifestyle. I think he wants to live inside that catalog, in a world where he eats breakfast in a spotless kitchen filled with old furniture. It’s just that (as my mother helpfully likes to point out) “that stuff would look ridiculous in a Southern California house built in 1985.”
For example, his favorite thing in the world:
“Honey, a French farmhouse table is only three thousand dollars!”
I suggest that there are only two things wrong with us owning that:
1) We’re not French.
2) We don’t live in a farmhouse.
Besides. For that kind of money, you could probably get a pretty nice new-looking table.
“It is new,” he tells me. “They make it look old on purpose. They drag chains across it so it looks old and beaten-up—it gives it character. It’s called ‘distressed’ wood.”
“They’re not even real homes,” my mom calls from the other room, knowing that he’s mooning over his “darn catalog,” as she says. “They’re just made-up. You know it’s a fantasy.”
“But look,” Dad says, sighing like a teenage girl looking at a pop star. “There are no piles of newspapers and students’ papers and unpaid bills anywhere. It’s all so clean.”
I suggest that the reason might be because if you live in a French farmhouse, you don’t get newspapers and bills.
“That’s the whole point,” Dad says.
I don’t know how to answer that.
He really loves that catalog.
“You know, you’ve been wanting that table for years,” I say. “Why don’t you just buy it already.”
“It’s not that simple,” Dad says. “Right now, it’s either buy that table or send your sister to Harvard.”
He sighs and goes back to drooling on his catalog.
“I think I’ll go to my room,” I say, needing to get away from French farmhouses.
“Good idea. I know you’re dying to finish that book you’ve been so engrossed in,” Dad teases. He thinks it’s hilarious to say this when he knows I’m going upstairs to play a game on the computer.
“The Brothers Karamazov, right, Ted?”
This is our standing joke. Apparently The Brothers Karamazov is some big, difficult Russian novel that no kid would read (or even pronounce). Except Lila, of course. She read it when she was twelve. So that makes it funny. Ha ha.
“You bet, Dad. I’m just getting to the good part.”
“Which part is that?”
I want to say, “The part where the hero’s sister, Lilavich, gets eaten by wild bears,” but I somehow know tonight isn’t the night for it.
I head upstairs.
I look down at Great-Uncle Ted’s pad.
Your mother told me you’re smarter than your sister. You just don’t know it.
Heh heh. Well, that’s one to hold on to for later.
As I walk down the hallway, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It’s funny how my features match my mom’s more than my dad’s.
Sure, I’ve got a bigger nose, but then, what do you expect? My mom’s nose is practically nonexistent. She calls it the “Asian no-bridge thing” and complains that her glasses always slip down. But other than the nose, I got the Asian side, all right. Lila didn’t, with her bushy hair and slightly upturned eyes. People always think she’s Hispanic, or maybe Italian. Not me.
There is no doubt about my Japanese ancestry. My mom loves to tell this story of when I was little and napping in a stroller and our family was in Chinatown. An old As
ian woman passed by and peered down at me. She looked at Lila, then at my Jewish dad, then gripped Mom’s arm, leaned in, and chuckled, “Asian blood is strong in that one!” I love the fact that Mom always seems kind of proud when she says that last line.
I walk into my room, step over the piles of gaming magazines on the floor, and head to my laptop.
Bzzzt!
I pull out my phone and fall into the chair by my bed. It’s from Caleb. Again.
Caleb Grant has been my best friend since first grade. When you’ve been friends that long, you pretty much know everything about each other. For example, I know that right about now, Caleb would normally be totally lost in drawing superheroes, but today is different. He’s completely clueless about my great-uncle and all I’ve been through. He just wants to talk.
I don’t feel like talking just yet. Caleb will understand. He’s good about those things.
So what’s up?
Sorry about not talking. I’m gonna play a game then we can talk I text back.
Which one?
Caleb always likes to play along. At least until he gives up.
I check my favorite game site, slapfivegames.com. There’s only one new room escape game, but I’m stoked because it’s by one of the best designers, Brainwaiver, from Japan.
It seems like the best escape games come from Japan for some reason. It makes me proud.
This one looks simple enough—The Sad Room, it’s called.
I send the link to Caleb and click on the Start button. The game loads in.
Like pretty much every game of this type, the goal is simple: escape the room, using items you find as you investigate the space.
This one opens, and I click around the screen and see a bed, a desk, a couch, and a door. There’s a potted plant by the couch. This is how you always start, just clicking things at random.
Hanging on the wall above the bed are three paintings. The painting on the left shows a strange design. The middle painting is a landscape with flowers. The third painting is of a skull. I zoom in for a closer look and see that someone has scrawled “Beware” on it.
I move on to the desk. It has a glass of water on it, and a lamp. But the lamp doesn’t work, which I know means either it’s hiding a secret or I’ll have to figure out how to fix it later. There are three drawers in the desk. Two are locked; the third contains a book. Most of the pages are torn out—only two are left. One has a hand-drawn diagram of a circle connected in some way to a pulley, which I know will clue me in to something I’ll build or operate later. Sometimes I’ll even just have to find another picture of this same drawing somewhere. Pretty typical.
Moving on to the bed, I click the blankets, the headboard, the pillow, until something moves—I find a crumpled piece of paper under the pillow with some sort of obscured diagram.
I could go on and on through the whole game, but nobody’s interested in every step. It’s more fun to play than to hear about, right?
This one is kind of tricky, though. I find a key under a part of the rug (don’t ask how I knew what part—it involved holding up a piece of paper from under the couch to a mirror, and trust me, it was a little more complicated than that, but I’m giving you a break here). The key doesn’t fit anything in the room, though, so—
Bzzzt!
Yup, exactly on cue, a text from Caleb.
OK. Officially stuck. Going to the WT.
Loser. Hitting the walkthrough page already? A little brainpower, that’s all this needs. Oh, in case you don’t know what a walkthrough is, it’s like this:
See, if you get stuck and want to wimp out, like Caleb usually does at some point, you click on this link and it takes you to a screen that walks you through the game step by step.
Some kids do it so they can brag about finishing the game. Other kids have just gone crazy and can’t figure it out.
It’s like cheating to me.
As I’ve said, I don’t need no stinkin’ walkthroughs.
I click on the desk for like the millionth time, and this time a new angle pops up and I can get to the underside of a drawer. I click, and it opens to reveal a key, which opens a box that has a phone book in it.
Until now, this game hasn’t been all that challenging. This should have been the final step, but the game designer is cleverer than most.
I click on the phone book, assuming it will open and turn to a page with a phone number circled. Then, typically, you’d put the series of numbers (the phone number) into the combination lock on the box on the couch and get the key to the front door and that would be that. I’d win the game.
The problem is that the phone book won’t open. It just sits there.
I’m telling you, no matter how I click on it, it won’t move.
Think, I say to myself. It says Springfield, Mass. on the cover. Is it an anagram? It has to mean something.
Wait a minute. I look at the painting with “Beware” scrawled on it, which I haven’t had to use yet.
I open a new tab and type “Beware, Springfield, Mass.” into Google. Nothing significant. But numbers also come from names and addresses, so I try again, this time with “B. Ware, Springfield, Mass.”
There’s a B. Ware Funeral Parlor listed!
I copy down the funeral parlor’s phone number and go back to the game and the combination lock. Too many numbers. Maybe just the last four numbers?
I try that. It doesn’t work. Wait, of course…
I go back to the Google screen and check out the address: 4351 Parker Road.
Back to the game, type those numbers into the combination, and hear the sweet sound of the box clicking open. Inside the box is a key that matches one I found earlier. I pick up the other key and find that it nests in the one I just got from the box.
I drag the keys to the front door with my mouse. There’s a flash of light, an open door, and I win the game—like a boss.
I’m vaguely aware that a phone is ringing somewhere in our house.
I look at the high scores page and note that, as always, I’m the top scorer, having finished the game faster than anyone else. I think of asking Mom if maybe I can bring the laptop to the hospital tomorrow to show Great-Uncle Ted how I solved the game. I bet he’d like that.
I glance over at the pad with Great-Uncle Ted’s writing on it.
You ever heard of Dizzy Dean?
One of the best pitchers in the history of baseball.
When you go home, look up what he said about bragging.
I go back to the Google page and type in “Dizzy Dean” and “bragging.” I can’t help smiling when I see the quote on the screen: “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”
Pretty cool. Great-Uncle Ted is a pretty cool guy, all right.
Suddenly, I hear my mom make a sound I swear I’ve never heard before, and I know immediately that something is wrong.
Here are some words and phrases I have heard over the last few days that I am completely sick of:
1. Funeral
2. Departed
3. Uncle Ted’s estate
4. Passed away
I guess I’m lucky. No one in my family has died since Mom’s father “passed away” when I was a little boy. My dad’s parents live in Brooklyn (“I think each is just trying to outlive the other. Spite is all that keeps them going,” my dad likes to say, but I don’t think he means it).
It’s weird to think that someone I just saw could just…not be there all of a sudden.
Sure, I’ve had kids in class be absent from school and everyone will talk about how they lost a grandparent or an aunt or something, but it’s always been someone else.
This time it’s me who is sitting in a car, in an uncomfortable suit and tie, going to some lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. The will of the one grown-up who actually seemed to think that the games I play (and am so freaking good at, if I do say so myself) are something more than just a waste of time.
At least there isn’t going to be any funeral. Great-Uncl
e Ted specified that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes sent back to Hawaii.
It seemed that for most of his life he didn’t want to have anything to do with his family here or there. Except for Mom. Of course.
Whenever I would ask about him, all Mom would say was “He’s had quite a life and deserves to be left alone in peace.”
With Mom and Dad talking business up front, I take the time to phone Caleb real quick. Things have been so hectic I haven’t even had a minute to call.
“Yeah?” He sounds bummed, like he always does at his dad’s over the weekends.
“How’s it going?”
“You know…the usual. Dad’s acting all weird, and Gina wants to be my best friend. I hate it here.”
Gina is Caleb’s father’s second wife.
“I don’t blame you.”
“How’s all the stuff with your uncle?”
“On our way to meet with a lawyer about it now.”
“Oh, man, good luck.”
“Thanks, dude, you too. See you Monday?”
“If I survive the weekend.”
It’s been so unreal the last few days, any chance to talk with Caleb makes things a little more normal.
My parents are talking softly in the front seat. I hear my dad say something about how Great-Uncle Ted’s ashes will be buried “in the punch bowl.” This piques my interest.
Some weird Hawaiian tradition? “Umm…you’re burying Great-Uncle Ted in a punch bowl?”
My mom laughs. “That’s what they call the national cemetery in Honolulu.”
“You know your Great-Uncle Ted was a hero, right?” my dad asks.
Even from the backseat, I can see my mom’s ears turn an interesting shade of red.
“Uncle Ted fought in the big war. He got a medal and everything,” continues Dad.
So that’s what he was talking about when he said he killed a lot of men. At least, I hope it was.
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