by Geof Johnson
His brow lined with concern. “You gonna have enough?”
“We’ll be fine.” She glanced at Zach and gave him a reassuring smile. “Especially since you’re letting us have this house for free. We just have to be careful with our money. We can’t do everything all at once.”
“Did you have any of the life insurance money left?”
“Not as much as I had hoped. I used it to pay for the funeral and our moving expenses, but the rest I need to save for emergencies.”
“Did you get anything when you sold John’s SUV?”
“We were lucky to break even on it, but at least I don’t have that huge payment anymore. It was killing me, having that bill every month and the mortgage, too. We had to live on just my salary for over a year.”
“He could’ve gotten a cheaper car.”
She gave her father a sharp look and then glanced at Zach again.
Her father cleared his throat and said, “How about if we pressure wash the outside of the house, for now? I know a guy who can do it, cheap.”
She thought about it for a moment before saying, “Maybe that’ll be okay. I could still paint the front porch railing and the trim around the door myself. Since you cut down the shrubs, you can really see how shabby everything is out there.” She nodded firmly. “That’ll have to do for the time being. Ceiling fans, new sink, pressure wash, and paint the porch trim.”
“And paint my room,” Zach said.
“We’re going to paint the whole inside of the house, honey,” she said. “I think we’ll pull up all the old carpets, too, soon as we’re done with that.” She turned to her father. “You really think the floors are in good enough shape to do without carpet?”
“I peeked under one corner in the sitting room, and they’re good. It’ll look ten times better in here, especially with new paint. Winnie’s decorating tastes tended to run towards the dark and gloomy side.”
“Grandpa?” Zach asked. “Was Winnie your only sister?”
“I had an older brother, too. Bill. He died in Vietnam. He was in the Army. We both were.”
“Is that how you hurt you knee?”
He nodded, and Liz said, “He got a Purple Heart for it.”
“Wow. My dad never got one of those. That’s about the only award he didn’t, though.”
“I’m sure,” he said drily.
Beepee, who had been lying patiently on the floor next to Zach, started thumping her tail on the tile, and Zach looked down at her and said, “Are you getting bored?” She stood and nudged his forearm with her snout. “I’m still eating. You’ll have to wait until I’m done.” He turned to Liz and said, “Can I take her for a short walk after dinner? It won’t be dark, yet.”
“If you help clean up the dishes, first.”
“I will, I promise. Can Beepee sleep in my room tonight?”
“”What about me?” Liz’s father said. “Are you going to leave your poor old grandpa all alone?”
“You can sleep over here.”
“I don’t think so. I tell you what, though. You can keep her during the day and I’ll keep her at night. What do you think of that?”
“We can be co-owners, you and me.”
“You and I, Zach,” Liz said.
“Not you, Mom. Me and Grandpa.”
“No, I was correcting your grammar. It’s you and I, not you and me. And it’s Grandpa and I.”
“Oh, Liz,” Grandpa groaned, “are you still on that high horse?”
“I want my son to speak intelligently. I don’t want him to grow up talking like a hick from the hills.”
“That’s the way folks around here talk, though. The kids at school might make fun of him if he talks all stiff and formal.”
“I’ll home school him if I have to, though I don’t know when I’d have time.”
“No way!” Zach shook his head vigorously. “I’m not going to be home schooled.”
“Then don’t talk like a hick.”
Chapter 3
Zach stepped around Beepee where she lay on the floor, and began flicking the feather duster over the trophies on the third shelf in his father’s shrine room. The sun streamed through the two windows, and the awards sparkled like gold in the bright light.
When Zach had first come in that morning to perform his now-daily chore, Beepee had jumped on the bed and made herself at home, disturbing some of the carefully arranged ribbons and medals. It had taken Zach several tries to get the dog to understand that she didn’t belong up there. It was a sacred space.
Zach paused in his task and regarded the colorful strips of silk that lay in respectful rows across the quilt, all 47 of them. Dad sure did win a lot of stuff. Zach had never won a single award, not even runner-up in a classroom spelling bee, but his father had won them all, it seemed like, as if he were a powerful magnet that drew all honors like iron filings.
Most of them were for first place. Zach counted those, thirty in all, and read a couple that were near the edge of the bed. State science fair. Cross country regional champ. Man of the year. Zach smiled proudly at them. I bet nobody else’s dad has that many. My dad was the best at everything.
* * *
Zach’s mother was putting plates away in the kitchen cabinet, and he glanced at her to make sure she wasn’t watching him as he slipped the last bite of his peanut butter sandwich to Beepee under the table. “Do you think Grandpa’s home yet? He said he’d fix my bike.”
She checked the clock on the wall, which she had just put up that morning. “It’s after twelve. I’ll call him,” She patted her pockets. “As soon as I find my cell phone. I sure will be glad when they connect our land line.”
“We’ll get the Internet then, too, right?”
“No. They’ll do that when they connect the cable.” She vanished into the hall and came back a minute later and nodded at Zach. “I called him and he’s home already. He said to come on over and bring your bike.”
“And Beepee, too.” He smiled at the dog and she jumped to her feet, tail wagging, ready for action.
Zach pushed his bicycle the short distance to his grandfather’s house, using the sidewalk since he didn’t know the neighbors well enough to cut through their yard. He’d not even met them, yet. The only person he’d seen coming and going was the home care nurse, who came to look after Mrs. Schultz, the ailing woman who lived there.
Zach could see his grandfather’s old blue Chevy pickup truck parked in front of the wooden gate, and knew for sure that he was home. The pale yellow house was narrower than Zach’s, but taller by one story. That meant more stairs and more pain for an old man with a bad knee. Zach knew that his grandfather mostly lived on the ground floor, like Aunt Winnie had. Zach wondered briefly if all of their neighbors were like that, unable to use most of their homes because of aching joints that confined them to the easiest, most accessible levels.
Beepee sprinted ahead, dashed up the steps, and scratched on the front door. His grandfather opened it just as Zach turned onto the narrow concrete walkway that ran straight to the porch. Beepee slipped inside. “Hey, Zach. I was just getting ready for you.” He gestured toward the side yard. “Meet me over there at the fence and I’ll let you in.”
Zach rolled the bike across the grass to the driveway and waited in front of the truck for a moment, and the gate swung wide. Beepee was already there with Grandpa, wagging, bouncing, and happy to see Zach as if he’d been gone for days. Zach went into his grandfather’s backyard, which was similar to Zach’s, roughly square in shape with a high wooden fence that was covered by thick shrubs. The single-car garage was in the same spot, too, in the far right corner at the end of the driveway, and it was already open, revealing a packed collection of junk, equipment, and tools.
Grandpa eyed the bike and stroked his chin. “Just a single speed?”
“My old neighborhood was pretty flat, so it didn’t matter.”
“You’ll have to pedal hard to get up some of the hills around here. It’s easier to fix the c
hain on a single-speed bike, though. Won’t take but a minute.” They rolled it toward the garage and he said, “How come your dad wouldn’t fix it?”
“He said I should learn how to do it myself.”
“Didn’t he show you how?”
“No.”
“How were you supposed to learn, then? From the Internet? Do they have that kind of stuff on there?”
“He said by the time he was my age, he was doing all of the maintenance on his bike, and he had a ten-speed.”
“Figures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothin’. Forget I said it.”
Grandpa stepped into the garage and Zach looked around at the chaos that was stored there. Boxes were piled nearly to the ceiling in places. A dusty canoe was strapped to the ceiling. Countless hand tools were on shelves and wall hooks, and there were larger pieces of equipment that were coated in sawdust. Zach knew what the table saw was. The others he couldn’t identify.
Near the front corner was something encased in a brown leather bag in the shape of a rifle, on a pair of brackets on the wall. Zach pointed to it and said, “What’s that?”
“It’s a shotgun.”
“Why do you have that?”
“My wife gave it to me for my fiftieth birthday. I take it out every year or so and clean it, but that’s about all.”
“Do you ever hunt?”
“Don’t like to get up that early.”
“Is it loaded?”
“No, but there are a few shells in the side pocket.”
“What’s to keep somebody from stealing it?”
“I lock the garage at night or when I’m not here, though this neighborhood is pretty safe. I don’t think anybody would take it.”
Grandpa rummaged through a pile of scrap wood and came up with three thick blocks. He knelt with a grimace, favoring his knee, and stacked them, then lifted the bike and placed it on them so that the rear wheel was off the ground. “Hold on to it, Zach.” Zach grabbed the handlebar while Grandpa went back into the garage and returned with an old newspaper. He tore a ten-inch piece from it and folded it into narrow strip.
He waved it at Zach and said, “This is a cool trick I learned from one of my buddies when I was a kid. I need you to hold onto the bike real tight for a sec.” Zach gripped the frame with both hands and Grandpa knelt again. He threaded the strip halfway under the chain, grasped the ends of the paper with one hand and lifted it. “Watch this. This is easy as sneazin’.”
He pushed down on the pedal with his other hand and the sprocket turned, and as it moved, he pulled the chain forward with the paper so that the links caught on the teeth of the big cog. He continued until the chain gradually fitted itself back in place. The whole process took less than a minute.
“Huh,” Zach said. “That was easy.”
“Try it out, if you don’t mind.”
Zach took the bike off the blocks, mounted it, and rode it in a circle in the yard. “Works, great, Grandpa.”
“If it comes off again, bring it over and I’ll move the rear wheel back a little. That’ll put more tension on the chain and keep it in place.”
Zach dismounted and dropped the kickstand with one foot. “Mom said you’re really good with tools. How’d you learn how to do everything?”
“Oh, I picked it up here and there. Some from my dad, and some from my friends.” He gave a small shrug. “Some of it I picked up on my own from books. The library had plenty of stuff like that back then. Have you been there, yet?”
“We just got here.”
“Well, I’m sure your mom will take you soon. It’s not far. You can ride your bike there in about five minutes. That’s what your mom used to do. She loved the library.”
“Mom told me she’d rather read than anything.”
“Sounds like her.”
“Was Uncle Will like that, too?”
“He was a smart boy. He’s a doctor now, way off in Seattle.”
“How come he never visits? He’s my only uncle, right?”
“Yeah, since your dad didn’t have any siblings. Your Grandma and I had two kids, him and Liz. He’s almost three years older than she is.”
“Why didn’t he come to Grandma’s funeral?”
“He was at a convention in Australia with his family. It was too far for him to come.”
“Why didn’t I come? I don’t remember, ’cause I was little.”
“You were sick. Your father stayed with you so your mom could come.”
“I don’t remember Grandma very well. What was she like?”
He tilted his head back and looked at the sky before answering. “She was a lot like your mother. Always organized, making lists. She took care of the PTA meetings and doctors’ appointments and everything, ’cause I would’ve forgotten. She looked like your mom, too, same trim figure and dark-blonde hair and hazel eyes.”
“My hair and eyes are brown,” Zach said, “like my dad’s.”
“Really?” Grandpa arched one eyebrow. “I never noticed.”
“Unh hunh.” He touched his scalp. “See?” Then he realized his grandfather was kidding. “Oh.” He dropped his hand. “Well, anyway, I look like my dad. That’s what everybody says.”
“Your face is shaped like you mother’s. In fact, you look a little bit like your Uncle Will did when he was your age. Except for the hair and eyes.”
Zach had to think about it for a moment to decide if that was a good thing. “Do you think he’ll visit anytime soon?”
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it? He’s got three kids now. The two younger ones, the boys, I’ve never met. And Emily was just a little thing, last I saw her. In fact, she’s about your age, now that I think about it.”
“I have a cousin my age?”
“Sure do. Wish you could meet her.”
“We’ll have the Internet in a few days. Does she have a Facebook page?”
“You’d know before I would. I don’t know about that stuff.”
“You need to get the Internet, Grandpa. You’d like it.”
“I think I’ll pass. I have a cell phone. That’s enough modern gizmos for me.”
* * *
Liz was standing on a stepstool, cleaning the dusty chandelier in the living room, when she heard the doorbell ring. “Zach, can you get that?” Then she realized that he was still at his grandfather’s house with his bike.
She went to open the front door, where she found a girl waiting on the porch. She looked to be younger than Zach, and she was thin, with frizzy, straw-colored hair, and she wore glasses. Her T-shirt and shorts were badly faded, and her sneakers had a hole on one side exposing a toe. “Hello,” Liz said.
The girl’s blue eyes rose to meet Liz’s for an instant before falling again like victims of gravity. “Is Zach home?” the stranger asked in a small voice.
“Who may I ask who wants to know?” Liz smiled, but the girl didn’t see, with her chin so low.
The girl shifted her weight from one foot to the other before answering. “My brothers, Jason and Justin.” She cleared her throat. “Not me.”
“No, what I meant was, who are you?”
“Oh. Uh, Shelby Ross. That’s me, uh…that’s my name.” Then she added, “Ma’am.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Shelby. Zach said he met you yesterday.” She could sense the girl’s anxiety, and Liz tried to sound as friendly as possible. “I’m Mrs. Webster, Zach’s mom. What grade are you going to be in school this coming year?”
“Seventh,” she said without meeting Liz’s gaze.
Gosh, she’s Zach’s age. She doesn’t look like it. “I’m going to be working in the attendance office at your school, so if you have a problem there, you come see me. Okay?”
She nodded without looking up, and Liz felt a pang of sympathy for her. She’s really uncomfortable right now. “Did your brothers send you to get Zach?”
“Yes ma’am. Can he come out?”
“He’s not here
right now, he’s at his grandfather’s, getting his bike fixed. You can go see him, if you want.” She pointed to her left. “It’s just two doors down that way. But I need to meet your brothers before Zach goes off with them.”
Shelby glanced in the direction Liz had pointed and turned her eyes back to her feet. “Okay.”
“Why don’t you run over there and say hello? Zach would like that, I’m sure. I can see the gate is open, so you can walk back to the garage. That’s probably where they’re working on the bike. Would you like to go? It’s okay if you do.”
She nodded her answer, and Liz said, “And please tell Zach not to run off without telling me where he’s going.”
The girl nodded one last time, quiet as a mouse, and edged toward the porch steps while Liz closed the door. Liz went into the library and looked out of the window and watched the girl slowly make her way down the front walk, but when she reached the end, instead of turning left toward Liz’s father’s house, she bolted in the opposite direction as if her life depended on it.
* * *
“Liz, that was excellent.” Her father looked at his plate, which had nothing left on it but a few chicken bones. “I guess you’ve gotten the hang of cooking in this kitchen now.”
She turned in her seat at the end of the table and glanced around while a list of unfinished tasks filled her mind. “Sort of. I’ve put most of my efforts into getting the kitchen ready, but there’s still so much to do.”
“Mom?” Zach said, still sitting in his spot with Beepee beside him, lying on the floor as is if she owned it. “Can we go to the library tomorrow?”
“Of course. It’s pretty close. I used to love to go there.”
“Do you think they have the Internet?”
“Is that the only reason you want to go?”
“Uh…no, but we don’t have it yet, and I want to see how my friends back home are doing, and you won’t let me use your phone.”
Liz’s father cocked his head to the side and narrowed one eye at Zach. “I thought this was your home.”