“We don’t have to love him too, or even like him,” she said. “We just have to find one reason why your grandfather does.”
“Then what?” Because I didn’t think that dog was going to be doing us the same favor.
“Then we’ll pretend we’re your aunt Ginny and reflect that to him.”
Inside, where Mrs. Buttermark couldn’t hear it, I groaned.
Aunt Ginny has this thing she does with people on the wilderness weekends. Especially the ones she doesn’t like much. She finds something in them that is, for a moment at least, a good or interesting part of them, and reflects it at them. Like the way sunlight hits a mirror, that’s the way she puts it.
She sees something she can like or admire and gives them her sunniest smile. She smiles from her heart. And by the end of the weekend, she says, she nearly always likes them. She says it’s like a miracle is worked, not on them—on her.
I looked over the seat to make sure Granddad was behind us as we turned onto the avenue. “I wonder if a dog knows the difference.”
Mrs. Buttermark said, “What difference?”
“Between giving him a sunny smile and baring our teeth at him.”
Mrs. Buttermark laughed.
Aunt Ginny is nice. And smart. I love her and all. But she has some wacky ideas.
CHAPTER SIX
Granddad put his suitcase down, told his dog to sit—which the dog did—and looked around. It took me a minute to realize he wasn’t crazy about what he saw.
We don’t have the kinds of stuff I see in other kids’ houses: plaid couches, curtains to the floor, and wall-to-wall carpet.
Nope.
Our place is more, like, amber beaded curtain between the living room and kitchen. No curtains at all at the windows because of so many plants on glass shelves.
Mostly everything else is brown or straw-colored because it’s wood or leather or linen or, well, baskets. Even the rug on the floor is made of basket stuff.
Except Mom covered the couch with a bright quilt made from Indian fabrics with little mirrors sewn into it here and there. It has places where the fabric has worn through and you can see another strong color underneath. I could see how to Granddad’s eyes, this still only looked worn out.
I was glad Mrs. Buttermark did the dishes. Our Christmas tree looked good, even though the lights were off. It even smelled like Christmas in here.
On the other side of the room, where most people would put a TV, we had the fish tank. A big saltwater aquarium. As long as the couch. Even plaid people usually forget about everything else and head straight for the fish tank. Granddad hardly noticed it.
I said, “The TV is in that cabinet.”
“Fine, fine,” he said.
“You can sleep in this room.” I started down the hall. “Mom keeps sheets on the sofa bed, in case anyone ever needs to crash.”
He followed me and the dog followed him. Mrs. Buttermark had said she’d run into her own apartment while I got Granddad settled. So I was trying to think of everything Mom said when people stayed over.
Granddad set his suitcase on the sofa bed. “Are there many crashers?”
“Aunt Ginny after she had surgery. Mrs. Buttermark last month. The guy in the apartment above hers had a leak in his bathroom and the water came into hers.”
He unzipped his suitcase. Inside, it looked extremely neat. Everything sort of lined up, no matter that it was going to be a shirt shape or a sock shape once it was unfolded. I couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten it to do that.
“I’m going to check the fish,” I said.
I looked at our living room again. I saw some things that could bother somebody who packs in straight lines. Maybe it wasn’t the beaded curtains at all.
I stacked up the magazines on the coffee table and made them line up with the edge. I went all around the room moving things into straight lines, even the easy chairs. Even the pillows Mom calls toss pillows, which she always does, tosses them onto the couch and chairs.
When I finished, the room looked strange to me. I had a feeling it would look better to Granddad. Then I fed the fish.
“It’s been a long day,” I told them as they nibbled at the surface of the water. “Mom won’t be coming home again tonight.”
I heard the sound of dog toenails on the floor. Granddad said, “This a hobby of yours?”
“Suzie’s,” I said. “She keeps her fish here with us because sometimes she’s away for a couple of weeks at a time.”
“I don’t much care for keeping fish or birds,” Granddad said. He sounded like he thought it ought to be a rule for everybody. “They don’t seem suited to being pets the way cats and dogs are.”
His dog leaned against his leg as they stood there. It made me think of the way I leaned against Mom when I was little. I doubted it was the same thing at all.
“These guys have a perfect life,” I said.
“You think so?” Granddad’s eyes kind of trembled. “I think they’re missing a lot.”
“The chance to get eaten by bigger fish?” I said, mostly out of surprise. Also, because I thought these fish had it good. Then I realized I sounded rude.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking chances,” Granddad said. “It’s how we grow.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I mean, you don’t have to do anything stupid. Risk is part of living a life, a full life.”
“Mom doesn’t like for me to take chances.”
“Well, you have to do what your mother tells you,” he said, looking away from me. “I don’t mean to interfere.”
He didn’t sound sarcastic or anything when he said it. I didn’t like to think he got the idea that I was a momma’s boy. Aunt Ginny is always complimenting me and Mom that I’m really good at being a separate person.
A guy.
I didn’t like how separate we were right now. I wasn’t sure I liked Granddad either. It was good of him to come and get Mom operated on and all, but nobody needed him to criticize Suzie. She saved fish and birds from dying all the time.
Mammals too, like dolphins and whales. If it was cruel to keep these fish, she’d be the first one to set them free.
“So you were out at the supermarket when this happened,” Granddad said, changing the subject. “I suppose that means the cupboards are bare.”
“Nope.” I led the way to the kitchen. “Mom plans ahead in case of getting snowed in or something. We never run out of eggs or spaghetti.” The sound of dog toenails followed me, and so did Granddad.
“Now that surprises me,” he said. “I don’t remember her being someone who planned ahead.”
“Yeah, well, some memories don’t have anything to do with what’s real,” I said, more or less to myself.
Okay. I was saying it to him.
“That something your mother taught you?” he said, looking the kitchen over like he didn’t like it much either.
“I figured that one out for myself,” I said, looking at him the way he looked at the kitchen. I opened the pantry and reached for a jar of tomato sauce.
“Can’t eat cooked tomatoes,” he said. “Got any bacon? Milk or cream?”
“Maybe.” I looked for the milk, mainly, because that’s easy to run out of. Mom had heavy cream. She’d bought it to make whipped cream before Suzie left and then she never got around to it. I said, “It’s old.”
He checked the carton. “Expiration date is a week away. Cream lasts longer than milk.”
“No bacon,” I said, as he took the Parmesan cheese off the shelf.
“Here’s smoked ham,” he said. “Can we use that?”
“Sure.” Do what you want, that’s what I didn’t say.
He put water to boil and then went through the cabinets, checking out weird stuff like marinated artichokes and roasted red peppers. Mom uses those now and then.
He found a jar of black olives with pits and some brown peas called capers and a can of anchovies. He kept making these little umm, good sounds, actin
g like all of it was buried treasure.
He sliced up a leftover piece of red onion, thin as paper, and used up the last of the lettuce, mixing it with some of the other stuff to make a salad that he looked happy with, anyway.
The dog came over near me and sniffed the air in my direction.
“He’s starting to remember you,” Granddad said.
“Remember me?”
“You were about a year old when I got him,” Granddad said. “You were both puppies, crawling around on the floor. You used to try to pull his tail.”
I waited to see how this made me feel. If it made me remember Granddad any better, since he did used to live in Baltimore. Mainly, it made me wonder if he was remembering some other grandson. One he might decide he liked better.
He stirred the spaghetti into the boiling water for a minute. He had me crack eggs into a big bowl while he sliced the ham into little slivers. He stirred the spaghetti again and mixed a whole lot of stuff together with the eggs—cream and ham and cheese.
He ground a lot of pepper into it. I decided against telling him I don’t like pepper. “Did you learn to cook like this in the army?”
“Marines,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
I figured.
I’d seen a couple of movies where guys from the navy and the army, or maybe it was the marines, got into big fistfights with each other, like they weren’t all on the same team or something. I figured getting into fights with guys you could have been friends with was their idea of fun. I stopped worrying about reflecting at the dog so much. I needed to work on reflecting at Granddad.
Meanwhile, he called the hospital and found out Mom was still in surgery. That everything was going well. He had somebody’s name who was supposed to answer these questions for him, which was more than I would’ve gotten. So I reflected that at him. I felt a little better. It was a start.
Granddad drained the spaghetti and put it into the bowl with the raw eggs, tossing the whole mess like crazy.
“We’re eating raw eggs?”
“The heat of the spaghetti cooks them,” he said. “The eggs make the sauce cling instead of floating around at the bottom of the bowl.”
I hoped we had some oatmeal left, because this didn’t look like my kind of food.
The doorbell rang.
It was Mrs. Buttermark with a big plate full of sandwiches, each one in its own ziplock bag. “I thought you fellas would like to have something to eat,” she said, coming in. “Don’t you love Liz’s apartment? It’s such a welcoming pla—”
She looked at me. I didn’t say a word.
“My,” Mrs. Buttermark said, which is what she says when the jigsaw piece looked perfect but it still didn’t fit. She turned toward the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you’d cook.”
“You mean you didn’t think I could,” Granddad said. “Why don’t you sit down with us?”
Mrs. Buttermark looked flustered. “I made all these sandwiches.”
“Let’s put them in the fridge,” Granddad said. “We’ll have a hot meal before we return to the hospital. The sandwiches will tide us over later.”
I was glad she stayed. If she wasn’t planning to go to the hospital with us, I’d’ve asked her to come along. Granddad wasn’t quite a stranger, okay. It wasn’t like we were buddies either.
The holiday phone calls were never enough to make me feel like I got to know him. It was more like he was calling me on birthdays because he was supposed to. I never felt bad about this. It wasn’t as if I called him, ever.
It looked like there was a good chance we’d get to know each other now. Probably we could take it slow. I mean, I had a place in me that was willing to be friends. To be family. It hadn’t happened yet.
So it helped that Mrs. Buttermark stayed to eat spaghetti and the weird salad and make conversation easier. She filled Granddad in on Aunt Ginny, how Mom helped her through college after their parents died.
She talked about Suzie being part of our family and even bragged about my grades. I realized Mrs. Buttermark had become part of our family. She kept me from getting that uncomfortable feeling I didn’t know Granddad well enough to feel like family.
The salad seemed exactly right to go with the spaghetti, which was very good. Not the way Mom makes spaghetti. But good. “We have to make this for Mom when she comes home,” I said.
“Thank you,” Granddad said. “That’s quite a compliment.”
“Would you look at that dog?” Mrs. Buttermark said.
We all did.
Granddad had put down a dish of smelly canned food for him when we sat down. I’d ignored the scraping noise he made pushing the dish around while we ate.
He was sitting at attention next to the empty dish. More than empty, it looked like he’d polished it. A job well done, he seemed to be trying to say.
“Such a little man,” Mrs. Buttermark said as if she couldn’t be more proud of him.
He was sort of well-behaved-looking. Like he’d never thrown himself against a car door. Like it wasn’t his saliva that was dripping onto the window when he did.
I tried not to think too much about how tricky a dog he might really be.
By the time we’d cleaned up the kitchen and were ready to go, the dog had been all over the apartment, sniffing everything. Everything.
For an old dog, he was pretty athletic. He could hop up practically everywhere my cat could get before she died, like the tabletops, although he hopped up on a chair first. He’d even taken a drink of water from the fish tank, the way my cat used to do.
The fish didn’t seem to mind too much, so I decided not to care. Even though he had a perfectly good bowl of water in the pantry. We left the door open for him so he could get to it.
This was a new place for him to get used to and all, so I could sort of understand it when he tried to leave with us. Granddad let me get out in the hallway with Mrs. Buttermark, then called the dog back.
He went, head down, a dog in trouble. It was halfway cute, if you like that sort of thing. If you didn’t know he could turn into a nightmare dog. Granddad came out into the hallway. As he tried to shut the door, the dog tried to get out.
Granddad opened the door, walked inside, the dog followed. “Stay.”
This time Granddad stepped out more quickly, shutting the door.
The dog threw himself against the door, barking. Nightmare dog. It was different this time, though. It was a whiny bark. Probably no saliva dripping down the door.
“No,” Granddad said in that gruff voice, without opening the door.
The dog stopped throwing himself. He stopped barking. I could hear him whine, though. He sounded really pitiful. I’d never thought of a dog having feelings quite like mine. This one was sad.
Mrs. Buttermark looked like she was about to offer to stay behind. She looked at me first, and I let her see I needed her to come with us. I didn’t even mean to. I felt bad for the dog.
Granddad could stay behind, that’s how I felt. He wouldn’t, though. He was coming to the hospital with me and Mrs. Buttermark. The dog had to be able to take it, that’s all there was to it.
“I won’t be gone long,” Granddad said, looking at the door. Something in his voice had changed. I could see he felt awful about leaving the dog there alone.
He also looked embarrassed to be talking to his dog like that. I couldn’t love the dog the way Granddad did. Even if it was sad and halfway cute. I used to talk to our cat. Apparently, I used to pull this dog’s tail.
“You won’t be cold here,” I said to the door. “You have the fish to keep you company. If you get yourself a drink, try not to lap any of them up. Especially the little brown one that can puff itself up. I think it’s poisonous.”
Nothing from behind the door.
The dog stayed quiet as we practically tiptoed toward the elevator. Mrs. Buttermark ruffled my hair.
I felt like a complete idiot.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Half the afternoon had passe
d while we were eating spaghetti. Hours didn’t seem to stretch as far as they usually did.
Mrs. Buttermark said we had to stop for flowers. Also, this little Christmas tree she called Rosemary. Granddad kept nodding, like he was glad Mrs. Buttermark took charge.
I started to worry about seeing Mom. I hoped she’d be the same as usual, with her leg in a cast. I knew she would be in bed and operated on. If she was awake, I figured I could take it. If she wasn’t moaning. I wanted to see her, of course, but also I wanted her to be feeling fine.
Partly because I hadn’t seen her feeling fine since we started across the parking lot the day before. And partly because I knew surgery had this way of changing things. Aunt Ginny had gone into surgery last year and came home missing a part. I didn’t miss it. I hardly noticed. But she seemed to miss it.
When we got in the car, there wasn’t much space for me on the backseat. Mrs. Buttermark had taken her knitting, which weighed a ton. I know, because I offered to carry it for her. Mrs. Buttermark had even packed a few of Mom’s things in a little suitcase.
Mom was in surgery when we got there, the way Granddad said she would be. He carried a book. I was the only one who wasn’t prepared to sit around the hospital awhile.
I found out why Mrs. Buttermark bought so many flowers. She took the hospital’s awful little tree to the restroom, where maybe she threw it away. Or maybe it looked better in the restroom.
In the waiting room, she arranged three pots of Christmas flowers with this watering thingy. I read on the package that it would keep them watered for three weeks. That left Rosemary and a bushy plant with tiny red flowers for Mom.
Then I saw why her knitting weighed so much. She’d brought magazines for the waiting room. Good ones, if you were Mom or Aunt Ginny or even Suzie. There were two Smithsonians in there. I looked at those for a while.
Granddad closed his book with a loud pop.
“Not enjoying it?” Mrs. Buttermark asked him.
“Too many references to computers and I don’t know enough about them,” Granddad said. “Pass me that Smithsonian, if you’ve finished with it, Jake.”
The doctor found us looking sort of like we had moved in, reading and knitting and all. “Everything went better than I expected,” he said. “She’s in recovery. You can see her soon.”
Jake Page 5