by Lynne Hugo
—It’s not broken, Grandma said.—I twisted it bad, but, you know, this is the knee I had the trouble with a couple of years ago.
—I don’t remember that, I said.
—Well, honey, you were young, and you don’t remember. Becca came and stayed with me, Grandma said to me like I’m six. All she missed was patting me on the head. I still think she’s making it up.
—Okay, then, do you care if I see if Dr. Hess will stop by on his way home? He goes right by here. Jolene’s persistent, I’ll give her that.
—Oh, I hate to bother him. Grandma’s not much for backing down either. She looked pale, though, and didn’t even shove back the hair flopped on her forehead, which is about the same gray as her skin.
Jolene leaned forward. She was wearing a skirt with no stockings and she has the most enormous veins in her legs I’ve ever seen. They’re almost as dark as her hair, which is definitely dyed. But she’s really nice.—Well, you’ve got to be checked. Bob and I can get you to our car.
Well, you could tell that idea tired Grandma out just thinking about it.—Okay, she says.—Dr. Hess, if he will.
—He will, Jo said. Dr. Hess was one of the doctors that Mom used to go to. She had a crush on him because he’s a drop-dead dreamboat. He’s a good doctor. Maybe if he’d been there she wouldn’t be so dead now.
JOLENE WAS RIGHT. Dr. Hess did stop in on his way home. Grandma was right, too, of course, which she wasn’t slow to point out.—I told you it was a sprain, she said maybe a hundred times. Dr. Hess wrapped the knee—swollen like a giant grapefruit now—with a tan bandage (the tan made me think about Alex and his ugly trailer which I didn’t want to do) and told her to stay off it completely for a couple of days and then use crutches. He gave her a prescription for pain medicine, which Grandma insisted she wouldn’t use, and said to put ice packs on it for a day or two, anyway.
—Lexie, you leave me to talk with Jolene alone now, Grandma said after the doctor left. Bob was already settled in front of the television with some baseball game on. The whole afternoon is gone. It made me mad that Grandma sent me out of the room like some little kid, but I didn’t have any choice.
Jolene stayed with Grandma a long time before she came into the kitchen where I was just sitting and staring into space.—We’ve got to be on our way, honey. I never even got my stockings on! Bob and I were getting ready to go away when you called. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Will you be okay, dear? Your Grandma said there’s plenty of food in the house.
Tuesday! Today was only Thursday. I thought Jolene would even stay overnight for Grandma and here she wasn’t even going to be in the same town.—I guess, I said.
—I’d stay, dear, but we’re to be at the Cleveland Clinic tomorrow morning for tests on Bob’s heart. We really have to go. We have reservations up there tonight. She looked at her watch like I’d figure out how long it would take them to get there or something. How could I say no! Don’t go! I don’t know how to cook, I don’t know how to take care of her.—I’ll be okay, is what I said. Not too graciously, maybe, but I said it.
Jolene looked around. The breakfast and lunch dishes were all over the place.—It’s easiest to get meals if you start with a clean kitchen, she said. I wanted to shoot her between the eyes right then, even though I like her.
And then Bob and Jolene leave and I start to catch on to what I should have figured out ages ago, that God hates me.
THE NIGHT WAS REALLY bad. I hadn’t thought about Grandma getting to the bathroom. We had to use her cane and a straight-back chair as a cane for her other hand and it took almost a half-hour to get her down the hall and in. I had to pick up the chair and move it a couple of inches at a time. It wasn’t pretty. Then Grandma wouldn’t drink anything no matter how thirsty she got, which meant she wouldn’t eat the canned vegetable soup I made her because then she’d have to go.—I need crutches, she said a jillion times.—Maybe I could manage on crutches. But she was all sweaty again from the hurting. Stuff was piling up around the blue couch—a towel, the melty plastic bags of ice, Grandma’s glasses and cane and tissues, a couple of plates, the tall glass, smudgy with fingerprints, the pillows off her bed in mismatched pillowcases, one with yellow flowers, the other plain pink.
—Can I call Becca? I said when I brought her a piece of toast. Grandma was watching Wheel of Fortune and trying to make herself do the puzzles instead of think about her knee. She was pretty bad at them.
—Honey, Becca can’t drive and she’ll just worry herself to death and feel terrible.
—Well, what am I supposed to do? I didn’t mean to sound peeved, but I was exhausted and I’d thought Grandma would be taking care of me after the fire, not the other way around. It was like she’d forgotten all about it now. I suppose that’s selfish of me. Being scared was wearing off, though.
—I don’t know, honey. We’ll just have to make do.
So Grandma slept right there in her clothes, right on the blue couch. Or didn’t sleep, I don’t know. I kept waking up and the TV was always on. I was afraid to go to bed, but she said I should and she could yell loud enough to get me up if she had to.
This morning, though, it was the same. She said she was going to go in her pants if she didn’t get to the bathroom and we had to do it the same way again, with the chair and all. Then Grandma was trying to tell me how to make oatmeal and I burned it and then I started thinking about the fire because of the smell and I got really upset. Then Grandma got upset because she hurt so much and aspirin didn’t help and because I was upset.
I didn’t do it when I first thought of it because everything bad in my life is his fault. How could I even think of calling Alex? After what he did to my sister—who would be right here now to help me with Grandma if he hadn’t killed her—and how he went off and left Mom and me, he’s the last person on the earth I’d want to call. But the idea didn’t go away. I thought about how he brought the groceries. Then I thought but he’ll get the wrong idea, and it’ll be like I want him around. And I don’t. Want him around, I mean. And what about my vendetta for Mom and Tina?
Well, then I thought Tina is probably sitting in Mom’s lap right now, and I’m here by myself with neither of them to help me. That made me mad. I couldn’t figure it out anymore, and there wasn’t anything else I could think of to do. I didn’t ask Grandma, I just went upstairs saying I needed to change my shirt. I got his phone number off the list she keeps by the phone next to her bed and I called the place Alex works and asked if he could come to the phone. It took a long time, but he did. There was a lot of noise in the background, like a hundred cars revving.
—Hello? He sounded like he thought the phone might blow up in his ear, real paranoid.
Of course, then I froze and didn’t know what to say.—It’s me, Detta. Alexis. Grandma fell and can’t walk and she needs crutches and she needs a prescription from the drugstore and I don’t have anybody else to call. Jolene and Bob are gone. Becca does have cancer, she’s real sick. (I felt like I should say I’m sorry for lying, but I didn’t say it.)
—Did your grandmother tell you t’call me?
—No. She doesn’t know.
He didn’t say anything at all for a minute, just the sound of machines was coming over the phone.—Okay.
—Okay what? I said. I said the what? too loud and I was afraid Grandma might have heard me, but I was starting to panic.
—Okay I’ll get you the stuff.
—Um, when?
—Well, can it wait ’til I get off work?
I sat down on Grandma’s chenille bedspread and looked at the picture of Mom on her dresser, which was next to the one of Grandpa. It felt like the walls were moving toward me, all four of them, an inch or two at a time and pretty soon they’d squeeze me to death. I picked at the little white tufts and tried to say it.—Um, not really.
—Okay.
I wanted to scream. I really did, but I didn’t dare get him mad and make him want to say no.—Um, okay what?
—I’ll
clock out, he said, his voice tinny against the machines and through the wires.
My face got hot then, but I made myself get thank you out of my mouth. I hated that I had to, but it was only right.
Before I went downstairs, I went into Mom’s room and shut the door. Like Grandma could possibly get up the stairs! I just wanted to look at the picture and smell Mom’s sweaters, even though they don’t really smell like her anymore, which I can hardly stand. Everything I had left of her gets taken away bit by bit. I told her I was sorry for calling Alex, but I didn’t know what else to do and I had to take care of Grandma. She’d wanted that, didn’t she? I looked out her window and there was a cardinal all blood-red and cocky, and then I saw the female, sort of quiet brown except for her red beak and belly, and I thought I heard my mother: Build a nest.
forty-one
BY THE TIME JOLENE and Bob were back from the Cleveland Clinic, Alex had been coming every day and then some. Friday, he’d been there within an hour of Lexie’s call. He’d picked up the prescription, had it filled at the pharmacy and found out that the only place to get crutches was from the Mauntel-Meier Regional Hospital, over in Adria. The Early Sun Pharmacy usually carried them, but the Darrville High School track team had had an unfortunate season, especially the last meet when five of the hurdlers had done the two-hundred-meter hurdles after getting completely stoned on pot, back in the woods behind the track while the girls’ running events were going on. There wasn’t a set of crutches left in stock. So he’d trucked over to Adria and brought them back to Cora. He’d also stopped at CiCi’s Chicken Wings ’N’Things and bought a bucket of fried chicken, a half-dozen biscuits and cole slaw, which Lexie had always hated, even though Cora’s recipe was widely thought to be the best—and best-kept secret—around.
When he brought all that in, along with the crutches and prescription, Cora had thanked him warmly. Like they weren’t all enemies, Lexie noted to herself sourly, even though she’d been the one who called him.
“Alex, stay and eat with us,” Cora said after she’d washed down two of the pills with the water Lexie brought.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m all right. Anything else you need? Before I…”
“Well, if you’re not busy, I’d like to try to stand with these crutches. I’m just too big for Lexie,” Cora interrupted. She shot a look at Lexie “—ah, Detta, to catch.”
“Okay,” Alex said.
“But I think I’d best have something to eat first, since I just took those pills. I, you know, sometimes medicine will make you dizzy. Detta, you go get us some plates, please, and napkins. And three forks. Don’t forget some honey for the biscuits.” Cora looked around herself, ensconced on the couch, as if there’d be some cue on the area rug or the end table or in her lap. “Oh, knives. You’d better just use a tray, honey,” she called after Lexie’s petulant back. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d stay,” Cora said to Alex quietly.
He’d shifted his weight from one steel-toed boot to the other and made a gesture that was somewhere between a shrug and a nod. Still not likely to win the Mr. Personality title, Cora thought, but smiled and repeated, “I appreciate it. And I appreciate what you’ve already done to help.”
“’S okay,” Alex said, and looked to each side of himself. Cora realized what concerned him and pointed.
“How about if you pull up that chair?” she said, indicating a straight-backed wooden one over beside the window. “And maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you could pull that coffee table…there.” Pointing, her index finger was mottled, knobby with arthritis. “Then Detta can sit next to me.” Cora stopped then, out of breath from the exertion of talking over pain. Alex, who’d been moving pieces as Cora pointed, brushed off the seat of his jeans and sat as Cora’s waving hand directed him. The bucket of chicken was on the coffee table, between them now, where Alex had first deposited it. The two of them were just waiting for Lexie.
Misery was his first, middle and last name. Alex squirmed a bit and cleared his throat. “Sorry…um…about…Christine.” The sentence seemed to take forever to clear his lips and Cora waited, as if it were visible, floating toward her on the air. Lexie’s entrance dissipated the last of it just as she cleared her throat to respond.
Lexie looked at them suspiciously. “Here’s the stuff,” she said, glancing around and taking in the rearrangement. She set a big tray next to the bucket.
Cora pushed for cheer. “Well, thank you, sweetie. Goodness, are you as hungry as I am? Fix me a plate, will you, dear? Let’s dig in.”
Lexie handed Alex a paper plate before she began to fill one for Cora.
“Thanks,” he said.
The supper was awkward. Cora, who was never out of words, kept casting for something to say. Every topic seemed loaded. Alex and Lexie were, of course, not the slightest help and finally Cora stifled a sigh and joined their silence, let the scraping of forks and the small clink of bones dropped on plates pass as companionable.
Afterward, Alex and Lexie carried the messy remains to the kitchen. They returned and Alex braced himself to hoist Cora to her one good foot and wedge the crutches under her arms.
She couldn’t get the hang of it. “I’m not very coordinated,” she said.
“You’re trying to do it in three steps instead of two,” Lexie said.
“No, it’s that you got to take your weight with your hands, there, not under your arms. It’s making you too low,” Alex corrected. He wiped his hands on his white T-shirt and put his hands on Cora’s upper arms. “See, don’t hang yourself on the crutches—they shouldn’t be wedged under your armpits. You’ll get all sore anyway if they are.” He demonstrated then, flapping one hand under his arm to show that there should be space there.
“Oh, I see, yes, that’s much better,” Cora said. Lexie hastened to pull down Cora’s old blue blouse pulled up by the crutches. “If I can get to the bathroom, I’d like to wash up. I think Lexie and I will be okay now.”
Exactly as Cora said the words, she’d wobbled and started to pitch backward. Alex leapt forward and caught her, easing a fall back onto the couch which was still just behind her. Across the room, Christine’s solemn-faced high-school graduation picture watched the scene from the piano top. She’d been trying to look older, which broke Cora’s heart then and still did. Alex had kept his eyes averted from the portrait after his scan of the room had included it; he knew exactly why she’d been trying to look older, even remembered the day she’d had the proofs taken, how she’d coyly said, “Lots of girls use their graduation pictures when they get engaged.”
Cora yelped in pain and then quickly covered it with a forced laugh. “Goodness, I lost my balance,” she gasped out. “You go on ahead, Alex. I imagine you’ve got things to do. Lexie and I will be okay. I’ll just wait a minute and get up again. I don’t want to keep you.”
Lexie stood, dumbstruck and terrified. “Wait. I couldn’t have caught you then.”
“Oh, don’t worry, honey. I won’t fall again. Just got to get my sea legs.” Cora struggled as she spoke to edge her rear toward the edge of the couch for leverage to get on her feet again. It looked pathetic and utterly ineffectual.
Lexie had turned to Alex, a little ragged edge of panic in her voice. “Can you stay? I mean, I’m afraid.” A lock of dark hair had worked loose from her ponytail and hung alongside her face. She swiped at it, but it fell right back down.
“Okay,” Alex said, his two-syllable vocabulary for requests.
“Well, if you think it’s necessary, honey,” Cora said, pushing it a smidge further, “but I’m sure we could…”
“’S okay,” Alex said. “You wanna get up now?”
Cora nodded, and Alex took her crutches, handed them to Lexie, and hoisted Cora up by grasping her upper arms and lifting as he took a half step backward. The effect was effortless this time since Alex had already taken measure of her and how much pull to exert. Alex supported Cora on one side, a crutch on the other, all the way down the hall to th
e bathroom near the kitchen. “I’ll stay outside here,” he said, “you call if you need help. It won’t bother me none.”
“Lexie can come in with me, maybe,” Cora said, blowing the cloud of damp gray hair back off her forehead, sweaty with exertion. She was hanging on to the knob of the bathroom door, which released the crutch from beneath her arm. It clattered to the hardwood.
“See, Grandma?” Lexie had said, leaving what her grandmother was supposed to see unspoken.
After that, it hadn’t been discussed again. But Alex had been there until late Friday evening, and had showed up Saturday morning before eight with fast-food bacon, egg and cheese biscuits, and hash browns in cardboard holders for all of them. He made a pot of coffee, while Lexie poured three glasses of orange juice. During the day, he mowed the lawn while Lexie did the laundry, though Alex had to show her how to run the machines first. Later, Alex vacuumed the downstairs after Cora mentioned, embarrassed and apologetic, that the dust bunnies seemed to be running a derby of some sort. “I used to keep the house meticulously,” she said, shaking her head. “Lately, though, I’ve sure gotten behind. Becca hasn’t been well.”
“I know,” Alex said, and when Cora looked at him quizzically, he added, “Detta said.”
“Oh,” Cora said.
“Where’s the vacuum cleaner?” Alex said.
“Oh, goodness, I didn’t mean for you…”
“I don’t care,” Alex said. “I can do it easy.”
After he’d found it and plugged it in and started to vacuum, he turned to Cora. “I used to sit on that same couch there while you did this.”
“Oh, don’t I know. I used to ram it into your feet.”
Alex snorted, trying to hold back a laugh, but the honk came anyway. “Never did think that was an accident,” he said.
Cora laughed. “Oh, no. Well, one part was an accident.”