Whatever

by Ann Walsh

  “Better than the stuff from the pizza place,” said Andrew. “You want to watch Voyager with me?”

  “Sure.” Robin plopped down beside him.

  “He can’t. He promised to help me in the kitchen. Besides, you’ve seen this episode hundreds of times. Even I’ve seen it twice. Haven’t you got homework?”

  Andrew flicked off the TV, muttering, “You’re getting worse than Mom. She didn’t even notice that I’m still watching TV.”

  He climbed the stairs, still grumbling. Mom’s voice floated down. “Is Darrah home yet? It’s her night to cook dinner.”

  “Just going to start it, Mom,” I shouted up the stairs. “Ready in half an hour.”

  She didn’t answer, I guess she’d gone back to her work, dealing with whatever office crisis had happened today.

  Robin didn’t take long peeling and chopping the onion, then he pulled up a chair and watched me. I browned the hamburger, tossed the chopped onion and a grated carrot into the pan. Then, when the onion turned golden, I dumped in the can of tomato sauce. I was digging in the cupboard wondering where I’d put the oregano, when he asked, “Did you talk to your parents?”

  “About what?”

  “About going out with me.”

  I turned around so suddenly that I nearly bumped my head on the cupboard door. “You still want me to? After . . .”

  “Yes. It isn’t your fault my grandmother is going blind.”

  “But it is my fault she broke her leg,” I blurted out, then immediately, desperately, wished I hadn’t.

  “I know.”

  “You know?” I wanted to run out of the kitchen, not look at him, not talk about the fire alarm, the circle, the whole embarrassing episode. “How?”

  “Gran told me, back when you first came to help her. She didn’t want to, but I kept badgering her about this school ‘work program’ she said you were doing. I know there’s no program like that, so I made her tell me the truth.”

  I sat down, shaken. Robin went to the stove and took over stirring the sauce. He turned the heat down, then came and stood in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.

  “It’s okay, Darrah. No one else knows. Gran told me it wasn’t all your fault, that if she’d been holding onto the railing she wouldn’t have fallen. She said it was her own stupidity, thinking she could handle the stairs.”

  “But . . .”

  “She didn’t want to do that circle thing, but the constable told her that if she didn’t you’d end up in court, and that would be serious trouble for you.”

  “But . . .”

  “Once she met you at the circle, she liked you.”

  “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “If you’ve known all along, why—”

  “Why don’t I hate you?”

  “Um . . . yes.”

  “Because everyone makes mistakes. Because you care about my grandma. Because it’s been good for her to have you there. She loves teaching you how to cook.”

  “But . . .”

  “And because I like you.”

  He moved his hands to either side of my face; the onion smell on them made tears prickle behind my eyelids. He tilted my face up and looked at me, smiling.

  “I really like you, Darrah,” he said and kissed me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ROBIN CAME OVER on Saturday and helped my family put up our Christmas tree. Then he held the ladder while Dad draped lights on the bare branches of the flowering cherry tree in the front yard, and shovelled the new snow off the walkway. He was back again on Sunday. He helped Andrew with his math homework and stayed for dinner again—takeout pizza this time. Mom was cooking.

  “That young man’s been here all weekend,” my Dad complained to me as he was loading the dishwasher. “Don’t you two ever go out?”

  “We’d love to,” said Robin. “Would it be all right if Darrah and I went to a movie tonight?”

  “Didn’t know you were right behind me. Sorry,” said Dad. “But, sure, go ahead.” And there went Consequence Number Three, zapped away by the Christmas spirit. Mom didn’t seem to notice when we said goodbye, but she called to me before we were out the front door. “Darrah, wait a minute.”

  As the novels say, my heart “sank.” Right into my boots. She’d remembered that I was grounded. But all she said was, “It’s a school night, come home right after the movie’s over.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Thanks a lot!”

  “We won’t be late,” promised Robin. As he turned to open the door, Mom winked at me. “Have fun,” she said.

  “Thanks,” was all I managed to mumble. I was too surprised to say anything else. Mom hadn’t forgotten the consequence; she had deliberately set me free. Oh, I love the Christmas spirit!

  “Thought you said you were grounded,” Robin said.

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Must be my charm that changed their minds.”

  “Charm? Is that what that was? I didn’t notice.”

  I don’t remember much about the movie. What I remember is my fingers, sticky with the pop I’d spilled, sticking to Robin’s when he held my hand. I remember kissing him, both of us with buttery, salty lips, tasting of popcorn. Neither of us noticed when the credits began to roll and the house lights came up.

  Someone trying to get past our seats said, “Break it up, you two, and let me get out of here,” and we jumped apart.

  I sat in the car outside my house, looked at the glow from the Christmas tree through the windows and the lights on the cherry tree in the front yard, and thought that life was pretty sweet.

  “School night,” Robin reminded me.

  “I know, I’m going.”

  He leaned across the seat and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Now, get out of here. I’ll see you at Gran’s tomorrow.” I stood on the sidewalk, waved as he drove off and felt a silly grin spread across my face.

  I read somewhere that you should never tempt the fates by letting them know when you are happy. I should have remembered that because, as I walked in the front door, I could hear Mom’s voice, shouting at Dad to call 911. My boots still on my feet, dripping clumps of snow, I flew up the stairs. Mom and Dad crouched beside Andrew who was in his pajamas, flat on the floor outside the bathroom door. This was a strong seizure: his eyelids flicked up and down so quickly they were a blur, his head rolled from side to side, his arms and legs jerked. I pulled off my jacket, wadded it up and crouched down to put it under Andrew’s head.

  “How long has it been going on?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, I forgot to count,” said Dad.

  “Okay, I’ll begin counting from a minute and we’ll estimate later.” I started counting off the seconds, “Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three . . .” I had reached one hundred and ten when Andrew grew still. His eyelids shut, his legs stopped jerking. It was over.

  “Oh, Andrew, oh . . .” Mom burst into tears. Dad stood up and went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay, it will be okay.”

  “Again?” complained a weak voice. “Not again, please.” Andrew was awake.

  “Just a short one, not too bad,” I lied. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. I want to go to back to bed.”

  We helped him stand, and while Mom and Dad tucked him into bed, I went downstairs and took off my boots and hung up my coat. There were slushy footprints all over the front hall; I grabbed some paper towel and wiped them up, and followed the prints up the stairs, blotting at the melting snow. Then I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. This family needed a good hot cup of tea. Tomorrow, I’d get Dad to buy half a dozen clocks, put them all over the house, so no matter where Andrew had a seizure, we could tell how long it lasted. With strong seizures, like the last two had been, we needed to be accurate about their length; after five minutes it was time to call for help. I pulled out the seizure diary that the doctor had asked Mom to keep, wrote down the date and time, 11 p.m., then put three minutes with a qu
estion mark. I’d counted just under two minutes, but I knew that neither Mom nor Dad would be able to estimate how long Andrew had been seizing before I arrived. No matter how short his seizure actually was, it always seemed to go on forever. The only way to know for sure how long it had been was to count seconds or keep your eye on a clock.

  The kettle boiled. I poured water over two chamomile tea bags in the pre-warmed pot and waited for my parents to come downstairs.

  The next day Mrs. J. snapped at me the moment I walked into the kitchen. “You’re late, girl. I’ve been waiting.”

  “I missed the first bus, sorry.”

  “Let’s get started, we’ve got a lot to do today.”

  I found two bread pans and the baking paper, then cut the paper and lined the pans with it as she instructed. Paper? In the oven? I was doubtful, but Mrs. J. always knew what she was doing. “It’s baking or parchment paper,” she explained. “It won’t burn and the cake won’t stick to the pan. Wonderful stuff, been around for years.”

  Baking paper might have been around for years, but it was new to me. I measured flour, drained jars of maraschino cherries, chopped dates and roasted whole Brazil nuts. I was stirring the mixture, watched carefully by Mrs. J., when Robin arrived.

  “Just in time,” she said. “Everyone has to stir the Christmas cake. It means we’ll all have good luck for the year. Pass him the bowl, girl.”

  I did, puzzled. Robin obediently pushed the wooden spoon through the dough, then gave the bowl to his grandmother. She motioned for him to put it on the counter, took a deep breath and slowly gave the batter a few turns. “Tradition is tradition. You remember that. Everyone in the house has to stir the batter.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll write it down when I copy the recipe, if you’ll let me borrow the recipe card.”

  “You’re writing recipes down? My recipes?”

  “Not all yours. I wrote my barbecued chicken soup from scratch.”

  She smiled at me, her earlier bad temper forgotten. “Good. Keep doing that. Don’t forget to make notes if you change proportions or alter the recipe and it turns out well. Or terribly. Otherwise you’ll forget what you did.”

  I nodded, and took over stirring the cake. It was thick and lumpy; there didn’t seem to be enough flour in it to hold the ingredients together while they baked. I managed to get most of it into the pans without making a mess, and used a spatula to finish emptying the bowl. I shook the pans to level the dough, popped them into the oven, set the oven timer, then began washing up the cooking utensils. No dishwasher in this house. Except me, and probably Karen when she came over.

  Robin picked up a drying towel. “I’ll help.”

  Maybe there was something about the way he looked at me, or maybe I blushed, because Mrs. J. laughed. “Thought you two would be a good match. Had that first date yet?”

  I could feel the blush growing hotter across my face. “Um . . .”

  “Gran, that’s none of your business.”

  “Uh-huh, thought so.”

  “Mrs. J., I don’t think . . .” Then I stopped. In a way it was her business. “Yes,” I admitted. “He is kinda nice, once you get used to him.”

  “Well, this calls for a celebration. I’ll have two pills and a fresh cup of tea. Unfortunately the Yule Log won’t be ready for a while, so we’ll have to make do with the shortbread Karen brought.”

  We had tea and shortbread in the living room. Mrs. J. didn’t eat anything, but sipped slowly at her tea. “I think this is the best Christmas tree I’ve ever had,” she said. “Except, maybe, for my first one.”

  I had a vision of that scrawny tree, hardly more than a branch, balanced carefully in a vase, decorated only with red ribbon bows and homemade silver stars.

  “Do you have a picture of that tree?”

  “Now, why would you want to see a silly thing like that, girl? But no, I don’t. We had a camera, but no money to buy film or get the pictures developed.”

  “That’s too bad. It would be a good picture to show at Christmas time.”

  “I’ve many good memories; don’t need pictures to remind me of them,” she said, then sighed.

  “Get out of here, you two. Karen’s coming over in an hour. She’ll take the baking out of the oven.”

  “Still working on those exercises with Karen, Gran?”

  “Not today. Today she’s helping me with Christmas cards.”

  “They’ll be late,” said Robin. “Christmas is only ten days away.”

  Reluctantly, I picked up the tray and carried it into the kitchen. After a few minutes Mrs. J. followed, leaning on her walker, pushing it ahead of her.

  “Why are you . . .” I began, shocked to see her using it.

  Robin was behind her, and he shook his head furiously. He didn’t want me to mention the walker.

  Mrs. J. saw me staring at the walker and frowned. She didn’t want me to mention it either.

  “Go help my grandson find a Christmas gift for his mother. He always gets her something practical and she hates it.”

  “I thought the juicer was a good idea,” he said indignantly. “Why didn’t you tell me she didn’t like kitchen stuff, Gran?”

  “I’ve told you now, haven’t I?”

  He hugged her. “Thanks. You’re sure Darrah won’t get into trouble for leaving early?”

  “No, she’s earned her hours today. Now get going.”

  I tossed the orange slippers into the basket, and Robin and I left.

  “She’s up to something,” he said as we climbed into the car.

  “She’s using the walker,” I said at the same time. “She said she never would.”

  “Gran says she’s fighting a cold and it’s made her weak. She doesn’t use the walker all the time. Keeps it parked in the living room, out of sight.” He glanced at his watch. “So, we’ve got an hour. The mall?”

  The mall? I hadn’t been there since September. I wondered if I’d recognize the place.

  “Let me call home and check,” I said, wondering if my un-grounding extended to going to the mall. The home phone went right to voicemail; someone was using it. “Mrs. J. asked me to go with Robin to pick out a gift for his mother. I hope that’s okay, I’ll be home right after six. I’m not cooking tonight so . . .” Robin took the phone from my hand.

  “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Patrick, I really need help. Grandma sent Darrah away early, she’s not skipping out.” He hung up.

  “Let’s go shopping!”

  All I could do was grin at him. “Let’s.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  ON WEDNESDAY, MRS. J. called to me as soon as I walked in her door. “In the living room, girl.”

  The lights sparkled on the Christmas tree. She was sitting on the couch, staring at them, her walker within reach. “Just having a sit-down before we start work,” she explained.

  “Shall I make you some tea?”

  “No. Yes. Go into the kitchen and start the kettle. I’ll be right there.”

  She wasn’t “right” there. I heard a muffled groan as she pulled herself up from the couch, then the soft swish of the walker’s rubber wheels as she navigated her way into the kitchen. “This thing’s kinda handy, once you get used to it,” she said. From the carrier basket she pulled out an empty glass, a mug and two plates and put them on the counter. “Had my lunch by the Christmas tree.”

  Handy? “That damned thing” was what she’d called it when she first saw it. The kettle was boiling, so I poured water in the teapot to pre-warm it, then carried her dishes to the sink.

  “Are you feeling okay, Mrs. J?”

  “A bit tired, that’s all. Probably the thought of all the work ahead of me.”

  “Work?”

  “The family’s already started arriving. Right after Christmas they’ll all be over here, cluttering up the place, figuring out who gets what piece of furniture, packing away my china and digging around in the basement, looking for treasures.”

  “Oh.”

  �
��Go ahead, ask. You want to.”

  “Have they found you a . . . a new home?”

  “I chose one myself, put down the deposit. Move-in day is January fifteenth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Told you, it’s not your fault. It’s life. How’s that tea coming?”

  We made church window cookies: melted chocolate, nuts and tiny coloured marshmallows. “I’ve never had these cookies before,” I said.

  “They’re actually more a candy than a cookie, but I used to make them for the boys. And the grandkids. They’ll all be here this Christmas. Thought they’d like them.”

  “I’ll come to your new place and help you cook, Mrs. J. We can make them next year, too.”

  “Not much of a kitchen where I’m going. Microwave, small fridge. Eat most of my meals in the dining room with the other old farts.”

  “Maybe they’ll be nice old fa . . . people and you’ll like them.”

  “Maybe.”

  I didn’t know what to say next, so I focused on rolling up “logs” of cookie mixture in plastic wrap. The logs would go into the fridge and the cookies would be sliced off as needed. No baking. This was the easiest recipe I’d made in this kitchen. I scraped around the bowl, then licked the spoon. One of the best tasting recipes, too. Andrew would like this; I’d copy down the recipe before I left and add it to my collection.

  It was barely five when Robin arrived. He helped me wash up, sampled a not-quite-firm (it hadn’t been in the fridge long enough to chill properly) church window cookie, then looked at his grandmother expectantly.

  “Go ahead, have fun,” she said. “Don’t have anything else for the girl to do, might as well get the two of you out of my hair.”

  “But . . .”

  “No sense you sitting around here, girl. Take a roll of cookies and one of those Yule Logs you made.”

  “I don’t want to leave so early again,” I protested.

  Robin looked offended. “What? You’d prefer Gran’s company to mine?”

  “No, it’s just that . . .”

  “It’s all right. Go ahead, enjoy yourself. I don’t need you anymore.”