by Lesley Crewe
“Why didn’t you introduce him to us a long time ago?” Dad asked.
“Because I didn’t know how long he was going to be my boyfriend. I don’t drag guys I date home. There’s no point.”
Mom rinsed the dishes before she stacked them. “You could’ve told us he was black. We felt like idiots gawking at him when he first came in.”
“He wasn’t what we were expecting,” her dad said.
Hilary got huffy. “And what were you expecting?”
“A nice boy—not a really great boy.”
Grandma sat in the front passenger seat while Reef drove. Hilary was stuck in the back. She couldn’t believe Grandma flirted with him the entire trip. He kept glancing at Hilary in the rearview mirror, his eyes dancing, trying not to laugh.
As they crossed the causeway, Hilary’s mood changed. All the times she had come this way, excited to see Grampy and Aunt Colleen and the beach at Round Island. This was a journey that always made her happy, and today it didn’t.
What was her life going to be like without Grampy in it? She couldn’t imagine that world. It made her feel empty and lonely inside. He and Aunt Colleen had always been the two people she could count on to understand her, and even when they didn’t, they pretended they did. They were the three musketeers. Now there would only be two.
They stopped at the Cedar House to pick up the raisin and oatmeal bread he loved, and his favourite molasses cookies. There was also a strawberry-rhubarb pie just out of the oven that looked divine, so they took that too.
When Reef pulled up to the house, there Grampy was in the window, waiting like he always did. Hilary ran out of the back seat and left Reef to deal with her grandmother. Grampy opened the door and she ran into his arms.
She couldn’t believe how bony and thin he was; his face was gaunt. It was hard to ignore the skull that now made its presence known under his skin.
There were no tears, because she didn’t want to upset him.
“Hi, Grampy,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“Hi, Hilary. I love you too.”
Grandma made an incredible scene, hugging and kissing him, crying the whole time. He finally told her to stop all the nonsense and by God, she did. That gave Hilary a chance to introduce Reef, who carried the baked goods and grandma’s purse.
Grampy held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, young man. Hilary talks about you all the time. I feel like I know you.”
“And I you, sir. There’s no one in the world she loves better.”
Aunt Colleen waited by the kitchen door, not wanting to intrude. The minute Hilary left her grandfather’s arms she ran into her aunt’s, the two of them trying not to cry.
“I’m so glad you’re here. He’s been waiting for you all day.”
That’s when Hilary noticed the hospital bed in the living room. It was huge and intrusive, just like the cancer spreading through his body.
The welcome wore Grampy out, so he lay back in bed and the others sat around the room, eating sandwiches Aunt Colleen made for lunch. Hilary went into the kitchen and cut him a slice of oatmeal bread and put a thin layer of butter on it. She cut it into four pieces and brought it to him, and when he saw what it was he smiled.
“My favourite.” He took a small bite.
“Remember when you’d take me to the Cedar House for lunch? You always had the seafood chowder and I had the fish cakes and beans.”
“An odd request from a little girl, but our Hilary always was a different sort of child. Who else would want to hang around with an old man all summer?”
“You were lots of fun. Remember the time I sat in the frying pan and you told Aunt Colleen that sausages were called bum warmers!”
Grandma said, “Bum warmers?”
“Inside joke, Kay.”
Eventually her grandmother went upstairs to unpack and freshen up. Reef and Aunt Colleen were in the kitchen tidying up and getting to know each other. Hilary sat by her grandfather’s bed and held his hand while he slept. Aunt Colleen said he was on a lot of pain medication that kept him comfortable. They had a nurse who came in daily to check him out.
Hilary rubbed her cheek against his swollen knuckles. Nothing was quite as frightening when her grandfather held her hand.
The next day he had a request. He wanted Hilary and Reef to take him out to Round Island. He wouldn’t get out of the car; he just wanted to see it again. Grandma wanted to go too, but Aunt Colleen made an excuse to keep her there. Her aunt also told her that she was sending for her parents and her brothers because Grampy seemed to be going downhill fast, now that his family was around him.
They bundled him up in a jacket with a blanket around his stick thin legs and once again, Hilary was in the back seat. They drove him down the dirt road and stopped by the bungalow to see the pink and red weigela bushes at the side. They were loaded with blooms, which Grampy said was because the spring had been so rainy.
After awhile, Reef drove down through the field and took the dirt road that led to the beach. He drove as far up onto the ridge as he could, so Grampy could see the sand and the waves. They opened the windows to let in that glorious Round Island smell that Hilary would know anywhere. She had once tried to figure out what exactly it smelled like, but it was a combined scent of a lot of things—salt and seaweed, fir trees and rose blossoms, clover, grass, fish, and clean, clean air.
“Annie and I would race each other down here when we’d come out for the summer, trying to be the first one to put our feet in the sand. Then we’d jump the brook and see who could run faster down to those big rocks near Long Beach. She usually won, which always bugged me.”
Hilary and Reef laughed.
“There were so many cousins and aunts and uncles piled in the bungalow sometimes that we boys had to sleep under the kitchen table at night. If the bugs weren’t bad, we’d sleep outdoors. To look up at those stars as I lay in that field made me wonder why I was here. I was so small in the face of all that glory. What purpose did I serve? Do you ever feel like that?”
Reef nodded. “Sometimes, but I know I’m here for a reason. I hope I can make the world a better place.”
Grampy smiled at him. “That’s what’s so wonderful about being young. You feel you can change the world. Maybe in this new millennium you will.”
He stopped talking and continued to look out over the water. Eventually he asked if they could walk him over to the big log up on the rocks, so he could sit on it. Hilary and Reef got him out of the car and, holding either arm, managed to slowly move him across the tippy rocks. He sat on one of the flatter sections of the weathered log and Hilary sat beside him. Reef said he was going for a walk. They watched him go.
“I like him, kiddo. He’s just the kind of man I’d want for you.”
“I love him, Grampy. He’s generous and thoughtful and passionate about what he does. And the thing I like the best is that he talks about his family so much. He calls his mother all the time.”
“Always marry someone who loves their mother. That’s what my mom told us. I forgot about that piece of advice until after I was married. Our divorce seems to suggest Mom was right.”
“What else did Great-Grammie tell you?”
“Marry someone with clean fingernails.”
They both began to laugh. “Why on earth would she say that?”
Grampy shrugged. “There was no one dirtier than my dad when he’d come home at night. He’d always wash up first and change his clothes before he came down for dinner. Dinnertime was an occasion and we never rushed through it because Mom put such effort into it. He was respectful of that.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“She was a lovely woman. She believed in God and her family. They always came first.”
Hilary felt him getting tired. He hunched over and leaned on her. “Do you want to go back, Grampy?”
“Yes.”
Hilary waved at Reef to return. He started to walk towards them.
“Thank you for this, Hilary.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Now I have one more favour to ask you.”
“Anything.”
“I want you to go on a secret mission.”
* * *
The entire family was there when he died four days later. They cried, but in some ways it was a relief. He’d been in pain for so long. Colleen was the one holding his hand a few hours before he died, when he opened his eyes and said, “Am I dead yet?”
“Not yet, Dad. Soon. We’re all here with you. You’re not alone.”
Colleen and Frankie were amazed at their mother when Dad finally slipped away. All the hysterics and crying jags they’d expected didn’t happen. She kissed him on the lips, told him she loved him, and then went upstairs to be by herself.
Colleen and Frankie held each other in the kitchen. Reef was outside in the backyard holding Hilary in his arms while she wept.
“I like him, Frankie.”
“I do too. I have no idea why she didn’t introduce him to us sooner. It’s like she was ashamed of us.”
“Hilary’s like Ewan, she’s private.”
Once the arrangements were made, the obituary written, and the funeral details done, the family had a two-day period where it was all hands on deck. Colleen and Frankie were selling the house and had to arrange for the furniture to be put in storage until they could figure who might want what in the future. But before that could happen they had to take figurines off the credenza and pile books into boxes and clear out desk drawers and bureau drawers and the endless things one accumulates over the course of a lifetime.
Reef and Hilary’s brothers were carrying the big stuff into the vans, except for the living room furniture and the beds. They still had to get through the next forty-eight hours. Adam’s girlfriend, Lisa, was only allowed to take dishes off the bottom shelves in the kitchen, so Adam informed everyone, in case she overdid it.
Frankie whispered to Colleen, “Like he’s an expert on pregnancy all of a sudden.”
“Don’t mock. Young men today take fatherhood seriously.”
“Save me.”
Edward, Duncan, and the twins sorted out the garage and the basement. That left Colleen, Frankie, their mom, and Hilary upstairs cleaning out bureau drawers and the bathroom of his personal effects. At one point they were on the bed sorting through everything and Hilary picked up a set of cufflinks. “I remember these. He wore them to church.”
Kay held out her hand. “Let me see. I bought them for him in Montreal. I didn’t realize he still had them. You should’ve seen him in a suit. No one wore one better. People always noticed when he walked into a room.”
Frankie got teary. “May I have his shaving bowl? I used to watch him shave in the morning and he always chased me down the hall, threatening to kiss me with his soapy face.”
“Can I keep his big dictionary? Whenever I asked Grampy how to spell a word, we’d look it up together. I always felt important.”
Colleen bent down and pulled out something sticking out from under the bed. She covered her mouth. “Oh my god, he had two girlie magazines under his bed.”
Hilary laughed. “That’s so adorable.”
“Adorable? I don’t want to think of Dad that way,” Frankie said.
Their mother grabbed the magazines. “Give me a break. How do you think you girls came into the world? A stork? Your father was a fantastic lover.”
Colleen, Frankie, and Hilary covered their ears and told her to shut up.
And then Colleen picked up his oval brush, the one he used every morning. His grey hairs were in it. “I’m keeping this.”
Once they got into the photo albums, the four of them propped themselves up on the headboard and lay side by side covered with a blanket. Their mother went through it and told them who were in the pictures and what the occasions were. They laughed a lot.
Until the men came upstairs and asked them what they thought they were doing sitting on their asses. There was work to be done.
* * *
Hilary was alone when she happened upon a small photo of a little girl. She didn’t know who she was, except she was such a pretty little thing that Hilary couldn’t stop looking at her. She turned it over and saw My Little Cricket, May, 1949, written in her grandfather’s handwriting.
Whoever she was, her grandfather had thought she was special, so she put the picture inside the dictionary to take home.
They were exhausted and dirty by the end of the day. Her mother and aunt went to pick up Grampy’s ashes and they brought them home and placed them on the living room coffee table. Colleen went out to the garden and picked some flowers to put by the urn. It was like a beacon for the rest of the day, everyone at different times going into the room to sit quietly with him.
The funeral was in the morning.
Hilary’s grandmother, mother, and Aunt Colleen were staying the night with her and Reef, who was sleeping on the couch in the living room. Her father was staying with Duncan and her brothers and Lisa were scattered upon the cousins. They’d gather at the church in the morning.
When Hilary thought everyone was asleep upstairs, she tiptoed downstairs and went into the living room. Reef was on the couch waiting for her.
“Bring Grampy into the kitchen.”
He picked up the urn and followed her into the pantry. “What do I do if one of them comes downstairs?”
“Hold them off. Kiss them if you have to.”
“Your mother?”
“My grandmother would enjoy it.”
She had a bag all ready with the things she’d need in it. She put out bowls, plastic bags, the scale, a measuring cup, and small scissors. “I feel like I’m in a meth lab.”
Reef handed her the urn and she put it on the counter. She opened the top and there was her Grampy, now looking like fine cat litter. Very carefully, she put him on the counter, and cut a small hole in the bag. Her hands were shaking. “I don’t want to spill him.”
“You’re doing fine.”
She emptied what she thought was half of her grandfather’s ashes into a bowl and measured it on the scale so she’d know how much brown sugar to put in to replace him. Reef opened the new bag and she poured him in it. They sealed it and Reef put him in his pocket.
Now all she had to do was put a bag of brown sugar in the bottom of the urn and put the original bag over it, so it weighed the same and if anyone looked in, they’d see ashes.
“Almost done.”
They heard steps coming down the stairs. “You spoke too soon.”
“Get rid of them!”
She hurriedly poured the brown sugar into the bag, but she made a mess and most of it ended up on the floor.
“Hi, Grandma. You couldn’t sleep either,” she heard Reef say.
“Lordy, you scared me. What are you doing wandering around the house?”
“You know what it’s like to sleep in someone else’s house. You’re awake most of the night.”
“True. My stomach’s bothering me and we cleared out the bathroom. I need some antacids. There may be some in the kitchen.”
Hilary scooped up the brown sugar that had gone all over the counter and even some off the floor, because she didn’t have any more. It was awful to think of Grampy with dirty brown sugar next to him, but what could she do.
“I don’t think there are any antacids in the kitchen,” Reef said very loudly.
Oh God.
“I have some out in my car. We could go out there and get some.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It’s a lovely night out. The moon is full…”
“Okay,” she said.
Hilary put the sugar in
the bottom of the urn, re-tied the original bag, and placed it on top and moved it around so it looked like more. She closed the top and ran to the living room and put Grampy back on the coffee table.
She was in a sweat.
Back to the kitchen to get rid of the crime scene and try to locate a broom to sweep up the sugar—but she couldn’t find one. She scuffed the sugar under the counter with her slippers. The implements were next. Into the carry-all they went and back upstairs under her bed.
She waited for Reef to come back in with Grandma, but there was no sound. What were they doing out there?
Back downstairs she went and looked out the living room window. The car was gone. Poor Reef.
They eventually came back from an all-night store where Reef bought her a package of antacids. Hilary was in the living room with Grampy when they got back.
“You can’t sleep either?” Grandma said. “Want something for your stomach?” She held out her bottle.
“No thanks, Grandma.”
“I have to tell you Hilary, you better keep this boy. Forget all this bullshit about waiting until you’re thirty to marry. All the good ones are taken by then. Sweet dreams.”
When she disappeared up the stairs, Reef collapsed on the couch beside her.
“Did you finish your secret mission?”
“Grampy would be proud. Thank you.”
“Your grandmother is a good kisser.”
She shoved her elbow into his side. “You’re making that up.”
“You’ll never know.”
The funeral was a quiet affair. All of Annie’s family was there and they had a fine reunion over tea and sandwiches in the church hall after they came back from burying Grampy next to his sister and parents. Whenever anyone asked Hilary how old she was and she said almost twenty, they couldn’t believe it. She was the baby in the family, so they must be getting really old.
It was finally over. Her dad and brothers and Lisa drove back to Halifax. Grandma and her mom were staying on with Aunt Colleen to oversee the rest of the move and sale of the house. Hilary told them that she and Reef were going to spend the night at the bungalow and then drive back to Halifax the next day.