“The fence!” I shouted.
“Talk about obvious!” Doug said. “There’s a lot of wood there.”
“What?” Grandpa asked. He jumped up, leaving Grandma under the tree and hurrying over to us. “Oh, no you don’t. You are not tearing down my fence.”
Doug and I ran down the deck stairs to the fence and he thumped on it excitedly. “Oh, come on,” Doug said. “The world needs fewer fences.”
“No way! Use your own fence.”
“I would, but the squatters pretty much stay out of the garden now,” Doug said. “If I take down the fence on my side, it will be like rolling out the red carpet. But if we use the one between us, we’re still pretty secure. I’ll get my crowbar.”
“And a sledgehammer.”
“Over my dead body!” Grandpa shouted. “This is very expensive cedar fencing! You can’t get this stuff anymore.”
“You have another one on the other side,” I joked. “We may need that eventually too.”
“Never!” He placed his scrawny body spread-eagle against the fence, his face set, determined to stop us.
“Grandpa . . . we’ll cut around you.”
“Just try it! I’ll sue you. I’ll call the police! You are not taking down this fence.”
Maybe in Grandpa’s day you could call the police for something insignificant like a fence dispute, but after what I’d seen in Seattle, I knew it was an empty threat. Doug made the first chop on the other side and Grandpa’s shoulders sagged. I put my arm around him and led him back to the lilac. I sat on the blanket next to Grandma and she put her hand on my shoulder-a hand that felt exactly like my mother’s. I snuggled into her despite the heat.
“Grandpa, come on. Sit down,” I said. “We’re not trying to ruin your house. We just need to can this food so Doug and the kids can get through the winter.”
“What about us?” Grandpa snapped. “Hoping we don’t last that long?”
“You’ll be with me in Canada.”
“Like hell we will!”
I pulled him down to the ground so we were facing each other. “You can’t stay here. You’ll starve.”
“What about all this food you’re supposedly canning?” he demanded. “Don’t we get our share?”
“Well, yes. To sell.” I tried my sympathy card. “Plus, my mom really needs you.”
Doug’s sledgehammer cracked against the planks.
“Molly, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but we are not going back to Canada with you.”
I looked at Grandma, hoping she’d somehow take my side. She was gazing at me, but she didn’t say anything. I tried another tactic. “Even if you have the food, what will you do for heat?”
“We’ll burn the goddamned fence,” he said.
I giggled. He laughed a little too. Even Grandma smiled. But as my laughter died away, tears prickled in my eyes and my nose had that funny tingling you get right before you sneeze. Or cry. “I can’t go back to the island without you.” I stared at the blue cloudless sky to keep the tears from coming.
“Your mom will be fine,” he said. “And at this rate, the baby will be born before we could get there anyway.”
“She’s not due until the first week of November,” I reminded him. “As long as she doesn’t have it early, we could still make it back.” The tears were edging out around the corners of my eyes, and I sniffled. I felt Grandpa’s bony hand touch mine, sort of patting me reassuringly, and I burst into tears.
“Molly . . . come on, sweetheart,” he said, pulling me close. He scooted around so he was next to me, and Grandma leaned into me too. The air was filled with the sounds of splitting wood as Doug pried the first planks away from their posts. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. . . .”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The thing was, I was tired of crying. It wasn’t going to save my mother.
“Look,” I said, straightening up and pulling away from them both, anger flooding me. “I’m sorry that you seem to hate Mom so much that you won’t even go up there and try and save her life, but she’s my mother! If she dies, my brothers and sister and I won’t have a mom anymore. That may not be a big deal to you, but it’s huge to me!”
“Molly, you have no idea what you’re saying-”
“I do!” I shouted. My anger and frustration had finally heated up to the boiling point. “I know you said that Grandma couldn’t make the trip, but look at her!” I stood, pointing at Grandma. “She’s fine! Well, maybe not fine, but we’ll be on a train. And we’ll take it easy. Whatever we have to do. I just don’t understand how you can let a stupid twenty-year-old argument over medical school come between you and Mom when it’s life or death.”
Grandpa’s expression was unreadable, but he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and I knew my words had stung him somehow.
“She needs a doctor,” I yelled.
Grandpa put his glasses back on and stood up, looking right at me. “Well, I’m sorry, Molly, but it can’t be me.”
“It has to be you.”
“It can’t be. I’m not a doctor anymore.”
“Of course you are.”
He sighed and looked at Grandma for help, but she turned away from him. The silence hung in the air. “I haven’t been a doctor since the twenties,” he finally said.
“But you worked at the hospital until last year,” I argued. “Mom said you did.”
“I was an administrator.” His look was sullen.
“But you got that glass out of my foot.”
He shook his head. “Anyone could’ve done that.” “You’ve been helping Grandma,” I said.
“Yes,” Grandma said. “Yes.”
“You like being a doctor,” I said, “I know you do.”
He shook his head, but there was a bit of light in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. Grandma held her hand out to me to be helped up, and when she was standing, she grabbed Grandpa’s hand. I could tell she was squeezing it tightly.
“Breeee,” she said, looking hard at him. “Breee!”
“Well . . .”
“Yes!” Grandma yelled.
Grandpa sighed and turned to me. “I guess, if you come up with the money. . . . But there has to be enough to get us there without the travel killing us.”
“I know.”
“And . . . and I’ll do what I can for your mother,” he said, “but I’m not making any promises about taking over as the island doctor.”
I threw my arms around him, and Grandma wrapped hers around us both. “Thank you,” I murmured into his shoulder. It was the first step I’d made towards home since I’d left.
22
August 25th-To know the feeling, / play music at once, with heart / and ears wide open.
-Bob Deck
AUGUST BLAZED ON, AND WHEN THE TWENTY- FIFTH finally arrived, my family was on my mind all day because I’d never spent my birthday away from them before. We’d been so busy-keeping a hot fire going in Doug’s woodstove about ten hours a day to sterilize the jars, cook the food, and preserve it-that it had snuck up on me, and when my grandparents didn’t remember, I didn’t say anything.
Grandma and I had also sliced a lot of vegetables to dry between old window screens in the backyard. Grandpa wanted her to use the knife in her right hand as therapy, but whenever he wasn’t around, she used her left. If he came by, she’d quickly switch hands, smirking at me with her lopsided grin. In between all those jobs, I took my turn digging the root cellar too.
When we’d thought it couldn’t get any hotter, a fierce, dry wind had come up from the east, roasting us. While everyone else dealt with it by having a nap in the middle of the afternoon, I was too hot to sleep.
I wanted to sew my dress, but I was afraid of leaving sweaty fingerprints on the silk, so I only worked on it at night or early in the morning. Inside the package, there’d been a note from Spill.
Molly, I know these patterns are really old, from the 1980s or something, but Aunt Lili says wedding fashions don’t change t
hat much, and they’re back in style now. I hope there’s enough fabric.
Spill
And even though I was grateful, the whole connection between the fabric and how he’d probably gotten it made uneasiness flare up inside me every time I held it in my hands. Besides, even though I’d been making doll clothes since I was four or five and my own clothes since I was about ten, there was no way I could finish this dress without a sewing machine. All I could really do was cut it out and pin it together.
I thought about playing Jewels, but was afraid I’d wake everyone up from their naps, so I decided to go for a walk. I was halfway down the stairs from my bedroom when I heard piano music. I stopped, my ears perking up, listening. It was coming from somewhere inside the house.
At the bottom of the stairs, there was a door that I’d noticed before but always assumed was a coat closet. It was open, and when I peered into it, I saw a wide, thickly carpeted stairway leading down into a basement. How had I never realized we had a basement before?
The music floated up the stairs to meet me as I made my way down into a huge, low-ceilinged room. Cobwebs hung from all the corners, and spiderwebs encased every piece of furniture. Grandpa sat at a grand piano, a candle flickering on top of it, his eyes closed, his fingers dancing on the keys, the music filling his entire body. He was the most peaceful I’d ever seen him.
The music was something classical that I didn’t recognize, but it seemed familiar too. Maybe my mother or Katie had played it on our upright piano once at home. I didn’t want to disturb Grandpa, but the music was drawing me in closer to him like a moth to candlelight.
“Come here,” he said, not opening his eyes. I jumped a little, not realizing he’d known I was there.
“I thought you must’ve sold your piano,” I told him.
He continued to play, but his eyes were open now. “Can’t get it out of the basement,” he said. “The builders put it down here before they finished all the doorways in the house so it’s pretty much stuck here.”
I sat on the hard bench next to him, and for a long time he played and I just listened. I’d missed the sound of someone else making music. Sometimes, when you’re a musician, it’s so nice to just listen. It’s like my mom says about cooking. She loves to cook, but when someone else makes the food, even if it’s just an egg sandwich, it tastes so much better because she didn’t have to do it herself.
After a while, he stopped. “Do you play piano too?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said. “Mom gave me lessons when I was little, but I never got that excited about it. Katie is the one who can really play.”
He nodded. “Yes . . . I remember from when we visited. She was just a little girl, but she had a spark.”
“Yep.”
“Like you with the fiddle,” he said, smiling.
“Thanks.”
We sat there for a while longer. He played something jazzy, and we let the notes float around us. “I quit the piano when your grandmother had her stroke,” he said. “It was like she’d been cheated out of happiness, and I thought I shouldn’t have any pleasure if she couldn’t. I probably should’ve played more instead of stopping. It would’ve helped me get through it.”
“Music makes me feel better when I’m missing home,” I agreed.
“You practicing every morning made me realize I was only hurting myself,” he said.
I smiled. “Can we play together?”
“Sure. But right now, let’s go upstairs and find something to eat.”
“We just had lunch,” I said, bumping his shoulder and laughing. “Are you seriously hungry?”
“I’m awake, aren’t I?” he said.
We got up, and he picked up the candle. In the fluttering light I noticed a long granite-topped bar with a mirror behind it and bottle after bottle of liquor. My heart leapt at the sight.
“Hey! We could sell all that alcohol,” I told Grandpa.
“Empty,” he said.
I sighed. “Figures.”
We went upstairs together, and in the dining room we stopped, dazed and a little blinded by the daylight. All of a sudden, everyone jumped out from behind the furniture. “Happy birthday!” they all yelled, including Grandpa.
“You were playing music just to get me out of the way!” I said when he hugged me.
He laughed. “Worked, didn’t it? I’m like the pied piper, only with a piano.”
Everyone swept me up into hug after hug. First Grandma, then Doug, the kids, and, surprisingly, Spill! He touched me kind of awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure if he should or not and then we both stepped back, embarrassed, but smiling.
“Come outside!” Brandy squealed, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her. A pink cake covered with luscious-looking blackberries sat melting in the heat. Fresh flowers drooped in small jars placed sporadically around the deck.
“We weren’t really asleep!” Brandy shouted.
“We pretended,” Michael added.
“We decorated all by ourselves,” Brandy said.
“It’s beautiful,” I gushed.
I knelt and squeezed their small bodies to me. They’d put on some weight, and I could barely lift Brandy anymore. Michael was still as light as a puppy, though.
“Spill brought the cake,” Brandy said. “Can we eat it?”
“I’m with Brandy,” Spill said. “Let’s eat.”
“Get Jewels first and play ‘Happy Birthday’ so we can sing,” Grandpa suggested.
“I have to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself?”
“Well, who else is going to do it?”
“You are! On the piano.”
“Can’t haul the piano upstairs, though, can we? Get your fiddle, and we’ll play later.”
I ran upstairs and got Jewels. Everyone sang and Grandma cut the cake into eight slices. In about thirty seconds we all sat staring at our empty plates.
“For Molleeee,” Grandma said, pointing at the last piece.
Grandpa had disappeared right after we’d eaten, and now he came out through the house wheeling a shiny green mountain bike. “Happy birthday, Molly.” His face was glowing.
“Oh, my God! Where did you get that? I thought you sold everything.”
“I had it in the attic. I’d totally forgotten about it until the other day. It was your grandma’s.”
I ran my hands over the seat, inspected the tires, and squeezed the brake levers. “It looks brand new.”
“Yeah, I think she rode it once about twenty years ago,” he said, laughing. Grandma thumped him on the arm, but she was smiling too.
“Spill got it some new tires,” he said.
I looked at Spill, pleased. So Grandpa seemed okay with his job. . . . Maybe who Spill worked for didn’t really matter. If Grandpa thought it was all right, then I could probably live with it too.
Grandpa told me to take the bike for a spin, but I wanted more music.
“I’ll try it later,” I said. “Now it’s time for the piano. Let’s move the party downstairs and play together.”
We trooped down to the basement, and Doug’s eyes immediately traveled to the liquor bottles on the wall.
“Empty,” I told him.
“That’s okay. Got my own.” He patted his back pocket.
I pretended like I hadn’t heard him and moved towards the piano, where Grandpa was running his fingers lightly over the keys. He kicked off with “Oh, Susannah,” and I jumped in with Jewels. Before long, Spill and Doug were swinging Grandma and the kids around, and everyone was laughing. We had so much fun that after dinner we all went back downstairs for more music.
It was getting late, and Grandpa was playing a soft lullaby for Brandy and Michael, who were almost asleep in the corner. Spill and Doug and I sat in dusty leather chairs listening, half asleep ourselves, when the music was broken by a loud rapping noise upstairs. We all froze. It sounded like someone was trying to knock the door down.
Spill and I ran up the stairs. By the time we got to the front door,
the knocking had stopped. I looked through the peep-hole. A small man in a suit was stepping off the porch and walking towards a bicycle.
“I think it’s for you, Spill,” I said.
He unbolted the door and opened it. “Hey, Randall.”
“Oh,” he said, turning. “Sorry to interrupt, but the Boss wants to see you.”
“Right. Okay,” said Spill. “I have to go, Molly, but . . . here.” He’d taken a wooden box out of one of the bags he had attached to his bike. “Happy birthday.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to get me anything,” I said. I could feel my face flushing.
“Of course I did. It’s a birthday party.”
He held the box out, and I took it. “Well . . . thanks.”
“See you soon,” he said.
I watched them ride off together. The Boss wanted to see him. So Doug had been right after all, and I couldn’t deny it any longer. Spill was not simply a delivery boy.
Later, when I was alone in my room, I pried open the lid of the box and inside I found a beautiful pair of hand-stitched leather work boots. I slipped on the right one and it fit like it had been made just for me.
The next morning I went to the basement to collect my fiddle off the piano. As I passed the bar, I saw a door that I hadn’t noticed before because it was part of the mirrored wall. I ran my fingers along the edge and caught the clasp. The door sprang open.
I think I was hoping for piles of gold, or all the family valuables, because my heart sank down to my new boots when all I discovered was an old storage cupboard. Table l inens and extra glasses lined the shelves. Cocktail napkins, mixers, and boxes of candles all sat neatly in rows. The candles were a real find, and I lit a fresh one from the stub I was carrying.
Mostly the closet was empty, but as I turned to go, a box tucked deep in a corner caught my attention. Setting the candle down, I moved over to it and tugged. It was so heavy I had to put my legs into it and I dragged it out behind the bar where I could see better.
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