by Sue Margolis
“You’ve already checked on them three times,” Tom says. “They’re fine.” But Abby is halfway up the stairs.
Tom opens the front door and says that to save time he’s going to wheel the suitcases into the street. I offer to help, but he says he can manage. “It’s starting to snow. Stay in the warm.”
I watch him maneuver the two hefty cases down the step and onto the path.
Abby comes downstairs, looking forlorn. “I can’t bear to leave them.”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
She weeps into my shoulder while I rub her back.
“I know it’s hard,” I say. “But you’ll feel better once you’re on the plane. And the kids are going to be fine. I will cope. I promise.”
“Thank you for having them. I’m so grateful.”
“My pleasure. And in case I haven’t said it often enough, I’m very proud of you. You’re a very brave young woman.”
“I don’t feel very brave.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes again. “So Nana’s really OK about the kids staying here?”
“Nana’s fine. You know what she’s like—she’s worried about all the noise and mess, but I’ve told her if it gets too much, she can always go home for a bit of peace.”
“But I don’t want the kids to force her out… .”
“It’s not going to happen. Today she went out and bought kosher brisket and a boiling chicken to make soup. Believe me, your grandmother is already in her element.”
Tom is hovering at the front door, saying the taxi has arrived.
“I need to pee,” Abby says.
Her husband rolls his eyes. While Abby dashes to the loo, I follow Tom down the front path. The air is raw. Snow is falling in chunks and starting to settle. I pull my big cardigan tight around me. “Now, you’re sure you’ve got everything … passports, visas, currency …”
He pats his knapsack and reminds me that it’s the third time I’ve asked. Then he tells me I’m going to freeze if I stay out here.
“I’m fine. Don’t fuss. I want to wave you off.”
He’s looking at his watch. “For God’s sake, how long does it take to have a pee?”
Finally Abby appears. “Right. I guess we’re off.” Her eyes are welling up again and so are mine. I put my arms around my daughter and hold her so tight she’s telling me she can’t breathe.
“Phone me when you land.”
“Will do.”
“And you two take care. Promise me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after her,” Tom says. He plants a quick kiss on my cheek. “And thanks again for everything. We couldn’t have done this without you.”
“No problem … Now go … before I change my mind.”
I watch them get into the taxi. Abby rolls down the window and leans out: “Love you!”
“Love you, too.” I wave and send kisses. Abby does the same. The taxi pulls away and almost immediately disappears around the corner. Despite the cold, I don’t move. Instead I stand in the snowy silence, watching the flakes dance and eddy under the streetlamp. “Brian, it’s me. If you’re up there, please keep Abby and Tom safe. And if you could see your way clear to helping me survive the next six weeks with Sam and Rosie, that would be good, too.”
I’m suddenly aware that behind me, a tiny voice is singing: “Grandma … do you want to build a snowman?”
• • •
It takes me a while to persuade Rosie that people tend not to build snowmen in the middle of the night. I promise we’ll build one tomorrow. She accepts my offer and agrees to go to bed, so long as I read to her. I manage a couple of pages of Aliens in Underpants Save the World before my eyelids start to droop.
“When I grow up, I want to be an alien. Or maybe a witch. But if I was a witch I would be a friendly one—not a horrible, bad one. I’m going to be a lesbinan witch with a broom.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Do witches earn a good celery?”
I am far too tired to explain the difference between celery and salary. “I’m sure they do,” I say. “Now lie down and get some sleep. You’ve got school in the morning.”
“’K. But first will you check for burglars under my bed?”
Again exhaustion stops me from arguing. I bend down and poke my head under the bed. Plenty of dust bunnies, but no burglars. “All clear.”
“I can’t find Denise.”
Denise is Rosie’s comfort object. She is also a carrot. Rosie has had her since she was a toddler. She named her after the lady next door. Nobody has the foggiest idea why she chose a carrot as a comforter instead of a blanket or a stuffed toy. It goes without saying that there has been a long line of Denises. They are discreetly replaced when they become shriveled and gross. Rosie is no doubt aware of this parental subterfuge, but she chooses not to acknowledge it. We can only assume that in her mind, Denise’s essence lives on no matter what body she inhabits—a bit like the Dalai Lama.
A few of Rosie’s friends still have blankies. One even goes to bed sucking on a pacifier. But none of them cuddles up to a root vegetable. When Abby discussed Rosie’s carrot fetish with a child therapist friend, she was told not to worry and that Rosie’s need for Denise would eventually peter out. Meanwhile nobody should make a big deal of it. So we don’t.
I find Denise on the floor next to the bed. She’s long, but wrinkled and bendy and turning black at the tip. I make a mental note to replace her.
“Here you are, darling.”
Like a church chorister with a candle, she wraps both hands around the carrot and holds it to her chest. “Night-night, Gran’ma.”
I kiss Rosie’s forehead and wish her sweet dreams. Then I go next door to check on Sam.
He is snoring softly in the single bed. I kiss him, too, and rearrange a leg, which has strayed from under the duvet.
• • •
The next morning I’m awake at five thirty. I have no idea why. It’s not as if I have a great deal to do before taking the kids to school. They both had baths last night. Their school uniforms are arranged neatly on their beds. Reading folders are by the front door. I don’t have to make them sandwiches, because the school provides a cooked lunch. All that’s required of me is to make sure they have something inside them before they leave. Abby insists the kids have a decent breakfast—on the grounds that they can’t hope to concentrate in school without something to nourish their brains. High-sugar breakfast cereals full of empty calories are off the menu. Instead they have eggs on whole-wheat toast, or organic porridge and berries.
I can’t get back to sleep, so I take a shower and head downstairs to make coffee. While it’s brewing I sit myself down at the kitchen table and check my e-mail. It’s all spam. One invites me to “knock through walls with your cock.”
I decide to take another look at the e-mail Abby sent me yesterday. The subject line is: Rosie and Sam—Operating Instructions. I reminded her before she wrote it that I have been taking care of my grandchildren since they were babies and I don’t need instructions, but she said that she’d feel better knowing I had everything written down. By then she was so nervous about leaving the children that I didn’t argue.
I skim-read the first page. It’s mostly stuff I know: bedtimes, school drop-off and pickup times, names of the kids’ teachers. Some things I don’t know, like phone numbers of mothers who will help out in an emergency.
The second page contains a timetable of Sam and Rosie’s after-school activities:
Monday: Bogdan—Sam’s new chess coach to house. He has your number and address. Rosie to drama. Tanya, Cybil’s mum, will take both girls to drama. She’ll also drop her home. Tanya and I usually rotate the pickup and drop-off, but she’s happy to do it every week while I’m away. That way you’ll always be there when Bogdan arrives.
Tuesday: Both to French Club. (Please take a snack—otherwise they tend to turn into hypoglycemic monsters.)
Wednesday: Rosie to science club. Sam to computer club. (Snack)
T
hursday: Bogdan. Rosie to Zumba—again with Cybil. Tanya will take R and drop her home.
Friday: Reserved for playdates.
Saturday: Free. But they might get invited to friends’ houses for sleepovers.
Sunday morning: Sam football practice. Rosie swimming.
Rosie never says much about her after-school activities—at least not to me. Sam only ever mentions chess. He has a real passion for the game. What’s more, he’s the best player in the lower school.
When it became clear that Sam had a talent for the game, the teacher who ran the school chess club took Abby and Tom to one side. He said that with some private coaching Sam would be good enough to compete in nationwide under-eleven tournaments.
Abby and Tom weren’t sure about hiring a coach. They didn’t want to put too much pressure on him and turn the game into a chore. In the end they left it to Sam to decide. He didn’t think twice. If I remember rightly his reaction was something along the lines of “Awesome.” The child was dazzled by the idea of becoming a chess champion—as was my mother. Now that Sam has won a couple of local tournaments, she refers to him as “my great-grandson, the chess master.”
I often wonder if all these after-school activities are too much for the children. I worry that they wear them out—not to mention their mother, who, having put in her hours at the surgery, has to drive them from here to there in the school rush hour. Then when she gets home she cooks and supervises homework and bath time. Depending on what shift he’s on at the hospital, Tom may or may not be there to pitch in. For the moment I’m trying to forget that from next week—when activities start up again—I will be the one doing the ferrying. But at least I won’t have been working all day, I’ve got Cybil’s mother helping out and Mum will be doing most of the cooking.
I’ve always managed to bite my tongue over the school activities issue. It wasn’t my place to offer Abby parenting advice. Rosie and Sam were her and Tom’s kids, not mine. But during the weeks leading up to Christmas, they seemed to go down with one bug after another. It felt as if they were always off school. Abby must have roped me in to looking after them half a dozen times. Not that I minded. They were no trouble. I would make honey and lemon drinks and the three of us would snuggle on the sofa, covered in one of the kids’ duvets, watching movies back-to-back. It was fun. Less so when I caught one of their diseases and ended up in bed for a week with a raging temperature, hacking cough and streaming nose. Abby dosed the kids up with Tylenol and was pretty gung ho about their various infections—the way doctors are. But I couldn’t help thinking that they were getting sick because they were run down. In the end I decided to poke my nose in where I was pretty certain it wasn’t wanted.
“Look, tell me to mind my own business,” I said to Abby, “but do you think that maybe the kids are getting ill because they’re exhausted?”
Abby was sorting clean laundry and barely looked up. “No, I think they’re getting ill because it’s winter. Kids and adults are dropping like flies. My surgery has been packed all week.”
“I get that. But Sam and Rosie seem to be constantly on the go. I mean, they do so many after-school activities …”
“So do all the kids.”
“But what about downtime? When do they get to sit and stare—to just be?”
“You’re right,” Abby said, folding a pair of Tom’s socks into a bundle. “They probably don’t get enough time to themselves. But nor do any of their friends.”
“The thing is—I don’t understand what it’s all for. When you were young you had your piano lesson on a Saturday morning and that was it. During the week, you’d come home from school, I’d make you a sandwich and then you’d lie on the sofa and zone out in front of Top Cat or Scooby-Doo. It did you no harm. You always did well at school.”
“That was thirty years ago. Things have moved on. These days it isn’t enough for kids to do well at school. If they want to get into a good university, they must have other interests. They need a ‘hinterland.’”
“But Sam and Rosie aren’t much more than babies. How can you even be thinking about university?”
“It’s the way it is. Round here five-year-olds have Mandarin lessons.”
“Don’t you worry about putting them under too much pressure?”
She put down the T-shirt she was folding. Finally I had her attention. “Of course I worry. How could you think I don’t worry? You know how we dithered about getting Sam a chess coach. But these days all middle-class parents are caught up in this madness. People are too scared to take their foot off the gas. What would you do if you were me?”
I told her I didn’t know. Then I reminded her how her dad used to take her out for ice cream and talk to her about history and the universe. “That was his idea of giving you a hinterland.”
For a few moments, she looked wistful. Then she turned to me. “I’ll never forget him teaching me about infinity. I used to lie awake for hours trying to understand it. But I couldn’t imagine something so vast—something that never ended. Then my brain would start to feel all weird. I’d get panicky and come running into your room. I’d tell you I was scared of infinity and you’d wake Dad up and tell him off.”
I’m smiling as I remember.
Abby assured me that Sam and Rosie were fine—that all the kids did too much and got exhausted toward the end of term. She would make sure they had plenty of downtime during the school holidays. I let the subject drop.
• • •
There’s yelling coming from upstairs.
“Gran’ma! Sam hit me.”
“You’re such a liar!”
I abandon my mother, who has just got up and is in her dressing gown poaching eggs. I get upstairs to find Sam is curled up on Rosie’s double bed. Rosie is digging him in the back with Denise.
“Yuck … get that thing off me! It’s disgusting.”
“Rosie! Stop that.”
“But he hit me.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did.”
“OK—but only because you tried to steal my dinosaur book.” Rosie gives her brother another poke with the carrot.
“Rosie—that’s enough. If you carry on like that, your carrot will break. Then you’ll have nothing to put under your pillow when you go to bed.”
Rosie gives me a furious, squinty-eyed look. “She’s not just a carrot. She’s Denise.”
Sam’s cue to start taunting his sister. I catch my grandson’s eye and hope that my expression is sufficiently steely to silence him. He mutters, “Baby,” under his breath but takes it no further.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Rosie. “I sometimes forget it’s called Denise.”
“She’s not an it. She’s a she. And she’s my friend.”
“Well, if she’s your friend, then surely you don’t want to break her.”
Rosie hugs Denise to her chest and tells Sam that he smells.
“Your carrot smells. It stinks. You’re a baby.”
“I am not a baby. I’m five.”
“Baby.”
Rosie drops Denise and lashes out with her fists. I grab her and pull her off the bed. She stands, looking daggers at her brother.
“OK,” I say, “I think the only way to end this is for you both to say sorry.”
“Sam needs to say it first,” Rosie harrumphs, arms crossed in defiance. “He started it.”
“No, Rosie. You started it. You tried to steal his book. Now you say sorry first.”
“No.”
“Come on. And when you’ve said sorry, I’m sure Sam will apologize for hitting you.”
Rosie still looks furious and doesn’t say anything. Then: “I’m sorry. There, I’ve said it.”
“You don’t mean it,” Sam says. “Say it again and mean it.”
“No.”
I’m looking at the bedside clock. It’s gone eight, both children are still in their pajamas and they haven’t had breakfast. School starts at nine fifteen. That’s not a problem, so long as there’s
no traffic. Nevertheless, I’m starting to panic. “Right, this stops now. I want you both dressed and downstairs in five minutes.”
I send Sam to his room to find his school clothes. He heads off and then turns around.
“What day is it today?”
“Wednesday.”
“That means I have to take something for show-and-tell.”
“But why didn’t you remind me last night? We could have sorted something out.”
“I forgot.”
I suggest he go downstairs and choose a photograph from one of the selections pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen. “What about one of Rosie as a baby? You could talk about how you felt when she was born.”
“No way. I hated her.” That’s true. Sam’s first words on meeting his baby sister were “Take her back to her own garden.” To this day nobody—least of all Sam—understands the significance of the garden. But his feelings were clear. He didn’t want a sister.
“Take one of your baby snaps, then.”
“No. Everybody would laugh.”
“Gran’ma,” Rosie pipes up, “if it’s Wednesday I need my sports kit. We do games on Wednesday.”
“So where is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s in a red sports bag. I think Mummy remembered to bring it.”
I tell her I’ll go and have a hunt around downstairs.
“I know what I could take,” Sam says. “You know when Granddad died and you had him cremated …”
“Yes.”
“Did you get given one of those urn things full of his ashes?”
“I did.”
“Cool. So why don’t I take Granddad’s ashes to show-and-tell?”
“Sam, you are not taking Granddad’s ashes into school.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s inappropriate.”
Rosie wants to know what “in’ppropriate” means.
“It means that people would be a bit shocked and upset.”
Sam isn’t convinced. “But I could talk about how Granddad was this big strong man who used to play football with me and that I really loved him and now he’s just a pile of dust.”