Whatever (12 page)

“Why would you have to leave?”

“Think, girl! A blind old lady living alone? Who's going to allow that? My sons would move me out of here and into one of those awful places faster than I could blink while their wives squabbled over who got grandma's hand-painted china.”

“What places?”

“Those warehouses for old people. ‘Care homes' they call them, but actually they are just places to store old folk until they die. Families call it ‘doing the right thing.' I've seen it
happen too many times, lost too many friends to those ‘homes.' People move into a small room, away from their homes and gardens and the places they love. They sit down and start talking about how tired they are, then they grow quiet and then they die.”

“But . . .” I stopped, not sure how to say what I wanted to say. That was the kind of place my Gran had gone to. But that really was the right thing to do. She couldn't remember to turn off the stove or the taps, and she kept running away. It was dangerous for her in her own home, even with a caregiver staying with her all the time.

“Spit it out, girl.”

“It's not safe for you to be here alone.”

“What's not safe? I know every inch of this house, every squeak in the floorboards, know where I have to be careful or I'll bump into the sideboard, know where the glasses are when I need water in the middle of the night. My brain is working well. I don't forget to eat or go to bed or flush the toilet.”

“But . . .”

“No more discussion. This house is part of me. I'm not leaving it except in a pine box.”

“Box?”

She glared at me, and I got it, a bit late. Box. Coffin. She was talking about dying here, right here in her home. I shivered. Someone must be walking over my grave, that's what my dad says when you get shivers and you aren't cold.

“Karen comes over every day, she does the laundry, the cleaning, helps me with meals. My family thinks she's just a friend, and she is, but I pay her well for her time. I need her. They don't know how much.”

“You need me, too,” I said softly.

“Piffle. I can manage fine without you, girl. But when I found out that you could act, I thought hearing you read to me would be entertaining. David reads in a monotone, and Karen doesn't like reading aloud.”

“You don't have papers anymore.” I looked down at the bench which used to hold a stack of newspapers.

“Wasn't getting through them, so I cancelled my subscriptions. Told you that. Get my news on the radio.”

I sat for a moment, thinking. “Who knows?” I asked.

“I'm pretty sure you don't mean who knows that I cancelled my newspaper subscriptions?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Karen, David. And now you. No one else except my doctor.”

I thought for a moment. I could bargain with her, promise not to tell anyone about her going blind if she'd cancel the rest of my sanction hours.

“I will, if that's what you want.”

“I didn't say anything!”

“Your silence spoke for you. You were thinking of blackmailing me.”

“No, I wasn't.”

“Yes, you were.”

“No, I . . . Okay, I did think that, but just for a minute. I want to finish my sanctions. Besides, my parents would make me.”

“I am sure they would.”

“I won't tell anyone, Mrs. J., I promise.”

She laughed, a deeper laugh than the one I'd heard yesterday. “I know you won't, girl. You're too honest, in spite of not wanting to be. I'll wager you would have turned yourself in for pulling that fire alarm if they hadn't caught you first.”

“I would not—”

“Yes, you would have. You have a kind heart, even though you fight it.”

“Kind heart?” No one had ever said that about me. I wasn't sure I liked being thought of as a marshmallow.

The phone rang and she grabbed it without looking. She was right. She knew exactly where everything in the house was. “Call me later,” she said into the phone, not even saying “hello” first. I could hear a man's voice crackling over the receiver, but couldn't make out the words. Mrs. J. turned her head away from me. “That test outcome is no surprise,” she said, her voice lower, then listened again. “All right, all right, I promise. I'll come in tomorrow. You can talk all you want, but I refuse to . . .” She replaced the phone in its base, without finishing her sentence or saying goodbye.

“Damned doctor's also trying to blackmail me.” She pushed herself up from the stool and grabbed her cane. “I promised
him I'd lie down every afternoon for an hour. Didn't do it earlier, so guess I have to now. Whip up a batch of cheese biscuits, and knock on the bedroom door before you leave. Mind you wash your dishes, a good cook always—”

“—cleans up after herself.” I finished the familiar sentence for her. She nodded, poured herself a glass of water and swallowed a pill from the bottle she kept in a kitchen cupboard. I watched her move slowly down the hall, one hand on the wall, the other on her cane. She didn't look back, and the bedroom door clicked firmly shut behind her.

The biscuits were all mixed, dry and liquid ingredients together and just the right texture, when the thought hit me: Mrs. J. looked old today. Old and tired. My eyes misted over, and I sniffed back tears. “Everyone gets old. Snap out of it, girl.” Sheesh. Now I was sounding like her in my own head. I dumped the dough onto the floured counter and began kneading it more vigorously than the instructions called for or was good for the biscuits. “Whatever,” I said out loud, pounding my fist into the dough. “Whatever.”

“What did that poor dough do to you to deserve that rough treatment?” someone asked.

I jumped. “Robin! How did you get here?”

“No one answered when I knocked, so I just came in. Gran never locks her door. Where is she?”

“She's having a nap.”

“A what?”

“Nap. You know. Lie down, put your head on a pillow, rest.
Pass me a glass from that cupboard.” I liked using a heavy tumbler to cut the dough, even though I now knew where the cookie cutters were kept and could have used those to shape the biscuits.

“Of course I know what a nap is, I only look dense. Actually I'm quite smart.”

“Really?”

“Really. But why is Gran lying down in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Her doct . . . uh . . . her leg hurt.”

“I'm not surprised. Yesterday I had to take her to the doctor and he prescribed more of those pain pills she uses. I promised her I'd pick them up today. She started complaining that her leg hurt as soon as he took the cast off.”

“Her cast isn't off. She's still wearing it.”

“That's a different one. Didn't you notice? It has straps and can be removed. It's got balloons inside . . .”

“Balloons?”

He shrugged. “Something like that. The doctor called it an air boot. Probably not really balloons.”

He disappeared into the front hall and returned pushing a three-wheeled walker with black rubber handles and hand brakes like a bicycle. An old-fashioned wire basket was hooked onto the front.

“Looks like a tricycle. Hey, it even has a bicycle bell.” I reached a floury hand and made the shiny little bell ding. “Sounds the same as the one I had on my tricycle.”

“Don't let Gran hear you say that! She snarled at the doctor when he suggested it, said she'd never use one of those things.”

“So why did you bring her one? And where did you get it?”

“The doctor called Mom and told her to make sure Gran got herself a walker. Said she needed more support than her cane until her leg muscles got stronger, so Mom sent me to the hospital to pick one up. They have a basement room full of crutches, walkers, those plastic seats for the toilet and other stuff that they lend out. Took me forever to get down to the basement and then come back up. Those elevators are really slow.”

Okay, let's fast forward over any slow hospital elevator references. “You're taking a chance bringing it here. She'll explode when she sees it.”

“She will, won't she? I forgot, I have to go. You can introduce Gran to the walker. Bye.” But he sat down on the tall wooden stool and grinned instead of heading for the front door.

“I bet you won't go anywhere until you have some biscuits.” I popped the tray into the preheated oven and set the timer.

Robin held up a finger and smiled. “Option One, eat and get bawled out by Gran.” He held up another finger. “Or, Option Two, leave, escape getting reamed out and stay hungry. That's a hard decision.”

I turned away, quickly. He looked like one of those Roman
gods, blond curly hair, tall. I hadn't noticed it before, but he was—

“What's a hard decision, Robin?”

Mrs. J. had come down the hallway so quietly neither of us had heard her. “What decision do you—get that damned thing out of here. Now!” She had seen the walker.

Robin looked at me. “How soon will those biscuits be ready? Can I have one to go?”

“You're not going anywhere, young man, until you explain why you brought that thing into my house. I told the doctor that I didn't want it. You heard me!”

“The doctor called Mom,” said Robin. “He said he didn't think you paid any attention to him. Mom told me to go get it. It's not my fault. I got your prescription, too.” He held out a small white bag from the pharmacy. “I remembered to pick these up.”

“No point trying to get on my good side,” she said. “You heard me tell the doctor I wouldn't use an old fart's walker!”

Old fart? She was annoyed. I thought I'd try to settle her down. “You don't have to use the walker all the time, Mrs. J.”

“That's not what the doctor told her,” said Robin.

“Hey, I'm trying to help you out,” I hissed at him.

“I don't care what the doctor said. I hate that damned thing.”

“You haven't tried it yet, Gran. Maybe it will be fun.”

“If the snow holds off, we can go for walks while I'm here. It might be handy for outside. Just for a while. Until you get
stronger, you know, um . . .” My voice trailed off; it sort of withered away under her stare, my words drying up.

She glared at me some more, then at Robin again. “Conspiracy!”

We didn't say anything, and she pointed her cane at Robin perched on the stool. “Go sit somewhere else, you know that's my place. But first, wheel that thing out of my sight. And you, girl, put on the kettle. I need tea.” I scurried around moving the bowls and rolling pin off the counter, wiping it down and filling the kettle.

“I thought you were taking a nap, Mrs. J. It hasn't been an hour yet.”

“Got bored.”

“I bet you couldn't stand leaving Darrah alone in your kitchen. Afraid she'd break something.” Robin was back, without the walker.

Both Mrs. J. and I glared at him. “I've never broken . . .”

“Nonsense, the girl's quite capable of . . .”

“Hey, that's not fair, both of you picking on me at once.”

“Shall we let him stay until the biscuits are ready? Or shall we evict him now?” Mrs. J. flourished her cane and looked ready to personally toss Robin out. I had a vision of her grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out the front door, like a burly club bouncer.

“Hey,” he protested again. “It was a joke, enough already.”

I picked up the rolling pin. “I think he should leave,” I said, taking a step towards him and hoping I looked as scary Mrs. J. did.

“The kettle's boiling, it needs you,” Robin said, grinning at me. “And by the way, Gran does the scowl way better than you.”

“Had more years to practice,” said his grandmother. “How are those biscuits coming?”

The timer dinged. I checked, declared the biscuits ready and pulled them out of the oven, carefully leaving the oven door ajar (“no point in wasting all that heat”) as Mrs. J. always instructed. Robin grabbed a biscuit right off the pan.

“Ow, they're hot,” he muttered through the first bite.

“Where are your manners, young man? You know better than to talk with your mouth full. I've had enough of you today. Go away. Take the girl with you.”

“What about your tea?” I asked.

“Make a pot, then go. It's early, you can have credit for the full two and a half hours. I've had enough company for now.”

“What about a good cook always cleaning up after herself?”

“You're excused for today, girl. Karen's coming over later to unstrap this contraption and help me do the ridiculous exercises the doctor wants me to do. Don't see any use to them, but he's insisting. She'll clean up. You two get yourselves out of here.”

“She's cranky today,” said Robin once we were in the car.

“Really? I hadn't noticed.”

He ignored my sarcasm. “The doctor told her she'd have lots of physiotherapy and would have to do exercises every day.”

“Exercises? Like a treadmill? Or swimming?” I had a bizarre vision of Mrs. J. in a pink flowered bathing cap doing lengths in the community pool.

“No, easier ones. Like drawing letters of the alphabet with her big toe. I guess she'll graduate to something harder later on. Hey, do you . . .”

“I thought she'd be in a cast longer.”

“It wasn't really a break, just a crack in a leg bone.”

“The tibia?” I asked. “That's what Andrew broke when he was seven.”

“No, the other bone, the one that isn't so big or important. I think the doctor just put the cast on to slow her down so she couldn't dig up her garden or do something else that would make it snap right through.”

I was still thinking of the pink bathing cap. “I can't imagine her swimming.”

“Nope, I can't either. But in the spring, she'll get lots of exercise. She likes to mow the lawn herself, with one of those old push mowers. Hey, you want to . . .”