My Great-grandfather Turns 12 Today (18 page)

“All done with your little visit?” It was Great-great-aunt Lauretta.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“All done for now, Sissie,” Great-grandpa Charlie said.

Chapter 29

Hellos and Good-byes

Sissie? Great-great-aunt Lauretta, this tiny old lady, was
Sissie
? The little girl who liked to swing on the gate?

“I want to stay and talk to you longer,” I said to Great-grandpa Charlie and he smiled and nodded.

“I’m a little tired,” he said, “but I want to talk more, too. You come back and see me another day, all right?”

“Okay,” I said.

“You’re not coming down to your own birthday party?” Great-great-aunt Lauretta asked him.

“Later. I think I’ll take a little nap now,” he said, adding, “The nicest part about being the oldest member of the family is that sometimes you really get to do what you want to do.”

He held out his hand and I took it. The same hand that had grabbed a rope to carry him squealing out over a river, that had dunked bucket after bucket into a horse trough while the summer kitchen burned, that had pushed a red-white-and-blue marble into my own hand a long time a ago—a little while ago.

“I’ve thought it over and I want you to keep this,” he said softly, handing me the little glass ball one more time. “Happy birthday, Michael.”

“Happy birthday, Great-grandpa Charlie,” I said, bending down and giving him a hug, happy that it’s all right for a twelve-year-old boy to hug his one hundred-year-old great-grandpa. I stood back up, slipped the marble into my pants pocket and looked at him. “Will I ever get to go back again?” I asked.

“No,” he said, sounding a little sad. “It’s like your own life. You don’t get to go back.”

“But I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to Uncle Peter or Aunt Mary or anyone,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s the way life is sometimes. People are gone and you haven’t had a chance to say good-bye.”

“Well, you haven’t even said hello to me,” Great-great-aunt Lauretta teased me.

“You two go on now,” Great-grandpa Charlie told us and we slipped back out of the room.

We walked down the same hallway we had traveled only what . . . only a few minutes before. We passed old person after old person, each with his or her own memories, own stories, own life.

“Do you remember when you were a little girl?” I asked Great-great-aunt Lauretta.

“I remember a visit from cousin Michael,” she said, “in the beautiful red jacket. I remember he saved my life.”

She took my hand and squeezed it. “I haven’t had an apple since that day,” she said and gave little laugh.

“When did you change your name?” I asked her.

“William was the one who started to call me ‘Sissie.’ It was short for ‘Little Sister,’“ she said. “The rest of the family picked it up and it stuck. That’s who I was right up until the day I became Mrs. Luke Meyer.”

I stopped. “You married Luke Meyer?” I asked.

“Julius Meyer was my father-in-law,” she said and laughed again. “He mellowed some in his old age. He died of diabetes when he was fifty-eight. By the time Luke and I married, Papa and Mama had passed away, too.”

“So Matthew and Mark were your brother-in-laws, I mean brothers-in-law?”

“They settled down, too. A few years after your visit Matthew gave little Luke a present. He kept it all his life and when he passed away seventeen years ago, I put it away for safekeeping.”

She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out something and placed it in my hand. It was a Swiss Army knife. My Swiss Army knife. It looked old and beat up. It had aged eighty-eight years.

“Did you have this in your pocket when we came down to see Great-grandpa?” I asked. “I mean, if you did and I did, then there were two of them, but there’s only one. So how could . . .?”

She shrugged. “Oh, none of this makes any sense, Michael,” she said. “Maybe when you come to see your great-grandfather you’ll stop by my apartment in Culver City so I can come along, too?” she asked.

“You bet,” I said.

“I can show you the buffet.”

“The buffet?” I asked.

“Papa’s sideboard,” she said. “He finished it later that summer after his hands healed up just fine. Widow Dixon paid him and he paid off all the friends who had loaned us money.”

“What did he do with the extra money?” I asked.

“Spent it on farm equipment,” Great-great-aunt Lauretta said. “Spent it on fences. Barbed wire and posts that surrounded the fields. Mama always said whenever they had a dollar or two put away Papa would spend it on fences.”

“But how did you get the sideboard?” I asked.

“Oh, I was a very wealthy woman,” she said. “Wife of the newest, youngest banker, you know. When the widow died, Luke’s father bought her house and all the furnishings and gave it to us as a wedding present.”

“I have a lot a questions,” I said.

“You probably remember more about that week then I do,” she said. “For me, that was an awfully long time ago and I was only four.”

“You were cute,” I said and then blushed.

But my great-great-aunt just laughed. “And you were, and are, very handsome, Michael. I mean goodness. Gracious. Great balls of fire.”

“You and Great-grandpa Charlie have survived a lot of things, haven’t you?” I asked.

“You don’t get to be old without surviving,” she said. “Everyone who is old has survived and has a lot of stories to tell to anyone who will take the time to listen.”

“Will you tell me some stories?” I asked.

“When you come visit,” she said. “But I’m not the only one, you know. Have you ever asked your grandma and grandpa about the Great Depression or World War II?”

I shook my head.

“Or your mother and father about life thirty years ago? Each generation has something to say. Each generation has its own wonderful and amazing stories.”

“Even mine,” I said.

“You are living, making, and discovering your childhood stories right now,” she said. “They’re priceless treasures.”

We continued down to the sitting room. Most of my extended family was busy having lunch. The food smelled very good. My stomach growled. After all, I hadn’t had a bite to eat in eighty-eight years.

“So what did he want?” my brother Robert came over and asked me.

“He . . . .” I said. How could I put this?

“He had a gift for Michael,” Great-great-aunt Lauretta said.

“Yeah?” he asked. “What?”

“It was . . . .” I began. “I was . . . . We were . . . .” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the marble. “This,” I said.

“One lousy marble?” Robert said. “That was it? I knew his clutch was slipping. Happy birthday. A marble.”

“Shut up, Robert,” I said and Great-great-aunt Lauretta touched my arm. She looked at me, Sissie looked at me, and smiled.

Chapter 30

Visiting Peter, Mary, and William

The rain had stopped by the time my brother David was driving all of us back home. There was no more lightning and thunder but it had started to turn foggy.

“So how much money did you get?” Robert asked me.

“I haven’t counted it,” I said. “About sixty dollars, I think.”

“That’s a lot!” Sarah said.

“Not so much,” Robert answered her.

“And you got some presents, too,” Sarah added.

“Can we stop at the church cemetery?” I asked Dad.

“The cemetery?”

“For just a minute.”

“You want to stop at a
cemetery
?” Robert asked.

“Why, honey?” Mom asked me.

“It just that . . . .” I said. “It’s just that Great-grandpa Charlie was telling me about the old days and I want to see something.”

“‘Great-grandpa Charlie’?” Robert said. “When did you come up with that one? After he gave you the marble? I think he’s lost
all
his marbles.”

“Robert,” Dad said and my brother was quiet.

“Please?” I asked and Mom looked at me closely.

“You’ve had some sun on your cheeks but it’s been cloudy all day,” she said. “And your coat . . . . It’s filthy.”

I shrugged.

“Where would you like to go on your birthday, Michael?” Robert asked, making his voice sound as if he were very stupid. “Duh, I don’t know. How about first where there’s a bunch of old people and then where there’s a bunch of old, dead people?”

“Robert,” Dad said.

“Please?” I asked.

“Take the city center exit,” Dad said to David and about ten minutes later we pulled up next to the little church and cemetery. There was a gigantic apartment building next to it now and a convenience store across the street.

“What did Great-grandpa tell you?” Dad asked.

“Did you know he had a brother named William?” I answered.

 “I guess I had heard that. Died when he was a kid. I suppose people were more used to that back then. It was more common.”

“I want to see his grave,” I said.

“You
what
?” Robert asked.

“Just let me get out,” I said.

“Well, I’m not getting out,” he told Mom and Mom just sighed.

She and Dad and Sarah walked with me into the small cemetery. Giant, gnarled trees kept watch over worn tombstones. The fog made everything look a dull gray.

“This way,” I said, orienting myself from where the front of the church was. “He’s next to Joseph Farrell.”

The two were still side by side. Joseph Farrell’s headstone had settle a bit over the years and leaned to the left. William’s had a chip about the size of a baseball missing from one corner.

I was startled to see the stone on the other side of William’s grave: Peter Farrell and Mary Farrell. The years carved in the granite told me they had died a long, long time ago.

It didn’t seem like it to me. I felt a hole in my heart. A big one. I started to cry. I felt so embarrassed but I couldn’t help myself. Mom put her arm around me.

“It’s all right, honey,” she said.

How could I explain it? “It’s just that . . . .” I said. “I feel as if I know them a little bit.”

“You do,” Mom said.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“A little bit of them is in you,” she said. “It will always be there. And a little bit of you will be in any children or grandchildren you have.”

“And part of Grandma Fitzgerald is in me and she’s in you, too, huh?” I asked, naming Mom’s mom, my grandmother who had died last year.

She squeezed me tighter. “Always,” she said. “Always and forever.” All of us just looked at the graves for a moment or two. “Love doesn’t end with death,” she said softly. “We believe they’re in heaven now. They can still love us and we can love them.”

“Here.” Dad handed me his handkerchief. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and started to hand it back to him. “Keep it,” he joked and I smiled.

“Can I go back and see great-grandpa another day?” I asked.