Seeing Things (31 page)

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Authors: Patti Hill

BOOK: Seeing Things
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“In English, please.”
“Let's just say, my sisters wouldn't stay long, not even Sister Corazon Barbara.” She fanned herself with the remaining pamphlets. “You got bubble bath?”
I preferred showers. I never saw much sense in sitting around in something I scrubbed off my body. Time was too precious. “Stop by on your way home. Bring your bubble bath and a radio. You can sing all night long if you want to.”
Lupe crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “So you are going to let them lock you away, just like that?”
“I thought you said—”
“But you're not me. You are not the kind of woman who sits in a fancy cottage all day.”
“The activities director will bus me anywhere I want to go, and they have a recreation room and classes, like line dancing and yoga.” I poured more coffee. “I haven't made a final decision.”
“The food probably tastes like—”
“Residents order off a menu, like a restaurant. Ms. Carlyle said the chef was trained at the New England School of Culinary Arts. That's a prestigious school, all right.”
“And he's cooking at an old folk's home? It makes you wonder. Maybe he didn't do so good at that school—maybe burned the water, forgot the salt one too many times.”
She had a point.
“When
mi esposo
is fishing with his stinky buddies, I don't cook for myself. The food looks too small for the pan, and then I get lonely, so I call one of my sisters and we go out. I always regret asking them, because I end up loaning Dolores money or listening to Pilar gripe about all the rich parents, how they keep their kids up all hours of the night or buy them fancy cell phones to bring to school, and her teachers can't teach them nothing. I didn't have a phone until I married Ernesto, and then we saved for a year for the deposit. Things are so different now. But you know all about that, no?”
I missed my computer terribly, and I depended on my big-buttoned cell phone. “Kids should play outside more.”
“You know, Birdie, you're too young to live with those old farts—maybe not so much on the outside, but on the inside you're probably younger than me.”
She meant this as a compliment, and that's how I took it. Besides, I'd had some time to wrestle with Ms. Carlyle's scare tactics. Either I believed Jesus when he said he'd always be with me, or I didn't. There were countless “maybes” in my future, some of them good and some of them horrible, but I didn't have to face them alone. And that made all the difference in the world.
“I promised Fletcher I'd pray about the decisions I was facing.”
“Good, because I have some things to pray about too. My husband's brother's wife's sister is having a baby. She miscarried lots of times.”
I bowed my head. “Let's pray.”
“And my sister's husband's mother is having a hernia operation tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She gripped my hand fiercely. “Wait. This is really important. My grandson, he is going to Iraq.”
“We'd better get started.”
FLETCHER UPENDED THE SHOPPING bag, sending its contents clattering, rattling, and thudding onto the workbench. A cool breeze scattered Fletcher's plans, so he closed the garage door and turned on the light. “The hardware store had everything except something that looks like logs for the raft base. Maybe I'll trim some branches off a tree or something. Here's the wood for the planks. It's pretty rough, but I don't think lumber in the 1880s was smooth like it is now. I want the raft to be as authentic as possible, even though it's only a model. I downloaded some pictures from the Internet. None of them look how I pictured the raft after reading the description, but I think this one comes closest.”
I leaned into the drawing, using a magnifying glass to sweep the page for details. “If this is what you saw in your mind's eye, that's what your teacher is looking for.”
“The guy at the hardware store tried to talk me into dowel rods for the logs, but then I'd have to paint them. That would take too much time.”
“Something will show up. When is this due?”
Fletcher sorted his supplies. “Tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“Not to worry, Grandma. I got this under control.”
“And the poem?”
“It's almost there.”
That meant he hadn't started the poem yet either.
“Do you have stones for the fire ring?” I asked.
Pebbles bounced on the workbench. “I picked these up at the park.”
“Did Mi Sun help?”
“Tootsie has completely forgotten how to stay.”
“You showed him who's boss, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is Mi Sun excited about the dance?”
He threw up his hands. “We had this all planned. Now the whole thing has taken on a life of its own. She totally changed her mind about borrowing a dress. She went shopping with her mom, and got a purse and shoes to match. She's all excited because she got an appointment to get her hair done.”
“You might want to get a haircut.”
Fletcher slumped on the stool. “This is getting too complicated.”
“Do you know the color of her dress?”
He put up his hands like stop signs. “Tomorrow. I'll have time to do all that tomorrow.”
Time lacked meaning to this generation, so I had to ask, “Since you're just starting the raft, and the poem is still in development, will you have time to go to youth group tonight?”
“No problem.” Fletcher measured lengths of planking for the raft. “Do they have a youth group in Ouray?”
“Yes. It's not as big. And, of course, Mi Sun wouldn't be there.”
Fletcher studied the drawing of the raft. “That's okay. I'm sure I'll like it.”
I played with the pebbles, forming a circle, a line, a pile. “I've decided to give the Grand View Cottages a try this Friday.”
Fletcher pounded the workbench. “Ouch!” He cradled his hand. “If Dad and Suzanne tell me to jump, I have to jump. I'm not smiling when I do it, but what's with you? You don't have to do anything they tell you.”
“Sometimes we do things—” What? To avoid a fight? To leverage a deal? To calm nagging fears? “Your dad is making a generous offer. He's trying to take care of me. I owe it to him to at least try this place out.”
Fletcher tightened the vice to hold the wood for cutting. He spoke through his teeth. “Dad gets generous when he wants something.”
I didn't know what to say to that, so I did what I could to help Fletcher with the raft model. I distressed and sanded the planks to make them look rough yet well worn, just like me.
Meanwhile Fletcher recited statistics as calming as a lullaby. “James ‘Cool Papa' Bell. Played in the Negro leagues from 1922 to 1950. Earned his name at age nineteen striking out slugger Oscar Charleston.”
Tapping a handful of planks on the workbench, Fletcher asked, “Now, this staying at the cottage is all about appeasing Dad and Suzanne, right? You'd never actually move in there. We have our plan.”
What a sneaky one, my own grandchild, mumbling and sawing, all the while measuring what I'd not-so-casually announced about staying at the cottage. Nothing slipped by this one. Under the Einstein T-shirt, there beat the heart of a man—a young man, yes, but still a thoughtful heart. And way too early in his life, sort of like Huckleberry Finn, he was alert to ways to survive, to find the upper hand, to tame the currents of his life.
Chapter 33
The next morning Fletcher set the raft model on the counter where I was drinking my second cup of coffee. I'd stayed up until eleven to help him before shuffling off to bed. I wasn't sure Fletcher had slept at all. Ah, to be young again.
“I think it turned out good.” A lightness lifted his voice.
I ran my hands over the raft. “It turned out great, but did you sleep at all?”
“I'm tough, Grandma.”
“Tough or not, you have to eat breakfast. Grab a bagel or something.”
As big as an atlas, the raft didn't miss a detail. The tiller balanced on a y-shaped twig; he'd furnished the wigwam with blanket rolls made out of Lupe's dust rags; the firebox he'd finished after I'd gone to bed was filled with sand and circled by stones, including a teepee of twigs ready for a match.
“I can see Huck lazing his feet in the water while Jim manages the tiller. This is just how I imagined it, Fletcher. All that's missing is the Mississippi.” I thought about showing the raft to Huck then scolded myself for giving the apparition the time of day. Reality demanded my full attention.
“Did you find the poem I slipped under your door?” Fletcher asked.
I patted the pocket of my jeans, the kind with weathered elastic and huge pockets for all the notes I wrote myself. “I'm waiting for my eyes to wake up.”
“The poem's free verse, so it won't rhyme. Just so you know.”
“Couldn't find anything to rhyme with
Mississippi?”
“Sure.
Dippy, hippie, snippy.”
“You're showing off.”
“Lippy, skippy, yippee, zippy.”
We were too busy laughing and snorting to notice that Andy had come down the stairs. He took one look at the raft and slammed his briefcase on the counter. I rallied every ounce of self-control I possessed not to scold him for bringing his outdoor behavior inside, so strong is the genetic code of motherhood. But such bumping around had always been Andy's way of flashing a warning flag.
“What the hell is that?” he said with unreasonable anger, flipping the edge of the raft with his finger, spilling sand and pebbles onto the counter. “Is this how you're spending your time? You make toys instead of doing your homework? No wonder your grades are dipping.” Andy poured himself a cup of coffee.
Fletcher swept the sand into his palm and poured it back into the fire box, his shoulders rounded, his head down. “This is my homework. We read
The Adventures of Huckleberry—
”
“A project for dumb kids? Really, Fletcher, a toy boat? This is unacceptable.”
“The teacher—”
“The teacher's an idiot. Making toys won't cut it in college and certainly not in the real world. You will ask your teacher what is required for an A and extra credit. No son of mine takes the easy way out. Remember, you're walking in cement now.”
I reached for Fletcher's arm, but he moved too quickly. He pushed the raft to the floor and stomped on it, sending pieces of wood and stones skittering across the floor. Andy stood over the carnage. “You need to learn to take criticism like a man. Now, get your stuff together. I'm late.”
Instead Fletcher knocked Andy's coffee out of his hand and pointed an accusing finger at his face. He dredged each word from a deep place where, no doubt, they had smoldered for a long, long time. “
I . . . hate . . . you!
I hate the way you live. I hate the way you—”
“Enough!”
“Enough what? Enough Fletcher? Want me to disappear? Maybe you should wave your arm.” Fletcher demonstrated with a flourish of his arm. My stomach turned to stone. “Add a little hocus-pocus, Dad. It might help.”
“You have five seconds to get in the car.”
Fletcher flung his book bag over his shoulder and walked toward the front door. “No thanks.” I hadn't put his lunch in the book bag yet.
“This isn't over!” Andy yelled at Fletcher's back.
Fletcher slammed the door behind him.
I sat there like a chameleon being considered by a tree snake. I wanted to pray, but everything I thought to pray involved smiting my very own son. Finally I screamed in my soul,
Be here!

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