When I Find Her (16 page)

“She was quite the fisherwoman, your Grandma,” he says from the kitchen where he’s drinking tea. My brother and sister are watching TV in the living room and my parents are seated at the table with Grandpa. They’re sorting through a stack of bills. The pile’s getting smaller.

“She really was,” says my mother fondly. “And Mom knew how to cook the tastiest battered fish in the county. She won first place at the county fair.”

Grandpa chuckles. “That was my recipe.”

“What?” says Mom in disbelief.

“It’s true.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of this.” She eyes him over the top of her reading glasses like he’s fibbing.

“We didn’t tell you everything, Natalie.”

She puckers her lips, still gauging him.

I can’t tell if he’s telling the truth, either, but I’m going to believe him. I think it’s cool that my grandma loved fishing and that he had a secret recipe.

“So George,” says my father, holding up Grandpa’s phone bill. He shrugs the long hair out of his eyes. “How can I tell which bills you’ve paid and not paid?”

“The ones with the envelopes marked with a red X are paid.”

“That’s too confusing.” My father rubs his temple. “If you marked the front of the statement and not the envelope, then we wouldn’t have to worry if the envelope separates from the bill.”

“That’s my system. It’s been workin’ for fifty years.”

I saunter over to join them, not much taller than eye level with my grandfather, who’s seated. It’s weird being short again.

My mom adjusts her puny black reading glasses. “Dad, do you need home care to come more than three times a week?”

He fiddles with the tie of his bathrobe. “...that seems to be enough right now.”

“Do they treat you well? The ladies who come?”

“Well they don’t beat me, or ransack my bedroom when my back is turned, if that’s what you mean.”

My mom sighs. “That’s good.”

“They don’t lie to me like the neighbors, those lying thieves. You want to know what old man Buski did last week?”

“What?” says my dad with a chuckle.

“Invited me to his
fifth
wedding! He thinks I’m gonna support his habit? He’s been nickel-and-diming me all these years...Oh, let’s share the cost of the gravel, George. Gee, I lost the bill, you’ll have to trust me on the price. Now let’s paint the fence with the most expensive paint money can buy. Oh, don’t trim that maple tree yourself, my son will do it for ten bucks. Ten bucks turned into a hundred!”

Grandpa’s face turns red. He coughs. He hacks and turns purple. I can’t believe his color. I’m breathing rapidly just watching him. Panicked, I step forward, not knowing what to do.

“Dad?” My mom jumps out of her chair but as she reaches him, his coughing subsides.

He holds up his palm. “I’m fine. Fine.”

His color slowly returns to normal. Holy crap. My mom covers her mouth with her hand, horrified. My dad’s frozen on his chair, watching it all go down.

Footsteps run in behind me from the living room. Ivy and Simon stare at Grandpa.

“Show’s over,” he says. “I’m fine.” He shoos them away and my brother and sister retreat.

My mom, trying to catch her breath, returns to the bill-sorting. I blink and gasp what a close call that was.

When I head into the living room, Ivy’s peeking through the blinds, across the street. Loud music is banging from outside, then tires squeal. She says to Simon, “Want to go for a walk?”

She’s so obvious. She wants to meet those trashy boys.

Grandpa scuffles past me, rolling his oxygen tank.

“Leave your valuables behind,” he mumbles to them. “In case you get mugged.”

I stifle a laugh. All this time I thought Grandpa was kind of mean. Now I see I just didn’t understand his sense of humor.

But Simon’s eyes widen in fear. He slips off his wristwatch and puts it on the coffee table.

They leave the house silently without notifying my parents.

“Let’s go to the backyard, sonny boy,” Grandpa says to me. “I’ll show you my vegetable garden.”

He has a garden? I’m impressed that he can still manage one.

We weave through the kitchen. He slides open the patio door and wheels his oxygen tank over the hump of the door track. We land outside on a raised wooden deck and I see that he’s pulling my leg. He doesn’t have a garden. The grass is overgrown and the bushes in the back partially conceal the crooked shed. The blue lake stretches endlessly behind it.

“Nice,” I say. “Let me know if you need any help hoeing.”

He grins. “You’re all right, you know.”

I don’t know why, but the words are sweet magic to my soul.

We don’t talk for a while, just stand outside, soaking in the sunshine and each other’s company. You know how you know that someone likes to spend time with you? That’s how I feel with Gramps now.

“Hey! Hey!” Grandpa’s shouting disturbs the silence. There’s a blur to my right. It’s a big German Shepherd digging a hole in his yard. I’m suddenly aware of many holes.

“Dad,” my mom says through the screen. “You all right? Why are you shouting?”

“It’s Buski’s damn dog.” Grandpa maneuvers himself and the oxygen tank down one step. “Stop diggin’ those holes you blasted thing!” Grandpa makes it to the lawn. The dog playfully runs around his fenced yard for a minute. I see how he got in. To my right, there are several planks missing in the rotted fence.

The dog’s racing up and down as if my Grandpa’s playing with him.

I wonder sadly if this is the dog that finds him dead.

The dog leaps, wagging his tail, heading to the open boards.

“Finally,” says Grandpa, huffing his way back up the stairs.

While Grandpa is distracted with rolling his oxygen tank, I notice that the dog hasn’t left yet. Just the opposite – he’s behind the bushes near Grandpa’s shed, slurping food from a doggie bowl.

My grandfather’s feeding the intruder. Why on earth would he be doing that? He just finished yelling at him.

Then I realize the dog keeps him company.

And that’s why the German Shepherd will be scratching and scratching at Grandpa’s patio door in two weeks. They’re friends.

“Good dog,” I murmur as he cleans out the bowl and his tail disappears through the fence.

Just as Grandpa reaches the top step, a sharp pain lurches through my side. I clutch my ribs. Oh, man, the pain. I buckle over. The pain is enormous, like my guts are spilling open. What’s happening?

Uhh…I forgot all about watching the clock. My six hours of time travel may be up. Am I going back to real time? Like this, with Grandpa watching? Has my cracked rib flared to the point of this agony? I topple over the deck onto the grass.

“Luke!” shouts Grandpa.

“Luke!” shouts my mom.

“No!” My dad leaps and I hear the bang of a chair.

I roll and roll and roll. I succumb to the throbbing pain and meet with a blinding, powerful darkness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The darkness, as black as velvet, spins and spins. Light finally breaks through. It’s the ceiling, moving in circles. I’m flat on my back on the hard floor of a basketball court. The pain in my side is miraculously gone. Brilliant overhead lights sear my eyes. A basketball rolls onto my stomach. I clench it. Bleachers full of spectators shout at me but I can’t make out what they’re yelling.

“Luke,” says a man gently beside me. “It’s too soon.” I think I recognize his voice. I squint at his face. It’s blurry and I can’t make it out. A man in his fifties.

“My darling boy,” says an unfamiliar woman to my left. “You’re not ready.” Her face is obscured by the lights and her long, fuzzy blond hair.

Confused, I reach out and touch her arm. She’s here. She’s solid in the flesh. I can’t be dreaming then. She clasps her tender hand over mine.

They shake me by the shoulders...then my body rises into the air as if some magician did a magic trick. I am flying, flying through the ceiling, the clouds, through rainbows. The sun turns into the moon. It’s blue and beautiful. The man in the moon smiles at me. Colorful stars burn brightly in the sky. Look how amazing they are. Each one sparkles in a different brilliant color. Violet, magenta, green, orange, gray, blue...

They fill me with a tide of overwhelming glory.

I am floating on joy...high, high in the sky. I land on my back on a sunny beach. The sand is warm beneath me. Rich and powerful waves thrash at my ear. Hazy sunlight bounces off the sand, but the sun, the sun itself, is a ribbon of colors. Its ribbons, its rays, unfurl over the rippling ocean in streaks of turquoise, red, gold, silver, green, lavender....My sense of smell doesn’t override my other senses. It’s color and light that overwhelms me, and the blissful heat and feeling of peace.

Footsteps thud around my body and I feel a stretcher tucked beneath me. The arms are lifting me and running along the water. Such strength, such love. I struggle to lift my head to see who they are. They are Viking men. Vikings are carrying me on a stretcher, running along the beach. I count them...nine young Vikings of various ages.

“Luke,” says the youngest who looks shockingly like me, except with red hair and he’s wearing animal skins and ram horns. “Can you teach us the game?” He holds up a basketball.

“Thorkell,” the oldest one says to him. “It’s too soon. Tell him.”

“We are waiting for you, Luke,” says Thorkell.

“Who are you?” I say.

“We are brothers and cousins. We are your cousins. Waiting to meet you. Waiting to play the game with you.”

My cousins…nine of them plus me makes ten…enough for two perfect teams of basketball.

“But the time is not right,” says Thorkell.

They turn away and concentrate on carrying me. I look ahead to see where they’re going. I spot their great rowing ship in the ocean. It’s tall, massive, gleaming of wood. Magnificent.

“It belongs to Eric the Red,” Thorkell explains. “Our grandfather. Your great-grandfather many times removed.”

What does he mean…where am I? The ribbons of colors, rays of sunshine, spill into my eyes. They are carrying me on a stretcher of love...the warmth and power of light and ease and joy lift my body high to the clouds, yet they’re not clouds but waves of rolling ribbons of light. I pass the blue moon again and the man smiles at me.

I land in a bed of grass. Something is licking my wrist.

I turn my head. It’s Rusty. My dog! He wags his brown tail. I hug him in soulful glee. It’s been years since I’ve seen him. Our connection is jubilant. Pure love.

Then I realize where I am.

This must be Heaven.

I’ve died
.

The leukemia?

I sob out loud. I SHRIEK. I fill with desolation. Rusty whines and licks my arm but he can’t comfort me.

I’ll never see the humor and tenderness in Jennifer’s eyes again. I’ll never touch her face, kiss her lips. I’ll never be able to say how sorry I am that she broke her arm. I’ll never be able to tell her that I’d go to the ends of the earth for her.

Why did I come to this strange place? I must’ve died in real time…the cracked rib…leukemia…and it affected me at Grandpa’s house.

“
No! Jennnniffferrr!
”

Rusty cries.

I struggle to return to the people I love. I clench my muscles, I will myself to go back, but I’m still here and still sobbing as Rusty whimpers and presses his furry head against my chest.

I’ll never see my mom and dad and Simon and Ivy.

“Send me back!” I gasp. “Why did I have to die?” I urge my brain to return, but nothing happens. I yell, “Why did I die?
Why did I die?
”

“Luke,” says the familiar man I met earlier. “You’re asking the wrong question.”

I recognize it now. It’s my grandfather’s voice. I turn to look at him and through the sunny, colorful waves of my own tears, I see him as a much younger man. In his thirties. Gone are the wrinkles. Gone is the gray hair. He’s muscular and younger than my father.

“Darling boy,” says the lady with the curly blond hair. She too is much younger than when she first greeted me at the gates of Heaven. “Darling Luke.”

“Are you who I think you are?” I murmur. The woman I’ve never met. “Grandma?”

The welling of her tears make her blue eyes bluer. She radiates love as though she’s made of it. Warmth, compassion, knowledge, hope.

“Yes,” she says gently. “I’m your grandmother. I want so dearly to spend time with you, but it’s too soon.”

“You must go back,” says Grandpa. “Only you have the power to do it. Go back to me, Luke....”

I concentrate, cease crying, hold onto Rusty until he stops moaning, take control and will my body to explode out of itself and return to those I’m not ready to leave.

But I’m going to be leaving Grandma and Grandpa and Rusty here. I panic. “You said I’m asking the wrong question, Grandpa. You said it’s not ‘Why did I die?’ So what’s the right question, Grandpa? What is it?”

He doesn’t answer. Three golden faces watch blissfully as I am sucked into a light vortex that spins me into a rainbow. I arc across the sky in a misty rain.

∞

“I’m a rainbow,” I mumble. I’m being lifted. My Viking cousins must be carrying me again.

“He’s comin’ to,” says Grandpa. Someone gently touches my face.

I struggle to open my eyes. The light behind Grandpa’s head illuminates his face in shadow, so I can’t make out how old he is.

“Luke, how do you feel?” My mom leans over my other side.

“Ahh,” I mutter, trying to sit up.

I’m on a gurney, being lifted by two paramedics.

“No!” I bolt upright in Grandpa’s backyard. What is this time and place?

“Easy, son, take it easy.” One of the paramedics, a woman, tries to soothe me.

“Put me down.
Please
.”

They set the stretcher down on the back lawn beside the deck. An IV bag swings over my head and the tubing’s secured to my arm. Oh, great. I’m also hooked up to a cardiac monitor.

Confused, I unbuckle the strap across my waist. “I’m fine.”

When I swing my legs off the stretcher, a warm tongue licks my knuckles. Rusty? No, no, it’s the neighbor’s dog. The German Shepherd.

“Away you go, King,” Grandpa says to the dog. “Leave us be.” Grandpa turns to me. “Easy,” he says, shouldering me on the stretcher.