I snorted. “She’s not a pet, Carl.”
“I want her to stay here for the week, like she planned. She looks like she might be in between places right now.”
I readjusted in my chair, glanced around, then leaned in. “Have you had a stroke?”
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Maybe your hearing aids are broken.”
“I can hear you just fine.”
“Really? Then did you hear Nora this morning talking about Sharon? Remember that lady? She kind of looks like a hornet. Been around for a few months. Keeps busy by handing out pink slips to anyone who coughs wrong. Sound familiar?”
After a reluctant pause, his chin dipped. I’d left out some of the more choice adjectives I had for Centennial’s new owner, but he could fill them in on his own.
I said, “Well, that’s good news. You must just have low blood sugar then. Why don’t you eat something, and when Nora gets back we’ll tell her what’s happened. I’m sure she’ll—”
“You don’t understand,” Carl said.
“No, you don’t understand.” My pointer was suddenly at the tip of his nose, and my next words roiled in my throat like bile before I spat them out. “I don’t care if your granddaughter’s homeless. I don’t care if her name’s Josie or Jesus. I’ll be damned if one of your handouts lands me in Simmons.”
My voice cracked open and bled on that last word, like always. That’s why I tried to never say it. Simmons Home for the Aged was the only other old folks’ home in Everton, Texas, and the moment its name passed my lips, I saw the hellhole in detail. There was my uncle, lying in that bed, looking up at me like he was a dog I’d accidently clipped on the highway.
This was the same man who’d helped build my father’s farm, who’d taught me how to fly-fish and whistle, and the very last time I saw him, I ran from him. I ran from that place. He died there a week later, surrounded by nothing except the moans coming from the hallways, and at the time, the news gave me a cool blue feeling: Thank God I don’t have to go back. Three decades later, and that feeling had turned blacker than the inside of a casket.
I swapped my coffee for ice water and took a sip, confident I’d made my point by merely naming the dump out loud, but, just in case, I added, “You got savings for some other place that I don’t know about? Because I sure don’t.”
He shrugged, like it didn’t matter, and sat there for a while, fingering the dull wedding band stuck forever on his finger by his arthritic knuckle. I watched for a bit, then decided this must be about Jenny, his late wife. They were married for fifty-two years, no children to show for it, yet here we were. So he’d obviously messed up at some point, and now he wanted to pay his penance.
Personally, I’ve never really subscribed to that stuff. Too much work. Carl, however, believed in heaven and hell, and at present he thought he had horns instead of a halo. Maybe he was right; I don’t know. A man like me couldn’t get all square with God this late in his life no matter what he did, so why bother trying. But Carl hadn’t been born sorry like me, even counting this mess, so I guess I didn’t bemoan the effort. Thing was, Josie staying here was a horseshit idea, soul-saving or not, so we had to think up a better way.
I said, “How about you set Josie up at the Como Motel? It’s only sixty-nine dollars a night.”
“That fleabag?” Carl said.
“It’s a roof.”
“I wouldn’t let my dog sleep there.”
“Okay then. The hotel in town.”
He gave me a give-me-a-break look. “A week there would be almost”—he paused to calculate—“two thousand dollars.”
We both went quiet at the number. It sounded like a lot because it was a lot. More than we could afford.
Finally, I said, “Wait until she gets settled somewhere and invite her to visit later, like a normal person.”
“There is no later,” he snapped.
“Easy now. How can you be so sure? You haven’t even offered—”
“I have. There are shoeboxes in my closet full of—” He caught himself with a sharp breath and met my eyes.
After a moment, I ventured, “Not shoes.”
He shook his head and said quietly, “No. They have all the letters I wrote to my daughter after Jenny died, begging her to meet with me.”
“I see,” I said, my voice wilting with the realization that he’d lied to me while hiding the truth right inside our room. I’d passed by those dusty boxes on the top shelf of his closet a thousand times and never once gave them a second thought. Didn’t have a reason to. I would’ve never pegged Carl for the kind of man who would piss on your leg and tell you it’s raining. Yet here I was, drenched.
He cleared his throat. “I wrote her every week for ten years straight, but the letters always came back unopened. When I moved here, I didn’t have room to store any more, so I gave it up.” He paused, shaking his head. “For fifteen years, I’ve prayed for some kind of response—a note, a call, anything—and now my granddaughter is at my doorstep—”
“Windowsill.”
“—and I know if I turn her away, then that’s it. It could be fifteen more years before I hear from any of my flesh and blood again, and by then . . .” He looked at me, his spine bowing. His chin trembling. “This is it, Duffy.”
I had to look away; seeing him break like that cored me out. It almost moved me.
Almost.
He grabbed my forearm. “We always said if we could change anything—”
“I’d swap my roommate,” I said, hoping like hell to lighten the mood.
“—anything at all in the world, it would be to have some family left.”
“We can’t go back in time.” I spoke reflexively; it was my standard answer for regrets, especially this one.
“I don’t have to,” he said softly, carefully, taking his hand away.
I stared at him while it registered—how different we suddenly were from each other. Yesterday, we were a pack of lone wolves. Today, we were nothing.
“At least let Josie stay here the night,” he said. “One night.”
“We have nowhere to hide her,” I said, feeling suddenly desperate. “Look around you.”
He complied, even though he didn’t have to; we could walk around Centennial blindfolded. His slow inspection started with the hall, where our room was the second door on the left. There were nine others just like it down there, all double-occupied except for the last, which Sharon was fixing to renovate for some new highfalutin, high-paying resident. Next, he looked to the living area, and beyond that, the TV room, which we shared with everyone, just like we did the dining hall, and the foyer, and the atrium. The glossy trifold brochure said the building was a retired bed-and-breakfast, but I likened it to an oversize wardrobe. And we shared it with two nurses on duty, one front desk manager, one life enhancement coordinator, one cook who doubled as the muscle when needed, and sixteen other senior citizens.