Fine. But I had news for her. I wasn’t going to do any chores tomorrow. I wasn’t going to clean up her bowls or cups by the sofa because I wasn’t her maid. I wasn’t going to clean the bathroom sink because she was the one with all the crap in there anyway. What a hypocrite.
She was gone when I got up the next morning. No note. No goodbye. Only a long, raggedy list of chores written on the back of the cable bill on the fridge.
I nibbled on some toast outside on the porch, where Papa and I used to talk about blues music and history and everything in between. I missed him something awful right then because living in his old house wasn’t the same, not without his big voice or his bellowing laughter. Not without his saws buzzing in the basement. Like him, the house still stood, but all the life inside it had been sucked out.
I missed Papa’s excitement when he was working out a new song, the glimmer in his eyes when I took it in. I missed all the family treasures, how he had a story for every one of them. I missed sitting down at the table and enjoying his home-cooked meals. I missed the way he steered our little family through hard times.
Papa always knew how to handle Mom. He’d tell me to let her settle down or explain how she’d been through a lot and she was my mama and that was final. But my stomach dropped when I thought how his mind didn’t work the same anymore. I thought about how the lifetime of knowledge in his head was kind of like the tools in the basement. What use was it if he couldn’t use them?
Miss Cheryl had helped me along in understanding his sickness. She said he had early onset dementia. She couldn’t exactly talk about his medical condition, but she gave me some recommended reading. And normally I wouldn’t have been so eager for summer reading, but I figured it could do me some good to take a look.
Dementia physically affected the brain and affected memory. It’s why Papa had trouble remembering conversations or names, recent events—even me. His confusion could later lead to difficulty speaking or even walking. I quit reading somewhere around the part about the later stages because I had my own troubles swallowing then.
So yeah, Papa was sick. And Mom was worried about cleaning the counters. It made me mad enough to spit. If she couldn’t understand Papa needed us now more than ever, then she was just going to have to stay upset with me. I couldn’t quit on Papa. I told myself I’d remind him my name a hundred times every day if it’s what it took, because that’s what families did for each other.
After breakfast, I looked at her chore list again, the SECOND NOTICE warning bleeding through the other side. I was tempted to ball the stupid list up and throw it away. Instead I got on my bike and set out for Autumn Springs.
It was warming up quick. Soon it would be the kind of hot that just sat in the sky. But the morning still had a breath of nighttime dampness to it as I arrived at Autumn Springs, sort of hoping to run into Mrs. Magnolia in the cafeteria.
Miss Vickie was busy up front and in no mood to help me. She said she hadn’t seen or heard from Papa, so I figured he was lying low. I got to room 414, wondering what I’d find. I didn’t have to wonder long. One knock and the door swung open.
I found myself looking at a well-pressed man in a dry-cleaned suit.
“Caleb.” Papa smiled so big it lifted those heavy bags under his eyes and erased ten years from his face. He clutched his guitar case by the handle, and for a moment he looked so much like his old self I had to take a step back. Then his eyes started roaming and it was clear he was lost in his own mind. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here. We need to get scootin’.”
He eyed the door like someone was after us. I caught my breath and entered the room. I tried to play it cool, hoping he meant we were going to see Grandma. Sometimes we visited the cemetery, and Papa got all dressed up for the occasion, but never once did I see him smiling so big when he did it.
“Papa, where we going?” My voice shook, my insides were jittery. The way he’d been acting I had a feeling what he was going to say. Sure enough, he leaned close, his eyes darting left to right, guarding a secret. Then he whispered.
“Uncle Clyde.”
Oh boy. My throat went dry. “Papa, um, why don’t we do some songs with Mrs. Magnolia?”
“Nonsense,” he said, straightening up tall, buttoning up. “Caleb, I told you. I’m going to play that harmonica.”
I don’t do well with these sorts of situations. I don’t have what one might call a sturdy backbone. And not only that, this was my grandfather, sick or not, and he was giving me a direct order. I was already down a dad, so when Papa stood over me the way he did, fixing his necktie and peering down on me with a soft but stern look on his face, well, all I could do was listen.
“Now Caleb, Uncle Clyde is the only family I got to speak of, and the harmonica I’m talking about is as real as this here guitar I’m holding. So here’s what we’re going to do—”
I took a big breath. Family to speak of? How about you speak of me, your grandson? No matter, there were other issues. “Um, Papa, Clyde would be, what, over a hundred?”
He didn’t even hear me. He fixed his hat and started for the door. “I’m going. It’s just down the road a ways.”
I eyed the emergency cord dangling from the box fastened to the wall behind him, just begging for me to give it a pull. One little tug and this would be all over. I glanced around his sterile little room: the keepsakes from the house, so out of place with the rails along the walls, the tiny kitchenette, his old turntable and records. It was all he had to pass the time. He’d been so…downgraded.
Something he said to me came to mind, back when he’d first arrived here and refused to come out of his room.
Caleb, all of these folks, they’re like old hollowed-out trees that have been dead a long time, just waiting to fall.
As nice as Autumn Springs was, it wasn’t home. I turned away from the cord. “Where just down the road?”
“Just a ways.” He gave me a big grin, like he knew he had me. I felt what a largemouth bass must feel after it gets snagged and dragged to a muddy bank because Papa reeled me right into his little adventure.
I thought about Mom and her chores, her constant nagging. Truth was, I’d planned on getting home in time to do some cleaning, but now, taking a few steps toward Papa, I felt myself swept up by his old smile and charm.
Papa whisked me to the door. “Now come on, let’s go have some fun.” The door swung open and Papa the showman rolled his hand towards the hallway. “After you, my boy.”
Right then, I was still on the fence about the whole thing. Then I looked down and saw a scrap of paper on the counter. Edith Magnolia. And a phone number. I thought about what she’d said, about Papa needing an adventure in his life. With that in mind, I snatched it up and stuffed it into my pocket.
We started left, toward the side door, when my feet dragged and I stopped cold. I could have smacked my own forehead. Papa wasn’t losing a step or his mind; he wasn’t sulking or feeling sorry for himself. He’d been casing the lot. The other day had been a test run. The gazebo, the dry cleaning. I shot him a look. The old man was nimble, moving faster than I’d seen in a long time. He’d sure gotten me good.
Still, I knew it was wrong, what we were doing. I knew the best thing to do was to find help, but I couldn’t.