I strummed the strings. It had a good sound, too. “It’s perfect. Thanks, Mom.”
She smiled, a real smile, laughing some as I strummed along again. She grabbed a spoon. “Ice cream?”
“Can I practice some first?”
Mom closed her eyes. “Sure thing, honey.”
I hit the porch and started picking, looking out over the land Papa used to farm, now swallowed up by weeds and grass and the new bypass on the other side of the trees. I felt like him some, too, with my guitar, even if I had no idea what I was doing. I stayed out there way past dark working on what sure didn’t sound like the twelve-bar blues, while the mosquitoes feasted on my arms and legs and the summer night pulsed with critters chirping and chapping and singing their own nighttime songs. The next thing I knew, Mom flipped on the lights and peeked her head out to check on me.
“Happy birthday, Caleb.”
The next morning, I woke up to find a day-long list of chores slapped up on the fridge. At the top was cleaning up my birthday mess. Put stuff away, mop the floor, and take the trash out. Couldn’t cut grass because the mower kept stalling out. I kept meaning to ask Papa about the carburetor, but he kept going on about Marvin Peel and Joe’s place and all that nonsense.
I did about half the chore list before I got fed up. The sunshine stretched out over the sky, unfolding into another endless day. Days soon to be filled with work once school began. Another look at the list, but all that sun, it was calling my name.
It was around lunchtime when I got to Autumn Springs. I took the steps two at a time, past the columns and through the double doors where after being in the blazing heat the lobby felt like a walk-in freezer.
Maybe hanging out at an old folks’ home doesn’t sound like a romping good time. But the “residents” were something else. Most were awfully nice to me, smiling or nodding along, chewing on something that wasn’t in their mouths. Some made a fuss over a young kid roaming the halls of their memories. Others were more out of it, a few bus stops away from a clear thought.
Take Mrs. Deloris Peters, the main reason I stayed far and away from the third wing altogether. Mrs. Deloris’s door was always wide open because she had it stuck in her mind she was still living in the hills of Amherst County. The door stayed open so that she could keep watch on kids trespassing across her property. Property, as in her farm. She’d look out over the “yard,” making sure no one was trying to steal her chickens.
Miss Cheryl said times were tough when Mrs. Deloris was growing up, that thieving was rampant. I don’t know about all that, but when her face balled up like an old baseball mitt, best believe it was time to get moving.
I said hello to Mr. Kingsbury, who, in the couple months I’d been visiting, had always been parked right near the front door. This poor guy sat by the door day after day, his head bent toward the floor, like the burden of gravity was just too much to bear. Whenever the doors opened, his eyes perked and he grabbed his cane with high hopes. And every single time he was disappointed.
He gave me a nod, rocking along, his hat in his lap, his hand sliding from the cane resting against the sharp fold of his knees.
Miss Cheryl said Mr. Kingsbury had spent nearly every day in that rocking chair for three years, right there on the edge of his seat waiting for his wife. The worst part was that Mrs. Kingsbury had had a stroke ten years ago and had long since passed on, but Mr. Kingsbury couldn’t retain it, so he each day he took his place and waited, only to be let down again and again and again.
He was a small man, shorter than me even, with blue, flickering eyes that swung like old lanterns when he’d turned to me. Before I knew his story, I’d sat down with him. I was waiting for Papa so we could eat dinner, and like a dunce I’d asked Mr. K who he was waiting on.
“My wife, Meredith. She must be caught in traffic.” He leaned over my way. “You know,” he said, his voice lowering and those eyes slowly peeling from the front door. “She’s not a strong driver.”
I nodded. Like I said, this was before I knew he was waiting on a ghost. “Does she live here with you?”
He’d jerked back, rubbing his palms on his legs. “Oh, no. My Mary would never live here.” Then, again with the leaning, a whiff of peppermint. “She still lives at home, but she’s promised to visit, and today’s as good as any.”
I’d thought it was strange his wife lived at home. And sure enough, when those doors moved, the old man jerked his head so fast I thought he was going to leave his eyebrows behind. Two nurses wheeled in an older lady, one I took was not Mrs. Kingsbury judging by the crush of disappointment in the old man’s eyes.
Later, when Miss Cheryl explained the situation, I found it hard to believe. “You mean he gets all dressed up and waits every day?”
“Every day.”
I couldn’t imagine putting on a button-down shirt every day, even for Miss Cheryl. Just the thought of it reminded me how school was approaching. I gave Mr. Kingsbury a quick nod and got moving to the nurses’ station. Miss Cheryl had a stack of towels and asked me to walk with her.
Folding towels might not have sounded like the most fascinating way to spend summer, but I could have watched Miss Cheryl fold towels clear through Christmas. We started walking, and she told me Papa was sitting outside at the fountain in the courtyard. I took this to mean he was behaving, but Miss Cheryl stopped and shook her head, said he was having another bad day.
I turned it over in my head as the old-timey music whispered out of room 223. I thought about all those lives caught in the web of rooms at Autumn Springs, how there weren’t many new memories being created, just old ones floating out the room like the songs on those dusty records.
We reached the lobby and I started for the courtyard. Miss Cheryl called out. “Caleb?”
“Yes?”
Her mouth tightened, she glanced at the other nurse then came around to me. “Just try and remember not to take it personal if he’s not…” She shrugged and fixed the stack of towels in her hands. “You let us know if you need help, hear?”
I nodded. “I’ll get him put together.”
“I’m sure you will, sweetie.”
I looked to the doorway at the end of the hall, then back to Miss Cheryl with a grin, slipping a Hershey bar out of my pocket. The old man couldn’t resist chocolate. “I’ll be okay.”
Her smile sent me skipping down the hallway, past the cafeteria toward the garden area, but I stopped short when I saw Papa out there.
He looked different. Not angry, but not much like himself. Sure, I’d gotten used to seeing him mope around, but there was something about the way he sat on the bricks at the fountain—how his arms dangled at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, how his face crumpled. It made me stop in my tracks.
I was thinking he’d be playing guitar. I had a ton of questions and was hoping, if his mood was right, maybe he’d agree to give me some lessons. Instead he was just there, taking up space like a piece of patio furniture.
I stepped outside. After the chill of the lobby, the heat felt angry. Papa didn’t see or hear me come out, at least he didn’t look up. Maybe he was just deep in thought.
“Hey, Papa.”
His head rose and I stopped and almost gasped. It was his eyes, usually so full of life, be it fire or ice, but right then, out there, in the dragging midday heat, Papa’s empty eyes held nothing but their place in his eye sockets.