The letters flew back and forth, and at last George’s Mom had given in. She quit her job and came to Maine to take care of the old lady. The others had chipped together to buy a small house in outer Castle View, where property values were low. Each month they would send her a check, so she could “do” for the old lady and for her boys.
What’s happened is my brothers and sisters have turned me into a sharecropper, George could remember her saying once, and he didn’t know for sure what that meant, but she had sounded bitter when she said it, like it was a joke that didn’t come out smooth in a laugh but instead stuck in her throat like a bone. George knew (because Buddy had told him) that Mom had finally given in because everyone in the big, far-flung family had assured her that Gramma couldn’t possibly last long. She had too many things wrong with her—high blood pressure, urernic poisoning, obesity, heart palpitations—to last long. It would be eight months, Aunt Flo and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle George (after whom George had been named) all said; a year at the most. But now it had been five years, and George called that lasting pretty long.
She had lasted pretty long, all right. Like a she-bear in hibernation, “waiting for… what?
(you know how to deal with her best Ruth you know how to shut her up) George, on his way to the fridge to check the directions on one of Gramma’s special salt-free dinners, stopped.
Stopped cold. Where had that come from? That voice speaking inside his head?
Suddenly his belly and chest broke out in gooseflesh. He reached inside his shirt and touched one of his nipples. It was like a little pebble, and he took his finger away in a hurry.
Uncle George. His “namesake uncle,” who worked for Sperry-Rand in New York. It had been his voice. He had said that when he and his family came up for Christmas two—no, three—years ago.
She’s more dangerous now that she’s senile. George, be quiet. The boys are around somewhere.
George stood by the refrigerator, one hand on the cold chrome handle, thinking, remembering, and looking out into the growing dark. Buddy hadn’t been around that day. Buddy was already outside, because Buddy had wanted the good sled, that was why; they were going sliding on Joe Camber’s hill and the other sled had a buckled runner. So Buddy was outside and here was George, hunting through the boot-and-sock box in the entryway, looking for a pair of heavy socks that matched, and was it his fault his mother and Uncle George were talking in the kitchen? George didn’t think so. Was it George’s fault that God hadn’t struck him deaf, or, lacking the extremity of that measure, at least located the conversation elsewhere in the house?
George didn’t believe that, either. As his mother had pointed out on more than one occasion (usually after a glass of wine or two), God sometimes played dirty.
You know what I mean, Uncle George said.
His wife and his three girls had gone over to Gates Falls to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, and Uncle George was pretty much in the bag, just like the Drunk Man Who Had to Go to Jail. George could tell by the way his uncle slurred his words.
You remember what happened to Franklin when he crossed her.
George, be quiet, or I’ll pour the rest of your beer right down the sink!
Well, she didn’t really mean to do it. Her tongue just got away from her. Peritonitis—George, shut up!
Maybe, George remembered thinking vaguely, God isn’t the only one who plays dirty.
Now he broke the hold of these old memories and looked in the freezer and took out one of Gramma’s dinners. Veal. With peas on the side. You had to preheat the oven and then bake it for forty minutes at 300 degrees. Easy. He was all set. The tea was ready on the stove if Gramma wanted that. He could make tea, or he could make dinner in short order if Gramma woke up and yelled for it. Tea or dinner, he was a regular two-gun Sam. Dr. Arlinder’s number was on the board, in case of an emergency. Everything was cool. So what was he worried about?
He had never been left alone with Gramma, that was what he was worried about.
Send the boy to me, Ruth. Send him over here.
No. He’s crying.
She’s more dangerous now… you know what I mean.
We all lie to our children about Gramma.
Neither he nor Buddy. Neither of them had ever been left alone with Gramma. Until now.
Suddenly George’s mouth went dry. He went to the sink and got a drink of water. He felt… funny. These thoughts. These memories. Why was his brain dragging them all up now?
He felt as if someone had dumped all the pieces to a puzzle in front of him and that he couldn’t quite put them together. And maybe it was good he couldn’t put them together, because the finished picture might be, well, sort of boogery. It might—From the other room, where Gramma lived all her days and nights, a choking, rattling, gargling noise suddenly arose.
A whistling gasp was sucked into George as he pulled breath. He turned toward Gramma’s room and discovered his shoes were tightly nailed to the linoleum floor. His heart was spike-iron in his chest. His eyes were wide and bulging. Go now, his brain told his feet, and his feet saluted and said Not at all, sir!
Gramma had never made a noise like that before.
Gramma had never made a noise like that before.
It arose again, a choking sound, low and then descending lower, becoming an insectile buzz before it died out altogether. George was able to move at last. He walked toward the entryway that separated the kitchen from Gramma’s room. He crossed it and looked into her room, his heart slamming. Now his throat was choked with wool mittens; it would be impossible to swallow past them.
Gramma was still sleeping and it was all right, that was his first thought; it had only been some weird sound, after all; maybe she made it all the time when he and Buddy were in school.
Just a snore. Gramma was fine. Sleeping.
That was his first thought. Then he noticed that the yellow hand that had been on the coverlet was now dangling limply over the side of the bed, the long nails almost but not quite touching the floor. And her mouth was open, as wrinkled and caved-in as an orifice dug into a rotten piece of fruit.
Timidly, hesitantly, George approached her.
He stood by her side for a long time, looking down at her, not daring to touch her. The imperceptible rise and fall of the coverlet appeared to have ceased.
Appeared.
That was the key word. Appeared.
But that’s just because you are spooked, Georgie. You’re just being Seilor El-Stupido, like Buddy says—it’s a game. Your brain’s playing tricks on your eyes, she’s breathing just fine, she’s—
“Gramma?” he said, and all that came out was a whisper.
He cleared his throat and jumped back, frightened of the sound. But his voice was a little louder. “Gramma? You want your tea now? Gramma?” Nothing.
The eyes were closed.
The mouth was open.
The hand hung.
Outside, the setting sun shone golden-red through the trees.
He saw her in a positive fullness then; saw her with that childish and brilliantly unhoused eye of unformed immature reflection, not here, not now, not in bed, but sitting in the white vinyl chair, holding out her arms, her face at the same time stupid and triumphant. He found himself remembering one of the “bad spells” when Gramma began to shout, as if in a foreign language—Gyaagin! Gyaagin! Hastur degryon Yos-soth-oth!—and Mom had sent them outside, had screamed.
“Just GO!” at Buddy when Buddy stopped at the box in the entry to hunt for his gloves, and Buddy had looked back over his shoulder, so scared he was walleyed with it because their mom never shouted, and they had both gone out and stood in the driveway, not talking, their hands stuffed in their pockets for warmth, wondering what was happening.
Later, Mom had called them in for supper as if nothing had happened.
(you know how to deal with her best Ruth you know how to shut her up) George had not thought of that particular “bad spell” from that day to this. Except now, looking at Gramma, who was sleeping so strangely in her crank-up hospital bed, it occurred to him with dawning horror that it was the next day they had learned that Mrs. Harham, who lived up the road and sometimes visited Gramma, had died in her sleep that night.
Gramma’s “bad spells.” Spells.