Anne, full of the pride of a grandfather. I guess I should have realized she’d be a grown woman by now. “I understand. You were saying?”
“Well, when Patrick has one of his attacks, he’s shouting for your grandfather. That’s who he’s trying to reach. He’s calling out ‘Abe’ at the top of his lungs, and dragging himself along the floor.”
A sick, awful feeling turned in my stomach. The image of one of my oldest friends scrabbling on the floor calling my name filled me with shame, even though I didn’t have anything to do with it. Right there with it was the guilt that I did deserve, as a fleeting feeling of relief passed over me at the thought that I had been spared the horrors of old age that Patty was suffering.
“So I came out here hoping to bring Abraham to my grandfather. I thought that maybe if he could make that connection, then he would be okay. If he could just deliver that message or see that his friend was all right, he could rest. I know what it sounds like, but I have to try.” Her breath hitched and she pressed a finger under one eye.
I went to the bathroom and got her a box of tissue, but when I returned she had regained her composure. I put the box down on the arm of the easy chair.
Anne gave me a sharp, shrewd look that made me rethink my initial impression of her. “Can I ask you something? While you were gone I was looking at that picture, and I had a thought. Please don’t think I’m a bad person, okay? But my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s is very advanced. Sometimes when I visit, he calls me by my mother’s name. He doesn’t always know what part of his life he’s living in, if that makes sense. I know you don’t know me, but would you help me? Will you come with me to see my grandfather?”
This was exactly what I didn’t want. I wanted to escape all these strands of obligation and care and heartbreak. After five years of grief and mourning, when I was finally ready to lie down and rest, I deserved to be left alone. She must have seen something in my face because she stood up and put one hand on my arm.
“I know it sounds horrible, lying to an old man, but at this point I’ll try anything. He was always there for me and my mom after my dad left. I need to do this if there’s any way at all it could help. Please?”
I closed my eyes, thinking of what I owed Patty “Cake” Wolinsky. Some debts, no matter how much we may wish otherwise, must be repaid. No matter the cost.
“I’ll come. Let me pack an overnight bag, and I’ll meet you at the VA home tonight.”
“Thank you so much.” She stood a little taller as some of the tension left her.
She wrote down directions and an address for me, as well as her phone number. She thanked me two more times on her way out the door, and then waved as she drove off. I watched her little blue Japanese sedan disappear down my quarter-mile-long driveway in a cloud of dust.
Just one more day, one more obligation, and then I could rest. I went back inside and closed the door. For the first time in a year, I noticed how silent and empty the house was.
3
I threw my duffel bag on the floor of the truck and put my gun in the glove box. I don’t travel unarmed, I guess that’s out of fashion these days. The house had only needed to be locked, having been ready for a long absence for weeks now. I turned the key in the ignition and the truck jumped to life like a dog hearing the pantry open.
The house receded in the rearview mirror, blurred by the vibration of the gravel driveway passing under the tires. Getting back on the road was an unexpected pleasure, one that I savored with the windows down and the radio on. I hadn’t asked for it, but now that it was here, I couldn’t see a reason not to enjoy it. I wasn’t planning to check out because I was sad, just because life as I knew it had ended, all my friends, family, and world were in the past. I was just the last one, turning out the lights. I could enjoy this last road trip and still finish up tomorrow.
It was late afternoon by the time I crossed the Minnesota border and dusk when I rolled into Eyota. Anne’s directions got me to the Brightwater Retirement Village, which turned out to be a collection of small bungalows clustered around a large central dining hall and medical facility. The low buildings were tidy and brown, surrounded by a carefully tended landscape looking desperately cheerful with too many holly bushes and small evergreen topiaries lining the walkways, all laboring in vain under the gloomy feel of the place. I saw Anne’s car in the otherwise empty parking lot and pulled into a nearby space.
She came out of the lobby and hurried to meet me as I locked up the truck. Looking anxious and relieved at the same time, she took my hand in both of hers and squeezed. “Thank you so much for coming, Abe. I really appreciate it.”
“Happy to do it.”
We walked down one of the wide concrete paths that crossed the lawn to Patty’s place, one of the many detached bungalows on the property, which he had to himself. Anne stopped me once we reached the door and her manner became crisp.
“Just go inside and let me introduce you as a visitor. Let’s see how he’s feeling, and if he recognizes you. I don’t want to lie to him and tell him that you’re his old army buddy, but if he thinks it on his own then we just won’t correct him. Sometimes he’s not very lucid, so if that’s the case, we can try again in the morning, okay?”
She sized me up with her eyes, as if trying to decide if I could be trusted to follow instructions. It was a look I hadn’t seen since my Army days.
“Got it.”
“All right. Let’s give it a try.” She opened the door and ushered me into the miniature house. The tidy kitchen we passed through had bright, flowery wallpaper and unused appliances. The living room had a large oil painting of a sunny field suspended over a couch that was barely larger than a loveseat. It was a half-hearted attempt to make the place feel like a home, but the smell revealed its true nature.
Strong antiseptic cleaners and bleached linens announced “hospital” loud and clear, as did the stainless steel rails at hip height on every wall. Everything was spotless and unused looking, like a vacant hotel room. I followed Anne down a dim hallway done in lime green carpet and dark wood wainscoting.
At the end of the hall, we entered a tiny bedroom that was dominated by a large hospital bed in the center, with the usual array of monitors and incomprehensible beige blocks with blinking lights behind it.
The man in the bed looked shrunken and anonymous until he turned his head and saw me. Then his eyes brightened and his face animated, stamping his real face onto those withered features. I could see Patty looking out at me from that face. “Sarge! You came!” His voice was high and thready.
“Hey Patty, good to see you.”
He raised one of his large, skeletal hands and I shook it gently, feeling the soft, watery flesh around those brittle bones. His body was frail, but his eyes were piercing as always. I could see the resemblance between grandfather and granddaughter in that gaze.
“I been looking for you, Sarge.”
“That’s what I heard. What do you have for me, Cake?”
During basic, the DI’s assigned everyone the most demeaning nicknames they could think of, and more often than not, they stuck. Patrick Wolinsky became Pattycake on the second day. As so often happens, as he became one of the men, it turned into Cake, and was a term of familiar endearment. He became the guy who could take a tough job and make it look easy. Cake. He had another talent, too, which is how he ended up holding the short straw that got him lumped in with the rest of us leg breakers.
His eyes widened, and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “At first they only came every couple of days, but now they’re here all the time. They’re always here.”
“Who?”
“Baitbags, Sarge. I can smell ‘em.”
I’ve spent sixty years and more, living with my memories of the war. I won’t lie and say I don’t wake up every now and then in a cold sweat, but, by and large, the past is just the past and no longer has the power to terrify me. But at those words, the past pressed close to me, and electricity leaped up my spine, making my hair prickle and stand up.
Every man in our squad bet his life on Patty’s nose because he was never wrong. He was our sensitive, and
