I sit on the bed. Grandma lies on her side, her cheek against the pillow, face seemingly relaxed, her breathing regular, and then she lets out an audible exhale, a demi-snore. Her eyes open, she blinks, and falls back asleep.
I put my hand on the hump of her body.
Tears stream down my cheeks and I do nothing to try to stop them.
I sit this way for more than a minute, when I feel Betty Lou put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s lucky to have you,” Betty Lou whispers. We remain like this for another minute until the extent of my relief passes through me. Until I am convinced Grandma is really here — intact, safe and sound.
On Grandma’s nightstand is a cell phone. Betty Lou sees me looking at it. “It’s mine,” she says. “Go ahead.”
I nod. I take a deep breath, pick it up the phone, and dial. My heart thumps. The phone rings four times, then goes to voice mail. I call again. After the second ring, Polly answers.
“Don’t say anything,” I say. “Just hear these words: I want to take you to dinner.”
“Where are you?”
“With my grandmother?”
“Are you okay?”
“More or less.”
“Can you come see me?”
“Yes. Soon.”
“Tonight soon?”
“Yes.”
I hope I’m going to be able to be true to my word.
We hang up.
I turn to face Betty Lou and Harry.
“It’s not very complicated, is it?” I say.
When I’d first absconded with Lane, it made her friends nervous. This seems natural, given that I haven’t been so attentive in the past, but, more fundamentally, because they didn’t like to see Grandma away from her comfortable confines. Then I prompted further concern when I asked Betty Lou to steal Grandma’s care file.
“You were acting strange, talking about conspiracies,” Betty Lou says. “It was like
“But the sprinklers destroyed the recreation room,” I say, referring to the convenient deployment of fire sprinklers that destroyed the computers for the Human Memory Crusade.
They don’t have an answer to this.
“You trust Vince,” I say.
Harry clears his throat. “We had a grunt in our platoon who did everything by the book,” he says. “A lot of guys razzed him for cleaning his weapon all the time and telling us to clean ours. He was a pain in the rear, if you want to know the truth. But in a beachside foxhole on some hot-as-hell island, he had the last working rifle.”
“So you went to Vince and asked his help getting back Lane?” I ask.
“He was livid that you’d taken her,” Betty Lou says. “He feared you were involved in this strange computer project, maybe experimenting with the residents so you could write an article. He thinks you love a great drama.”
“So he’s not involved with the Human Memory Crusade?”
She shrugs. “You’ll have to ask him.”
I fall silent for a moment, then continue theorizing aloud. When Grandma’s friends came to Vince for help, he suggested that they essentially kidnap Grandma. It was Vince’s idea to use chloroform to drug me.
“It was mine,” Harry says.
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t have given her up. Rightfully so. I wouldn’t have given her up. I wouldn’t have… if I had to do it over again.”
I’m not sure what to say to this, if he’s ready to bring up the elephant in the room.
“We thought that if we took Grandma, you’d be inspired to figure out what is going on — with all this computer nonsense,” Betty Lou offers. “We just didn’t want you to do it with Grandma by your side. She’s not your sidekick. She’s a woman deserving of peace.”
“But by drugging me, you scared the hell out of me,” I pause. “You took my grandmother from me.”
I’m surprised myself by my raw emotion. I have hit a place of undiluted truth:
Harry looks down.
“Your grandmother put up a fight on her behalf,” Betty Lou says. “She gave Vince a fierce karate kick to the leg.”
Hence the limp.
Again, I fall silent.
Finally, Harry speaks: “Betty Lou, can you leave me alone with the young man? We have a few things to talk about.”
Chapter 50
From his back pocket, he pulls a piece of paper.
“She has beautiful penmanship. But when the ink started to fade, I typed this up. That was probably 1954. I’ve retyped it a few times since.”
I take the piece of paper.
I read:
September 5, 1942
Dear Harry,
I’m sitting in the park where the boys play baseball. I have a bench to myself, but there are lots of people around. One nearby picnicking couple just stood up and started to sway to music coming from a speaker somewhere. The song is Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller, and it is making me sad.
The man is wearing a Navy uniform. I want to ask him where he’s going. I wonder if you’ll meet him, and save his life. (Could I be any more dramatic?)
I got the letter you sent to the post office. Your poem was so funny (“occasion” has two c’s). I’m sure you’re making your bunkmates laugh. They don’t expect it from you.
I’m not sure I should be writing in response.
Two nights ago, two men in uniform stopped by the house on the corner of the block. The Bensons live there. You probably never met Tommy. He went by “Stork” because of his long neck. He’s a year older than you, or he was a year older. He died crawling across a field in Italy to help an injured friend. That’s what the men in uniform told Mrs. Benson. I haven’t slept in two nights. I hope you are safe. I just know you are taking care of yourself. But I worry that you think you are invincible. I read an article that said all young men think they are invincible and immortal and that’s the reason why we send them into war. You’re different from that, maybe worse. Sometimes I think you don’t mind finding out what’s on the other side. You’re very curious and genuine about exploring the world and I mean that as the highest compliment. You were genuine and curious about discovering the real me.
Every day in the paper I recognize the names of people who have been killed.
When you shipped out, I was sure I would see you again, and I still want to believe that is the case.
I decided that I should write to you because I have something I should tell you. I don’t want you to be hurt by it. I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you. But I feel you should know everything.
I married Irving.
Irving is a good man. He’s not going to go into the war because he had his appendix removed when he was
