very young and the surgery could create medical problems if he were sent into combat.
He’s going to take good care of me and our family. He doesn’t like to have adventures and he doesn’t like to lose himself in the world, if that makes sense. But he has things under control. He doesn’t mind if I say the things that I think, and sometimes he doesn’t even notice exactly what I mean. I guess that’s a good thing and a bad thing. You seem to pay such close attention to me. You hear things that I don’t even realize that I’m saying, and then I realize how good it feels to be heard.
I know I shouldn’t be writing these things or even thinking these things. I feel like a harlot. But the worst part is that I don’t totally mind. I find it exciting to feel like I am alive. You make me feel that way.
I am trying to have it both ways. That is worse than being a harlot.
That’s enough sad talk. I wish they’d turn off the stupid music.
Please wear your helmet. Don’t drink water that isn’t clean. Change your undergarments! Don’t volunteer for any adventures or give any other girls secret books. I know that I am not entirely making sense, but there are things I’d like to tell you that don’t belong in this letter. Please just know that you have made a great impression on me, much bigger than you can know at this moment. You are alive inside of me.
Sincerely,
L.
I look up from the letter at Harry. He is pale, his skin pallor betraying tension beneath his unflinching demeanor.
“One time you threw up on a snake,” he says.
It’s a jarring statement and it takes me a moment to adjust to it. He’s referring to the time I was at the reptile zoo with Grandma. The curator forced me to touch a boa and I got scared and threw up.
“Grandma told you about that?”
“I watched it from behind a museum post,” he says. “I watched your Uncle Stevie play in a band, and I took a volunteer job at the concession stand so I could watch your dad play high-school baseball.”
“Did you teach me to swim?”
He nods.
I’m remembering the time my grandmother took me to Santa Cruz when I was five. We met an old lifeguard, or so I thought. It was Harry.
“You were a natural,” he says.
“Holy shit.” I’m having another revelation. His face tightens. Harry doesn’t like cursing.
I continue: “You were the man in the rowboat.”
When Grandma used to take me to Stow Lake, she hired a man who worked at the boathouse to row us into the center. She’d ask me about my life. Harry would listen to the interview in silence.
He nods.
“You got Grandma pregnant before you shipped out. She didn’t know, or tell you, until you came back?”
“Your grandmother did what she had to do. She didn’t know if I’d make it back. She didn’t know if what we had was the real thing.”
I am speechless, but calm.
“She’s a fine woman.”
He’s so noble, old school. I can’t reconcile this man with the creative romantic who seduced Grandma on a first date with a secret note and a hidden library book.
“Did Grandma know you were watching us?”
He nods.
“I never went against her. I want you to know that. Your grandmother and I had a secret friendship, but it was only a friendship.” He pauses, and adds: “Mostly, just a friendship.”
“You had your own family?”
He shakes his head in the negative.
“It must have been so difficult.”
He looks down.
“I didn’t graduate from high school,” he says after a pause. “I worked in a concrete yard.”
“How is that relevant?” I ask, gently.
“We came from different backgrounds but your grandmother and I had something I can’t explain very well. I’m a different person with her than I am with anyone else. I think she’s a different person too.”
We fall silent.
“Did my grandfather… did Irving know?”
“If he did, he never said a word about it — not that Laney told me about. He was a good man. He treated her well. If you know Lane, you know she can’t live just one life. She needed to know there was something else out there.”
I take this in. He continues.
“I saved money and took trips and gallivanted some. I ran with the bulls in Spain, and I dove off cliffs in a Chilean rain forest, and other things. I sent your grandmother letters. I’m not much for writing or telling stories, but I tried — for her.”
He stops talking. He’s done.
“When she realized she was losing her memory, she decided to tell her story. She was going to tell me and then decided to tell the computer,” I say.
I see the first raw emotion on Harry’s face. His eyes are wet.
“She’s getting better. She’s remembering better, now that she’s away from the machine.”
“Did you know it was causing her a problem?”
“I don’t know anything about those foolish computers. I just know that in my day, we trusted our secrets to people.”
Now I see he’s looking in her direction. I follow his gaze. Grandma’s eyes are open. She’s looking ahead, and she is smiling.
“Harry,” she says.
“Laney.”
“I had a wonderful dream.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About what?”
“Your dream.”
“Come sit with me,” she says.
He walks over and sits by the side of the bed. He seems almost shy about it. She takes his hand.
“This is nice,” she says.
I watch them for a moment, finding I can barely speak for the tears.
From my pocket, I retrieve the paper I’d taken from Pete’s library. I unfold it and I walk to Harry.
“Does this mean anything to you?” I ask.
He shakes his head, then turns back to Lane.
I use Betty Lou’s cell phone to retrieve the messages from my own phone. There is one left by someone with a nervous, high-pitched voice.
“I’m sorry that I ran away on Halloween. I was afraid. Come visit me tomorrow on the basketball court. I have something I think you’re looking for. You know who this is. I’ll be waiting.”
I close the clamshell phone and put it back down. I lean over and kiss my grandmother on the forehead.
“Does she want the world to know about this, about you, her secret?” I ask Harry.
“She’s getting better. When she’s not at the computer, she seems more like herself.”
“Meaning what?”
“Maybe she can answer your question herself in a few days.”
Outside the room, Vince stands guard.
