Rolling on, p.3
Rolling On, page 3
“Jonah! We’re going in the back. I got some stitching to do!” she hollers toward the living room, where Grandpa sits in his favorite chair that we made sure to haul over from the trailer. It is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen—cracked brown pleather. The handle on the side is so splintered you risk a digit every time you want to pop the footrest.
“I’ve got to turn this thing inside out if I’m going to do it right,” she says once I’m cozied up on the bed and she’s riffling through her box of spools. “Empty it for me, if it’s not already.”
It’s not heavy, so I don’t expect much to come out, and I’m right. When I tip it over the flowery comforter, a few of Bert’s favorite Bic fine-point pens, a graphing calculator, and a bunch of papers slide onto the bed.
I pass the bag over to Mema and pull the contents into a little pile by my side. I’m straightening the papers, because Bert is very particular about wrinkles in his homework, when the heading on one of them catches my eye. I wasn’t snooping. I swear.
Merit Scholarship Application to Brighton Academy: Student Information Form.
Say what? My heart triple-beats. This must be old—an extra copy of something he had to fill out for the winter consortium. I scan the rest of the page. There is a place to fill in any awards and special recognition. And a section for “Scholarship Category of Interest,” with little check boxes where you have to choose between Academics, Leadership, Performing Arts, Athletics, and Global Engagement. And below all that at the very, very bottom is a due date of March of this year. This year. As in the future that is way past Bert’s winter camp.
I slam the paper facedown on the bed and burrow my head into a pillow that smells like roses. But it doesn’t help. Actually, it is suffocating. I can’t breathe! I sit up and throw my legs over the edge of the bed. I’m angling for my wheelchair, but I’m too shaky to stand and pull it over to me. The hum of the sewing machine slows to a purr as Mema lets her foot off the pedal. She knows something’s up. I curl onto my side away from her. I can’t look at her right now. I can’t look at anything. The nugget of hope that Mema can make things better crumbles to dust.
Bert’s leaving. He’s leaving Lakeview Middle for this big important school… in Kentucky! Bert is going to live in Kentucky and I will be here, and that is like nine hours away or more. I don’t even know how many hours it is, because I didn’t need to know until ten seconds ago. And it probably doesn’t even matter because he won’t want me to visit anyway because he will be too busy growing basil in the greenhouse and eating seitan in the dining hall that probably looks exactly like the one in Hogwarts and he will forget all about me and I will still be here, in a trailer in the middle of Oklahoma! I throw my hands over my face and groan.
“What in the ever-loving world has gotten into you?” Mema pokes me in the shoulder.
“I cannot believe I made him squiggle cupcakes!”
“What? Who?”
“Bert! I made him welcome-home cupcakes and they took me hours, because I had to make the marshmallow meringue and a ganache. I bloomed the cocoa!”
“You better start filling in the blanks or I’m calling Anvi to check your vitals.”
I flip over so I’m facing her, even though I don’t want to.
“I just found a form in Bert’s bag for a scholarship to the school he went to over break. It’s for next year. He wants to leave me… us… me and Coralee. He wants to go to high school all the way in Kentucky.”
“Oh boy.” Mema lays the satchel on the bed. Its shoulder strap has been reattached. Good as new. That’s just wonderful. I push it off the bed.
“What a traitor.” She locks eyes with me, quirks one brow. “Should we shred the bag?”
I sit up. “Yes.”
She holds eye contact until I break first. “Fine. No. But I am tearing that application to pieces!”
“He can probably get a new one.”
“That’s not helping!”
“Would tearing up the form help?”
I punch the bedspread. It is too soft and totally unsatisfying. “Stop being reasonable!”
Mema scoots her chair closer. “Honey, it’s just a sheet of paper. You don’t know what it means. And you’re not going to know until you talk to Bert.”
I shake my head. “Uh-uh. Not doing it. I don’t want to talk to him about this. I’m not even supposed to know about it. He’ll figure out I snooped and found out his secret. I didn’t think we kept secrets, but I guess I was wrong.” An image of Bert’s eye-crinkling smile as he finished the last of my cupcake at the counter of Food & Co. swoops in totally uninvited. “I was wrong about a lot of things.” So much for using my baking to prove I’m just as good as his camp friends. I huff. “He has his secret. Now I have mine.”
“There’s a saying: ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ ” Mema explains.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you should get over what’s bothering you and move on.”
I open my mouth to retaliate, but Mema’s not done. “But I think that’s hogwash. I think mending only happens once you turn everything inside out so you can see all the holes.”
I throw my arms over my face. “I don’t want to see this hole!”
“Ellie,” Mema says in her that’s-enough-of-that voice, “you talk to that boy about what’s bothering you. Bert is one of your best friends. And I will not have a granddaughter who says, ‘I’m fine,’ when she is clearly not. That’s not how you were raised. You speak your mind.” She pulls my arms away from my face. “Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“But are you going to listen?”
Mema’s used to getting her way. I am not one to argue with her, usually. But I open my mouth to do just that when a giant crash makes us both jump.
I’m in my chair and out the door before Mema can shake the stiffness out of her knees and stand. Bonus to wheels: they are always faster than feet. I take the corner like it’s the Indy 500, but as soon as I get a glimpse of the kitchen, I grab my brakes and freeze.
Grandpa is standing by the stove waving around a sheet pan. The peanut brittle it once held is all over the floor—along with the contents of every single cabinet and drawer. Measuring cups lie in a sticky puddle of spilled cider. The gallon-size bags have been dumped out and mixed with the snack-size ones. My first thought is, It’ll take Mema forever to sort those out. My second is, Is that blood dripping from Grandpa’s arm?
“Jonah, listen to me,” Mema says from behind me. She’s out of breath from hurrying. I’m out of breath from fear. “You need to put that pan down and come on into the living room. It’s almost suppertime.”
“Don’t mother me, woman!” he shouts, and I flinch. Mema doesn’t. She’s used to it. “Where’s my awl?”
“We left your awl and all your other woodworking supplies back at the trailer.” She sounds calm, but when she puts her hands on my shoulders to pull me back, they shake.
“Why the hell would we do that?” he yells. His eyes are white and wide and mean. My hands tighten on my wheels, but with a rush of guilt, I force myself to let go. This is Grandpa. I don’t need to be afraid of him. But I still can’t look at him. I drop my eyes to the blood drip, drip, dripping from his arm onto the scattered peanut brittle instead.
“We did that when we moved here.”
“Moved where?” Grandpa turns in a frantic circle.
“We’re at Autumn Leaves, hon,” Mema explains, and does not add, Don’t you remember?, because the doctor said that only makes him more agitated. “We had to leave your tools behind because there’s not enough space here.” And because things like saws and awls are dangerous. I flinch as he starts waving the sheet pan around again.
When he gets distracted by the pile of sugar packets he knocked off the counter, Mema whispers, “Hit the button, Ellie.” There’s one in every room. This one’s on the wall right next to the light switch. I reach for the button with a shaky hand. It will page the nurse.
Grandpa sees me press it. It lights up red like Rudolph’s nose and will stay that way until someone comes. I shrink back from his glare, my heart thumping in my ears, and bump into Mema.
“I need my awl if I’m going to finish Ellie’s cupcake mailbox.” He takes a step forward.
“Grandpa, you finished it!” I gulp. “And I love it. We put it right at the end of the driveway a couple of years ago. Don’t you remember?” The words escape before I can reel them back.
His eyes flash with anger, anger at me. “I don’t—You can’t put up what’s not finished! You’re not making sense!” he shouts, and lifts the pan over his head. I squeeze my eyes shut tight.
The door bangs open, and Mema whips me back just as the pan slams to the ground. Another nurse, not Anvi, runs in with heavy steps, and takes Grandpa by his bleeding arm. He twists and tries to wrench it away. He’s shouting and kicking at all the stuff scattered on the floor and my face is wet because I guess I started crying, but I don’t remember when.
And then it’s over, like a summer storm. Grandpa goes limp and hangs his head and lets the nurse lead him to his favorite chair. “Well, how’d that happen?” he asks in a small voice as the nurse begins to wipe his arm with alcohol swabs and wrap it in gauze.
Behind me, Mema mumbles something, but I can’t understand what it is until she repeats it a couple more times.
“He wasn’t going to hurt us.” She says it over and over, “He wasn’t going to hurt us,” until Mom and Hutch get there twenty minutes later.
5 Small Comforts
Dear Jocelyn of Grandbaby Cakes,
I am writing to thank you for your chicken-fried steak recipe. It came at exactly the right time. The cornstarch made the buttermilk batter extra crispy like you promised. We didn’t have cube steak, so I beat a few thin cutlets with a rolling pin to make them tender. Walloping them like a punching bag did me good. I needed something to do with my hands.
You wrote in the recipe that fried meat is comforting and addictive. I agree. It settles down in your belly like a warm blanket and makes you feel solid when nothing else does. Even though no one in my family had much of an appetite when we finally got around to eating it, the few bites we did manage were as soul-nourishing as you said they’d be. We needed a boost. You see, we had a rough night last night—well, my grandpa did, which means we all did. My mema says what happens to one of us affects the bunch, because that’s how families work. I guess she’s right. She usually is.
So thank you for creating this recipe. My mema also says any food can be comfort food if it’s given by the right person at the right time. I wish I could always be the right person at the right time. For now, though, this did the trick.
Your fellow Southerner,
Ellie
When I wake up, the sun is pinstriping the floor in light, and overhead the squirrels are making a racket scrabbling across the tin roof. Mom must have let me sleep in, even though it’s only the second day of school. I squint at my phone. It’s nine o’clock and I have seventeen missed calls and thirty-two texts from Coralee that start with u better be srsly injured bc if not i will do it myself and eventually dwindle to u ok?????.
Susie must have taken her and Bert to school. Which means Mom and Hutch are home, too. Which means last night was not a dream and Grandpa really did cut his arm and throw a baking sheet and forget where he lived. I rub my eyes and burrow down farther in the bed.
Mema wouldn’t come home with us last night, even though we begged. By the time we left, her nose was raw from crying, but her mouth was set. She wasn’t going to leave him. I wish I could go back in time and have them both here. I wish they’d never left to live at Autumn Leaves.
“Hey, baby,” Mom says from somewhere over my head. I pull down the covers. She’s still in her blue bathrobe, which is too thin for winter, and her hair is smushed in the back. Hutch hovers behind her in the doorway with a giant mug of coffee in his hand. It’s the one that reads LORD, GIVE ME STRENGTH, with a mouse lifting a barbell. It’s Mema’s, and it makes my heart hurt.
“That for me?” I push myself up into a sitting position. Mom fluffs my pillow. When she’s anxious, she fusses.
“Nice try,” Hutch says, his voice gravelly from sleep or tiredness or both. “If I’m going to teach the last four classes, I need every sip.”
“Battleball day, yeah?”
He groans.
“Sucks for you, man.” This is what I do when I’m anxious—I joke.
“You’re coming too.” He points his mug at me. “If I don’t deliver you to Coralee soon, she’s going to file a missing person report.”
Mom cups my face in her hands. “You don’t have to, you know. Yesterday was a lot. We can stay here, play Scrabble, finish the Christmas fudge. It’ll be nice, just us girls!” she says, lifting her voice at the end like she isn’t all busted up inside.
I shake my head. “You’ve got class, too. Those high schoolers aren’t going to teach themselves The Odyssey. Besides, I have to give Bert his satchel back now that Mema fixed it. I don’t think he knows how to walk straight without it.” I paste on a smile. Faking happiness must be genetic. Mema would pitch a fit if she saw us. We’re not holding anything up to the light today. We are full-on burying our holes of hurt in heaps of good cheer.
Mom hugs me too long and won’t leave until I swear I will text her immediately if I need to come home. “You are my priority, baby girl. School comes second. Always.” I pinky promise to text and then, much too soon, I am sitting in the van watching Lake Eufaula pass underneath me as we cross the bridge into town and off to school.
* * *
When I finally roll into school at lunch, Coralee doesn’t even let me lock my wheels at the table before she grabs my shoulders and leans in so close her nose is inches from mine. Her blond hair falls in a frizzy curtain around us both and blocks out the rest of the room long enough for her to whisper, “What in the world happened to you?” I shake my head with a not now look and she backs off with a this is not over look of her own. Coralee and I can have entire conversations without uttering a word. It is both awesome and terrible.
As Bert unpacks a small container of hummus and an environmentally-friendly snack bag full of snap peas, I pass him his newly repaired satchel. Before he looks at it, he looks at me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his brown eyes locking on mine. I breathe in and the air scratches my throat.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Again with the fake happy.
He nods and passes me a snap pea dipped in hummus. He believes me, because we don’t lie to each other. And then he carefully wipes his hands, lifts up the satchel, and studies it from top to bottom. “Amazing. Your grandmother is a wizard.”
I wish. If she were, she could fix a whole lot more than bags. I crunch on the snap pea and let the salty hummus fill my mouth so I don’t have to reply. I do not mention Grandpa or the scholarship application. In fact, for all of lunch I don’t talk at all. Coralee fills in the silence with a story about her grandpa Dane’s tooth getting chipped on one of Susie’s healthified granola bars. I guess it’s one of the few original teeth he has left, and he’s taking it personally.
As she talks, I keep sneaking looks at Bert’s satchel. A corner of the application pokes out of the open flap. I could grab it right now and wave it in front of his face and make him talk to me. But then I’d have to tell him why I care so much, and my shoulders sag at the thought, because I am so tired—from not sleeping, but also from worrying about Bert, who I never had to worry about like this before. He was always just there and the same and would always be there in the future, exactly the same. And I’m tired from worrying about Grandpa, who is definitely not the same. I never know which version of him I’m going to get. I’m thirteen. I’m not supposed to be this tired.
* * *
“Give her some space, Francis, jeez!” Coralee swats at the cockatoo hopping from one foot to the other just over my head, where he perches on Coralee’s bedframe.
“Are birds even allowed to have meat?” I ask as Francis inches closer to where I’ve unwrapped the chicken-fried steak sandwich I couldn’t manage to eat at lunch.
Coralee steals half of it. “Well, he’s eaten tinfoil out of the trash before, so I bet he could manage, but we aren’t giving him the chance.” She scoots onto the floor and pulls out a glittery pink Caboodle from under her bed.
“My secret stash,” she says, and winks at me when I lean over at the sound of the lid popping open. “Here, go fetch.” She throws a handful of Goldfish crackers into the farthest corner of her room, and Francis flutters to the ground and attacks them with ecstasy. She unwraps a Milky Way and breaks it in two, offering part to me as a trade for the sandwich.
“My half’s smaller,” I say, then shove the whole thing in my mouth. I’m grateful for the sugar. I’m about to fall asleep right here in a pile of her fuzzy purple pillows.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she says through a mouthful of chicken-fried steak.
I point at her with my Milky Way wrapper. “Look who’s talking.”
“Girls?” Susie calls through the door.
Coralee’s eyes go wide in panic. She kicks the Caboodle under her bed and tosses the rest of the Milky Way at me just as the door creaks open.
“Do I smell choco—? Oh, Ellie. Hi, love. I didn’t know you were here.” Susie’s sweatshirt with the puff-paint snowman on it looks a little looser, so I guess the diet must be working. But she’s watching this Milky Way like it is the last Milky Way on earth.
“It’s Ellie’s, Sus. I swear!” Coralee crosses her heart and gives Susie the baby deer eyes.
“Well,” she says, her eyes still on the candy, “just make sure you take it all with you when you leave. I don’t want Dane to be tempted.”
