Saving Rain(6)

“Why the hell are you like this?!”

Like what? What did I do? All I said was that I had to pee.

I wiped my eyes, opened the bathroom door, and almost ran right into Gramma.

“Go eat your pizza, Soldier,” she said in a hurry as she ran up the stairs.

Grampa and Mom were still yelling at each other up there, and I wished my friends weren't here at all.

But I ate my pizza and talked with my friends, and they didn't treat me weird or anything. Even though Grampa and Gramma had been upstairs for a long time and I knew they were all mad at each other for some reason. But Billy, Matt, and Robbie didn't seem to notice or care. And when Gramma finally came back down, she announced that it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and have cupcakes.

Mom didn't come downstairs.

Mom didn’t sing.

Mom didn't have a cupcake.

I bet Billy's mom sang and had a cupcake on his birthday. I bet Billy’s mom didn’t yell at him for having to pee. And then I was sad as I opened my presents and watched as my friends left. Gramma had asked if I wanted to sleep at Billy's house. She’d said she wanted me to because it was my birthday and I deserved to have fun with my friends, but I didn't want to.

Instead, I went to bed with Sully, feeling like a five-year-old instead of an eight-year-old because I cried into my pillow until I fell asleep and dreamed of walks with Gramma and fishing with Grampa.

“Soldier? Soldier, wake up, sunshine.”

My eyelids opened a crack to see Mom kneeling beside my bed and humming her sunshine song. She was crying, but she was also smiling, and in her hand, she held a cupcake with one lit candle standing in the center.

“You didn't think I'd let you go to bed without singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ did you?”

I sat up slowly, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and asked, “Why did you fight with Gramma and Grampa?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Because I screwed up again, baby. I … I have to get a new job, and I had a headache and took something I shouldn't have to make it better. The Bad Stuff, you know. But I'm gonna clean myself up, okay? I promised them I would, and I'm promising you too. Everything's going to get better.”

She always promised. But unlike Gramma’s and Grampa’s, Mom’s promises broke easily.

“Okay, Mom.”

“Now”—she checked her watch and smiled—“it's eleven eleven, baby. You changed my life at this time eight years ago. I told you then you were gonna save me, and I still believe that. I really, really do. You're gonna save me, right, baby?”

I didn't know what she was talking about. I was only eight years old. I was just a kid, and I wasn’t Superman. How was I supposed to save anybody? What did she mean?

But I didn't bother asking because, sometimes, it was better to just let her talk, so I did.

“Sure, Mom.”

“Now, make a wish, sunshine. Make it a good one, okay?”

So, I squeezed my eyes shut, made a wish that this promise wouldn’t break, and blew out the candle, then watched a spiral of lingering smoke reach for the ceiling before it disappeared into the dark.

***

Age Eleven



Grampa's tackle box creaked open to reveal his treasured collection of bobbers and hooks. Last year and every year before it, he never let me touch them myself. I was too young, he'd said. I could hurt myself, he'd said. But now, he was showing me how to attach the hook to a line and bait it without his help.

“Look at you go,” he said, watching with a glimmer of pride reflecting in his tired eyes as I hooked the wriggling worm with ease.

I didn't poke myself once.

“Cool.” I grinned, holding the line up to smile at my handiwork.

Grampa laid a hand against my shoulder and squeezed. “Soon, you won't need me anymore.”

All at once, my pride was wiped away by an unfamiliar, unexplained sadness and dread. Billy's grandfather had died a couple of years ago, and ever since then, I'd been acutely aware of Grampa's wrinkled skin and white hair. He wasn't as fast as he used to be, and he couldn't go up and down the stairs without complaining about his knees. I was doing more of the chores around the house because Gramma had insisted Grampa couldn't do them anymore, and I didn't like it.

I didn't like that dead meant gone, and with every chore that Grampa couldn't do, I knew he was closer to being gone.

What am I going to do without him?

Maybe if I do all the chores, he’ll never be gone at all.

“Hey, buddy. Are you gonna cast that line or what?”

I cleared my throat and threw away all thoughts about death and growing old. Grampa wasn’t dying. He was fine. He was here right now on the lake, like every other summer, and we were fishing, like we always had. Nothing was ever going to change that.

So, I stood on the dock and sent my line out into the water, refusing to pay attention to how he needed to sit instead of stand.

We fished for hours, collecting enough bass to be frozen and eaten for the rest of July. We collected our things and trudged back to his truck in the gravel parking lot. On the way back to the house, we listened to Grateful Dead and George Harrison and stopped at McDonald's for a soda and a burger. Grampa glanced at me across the truck and lifted one side of his mouth in a smile that made me feel weird and confused.