An Early Winter (2 page)

"Well," Granddad says. "Well." And he straightens up, smoothing back his hair and tugging on the front of his wool plaid shirt as though righting himself after an encounter with a strong wind.

Tim pulls himself up straight, too. He smoothes his own hair, tugs on his sweatshirt. "What do you want to do?" he asks. As long as he can remember, he and Granddad have gone off together on "adventures." That's what Granddad calls them, even when the adventure is no more than a walk to Swenson's Drug Store on Walnut Street for an ice-cream cone. Now that Tim is back, they can have a new adventure every day.

Granddad tips his head to one side, clearly weighing the possibilities.

Voices float back from the kitchen.

"How is he?"

"How are you coping, Sophie? It must be so hard!"

"Don't worry. We're here now. You aren't alone anymore."

Alone?
Anger rushes through Tim's veins. As - though being with Granddad is the same as being alone!

He checks out Granddad's face and sees that he has heard it all, understood it all, too, though they claim he doesn't understand anymore. His smile has faded. His eyes, always such a bright blue that looking into them is like looking into a sunny sky, have grown opaque.

Tim takes his grandfather's hand protectively, but the larger hand doesn't close around his. Instead, Granddad stands for a moment, swaying slightly, then turns abruptly and moves toward the front door.

"Granddad," Tim calls.

Granddad stops, one hand on the doorknob, but he doesn't turn back to Tim. He just stands there, his head lowered.

Tim can't think of anything to say.
I'm sorry? I'm sorry they're treating you like a little kid who doesn't understand anything at all.
He says instead, "Don't you want to do something?"

No answer. Granddad just opens the door, steps out onto the porch and pulls the door shut behind him with a soft click.

Left alone in the living room, Tim bites his lower lip to stop its sudden trembling. He's not going to stand here and bawl. Granddad is upset, that's all. He has a right to be upset.

Paul emerges from the kitchen. "Where'd your grandpa go?" he asks.

Tim shrugs.
How should I know?
the shrug replies, almost insolently. He doesn't trust himself to speak.

Paul glances past Tim to the front window and seems to understand. Sometimes Paul is too good at understanding. He drops one of his huge hands on Tim's shoulder. "You know, don't you, Timothy? Your grandfather isn't himself these days. There were problems before, little problems we all saw, but they're getting pretty bad now."

Up until Paul came along, Granddad was the only person in the world who called Tim
Timothy.
His mother—and Grandma, too—calls him
Timmy
still, though he's long since outgrown such a baby name.
Timothy
is miles from
Timmy.
The name sounds better when his grandfather says it, though.

He ducks out from under the weight of Paul's hand. "What do you expect when you all go off and talk about him that way? He's not deaf, you know."

Paul nods. "I know," he says quietly. And then, as though it will change anything, "I'm sorry."

Tim says nothing. What is there to say? It's his grandfather they should be apologizing to.

Paul shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shifts from foot to foot. "Do you want to do something?" he asks finally. "Go for a walk, maybe? We were stuffed into that car for so long, some fresh air would feel good."

Tim shakes his head.
Not with you
, the shake says, and he figures that Paul gets that message, too, because he doesn't say anything more. He just touches Tim's shoulder again, then quickly withdraws his hand before Tim can pull away. He heads back to the kitchen, where Mom and Grandma are still gabbling at each other.

"Did you see the Buick?" Grandma is saying. "Scraped all along the side. And he doesn't even remember what happened. Or he won't admit it if he does."

"It could have been a person he hit this time," Mom is saying. "It could have been a child."

Tim wonders why, when people want to emphasize how bad something is, they always talk about children being hurt. Are children more important than adults? If they are, why doesn't^ feel important?

He turns his back on the kitchen voices, stepping to the large picture window. Granddad has taken up a rake and is scratching at the grass, lifting the rake and letting it fall, then pulling it toward himself with short, fierce strokes. At his feet is a small pile of bright leaves from the maple tree that dominates the front yard. A very small pile. It is much too early for raking.

"He gets up in the night," Grandma is saying, her voice tight with indignation. "Comes down here to the kitchen and turns on the stove. He thinks he's going to cook himself something. You know the man never learned how to boil an egg, but now..."

"He could burn himself," Mom murmurs.

"He could burn me up in my bed," Grandma says. She sounds as though she thinks he's trying to do exactly that.

Tim grimaces. He knows it's just his grandmother's way, to sound cross when she's upset. He knows, too, that she loves his grandfather, though her tongue would probably turn to stone before she would say it. But if Granddad really is changing, why can't she change, too? Be less critical. Gentler.

Tim stands there at the window, waiting for Granddad to look up and see him, to motion him to come outside. But he only keeps on with that useless raking, and finally Tim heads for the stairs instead. He runs up both flights so that by the time he reaches the attic he is puffing. Stopping in the doorway, he scans his room. At least that has not changed ... except for the fact that the bookcase is empty, that there is no mess of toys scattered across the floor. And Grandma has put his old Winnie-the-Pooh bed-spread back on the bed, the one he used when he was a little kid.

He loves this room. When he was seven, he'd asked to have it for his own. The house is big, and the bedroom he'd had before, the one next to his mother's on the second floor, is bigger than this one. There was no reason, Grandma and Mom told him over and over again, for him to be in the attic. No reason at all. Except, of course, that this is the best room in the house.

He loves the way the ceiling slopes right down to the floor. The way the windows stand in their own special little alcoves. The way, when the wind blows, one branch of the maple scratches at the roof, like the tree is bending close, talking just to him.

Especially, he loves knowing that this room once belonged to Franklin, once belonged to his father.

"Your grandma fussed about Franklin's wanting to sleep up here, too," Granddad whispered in the midst of all the commotion the two women made. "But it's all right. Sometimes a boy needs his own space."

Tim pushes open a window and peers into the tree. The upper leaves are so brightly colored they seem to be manufacturing their own sunlight. He stretches to see if he can grab the branch that extends over the roof. He can almost reach, but not quite. When his arms are long enough, he's going to catch that branch and swing out into the tree. Then he'll climb down the trunk and walk back in the front door and give everyone a surprise. Just like Franklin used to do.

Granddad will love that!

A chickadee scolds from deep inside the tree. Grandma taught him about birds, so though he can't see it, he knows that's what it is. But beneath and around the "dee-dee-dee" is another sound, the steady scratching of the rake. His grandfather is still down there, tugging at the few leaves scattered in the grass.

A wave of heat suddenly prickles Tim's scalp. What is his grandfather doing, anyway? Trying to give those people in the kitchen something more to talk about?

He leans on the sill. From up here, Granddad looks small, hunched. His silvery hair, always combed straight back neatly without a part, lifts in the breeze and floats about his head like cobwebs. Granddad's hair isn't white because he's old. It's been white for as long as Tim can remember. "Prematurely gray" is what people call it. Prematurely gray, prematurely...

"Hey!" Tim calls. "Hey ... Granddad."

His grandfather looks up. "Hey, yourself," he replies. "What are you doing inside on such a beautiful day?"

"What are you doing out there?"

Granddad looks down at the rake. "Not much," he says. "Not much at all. Just waiting for the leaves to fall." And then he laughs.

See!
Tim's heart sings.
The raking is just an excuse to getaway from those people.
He joins in the laughter.

"I'll be right down," he calls. "Just wait for me there, Granddad. I'm coming."

When Tim arrives in the front yard, Granddad is still leaning on the rake, still peering up into the red and gold branches of the maple. It is only mid-September, but this tree has always turned ahead of the others in the neighborhood.

"Every autumn I tell this lady not to be in such a hurry," Granddad comments, "but she won't listen. She's too busy thinking about winter to care what an old man says."

"You're not old," Tim objects.

"Ah," his grandfather says. Only that. He reaches down to pick up a bright leaf and twirls it on its vivid red stem. "Maybe she's right. Maybe we are going to have an early winter...." His voice trails off.

Tim shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. His grandfather isn't talking about the tree any longer, though what he is really talking about, Tim doesn't care to guess.

"Granddad," he says, keeping his voice light, "let's go some place. Just you and me. The way we used to do."

His grandfather squints at him. He seems to be trying to make Tim out from a great distance. "But..." He nods toward the house. "Sophie..."

"Oh, we won't be gone long. Grandma won't even have time to miss us. Besides, they're all happy as clams in there."
Happy as clams talking about you,
he adds, only to himself.

"Happy as clams?" It is as though Granddad has never heard the expression before, though it's one Grandma uses all the time, and the bemused look on his face causes Tim to wonder,
What's so happy about clams, anyway?

"Well?" he says. "What do you say?"

But his grandfather doesn't say anything. He just stands there, gazing off toward the house as though he expects Grandma to step out onto the porch and scold him for thinking about leaving the yard.

Finally, Tim takes his hand, dry and slightly cool in that familiar way, and tugs. "Come on," he says softly. "It's been a long time since we've been on an adventure. Do you have your wallet with you? Let's go downtown and get an ice-cream cone at Swenson's Drugs."

"Ice cream?" The words seem to bring his grandfather awake. Ice cream is his favorite food. He's often said it's the only thing he likes better than Grandma's oven-fried chicken and scalloped potatoes. He reaches back to pat the bulge his wallet makes in his back pocket. "I want butter pecan. How about you?"

"You know what I want," Tim reminds him. His grandfather's favorite flavor changes—one week butter pecan, the next orange sherbet or even bubble gum—but Tim's is always the same. He holds his breath. Surely Granddad will remember.

"One scoop of chocolate. One of peppermint. With the peppermint on top." Granddad grins triumphantly. He is right and he knows it.

Tim releases his breath, grins back. "You've got it," he says, and they start toward the front walk.

When they reach the edge of his grandparents' property, Tim glances back over his shoulder toward the house. No one is visible through the living room window. No one to see them going and to object. Apparently, his mother and Paul and his grandmother are still in the kitchen, complaining about Granddad.

Tim squares his shoulders. This is what Granddad needs, a little time alone with his grandson. Once he knows that Tim is home, really home to stay, everything will be all right again.

At the corner of Walnut and Third, Granddad comes to a full stop on the curb in front of the hardware store.

"Swenson's is this way," Tim reminds him, nodding in the direction of the drug store, though, of course, his grandfather knows perfectly well where it is. The main street of Sheldon isn't long. Tim can see to each end from where they stand.

But Granddad doesn't seem to hear. He just stands there, shuffling his feet as though he can't make up his mind which way to go. A breeze picks up a few dry leaves and sends them spinning along the gutter.

When he finally speaks, his voice is low. "She wants to get rid of me, you know." He gazes off down the street as though he is talking about someone he sees in the distance. "She's been trying to get rid of me for a long time now."

"Who?" Tim looks down the empty street, too, then up at his grandfather. Who could he be talking about?

"Sophie. She wants to put me away."

Grandma? Put him away? That makes no sense!

"She's got the place all picked out. The one where she's going to put me."

Tim frowns. He doesn't like listening to this. It sounds ... well, the truth is, it sounds crazy. Since his grandfather doesn't seem to be about to move either up the street or down, Tim leads him to the rickety bench in front of the hardware store. "What place does she have picked out?" he asks. "What do you mean?"

The bench creaks as they sit. But Tim hears even more clearly the sound of the condescension in his own voice. It makes him swallow hard. There is a tone adults use when they are humoring children, and he has just spoken to his grandfather that way.

"It's one of those places"—Granddad speaks slowly and distinctly, as if to someone who is having difficulty understanding English—"the kind where they send old people to die. Especially old people who've lost their marbles."

The kind where they send old people to die? Especially old people who've lost their marbles?
Granddad must be talking about a nursing home! If his tongue had been jerked out, Tim couldn't have been left more speechless.

Granddad's angry glare seems to be meant for Tim, too. "She's got no use for this old plow horse any longer, so she's putting me out to pasture. Only I don't much like the pasture she's got in mind."