Hate (30 page)

It was amazing how much life worked like a river, carving a path, twisting and turning and washing away all kinds of sediment. If one way wouldn’t yield, it carved another.

Often you were just along for the ride, but every now and then it dumped you somewhere beautiful. Somewhere you didn’t expect to find and wouldn’t be able to find again if you tried to do it all over.

DINNER HAD BEEN RELATIVELY QUIET. Looks were exchanged, and Gram made comments, but for the most part, Blane gave me a pass. Maybe he could tell that my brain was working overtime, or perhaps since he’d sealed the date he felt like he’d won. But mostly he seemed to watch me, his eyes perusing the lines of my face as I transitioned from one thought to another.

I felt unbelievably exposed, but I managed to fight the urge to turn away or hide.

But, from a glass half full perspective, I’d eaten a real meal, not some stupid ball of fluff with fewer calories. And he hadn’t batted a lash. In fact, he acted so nonchalant, that I questioned whether men in the past had really noticed, or if it had been all in my head.

Blane walked just ahead, Gram and I on each of his flanks, the heat from his strong body radiating backwards enough to touch me.

We ground to a halt, the wheels of Gram’s chair skidding slightly as Blane checked up in front of us.

He turned to me, surprise and humor in his eyes as he asked, “Did you just grab my ass?”

Astonished, my head snapped back, my chin dipping significantly into my neck.

My answer was absolute. “No!”

Because while I’d been studying him carefully, I knew without a doubt that I hadn’t groped him. In fact, I hadn’t even gotten to the ass part of my perusal.

We stared at one another, laughter and confusion bouncing back and forth for several seconds before it clicked. In unison, we turned, looking down to an anything but ashamed elderly woman.

We didn’t even have to say anything. She gave herself up with zero chagrin.

“What? He’s legal.”

My eyes widened, crawling to Blane comically.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck with an open hand. “Fondled by the wrong woman. Only at a dinner with your family, huh Elbow?”

“Just be glad All My Children is off the air. She’s still got General Hospital to reference, but the impact is significantly lower.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” he decreed, dumbfounded.

Right. Soap Operas weren’t normally in the day to day for badass type guys.

“Let me put it to you this way,” I said through a heaving breath. “I’m surprised she didn’t grab your junk.”

His eyebrows inched their way up his forehead, and his blue eyes widened to the point where the white completely surrounded his blue. Meanwhile, his hand moved slowly from its place at his side, whether on purpose or by design, and covered the front zipper of his jeans.

I laughed, wholeheartedly, the rumbling vibration of my chest a long forgotten friend. “So I guess there is some sort of line then. Good to know.”

Timid, at least for him, he asked stiltedly, “A…line?”

My top teeth hooked on my lower lip, and a wink slipped one of my eyes closed before I even realized what I was doing. “How many times a day is it that men think about sex?”

He shook his head slightly before jimmying his eyebrows and admitting, “A lot. More than you can probably even imagine.”

“As I suspected,” I clucked cockily. “I was just noting that there is a gross out factor, or a line that’s not to be crossed so to speak. Elderly junk handling doesn’t fall into one of your fantasies.”

“I’d say not,” he agreed, glancing at my grandmother out of the corner of his eye.

She heard us, of course. But she didn’t let it bother her. No, not Gram. Not one bit.

“No worries. I don’t need consent.”

Surprised, I turned to her and practically squeaked my indignation.

She laughed, shaking her head back and forth and confiding in Blane, “She never could take a joke.”

“I take jokes just fine,” I argued.

She ignored me, and exercised the part of her memory that still worked and often came back to haunt me. “I tried to get her to stick her hand down your pants years ago.” She waved me off, my very presence ridiculous. “Wouldn’t go for it. You’re gonna have to wear her down.”

My cheeks turned red, the memory of my fingers wrapped around him slamming into me with the ferocity of a tiger at full speed.

Now it was Blane’s turn to wink. He spoke to Gram, but his eyes looked right into me. “Something tells me it’ll be worth it.”

My lower abdomen spasmed, and I clenched my legs against the rush of anticipation.

Needless to say, I
didn’t
hate the thought of it. Not even a little. Not even at all.

STARING OUT THE WINDOW AT the scenery as it flew past me, I stayed silent for the entirety of the ride home from the restaurant. It wasn’t that I was upset, or too nervous to talk, it was just that my mind was racing so fast I couldn’t fit a word in edge wise.

It’s a funny thing when the voices in your head outtalk you.

Blane pulled easily up to the curb in front, putting the truck into park and killing the ignition.

He gave me a brief smile, just enough to work my mind into a tailspin again, and then hopped out, heading to the back in order to retrieve Gram’s chair.

I jumped down from my side, opening the door in the back that gave me access to Gram only to find her asleep. If I hadn’t been so in my head on the way back, I would have realized that it’d been too quiet for her to be conscious.

In an effort to avoid startling her, I placed a gentle hand on her knee and whispered to get her attention. “Hey, Gram.” Her eyes fluttered open, the confusion that overwhelmed their chocolate immediately bringing on a rush of sadness.

I fought through it and smiled, explaining, “We’re home.” As Blane wheeled her chair up the concrete panels of my sidewalk, I informed her, “Blane’s gonna help get you out for me, okay?”

She shook her head yes, but I could still she was still working to clear some of the fog in her head. I bit my lip to ward off unwanted tears and backed out of a waiting Blane’s way.

In addition to her confusion she seemed tired, so I didn’t delay Blane as he lifted her gingerly into her chair and then turned to head for the house. I closed the door behind him, and then jogged to get in front so that I could unlock the door.

He waited patiently as I searched for my key, inserting it and disengaging the lock, pushing the door open, and then stepping inside to hold it open for him.

Maneuvering the chair over the doorstep was always a chore for me, but Blane made it look easy, making sure to move slowly enough that she didn’t get scared, but quickly enough to make it efficient.

Once inside I took over, murmuring, “I just have to help her get ready for bed.”

I didn’t know if he intended to stay or to go, and I honestly didn’t know which one I wanted more. I was all mixed up inside.

But when he answered, “Take your time. I’ll be right here,” his eyes softening and the curve of his mouth becoming just slightly more pronounced, I had my answer.

It felt good.

I hadn’t wanted him to leave. I felt like the night was still unfinished, and his easy agreement lifted an invisible weight off of my slender shoulders.

I nodded my thanks, pushing Gram slowly along my gleaming wood floors toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. I got half way there before I turned back, calling, “You can make yourself at home, you know. The living room. The kitchen. Even the back deck can be pretty nice this time of night.”

He looked up from his boots, smiling. With a mesmerizing nod, he shoved away from the wall, and told me an all at once gratifying and terrifying, “Thanks, baby.”

My feet wanted to stop, but I forced them to keep moving. I forced myself to turn my head back down the hall and wheel Gram forward like he hadn’t just changed the game, sticking on unarguably intimate endearments to the end of his sentences.

Instead, I focused on the task at hand. Once I was involved, it wasn’t hard. Taking care of someone who’s started their decline back to dependence isn’t easy. It isn’t easy for you, and it most certainly isn’t easy for them. The trust involved in giving up your freedoms to someone else, letting them make the decisions, and even relinquishing the control over the most simple of tasks, is one of the hardest aspects of growing old to ante-up.

It’s humiliating and degrading, and there’s a certain sadness to it for all parties involved.

But Gram usually made it easy, teasing her way through the hard stuff and smiling through the rest. She laughed often and teased even more frequently.

Not a moment spent with her, even in these seriously depreciated, age-worn years of her life, wasn’t worthwhile.

I firmly believed that.

As the door closed behind us, I worked diligently to rid her of her lightweight jacket, hanging it on the handle of the chair as temporary storage.

She sat so somber, so much more so than usual that I had to ask if she was alright. “You okay, Gram?”

“Depends on your definition,” she answered vaguely, moving to help me by slipping her arms out of her sleeves in order to pull her cotton t-shirt easily over her head.

“Well…” I said, uncertain of what she wanted or where to go from there.

She didn’t make me figure it out.

“I’m alright, NeeNee. More tired than I’d like to be, but I’m not dead yet. At this point, it seems like I don’t have too much to complain about.”

I gave her a soft smile, leaving it at that as I shimmied her pants over her trim hips, slipping them down her legs before hanging them loosely on the handle as well.

Slipping my hands under her armpits, I warned her and then executed the smooth lift from her chair to the toilet that I’d had to quickly perfect.

It wasn’t too hard. She didn’t weigh nearly as much as she used to. Though she never weighed a lot. She was a petite woman, always had been, but during her sixties and seventies she’d had a certain plumpness that I loved to squeeze.

Thankfully, she was still handling the most desperate of tasks, so after making sure her balance was stabilized and replacing her slightly soiled diaper with a fresh one, I stepped out of the bathroom to allow her time to do her most personal washing.

Blane had settled in the kitchen, the smell of coffee brewing in my pot, and at the sound of the door his head came up to find me.

I gave him a smile and headed for the guest room, now Gram’s room, to get her a house coat (her version of pajamas) to wear for the night.

I looked back to see him exploring, his movement casual and slow, with no indication whatsoever that he was antsy or tired of waiting.

Rifling through Gram’s nightwear drawer, I picked out a pretty purple nightgown, knowing that the color would look spectacular with her pretty brown eyes. She would want to look her best for Blane until the moment she fell asleep, sixty year age gap or not.

And I wasn’t one to argue. I wasn’t ready to let Gram go. I wasn’t ready for her to die, and I had a sneaking suspicion that her sauciness was one of the very things keeping her alive.

Making my way back to the bathroom, a four piece that thankfully had plenty of extra space for maneuvering not only her but her wheelchair, I knocked softly on the door and called out.

“Gram, you ready for me?”

She answered quickly, a snappy, “Been ready forever. You’re slow as shit,” making me roll my eyes and grin.

Blane chuckled in the kitchen, the sound of her voice obviously carrying easily enough to be understood all the way on his end of the house.

I turned the knob, pushing open the door, and then closed it behind me. She was still seated on the toilet, not that I expected her to be anywhere else, but her hair was neatly combed away from her face and she’d worked her new diaper most of the way up her legs.

Moving swiftly, I tossed her gown into the seat of her wheelchair and moved to help her up, holding her under her arms and dipping as she worked with me to reseat the diaper just as she would underwear.

When I moved her in range of the chair, she reached out and grabbed her housecoat so that we wouldn’t lose it when she sat down, and then set about working her arms into the sleeves.