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  “Tom,” he says. “How nice to see you. When did you get here? Marie, come on out, it’s Tom. Why are you up on the roof, Tom?”

  Mom comes out and gazes up at me with astonishment. “What are you doing up there, Tom?”

  They invite me to come in and have some breakfast with them. It takes a while to convince them that I was here earlier and took them out to breakfast. Melly says they forget to eat. Now I believe her. It takes another few minutes to explain why I’m up on the roof. Eventually I promise I’ll come in and have some breakfast with them when I’m done. It doesn’t matter. They won’t remember my promise in ten minutes anyway.

  “Be careful up there, it’s pretty steep,” Dad calls as they go back into the house.

  About twenty minutes later, I’m done, and I crawl cautiously back over the pitched roof to the flat section. The ladder is gone. I reluctantly clamber back over the pitched roof and yell for Dad over the open window. The TV’s on loud, so I know Mom’s watching her soap. After a few minutes of me yelling and banging on the roof, Dad comes out again. He regards me with aggravation and asks me what I want this time. “Dad, where’s the ladder?” I ask.

  “Your mom told me to lock it in the garage so burglars can’t get up on the roof,” he says, and goes back into the house.

  So I start yelling for him again.

  Dad comes back out and tells me to stop yelling and not be so rude. He also informs me that I’ll have to wait, they’re watching a show, but he’ll get the ladder when the show’s over.

  I holler a bit, but it’s no use.

  I inch back over the pitched roof to the flat part, and pull out my cell phone. I dial my sister’s cell. There’s no answer. She takes care of the parents all the time and works part time nearby so she can go home and make their lunch, or be there in an emergency. Now she’s finally got a few hours to herself, and she probably figures whoever’s calling her will just have to wait. I wonder briefly if she’s checked the caller ID and decided that I should deal with whatever the problem is by myself. I leave a message on her voice mail, but don’t hold out much hope.

  I settle down on the flat roof area waiting for the soap to end. I hope it’s a half-hour show, and not an hour one. It’s pretty hot up here even though we’re now into September. I wait. And wait. The old Drifters song, about being up on the roof, where all your cares just drift into space comes back to me. I sing it softly. My version includes a lot of humming, although I do remember the one line about getting away from the hustling crowds. I could use a little crowd right now, I think.

  I check my watch. Near the half hour time I scramble back over the pitched roof. I notice that I don’t mind it so much, and I remind myself not to get careless. Over the front window I bellow for my dad again. He comes out, reassuring me that he didn’t forget me. I crawl back over the pitched roof for the umpteenth time, holler at my dad who’s carrying the ladder to the front of the house, and finally convince him I should get down from the flat roof side.

  We’re just finishing breakfast again when Melly walks in.

  “How’d it go?” she asks.

  “Had some breakfast, fixed the roof, had some breakfast.” I say. Melly looks like she wants to tell me I’m repeating myself, but then apparently thinks better of it. I get ready to go.

  I’m back in the car, singing to The Drifters again. This time it’s “You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine”. Then it’s “Under The Boardwalk. I hesitate for a minute, and decide I’m being paranoid. I don’t know of any boardwalks, and anyway, I’m not really superstitious. But just in case, I’ll stay away from the beach for the next few weeks.

  Gumdrop Tree

  MY YOUNGEST SISTER’S FIRST MEMORY is of being carried down the gravel road by my oldest sister. Can an adult really remember what happened before they were even old enough to walk? I doubted it, but she brought up the memory, not me. And I do remember it.

  My father, in a rage, roared at all of us to “get out, get out and don’t come back”. My mother, whose main role in life besides cooking, cleaning, and endless laundry, was placating my father, shooed us out the door.

  So there we were, four little girls in charity box dresses, and one baby in a cloth diaper, escaping, headed for the hills. There were no hills, so we hiked up the path everyone called “The Old Vault Road”. This dirt path was so named because about a mile up from the main road, the gravel road, was an old structure built into the side of a hill. It had been used years ago to house the bodies of people who died in the winter. They remained there until the ground thawed enough to bury them in the spring.

  About a mile up The Old Vault Road we simply left the path and walked into the woods. It was spring. This I know because the lilacs were in bloom, and they were glorious, so that even in our flight we noticed their beauty.

  The next question, for my sister and me, was how to entertain the three younger kids. Judging from the fact that my youngest sister needed to be carried, I must have been about ten years old. So my oldest sister would have been eleven, and the younger ones one, three, and five.

  What did we do during that long day? Who really knows how long it was? It seemed very long from a ten-year olds point of view. In the afternoon I snuck home and got food and something to drink. And I got gumdrops. Candy was a rare treat.

  When I returned to the woods, my older sister and I had a conference. She distracted our little sisters while I stuck the gumdrops on the twigs of nearby bushes. We then told our sisters of the existence of a rare and wonderful tree that grew gumdrops. We said we had heard that one grew in this area, and told the little girls to go and look. To their wonder and delight they found the tree, and a feast of candy.

  I have no idea what time we returned home, or what my father’s mood was when we did.

  Many, many years later this story was told to children and grandchildren, but differently. It became a story of the rare, elusive gum drop tree, of the children’s delight in finding candy— candy deep in the forest. Oh, the mystery and joy of it then.

  How I Became a High School Drop-out

  I BECAME A HIGH SCHOOL dropout last night. My Mom doesn’t know it yet, but that’s the way it is. It was because of Grandma, not that I’m blaming her, or anything. She was the one who always told me I had to get an education, and if she could understand what went on she would be pretty upset. Of course, if she could understand, it wouldn’t have happened.

  Grandma’s a little girl. That’s how my mother puts it. I say she’s a couple fries short of a happy meal. But I can remember when Grandma used to crawl under the weeping willow into my fort and play cowboys with me. And I can remember when I broke Mom’s antique soup tureen, and Grandma told Mom she did it, said her fingers were getting clumsy in her old age. So, if Grandma ever breaks anything, I’ll cover for her. Know what I mean?

  It was Friday night, grocery night, and I was taking care of Grandma ’till Mom got home, which I was praying was going to happen real soon. ’Cause, baby, tonight was the night. I got a date with Julia. Julia, not Julie—she’s real strong on that. Julia, of the long blonde hair and the big brown eyes, and the—whew—body.

  How’d I do that? You might well ask.

  Hey, I’m cool. And it doesn’t hurt that I play basketball. I’m not that tall, and I’m pretty skinny. My friends call me “Knobs”, short for “Knobbly Knees”, but I can live with the shortened version. What gets me noticed is that I sure can jump, and that night I made the winning basket, so I was feeling pretty hot.

  Also, I had just about perfected my saunter.

  Right after the game I sauntered up to Julia and asked her out. I thought all my bodily fluids had dried up the way my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I think I sort of stuttered at first, but I guess she didn’t notice, because she said “yes”. Hey, I was cool. And before I could explain how my car was in the garage (r-i-i-ght) she offered to pick me up—in her little red Fiero, no less. A two seater.

 
; Only thing that was supposed to happen was for Mom to come home on time.

  I’d even got it figured out what I was gonna say when the guys asked me if I got to first base, or anywhere at all. I didn’t want them to think I was a wimp, or a wussy, or something, but I didn’t want them to think that Julia was easy, either. What if that got back to her? There sure as hell wouldn’t be a second date. So, I was just gonna smile and tell them they had to ask the lady if they were that interested. That would save both her, and my cool.

  Only my big problem now was where the heck was Mom? Sometimes she has trouble with the old Buick when it gets cold, and it was definitely cold tonight. I sure hoped car problems wasn’t the case, because it was only about a half hour till Julia would be showing up.

  I guess I should have told Mom I had a date with my dream girl, and endured the teasing. At least then I would have known she’d make an extra effort to get home on time. Instead, I just told her I was going out. Now she didn’t know how important this was to me.

  So, I had to get into the shower.

  Grandma was in the living room looking at pictures in some old magazine. She was in a blue dress with little pink flowers, and her white hair was kind of standing up in the back. She always remembers to comb her hair in the front, but she forgets the back. Mom says that’s because she can’t see the back. I got a comb and tried to smooth down the back of her hair, but she pushed my hand away.

  I can remember when Grandma used to dress pretty sharp for an old lady, but these days Mom puts her in those dresses with the velcro down the back. She says it makes things a lot easier when she gets Grandma dressed in the morning.

  I got Grandma settled in front of the T.V. She just loves that show “Friends”. I locked the front door, and the back door, and used the hook and eye on the back door where it’s put up high so Grandma can’t reach it when Mom’s not in the same room. I put the deadbolt on the front door.

  Then I got into the bathroom and started to get changed. I knew laundry day was coming up, because the only clean towels were those old paisley ones that always get used last. No matter, I got a new shampoo. It’s supposed to make my hair soft, in case Julia wants to run her hands through it, ya know.

  The whole time I was getting changed I kept talking to Grandma. I took off my jeans and called out, “How’s the show, Grandma?”

  I needed her to answer me so that I knew where she was.

  “Why are you yelling?” she hollered back.

  I took off my underwear and called out, “What are they doing now, Grandma?”

  “Just talking,” she replied.

  Then I jumped under the water and lathered up and washed my hair real fast. Soon as I turned off the water I called out to Grandma again and asked her if the show was good.

  No answer.

  I had a problem.

  I shot out of the shower so fast I skidded all over the tiles. I grabbed that damned paisley towel off the rack, wrapped it around my waist, and hustled out into the hall. I knew I’d better check the doors first, and, sure enough, the front door was open. There was my Grandma down at the end of the drive, in her fluffy bedroom slippers and bare legs, and shit, it was freezing out there.

  I zipped out the door holding that bloody little towel around my waist, still so hot from the shower that clouds of steam billowed up from off me. For a second there I thought a fog had come up. Thank God, we lived out of town so there wasn’t any neighbours to see this performance.

  I grabbed Grandma by the hand, but she swatted me away. No way she was coming back in. Now, what are you going to do with an 89 year old woman who isn’t cooperating? You sure aren’t going to pull her around. So, I figure I had to pick her up and carry her back.

  Believe me, you don’t know how difficult it is to pick up somebody and hold a towel around your waist at the same time, especially when that somebody doesn’t want to be picked up, and you’re standing on ice. Grandma only weighs about 90 lbs., but she was fighting, and I was sliding around, my bare feet freezing, and trying to hold that paisley towel in place.

  I had just got Grandma off the ground when the towel went. Then I heard a car. It was some old beater on its last couple of miles. I had a second of wild hope that it was my Mom, and she would take charge. But it was an old station wagon I had never seen before that pulled up.

  Out jumped a youngish woman and this large older woman dressed in a fluffy pink jacket, carrying a big black purse. I don’t know what they thought I was doing to the old lady, but they flew to the rescue, and practically pulled her out of my arms, which wasn’t too hard because I was scrambling around trying to get that towel over my family jewels. They hustled the old lady into their car pretty dammed fast. At that point I tried an explanation.

  “But it’s my Grandma.” I yelled after them. That got me some action.

  “Oh my god, that’s even worse” the humongous pink woman screeched, then turned and came after me. That was the last thing I heard for a while. Those plastic purses get real hard in the cold.

  I was just surfacing when I heard the sound of a well-tuned engine. The station wagon was gone. I was bare assed in the snow bank with something running down my face. There was blood in the snow beside me, and that paisley towel was nowhere to be seen.

  The red Fiero pulled up. I didn’t even try to think what I was going to say. I just threw some snow over my parts, which were pretty shrunken anyway, and stayed where I was. The Fiero left real quick.

  Go back to school tomorrow? I don’t think so.

  Unravelling

  THEY THINK I’M DOTTY, I know they do. Only now they call it Alzheimer’s, or Dementia. Fancy words for plain talking, although I think it is better saying it the proper way. Before, the words were insulting, now they’re scientific. “Early onset dementia,” I heard the doctor diagnose Mrs. Wilson across the hall. “Early onset,” the nurse snorted after the doctor left, “the woman’s 74.” That gave me a chuckle. It sounded “early” to me, but I guess not to the nurse who is all of 30 or so.

  Pink is the first colour in my scarf. Pink is for Lizzy. Lizzy left us when she was three, and I was five. One minute we were playing in the small front yard. Then I went in and got a drink of water, and when I came out she was gone. First my mother went up and down the street, saying she couldn’t have gone far, she was only three. I was on the swing, pretending I was flying, so I didn’t pay much attention. Then suddenly there were people all over the place, men mostly, and they were looking through the house, in the coal cellar, the ice box, the room that Lizzy and I shared, looking in the closets, and then going down the street knocking on people’s doors. Even my nine year old brother Jake was looking through the house. And Mrs. Rigollo was making tea for everyone, and giving me peanut butter cookies. Nobody found Lizzy, not to this day.

  There are three rows for Lizzy, because she was only three years old.

  Next I chose red and black, one of those fancy yarns with the colours mixed together. Red for anger, and black for sadness, because that’s how everything felt for a while after Lizzy disappeared. Two rows only. Even though it felt like it lasted forever, I do not want to give it a lot of attention.

  Pale green is next, a happy time. I went to the prom, and my dress was pale green. Donny asked me, not Jerome, the football player I longed after, but Donny, who belonged to the chess club and was a little pimply. And he was nice, a gentleman, bringing me a wrist corsage as was the fashion and opening doors for me. I wonder what happened to him? A nice, plain boy. He deserved a good wife and children to love. I wish I had kept in touch with him, but it’s too late now. Donny, I hope life was good to you.

  “Who’s that scarf for, Marta?” The Sergeant asks. She’s not really a sergeant, but that’s what I call her. She bosses me around, and I do what she says, because when she talks to me she looks at me, and when I talk to her, she listens. She knows I’m still a person, despite my age, and how I look. Her real name is Penny.

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p; “Are you giving that to your great granddaughter? The colours are amazing. It’ll sure keep somebody warm.” I tell Penny that the scarf is for me.

  “Well, it’s cold out today, so a warm scarf will help,” Penny replies, ignoring the fact that I don’t go outside anymore.

  Actually, I hardly go out of my room anymore. It’s just too much of an effort. Okay, that’s one of the reasons I’m fond of Penny. She sees the positive, and doesn’t hasten to tell me I’m wrong, or that I don’t make sense.

  A bright yellow strip is next. The yellow is for my teaching days. I loved being independent, even though I had to board with a local family. I loved being able to open up those children’s minds, take them to different places and times in their imagination. They had little else. I like to think they loved me a little, too. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to teach after I got married; those were the County rules then. Married women were not hired; they were supposed to be at home taking care of their husbands. So the bright yellow part is also three rows, one for each year I taught.

  White is the next colour, and it has a lot of rows. White, because I wore white when I got married. That was only one day, but the marriage lasted. There is one thin black stripe about a quarter ways through the white. That was when I had an affair. It only lasted six or seven months, and Joe never found out, thank God. After it ended, I couldn’t believe I risked my family for sex. Because that was what it was, just sex. No one looking at me today could probably even imagine there was a time when I enjoyed sex, but, yes, even the very old used to have sex. It’s only natural, you know.

  “How’re you doing, Marta?” asks The Sergeant. That’s another thing I like about Penny. She calls me Marta, not Martha. When I first came to live here, I corrected the staff constantly, not in a mean way, but I wanted to be called by my own name. Finally I had had enough, and decided to refuse to answer to Martha. I did this for about a week, but then I heard a nurse (not The Sergeant) tell the doctor that I was deteriorating rapidly, that I wouldn’t even answer to my own name anymore. The doctor told the nurse to let me call myself by whatever name I wanted.