Page 72 of Someone Like Me
I force myself to go down to the house about an hour later. I need to make sure Grandma has something to eat. Since her illness, she seems only to want a little breakfast and maybe a sandwich at lunch, and I’ve been trying to make sure she eats some dinner every night.
Annie’s car is gone, and that’s a good thing, but I’m no fool. If Grandma didn’t hear our little exchange — and with her uncanny ability to pick out a conversation across the house, I have no doubt she did — Annie probably told her anyway.
To my surprise, the mouth-watering scent of bacon hits me as I step into the kitchen. Grandma Q is at the stove, her back to me as the frying pan hisses and spits.
She looks over her shoulder. “How about BLTs for dinner?” She’s in her housecoat. The same one she was wearing when I left this morning. I wonder if she stayed in it all day or if she decided to change before cooking.
“BLTs sound great.” I’m glad to see she’s up, but I can’t help but think it’s taking a toll. I approach her and reach for the fork in her hand. “How about you let me finish these?”
She waves me away. “If you want to help, slice that tomato,” she says, nodding to the deep red beefsteak on the counter. “That’s harder on my arthritis than this is.”
Okay, then. I thin-slice the tomato, rough cut a little lettuce, and spread mayo on slices of bread.
Grandma forks the crisp strips of bacon out of her cast iron skillet and onto a stack of paper towels. She turns off her burner and pats the bacon dry.
“Cut up two of those peaches for us,” she tells me, pointing to her fruit bowl. I obey, of course, and a moment later, we are sitting at the table to the simple meal that is pure heaven.
My first bite — the marriage of the soft Evangeline Maid bread, the salty, still-steaming bacon, and the garden-fresh tomato — is better than any narcotic I’ve ever tried. I consume the sandwich in a few bites and eat the sun-ripened peach as my dessert, all thoughts of my conversation with Annie forgotten.
Until Grandma pipes up, of course.
“So, you can drive again,” she says, commenting, not asking.
I nod. “Yes, ma’am.” I’m still enjoying the post-meal haze, and I don’t immediately pick up on the alertness in her voice.
“You need a car.”
It’s the way she says it that pricks my ears now. It’s not innocent commentary. My eyes narrow on my grandmother, but she looks down at the uneaten half of her BLT.
“I’m doing okay without one,” I tell her, keeping my voice even. “And I’m saving what I can. I’ll buy one eventually.”
She picks up her sandwich, takes a bite, and chews slowly. “No need to buy one when there’s already one here for you.”
The fine hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. Holy shit. The Supra.
God dammit.
“Grandma—”
“Let’s go take a walk outside,” she says, pushing herself up from the table. I don’t move.
“Grandma, I know what you’re trying to do.”
“You always were my smartest grandbaby,” she says, sounding unimpressed. She shuffles to a narrow drawer beside the sink, with her back to me and rifles through it for a few seconds. I hear the tell-tale jangle of keys, and my stomach free falls. Sweat mists my temples, and the BLT I just enjoyed becomes a cinder block in my gut.
Without looking at me, Grandma Q turns, tucks the keys into the pocket of her housecoat and heads for the door. “Come with me.”
When I show no sign of moving, she wraps her fingers, gnarled with age and arthritis around my bicep. She says nothing until I look up to face her. And of course I look up. I have to. She’s my grandmother.
“Andrew Quincy Moroux, get out of that chair and come with me. I amnotasking.”
And what other choice do I have? She’s my grandmother.
I follow her, no surprise, out of the kitchen and around the back of the house to the detached garage. I haven’t been inside since that day Evie Lalonde found me shaken and sweating at the picnic table.
The feeling I have now is not much better. Grandma points to the catch at the bottom of the old fashioned garage door. “Hoist that up for me, Andrew. I can’t lift that much these days.”
Smothering a groan, I do as she says. The panelled, wooden door lifts with surprising ease, making me wonder which of my cousins or uncles has kept it greased and in use all these years. The force of our entry stirs a meager belch of dust and grass clippings, but the space is fairly tidy, if musty and, with the sun setting behind the garage, almost completely dark.
