What My Grandson Hid Under the Mattress
Missy came back in about a minute. She would not look at me straight.
“He says to tell you we’re fine. He says it’s all handled, and you should go on home before it gets dark.”
“It doesn’t get dark till nine.”
“Janet.”
“I heard you, Missy. You told me. You did your part.”
I sat down on the top porch step.
She stood behind the screen a little longer. Then she said, very quietly, “Do you want a chair?”
“I’m fine on the step.”
That was a lie. I have a hip that tells me the weather, and that concrete was hard as a tombstone. But I had made up my mind somewhere around Bucyrus that I was not going to accept so much as a lawn chair from that house until my son was the one who offered it.
Pride does not skip a generation, you see. He did not get all of it from Ray.
Two o’clock went by. Then three.
A man across the street mowed his lawn and looked at me on every pass. A girl rode by on a bicycle with streamers. Somebody’s sprinkler ticked.
Around half past three the screen door creaked and Lucy came out, walking slow, with both hands around a paper cup.
“Mommy said bring you water.”
“Thank you, sugar.”
“Why are you sitting on our porch?”
“I’m waiting on your daddy.”
“He’s in the garage. He’s sitting on a paint bucket and not doing anything.” She studied me. “Are you in trouble?”
“I might be.”
She thought that over and then sat down beside me and leaned on my arm, which is the entire reason God made seven-year-olds.
“Grandma? We don’t have a couch.”
“I saw that.”
“It’s because of the kitchen.”
I looked through the window behind us. From the step I could see clear through to the kitchen. Same oak cabinets as the day they moved in. Same linoleum. Not a nail out of place.
“I know, baby,” I said.
Missy called her in after a while. I drank the water. I kept the cup.
Four o’clock. The sun went behind the neighbor’s maple and the step got cooler. I shifted my weight to the other hip. I took the envelope out of my purse and held it in my lap with both hands, because it helped to hold something.
About five, the screen door opened again, and this time it was Ben.
He came out with the green backpack on. He stood there on the mat. He saw the envelope and went still all over.
“Are you mad?” he said.
“Come sit down.”
He sat on the step below mine, with his back to me, so I was talking to the back of a sunburned neck.
“I’m not mad at you. I am not one bit mad at you.”
“Are you mad at Dad?”
I did not want to lie to that boy. He had been lied around all summer.
“I’m some mad at your dad. And I’m some mad at your grandpa, who isn’t here to hear it. And I’m a good deal mad at myself. But none of it lands on you. Do you understand me?”
He nodded.
“Ben. Twenty-one times you walked your sister across that road and stood at that window. What did you say to the lady?”
“I said two waters, please.”
“And what did you tell Lucy?”
“That ice cream gives you a stomachache when it’s hot out.” His voice went wobbly. “She believed me till about July. Then she just stopped asking.”