The Night Grandpa Harold Danced

Three songs

The first song was something fast and loud that all the girls knew and none of the dads did. The girls screamed when it came on.

My grandfather could not really step to it. He stood with his feet planted and swayed from one hip to the other, holding both of Ellie’s hands, and let her bounce and twirl under his arm.

The walker stood right beside them, like a chaperone. I saw the other dads look over. It was not mean. It was the way you look at anything you do not expect to see. An old man in a brown suit at a fourth grade dance.

Ellie saw them look. For half a song she went stiff and quiet. Then my grandfather leaned down and said something in her ear, and she burst out laughing, and she did not look at anybody else for the rest of the night.

I asked her later what he said. “They’re only looking because they wish they could move like this.” Which was not true, and was exactly the right thing to say.

The second song was slower, some country song from a few years ago. By then the dads were not just looking. They were watching.

My grandfather had figured out a way to move. He would slide the walker six inches, step to it, then let go and take Ellie’s hand again and turn. Slide, step, turn. It had a rhythm, and Ellie matched it, and they went around in a little square.

By the third song, the dads near them had started backing up. Nobody said anything. They just gave him room, the way men do around a man who is working. One dad nudged a stray paper heart off the floor with his boot so the tennis balls would not catch on it.

Mike Schroeder, who rents my grandfather’s ground, walked across the floor, unfolded a metal chair, and set it behind my grandfather where the walker could reach. He did not say a word. He went back to his little girl in the purple dress.

My grandfather never sat in it. But he nodded across the floor at Mike, and Mike nodded back. Ellie was laughing so hard by then that her bangs were stuck to her forehead.