An Early Winter Page 2

  "It could have been a person he hit this time," Mom is saying. "It could have been a child."

  Tim wonders why, when people want to emphasize how bad something is, they always talk about children being hurt. Are children more important than adults? If they are, why doesn't^ feel important?

  He turns his back on the kitchen voices, stepping to the large picture window. Granddad has taken up a rake and is scratching at the grass, lifting the rake and letting it fall, then pulling it toward himself with short, fierce strokes. At his feet is a small pile of bright leaves from the maple tree that dominates the front yard. A very small pile. It is much too early for raking.

  "He gets up in the night," Grandma is saying, her voice tight with indignation. "Comes down here to the kitchen and turns on the stove. He thinks he's going to cook himself something. You know the man never learned how to boil an egg, but now..."

  "He could burn himself," Mom murmurs.

  "He could burn me up in my bed," Grandma says. She sounds as though she thinks he's trying to do exactly that.

  Tim grimaces. He knows it's just his grandmother's way, to sound cross when she's upset. He knows, too, that she loves his grandfather, though her tongue would probably turn to stone before she would say it. But if Granddad really is changing, why can't she change, too? Be less critical. Gentler.

  Tim stands there at the window, waiting for Granddad to look up and see him, to motion him to come outside. But he only keeps on with that useless raking, and finally Tim heads for the stairs instead. He runs up both flights so that by the time he reaches the attic he is puffing. Stopping in the doorway, he scans his room. At least that has not changed ... except for the fact that the bookcase is empty, that there is no mess of toys scattered across the floor. And Grandma has put his old Winnie-the-Pooh bed-spread back on the bed, the one he used when he was a little kid.

  He loves this room. When he was seven, he'd asked to have it for his own. The house is big, and the bedroom he'd had before, the one next to his mother's on the second floor, is bigger than this one. There was no reason, Grandma and Mom told him over and over again, for him to be in the attic. No reason at all. Except, of course, that this is the best room in the house.

  He loves the way the ceiling slopes right down to the floor. The way the windows stand in their own special little alcoves. The way, when the wind blows, one branch of the maple scratches at the roof, like the tree is bending close, talking just to him.

  Especially, he loves knowing that this room once belonged to Franklin, once belonged to his father.

  "Your grandma fussed about Franklin's wanting to sleep up here, too," Granddad whispered in the midst of all the commotion the two women made. "But it's all right. Sometimes a boy needs his own space."

  Tim pushes open a window and peers into the tree. The upper leaves are so brightly colored they seem to be manufacturing their own sunlight. He stretches to see if he can grab the branch that extends over the roof. He can almost reach, but not quite. When his arms are long enough, he's going to catch that branch and swing out into the tree. Then he'll climb down the trunk and walk back in the front door and give everyone a surprise. Just like Franklin used to do.

  Granddad will love that!

  A chickadee scolds from deep inside the tree. Grandma taught him about birds, so though he can't see it, he knows that's what it is. But beneath and around the "dee-dee-dee" is another sound, the steady scratching of the rake. His grandfather is still down there, tugging at the few leaves scattered in the grass.

  A wave of heat suddenly prickles Tim's scalp. What is his grandfather doing, anyway? Trying to give those people in the kitchen something more to talk about?

  He leans on the sill. From up here, Granddad looks small, hunched. His silvery hair, always combed straight back neatly without a part, lifts in the breeze and floats about his head like cobwebs. Granddad's hair isn't white because he's old. It's been white for as long as Tim can remember. "Prematurely gray" is what people call it. Prematurely gray, prematurely...

  "Hey!" Tim calls. "Hey ... Granddad."

  His grandfather looks up. "Hey, yourself," he replies. "What are you doing inside on such a beautiful day?"

  "What are you doing out there?"

  Granddad looks down at the rake. "Not much," he says. "Not much at all. Just waiting for the leaves to fall." And then he laughs.

  See! Tim's heart sings. The raking is just an excuse to getaway from those people. He joins in the laughter.

  "I'll be right down," he calls. "Just wait for me there, Granddad. I'm coming."

  THREE

  A Plan

  When Tim arrives in the front yard, Granddad is still leaning on the rake, still peering up into the red and gold branches of the maple. It is only mid-September, but this tree has always turned ahead of the others in the neighborhood.

  "Every autumn I tell this lady not to be in such a hurry," Granddad comments, "but she won't listen. She's too busy thinking about winter to care what an old man says."

  "You're not old," Tim objects.

  "Ah," his grandfather says. Only that. He reaches down to pick up a bright leaf and twirls it on its vivid red stem. "Maybe she's right. Maybe we are going to have an early winter...." His voice trails off.

  Tim shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. His grandfather isn't talking about the tree any longer, though what he is really talking about, Tim doesn't care to guess.

  "Granddad," he says, keeping his voice light, "let's go some place. Just you and me. The way we used to do."

  His grandfather squints at him. He seems to be trying to make Tim out from a great distance. "But..." He nods toward the house. "Sophie..."

  "Oh, we won't be gone long. Grandma won't even have time to miss us. Besides, they're all happy as clams in there." Happy as clams talking about you, he adds, only to himself.

  "Happy as clams?" It is as though Granddad has never heard the expression before, though it's one Grandma uses all the time, and the bemused look on his face causes Tim to wonder, What's so happy about clams, anyway?

  "Well?" he says. "What do you say?"

  But his grandfather doesn't say anything. He just stands there, gazing off toward the house as though he expects Grandma to step out onto the porch and scold him for thinking about leaving the yard.

  Finally, Tim takes his hand, dry and slightly cool in that familiar way, and tugs. "Come on," he says softly. "It's been a long time since we've been on an adventure. Do you have your wallet with you? Let's go downtown and get an ice-cream cone at Swenson's Drugs."

  "Ice cream?" The words seem to bring his grandfather awake. Ice cream is his favorite food. He's often said it's the only thing he likes better than Grandma's oven-fried chicken and scalloped potatoes. He reaches back to pat the bulge his wallet makes in his back pocket. "I want butter pecan. How about you?"

  "You know what I want," Tim reminds him. His grandfather's favorite flavor changes—one week butter pecan, the next orange sherbet or even bubble gum—but Tim's is always the same. He holds his breath. Surely Granddad will remember.

  "One scoop of chocolate. One of peppermint. With the peppermint on top." Granddad grins triumphantly. He is right and he knows it.

  Tim releases his breath, grins back. "You've got it," he says, and they start toward the front walk.

  When they reach the edge of his grandparents' property, Tim glances back over his shoulder toward the house. No one is visible through the living room window. No one to see them going and to object. Apparently, his mother and Paul and his grandmother are still in the kitchen, complaining about Granddad.

  Tim squares his shoulders. This is what Granddad needs, a little time alone with his grandson. Once he knows that Tim is home, really home to stay, everything will be all right again.

  At the corner of Walnut and Third, Granddad comes to a full stop on the curb in front of the hardware store.

  "Swenson's is this way," Tim reminds him, nodding in the direction of the drug store, though, of
course, his grandfather knows perfectly well where it is. The main street of Sheldon isn't long. Tim can see to each end from where they stand.

  But Granddad doesn't seem to hear. He just stands there, shuffling his feet as though he can't make up his mind which way to go. A breeze picks up a few dry leaves and sends them spinning along the gutter.

  When he finally speaks, his voice is low. "She wants to get rid of me, you know." He gazes off down the street as though he is talking about someone he sees in the distance. "She's been trying to get rid of me for a long time now."

  "Who?" Tim looks down the empty street, too, then up at his grandfather. Who could he be talking about?

  "Sophie. She wants to put me away."

  Grandma? Put him away? That makes no sense!

  "She's got the place all picked out. The one where she's going to put me."

  Tim frowns. He doesn't like listening to this. It sounds ... well, the truth is, it sounds crazy. Since his grandfather doesn't seem to be about to move either up the street or down, Tim leads him to the rickety bench in front of the hardware store. "What place does she have picked out?" he asks. "What do you mean?"

  The bench creaks as they sit. But Tim hears even more clearly the sound of the condescension in his own voice. It makes him swallow hard. There is a tone adults use when they are humoring children, and he has just spoken to his grandfather that way.

  "It's one of those places"—Granddad speaks slowly and distinctly, as if to someone who is having difficulty understanding English—"the kind where they send old people to die. Especially old people who've lost their marbles."

  The kind where they send old people to die? Especially old people who've lost their marbles? Granddad must be talking about a nursing home! If his tongue had been jerked out, Tim couldn't have been left more speechless.

  Granddad's angry glare seems to be meant for Tim, too. "She's got no use for this old plow horse any longer, so she's putting me out to pasture. Only I don't much like the pasture she's got in mind."

  "But Grandma would never put you in a nursing home," Tim protests finally. "I know she wouldn't."

  Granddad snorts. "Don't be so sure. I've heard. I've heard her talking on the phone to your mother. She's going to sell the house. Then she'll have 'enough money,' she says." His voice rises to a falsetto imitation of Grandma's when he says "enough money."

  "That's why your mother's come back ... to help Sophie get the house ready to sell. 'Sharper than a serpent's tooth..."'

  He doesn't finish, but Tim knows the rest of the quote. He's heard his grandmother use it before, though never about his mother. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.

  "No!" he cries. Just as he had cried to his mother earlier. What had she been talking about then? A nursing home? Is that what all the explaining had been about? He should have listened.

  He had been so sure that he was going to come back here and fix everything that he hadn't seen any need to pay attention to what the adults were planning.

  But sell the house? His grandfather's house? His father's house. His! Sell the house and shut Granddad away in a nursing home?

  Tim knows about nursing homes. There isn't one in Sheldon, but Beckwith, the next town to the east, has one. He's been inside it, even. The Sunday school kids from the Lutheran church used to sing carols over there at Christmas every year. People are always talking about how "nice" the Beckwith nursing home is. And maybe it does have pretty wallpaper. Polished floors. Nurses who wear pastel colors instead of that institutional white.

  But the whole place is filled with old people. Really old! The kind of old people who sit hunched over in wheelchairs or shuffle along the corridors with walkers. The kind of old people who look at you and don't even seem to know you're there.

  Granddad in a nursing home? No way. Not in a thousand, million years.

  But what could he do? What could any kid do?

  Him and his dumb plan. Here he'd thought all he had to do was to come back and stay with his grandfather, get him kind of plumped up, like a pillow that requires a good shake and a few pats to be right again.

  But he should have realized the adults would be making plans, too.

  "Granddad," Tim says, and this time his words come out settled, certain. "I have an idea. A better idea than going for ice cream. I know exactly the kind of adventure we need."

  Granddad waits, his head inclined to one side.

  Tim is so filled with pride—his grandfather is depending on him for his very life!—that he has a hard time speaking. "You and me ... we ... can run away."

  "Run away?" The expectation in Granddad's face slides into confusion. "Where would we go?"

  But Tim has the answer to that, too. The absolutely perfect answer. "We'll go camping. Just like we used to do. We'll go out to Silver Lake, go fishing—get us a mess of sunnies, maybe even a walleye or two. We'll eat berries, mushrooms..." Tim hates mushrooms, but that doesn't matter. He'll learn to like them. "We'll live off the land." He grips his grandfather's arm. "And we won't come back until we're good and ready. Grandma can't put you in a nursing home if she can't find you!"

  For a long moment, Granddad stares. Then his mouth starts jerking at the corners, and for a moment Tim thinks, to his horror, that his grandfather is going to cry. But he shakes his head and says, so sweetly, so reasonably that Tim almost wants to cry himself, "That won't help, you know. We'd have to come back sooner or later. And soon as we did, she'd pack me off to that blasted nursing home for sure."

  "But don't you see? If you show them you can still take care of yourself—out in the woods, even—they'll have to know you're okay. Someone who can do all that can't possibly belong in a nursing home."

  Granddad studies Tim for a long time before a slow smile begins to spread across his face. "Sophie would love to have a good mess of sunnies to fry up," he says.

  Tim waits.

  "Fishing!" Granddad's eyes shine. "I haven't been fishing for ... not since before you and your mama went off with that Paul fellow."

  Went off with that Paul fellow. Tim can't help but cringe.

  But then, as quickly as it came, Granddad's smile fades. "Keys." He plunges his hands into his pants pockets and withdraws them again, empty. "Sophie took my keys to the Buick. She says I'm not to drive anymore."

  Not drive! Tim's hope fades like his grandfather's smile. He knew that. It's one of the things Grandma was talking about in the kitchen. And the state forest preserve and the Silver Lake campground is ten, maybe fifteen miles outside of town. Too far to walk, that's for sure. Paul would take them. Paul would take Tim just about anywhere he asks to go. But they can hardly ask Paul to help them run away.

  There has to be another answer.

  And then it dawns on him. The solution. The absolutely perfect solution.

  "The pickup camper," Tim says.

  Granddad frowns. "That's gone. She sold that to—"

  "Grandma sold it to Dr. Hutchins. Last spring when he bought your practice." Tim speaks quickly, urgently. "But he's an okay guy. If we go by the clinic and ask if we can borrow the camper, just for a little while, he'll let us, I'm sure."

  For a long moment Granddad just sits there, kicking at a patch of broken concrete in front of the bench. Tim watches him, wondering if he heard, if he understood.

  Finally, though, Granddad straightens his shoulders. The smile he had cut off earlier plumps out his cheeks. "That young whippersnapper," he says. "Calls himself a vet? Why, I've forgotten more than he ever knew."

  "That's for sure, Granddad. That's for sure."

  Granddad nods his head, once, twice. "We'll go fishing."

  Tim sighs. This plan will work. Once he gets his grandfather away from all that talk about "burning down the house" and "hurting children," he'll be fine. Everyone will have to see that he is fine.

  Tim rises from the bench. "Come with me," he says.

  Granddad stands, too, and they start toward the veterinary clinic. For the first
time since Tim returned to Sheldon, his grandfather's shoulders are back, his head high, his step light.

  And the humming racket in Tim's head has turned to pure song.

  I'm going to take care of Granddad. Granddad will take care of me. We'll show them. We'll show them all.

  FOUR

  Gone Fishin'

  Granddad bursts into the Sheldon Veterinary Clinic the way Santa must drop down chimneys, full of good cheer and an absolute certainty of his welcome. Seeing him back within these walls makes Tim feel warm all over. Granddad was always most fully himself when he was at the clinic. Why he'd decided to quit his practice and why Grandma had been so ready to sell it, Tim has never understood.

  Mrs. Hutchins, Dr. Hutchins's wife, is standing behind the new counter they have installed. The counter makes the place look more formal. The counter and the beautiful young woman standing behind it, too. Mrs. Hutchins is wearing a silky green blouse. Not exactly the kind of clothes a person wears who is truly going to help out around a veterinary clinic, Tim can't help but note.

  "Dr. Leo! How good to see you," Mrs. Hutchins calls. "And Timmy. You're back in town!" She tosses her head, which causes her tawny mane of hair to swirl and resettle.

  Tim nods, though inwardly he can't help but bristle at the Timmy. The name is bad enough coming from his mother and his grandmother.

  "How are you?" Granddad is saying. "How's business? Have the farmers been having trouble with milk fever lately?" And then, before Mrs. Hutchins can answer any of his questions, "Is your hubby here? Do you suppose Timothy and I could have a word with him?"

  "Sure, he's here, Dr. Leo," she says. "But he's with a patient now. Gould the two of you wait for a few minutes?"

  Granddad looks over at Tim, as though it's up to him to decide.

  "Sure." Tim deepens his voice. "We can wait. For a little while, anyway."

  Apparently satisfied, Granddad nods and turns to the waiting room.

  A rather portly middle-aged man sits in one of the orange plastic chairs holding an equally portly cat. The cat is long haired with a cross-looking, snub-nosed face. She reminds Tim of the principal of his new school.