ONE
Going Home
"Home," the car's tires hum against the endless asphalt. "Home!"
Home,
Tim hums to himself, the word reverberating inside his head. He is tucked as far into the corner of the back seat as his seat belt will allow.
I am going home.
Home to the two-story white house with the wraparound porch. Home to his attic room, too hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with a dormer window that opens into the limbs of the old maple. Home to his grandmother's oatmeal-raisin cookies and her lemonade, so sweet and so tart at the same time that it makes your jaws ache.
Home to Granddad. More than anything else, home to Granddad.
The insistent humming inside Tim's head is almost enough to keep the voices in the front seat from penetrating. Almost.
"We've got to face it, Paul. It's Alzheimer's. What else could be causingâ"
Alzheimer's.
The word leaps across the space between the front and back seats. The tires pick it up, too, and make it part of their song.
Alzheimer's. Home. Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's. Home.
Tim tugs at the restraining seat belt and twists in his seat.
Alzheimer's!
After a few moments, though, the humming repetition begins to drain the word's terrible power.
Alzheimer's
becomes just another combination of sounds. Like
asparagus.
Like
albatross.
A word that has nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with his grandfather.
This isn't the first time Tim has heard of Alzheimer's. The word had been whispered long before he and his mother ever moved from his grandparents' house in Wisconsin to Paul's apartment in Minneapolis. And his mother and Paul have talked of little else since Grandma's last call with the report from the doctor.
Alzheimer's disease.
The first time he heard his mother say it he thought she'd said
old-timer's disease.
But Granddad is only sixty-three. Everybody agrees that isn't old. Most people haven't even retired at sixty-three.
Besides, it doesn't matter what the doctors say. It doesn't matter how much the grownups complain about Granddad's forgetting, about all the ways they say the illness is affecting his brain. Tim knows what his grandfather's problem is. And he knows what to do about it, too.
He also knows what a dumb little kid he's been. He'd been glad when he'd found out Paul was going to marry his mother. Actually glad. Paul with the barrel chest and the open smile and the endless patience for playing catch and horse and going down when he was tackled as though he'd felt the hit. Paul with the construction job that sent him to live near them in tiny Sheldon, Wisconsin, for a whole year ... and then, when the project he'd been working on was finished, pulled him back to Minneapolis again. And pulled Tim and his mother with him.
Tim had been dumb enough to think that Paul was going to move in with him and his mother after the wedding.
Sure, Mom,
he'd said.
Paul's great. I'd love it if the two of you got married!
It was only later that he'd discovered his mother's marriage to Paul meant moving more than two hundred miles from the home he and his mother had always shared with his grandparents.
His mother's voice intrudes again. "I've been seeing signs. For a couple of years, it's been getting more and more obvious. How Leo would ask a question, tell a story, and five minutes later say it all again." She sighs, gazes out the window at the green countryside sliding past. "And the way he left his veterinary practice, just walking out like that..."
"I know," Paul says, his deep voice vibrating sympathy. "I know."
Leave my grandfather alone!
The words echo in Tim's skull as though someone is inside there shouting them, but no one can hear except him.
His mother certainly doesn't hear. "That time when Sophie called to say he'd gone out into the garden and pulled up all his tomato plants, I knew for sure. He loved his garden so much, tended it so carefully. How could he have done such a thing?"
Paul reaches over to rub the back of Mom's neck. Her neck looks fragile
Going Home
"Home," the car's tires hum against the endless asphalt. "Home!"
Home,
Tim hums to himself, the word reverberating inside his head. He is tucked as far into the corner of the back seat as his seat belt will allow.
I am going home.
Home to the two-story white house with the wraparound porch. Home to his attic room, too hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with a dormer window that opens into the limbs of the old maple. Home to his grandmother's oatmeal-raisin cookies and her lemonade, so sweet and so tart at the same time that it makes your jaws ache.
Home to Granddad. More than anything else, home to Granddad.
The insistent humming inside Tim's head is almost enough to keep the voices in the front seat from penetrating. Almost.
"We've got to face it, Paul. It's Alzheimer's. What else could be causingâ"
Alzheimer's.
The word leaps across the space between the front and back seats. The tires pick it up, too, and make it part of their song.
Alzheimer's. Home. Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's. Home.
Tim tugs at the restraining seat belt and twists in his seat.
Alzheimer's!
After a few moments, though, the humming repetition begins to drain the word's terrible power.
Alzheimer's
becomes just another combination of sounds. Like
asparagus.
Like
albatross.
A word that has nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with his grandfather.
This isn't the first time Tim has heard of Alzheimer's. The word had been whispered long before he and his mother ever moved from his grandparents' house in Wisconsin to Paul's apartment in Minneapolis. And his mother and Paul have talked of little else since Grandma's last call with the report from the doctor.
Alzheimer's disease.
The first time he heard his mother say it he thought she'd said
old-timer's disease.
But Granddad is only sixty-three. Everybody agrees that isn't old. Most people haven't even retired at sixty-three.
Besides, it doesn't matter what the doctors say. It doesn't matter how much the grownups complain about Granddad's forgetting, about all the ways they say the illness is affecting his brain. Tim knows what his grandfather's problem is. And he knows what to do about it, too.
He also knows what a dumb little kid he's been. He'd been glad when he'd found out Paul was going to marry his mother. Actually glad. Paul with the barrel chest and the open smile and the endless patience for playing catch and horse and going down when he was tackled as though he'd felt the hit. Paul with the construction job that sent him to live near them in tiny Sheldon, Wisconsin, for a whole year ... and then, when the project he'd been working on was finished, pulled him back to Minneapolis again. And pulled Tim and his mother with him.
Tim had been dumb enough to think that Paul was going to move in with him and his mother after the wedding.
Sure, Mom,
he'd said.
Paul's great. I'd love it if the two of you got married!
It was only later that he'd discovered his mother's marriage to Paul meant moving more than two hundred miles from the home he and his mother had always shared with his grandparents.
His mother's voice intrudes again. "I've been seeing signs. For a couple of years, it's been getting more and more obvious. How Leo would ask a question, tell a story, and five minutes later say it all again." She sighs, gazes out the window at the green countryside sliding past. "And the way he left his veterinary practice, just walking out like that..."
"I know," Paul says, his deep voice vibrating sympathy. "I know."
Leave my grandfather alone!
The words echo in Tim's skull as though someone is inside there shouting them, but no one can hear except him.
His mother certainly doesn't hear. "That time when Sophie called to say he'd gone out into the garden and pulled up all his tomato plants, I knew for sure. He loved his garden so much, tended it so carefully. How could he have done such a thing?"
Paul reaches over to rub the back of Mom's neck. Her neck looks fragile
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