my grandfather's death #2

In the hours after my grandparents disappeared in the ambulance, I lay curled up with my dog Bozo in his hallway bed.  Though there was just enough warmth between us, I could not sleep, haunted by the sound of the wind whipping against the windows.  Each time I began to drift, I'd hear pounding on the glass and picture my grandmother standing before me, her hand ready to settle on my face.
 
I huddled closer to Bozo who groaned as more of my weight pressed against him.  Nuzzled in this way, I smelt the blood on me, my grandfather's blood, and the shame surged again.  Why had my grandfather insisted on going out that night?  No one would ever be certain of this except my grandfather and I'd never ask the question.

   

I slipped out of the gown and pushed it out of the tattered dog bed and resumed my place beside my dog.  Dreamy and even colder without any clothes, I concentrated on my grandfather.  Was he alive?  Would I know if he had died?  I hadn't shared my grandmother's premonition about my mother's death.  I thought of how I pestered him too often, how I called his name too often, how he would be in his bed right then if I hadn't succumbed to that desire for a cookie.  I tried to picture him coming up the stairs with my grandmother and slowly turning down the hall toward his dark sad room but I could not fully envision it.  Some part of me knew that he would not return to our house.

My grandmother never called that long night and did not return until light had already come over us.  Soon after I heard the sound of her feet on the steps, her face appeared in the window at the top of the stairs.  She dug inside her purse for her key and inserted it into the door.  When she realized the door was not locked, I instantly saw that look in her eyes, the one that meant she was about to lose control, but instead when she entered the hall, she did not meet my eyes.  Bozo whimpered and I scrambled to my feet, desperate for her announcement.

When she looked at me, it was as if she had never seen me before.  I wanted to shout tell me, and to condemn her for leaving me all night in wait, but I couldn't speak.  She turned to walk away from me without uttering a word and as I reached to grab her arm, she fixed me still with her eyes, then bent down to pick up the bloody gown.  She held it up in disgust; her hands large and confrontational.  There was a threat in her eyes now, something more than rage,  She threw the gown at me and headed toward the kitchen.  When she was certain I was following her, she turned to me.  "You killed him."

I stood in the hall as my grandmother slipped further away from me, condemned.  I was naked and cold and a murderer. After a moment, I chased after her.  This time I took hold of her arm. 

  
"He's dead?  Tell me what happened."

  
She shook me free,  pushed me to the floor and hovered over me. "You happy now, kid?  What are we going to do?"

  
I pleaded with her.  "Why did he die?"

  
She looked down at me.  "Get dressed.  What the hell is wrong with you?"  She gripped my shoulder but didn't have the strength to lift me against my will.  "Get up."  I shook my head.  She drew her lips together tightly, fighting back the words that would come next.  "He isn't dead.  Not yet.  He has a tumor in his brain from the fall.  They moved him to the VA in Florence and then he's going to some hospital in Boston."

  
I heard the words but could only focus on the most essential:  he wasn't dead.  My grandmother must have seen the smile taking form and this time mustered the force to drag me to my feet.  "They said they can't operate on it.  He's going to die.  And get dressed god-damned it."  

  
Sounds exploded behind me as I walked into my room:  shouts, curses, pots and pans flying.  I opened the drawer of my bureau and pulled out some pajamas.  I wouldn't be going to school that day.  As I stood before the mirror and drew my hair back in a headband, my grandmother slipped in behind me.  We stood there staring at each other in the glass and in that exchange I understood what she needed me to know--I was the one who was responsible for every wrong thing that happened.  When I shut my eyes, she swatted at the back of my head, just enough to graze my hair and left the room.

This post furthers the story my grandfather's death begun on 4/6/10.