Grover G. Graham and Me (5 page)

T
he next week Grover’s behavior changed. I never knew such a kid for acting one way one day and a different way the next. That’s how it is with babies, I guess. Always learning some new thing. Must be why they have those huge Tweety Bird heads—to fit everything in.

Anyway, just like that, Grover started dropping things. Mrs. T. would set him in his high chair and spread bits of hot dog on the tray.
Plop! Plop! Plop!
In two seconds they’d be on the floor.

He dropped stuffed toys out of his crib.

He dropped plastic toys out of his stroller.

He dropped magazines off the coffee table.

Plop! Plop! Plop!

Then he would bawl till you fetched them.

And don’t you know, he’d drop them again.

At first this frazzled my nerves, but then I started to worry. Maybe he had a disease. Or defective fingers.

I checked his hands but they seemed okay. He could still get a good grasp on Charmaine’s ears. And he could pinch my nose like the devil.

I worried about this for a few days—till I came across the Dr. Spock book in my sock drawer. I’d forgotten all about it.

Baby and Child Care
was chockful of teeny print and a few cartoon pictures. It would take forever to read this whole book. But in the back was an index, and luckily,
dropping
was listed.

So I turned the yellowed pages and read the teeny print and—how about that!—Grover was doing just the right thing. The book said dropping was an important skill.

I flipped through a few more pages. Yeah, this could give me a big jump on Grover. I read about throwing and teething and feeding and napping. There was even a section on toilet training, which I skipped over. I sure wasn’t going to teach him the potty.

That evening at dinner Grover tossed a french fry and hit Kate on the arm. When she hollered, I trotted out my new knowledge. “Grover’s practicing his throwing and dropping,” I explained. “That’s how he learns, you know.”

“Yeah?” Kate fielded another fry. “Well, when is he going to learn to clean up?”

“That comes later,” I said.

“Much
later, apparently.” Mr. T. was pointing at Kate’s jacket on the floor when—
bonk!
—a fry caught him square on the nose.

That set everyone off. Mr. T. started laughing, which shook his whole self. The dog barked. The twins squealed.
Bang! went
Grover’s spoon. And from the kitchen, where
she was fetching dessert, Mrs. T. hollered, “What am I missing?”

Then there was a crash.

In the silence, the clock went
tick … tick … tick.
Then—
scriitch
—Mr. T. pushed back his chair and everyone ran for the kitchen. On the floor were jagged bits of broken bowl, blobs of red Jell-O, and Mrs. T.

“Ahhh, Eileen,” Mr. T. murmured, kneeling beside his wife.

The twins turned scared eyes to me. Like
I
knew what to do.

Slowly I made my way to the sink. A fall, I thought. A bone could be broken. Maybe her hip like Gram. What if Mrs. T. couldn’t get up?

I remembered Gram’s fingers, bent as bird claws, holding a wet cloth to her face.

I grabbed a clean dishrag and turned on the faucet. The cold water woke up my hands. Woke them into wringing and folding and passing that cloth to Mr. T. He pressed it gently to his wife’s closed eyes.

Bang!
I heard from the next room. Grover! The little guy was still carrying on with his spoon and french fries. I wheeled his high chair into the kitchen so I could keep an eye on him.

“Ga,” he shouted. Drool dripped from his chin.

Mrs. T. finally jerked and opened her eyes. Jeesh, she looked white.

“What happened?” She blinked. “I remember lifting the bowl, then my back—” She winced. “I must have blacked out for a moment.”

When Mrs. T. tried to stand, she gasped and her knees
buckled. She would have fallen again if Mr. T. hadn’t gripped her arm.

“How can I put my back out just
lifting
a bowl?”

“It’s the angle you do the lifting.” Mr. T. loomed over his small wife. Frankenstein and Flea. I felt ashamed of the names I’d first called them.

“You need to be more careful,” Mr. T. went on. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean this up.”

“Better sooner than later.” Mrs. T. tried to make a joke, then slapped some tone into her voice. “Now, please quit fussing and get me back to the table.”

But Mrs. T.’s tone wasn’t going to work with her husband. Mr. T. said he was taking her straight to bed. On the stairs, their footsteps sounded heavy and slow.

The twins started to cry.

“Ga!” yelled Grover, flinging fries.

I wished Mrs. T. hadn’t fallen. What had happened to her back? What if she had to go to the hospital?

As the twins sniffled I took a deep breath. Boo-hooing and blabbing wouldn’t change a thing. I’d learned that in the system. Keep moving, keep doing—that got you through. “Jango,” I said, “clean off the table. Kate, you load the dishwasher.”

The tears stopped. “It’s Jango’s turn to load,” said Kate.

“Do it,” I said.

Then I turned to Grover. He was bashing a fry on his head and wearing half of his dinner. One teeny washcloth wouldn’t make a dent in that mess. Carefully I hoisted him out of his high chair and hauled him to the bathroom. While I shimmied him out of his clothes, Grover tossed every shampoo bottle into the tub. Who cared? They were
plastic. They floated. They kept him busy while I scrubbed his hair.

When he was bathed and dried and squeezed into his diaper and pajamas, Grover turned bright eyes to me and commanded: “Ba.”
Hop on Pop.
The little con man figured he’d delay bedtime. But I gave him only two readings. Dr. Spock thinks limits are important.

Downstairs the twins were sitting at the table, big eyes on me as I entered.

“Mrs. T.?” Jango asked.

I tried to put some bounce in my voice. “Mrs. T…. um,” I replied. “She’s going to be okay.”

Kate stared me down. “Mrs. T. has cancer,” she said.

“Cancer? No,” I said, startled. “Mrs. T. hurt her back.”

“Cancer gets everything.” Jango stuck her doll in her mouth. “Lung cancer. Breast cancer. Mrs. T. probably has back cancer.”

The twins looked pretty shook up.

Keep moving, keep doing—that kept me from worrying. Maybe it would work for them.

“Everything will be okay,” I said, then borrowed some tone from Mrs. T.: “Upstairs, now. Bathtime.”

“But—”

“And then bed.”

“But—”

“No buts. Go.”

And they went.

Later when I checked, I found the girls curled up in their beds, with the light still burning bright. I could hear Kate sniffing and Jango softly chewing. Their sounds reminded me of Gram’s nightly snuffles and snores.

I spoke softly: “Mrs. T. is going to be okay.”

“Are you sure?” Kate asked.

“Pretty sure,” I said.

“My daddy would know
for sure.”

I didn’t say a word about deadbeat fathers. Jango had her Barbie’s feet; Kate had her dream daddy. I had my goals laid out A, B, C. Whatever got you through. I clicked off the switch but left the door slightly open so some light from the hall could shine in. Even a teeny glow can help if you wake up scared in the night.

I figured I’d better stay awake in case Mr. and Mrs. T. needed to go to the hospital or something, so I propped myself on the couch with
Where Eagles Dare.
My eyeballs were so tuckered out the words kind of tangled together. From what I could tell, an American general had been captured by the enemy. The main character planned to rescue the man … kidnap him.

“Thought you’d be in bed by now.”

Jeesh, I must have dozed off. I blinked up at Mr. T.

He told me he had tried to get his wife resting easy with a heating pad and back rub. Whoa, Ben-gay! The smell was so strong my eyes suddenly stung. I remembered Gram smoothing the white lotion into her hands, then slowly twisting the lid off the Jif jar.

“Strained back,” Mr. T. said, stretching. “Did it myself once, lifting a bin of nails. I was flat on my back for a week. Helpless as a baby.”

“A
baby?”
I said. “Grover is the least helpless person I know.”

It wasn’t a very good joke—like Gram, I’d never been much good at jokes—but Mr. T. let out a big laugh. Maybe it was relief or something. I was feeling that way myself.

“Ahhh.” Tonight Mr. T.’s “ahhh” sounded tired. “The problem is”—the man sat down beside me—“Eileen won’t like lying flat on her back. It’s what she needs to get well, but first chance she gets, she’ll want to be up and about. Checking on Grover. Keeping track of the girls. I’ve convinced her to stay put tomorrow.” He sighed. “Who knows what she’ll be up to the rest of the week.”

Mr. T. mentioned he’d call a baby-sitter to stay with Grover tomorrow. “I have to leave for work by seven,” he said, “but I don’t think I can get a sitter to come any earlier than eight. Will you and the girls be okay?”

I nodded, then added: “The twins seem pretty upset.” With Mr. T. somehow I didn’t feel I was squealing. “They think Mrs. T. might have cancer.”

“Their mother died of cancer.” Mr. T. cleared his throat. “They in bed?”

I nodded again.

“We’ll talk to them tomorrow.” He pinched the space between his eyes. “I wish I could take tomorrow off, but I can’t on such short notice. They had to let another guy go at the store yesterday.” Mr. T. ran his hand over his face. “That new hardware store on Route Three is killing us. Everyone wants to buy there.”

Mr. T. tried to slap a smile over his worried look. “Guess the best thing for us both is some shut-eye,” he said. “I’m going to sleep on the couch so Eileen can rest better.”

As I scrambled off his sleeping place I kept pushing a thought out of my brain. Only when I entered Jake’s room and settled into Jake’s bed did I let myself puzzle over Mr. T.’s words.

The man had talked like I was someone who knew
the place and the people. Someone who was not a stray, or even a guest. Someone who might stick around.

I knew that wasn’t true. I was temporary. Short stay, I’m on my way. I fiddled with my night-light and then lay back. Tomorrow I’d blank out Mr. T.’s words. For now, it felt kind of nice to let them float in my head.

P
lop! crash! bang!
jerked me awake. It sounded like an invasion.

Then came an excited squeal.

Grover. Tossing and dropping.

I squinted at the bedside clock. 7:10
A.M.

“Why,” I muttered, stumbling to Grover’s room, “can’t you learn a
quiet
skill?”

Grover flashed a huge smile. “Ba! Ba!” he cried, jerking his crib bars, head swaying like a happy bear’s. He flapped his fist. You would think he’d been watching for me his whole life.

But I knew it wasn’t me he was happy to see. Oh, no. He was happy to see Plastic Doughnut, Squeaky Mouse, and Lambie Pie. All the toys he’d tossed to the floor, which I put back into his crib.

He started to toss them again.

“Shhh, Grover.” I hoisted him out of the crib. “You’ll wake up Mrs. T.”

“Ga-ba.” Grover dived for my nose.

Jeesh, was he ripe! I contemplated sticking him back in his crib and waiting for the sitter. After all, she got paid to deal with this.

But that stinky diaper was starting to sag. And the way he was prancing, he’d soon have poop all over his pajamas and sheet. All over Plastic Doughnut, Squeaky Mouse, and Lambie Pie.

So I stuck him on the changing table. He squirmed like he’d been clamped to a bed of nails. By this time I had an audience of two—Kate and Jango—trying to talk, double fast, double loud, over Grover’s squeals. Somehow I managed to puff out some baby powder and fasten a diaper, just in time to hear Jango say, “… can’t come.”

“Who can’t come?” I coughed, releasing Grover’s stranglehold on my neck.

“The baby-sitter,” the twins cried. “We already told you a million times.”

“She’s sick,” explained Jango.

“We told her we’d take care of Mrs. T.,” Kate added. “We’re the best nurses in the world, that’s what Mom always said.”

So while I plunked Grover into his high chair, the twins set the kettle to boiling, and, at 7:45
A.M.
, fixed Mrs. T. a cup of instant chicken noodle soup. Even when I explained that Mrs. T. had a hurt back, not cancer, not a cold, the twins just blinked big eyes at me and said they knew what to do. They bustled out of the kitchen like two Clara Bartons, with a tray full of crackers and soup.

At least the twins left me free to deal with Grover. But
that bulldozer-vacuum baby needed a double-octopus sitter. I bet even sixteen arms couldn’t keep up with him. Feed, clean, change, play, feed, clean, change, play, change. Hour after hour after hour. At least with Charmaine around I didn’t have to sweep. She gobbled any food Grover threw to the floor.

By the time Mr. T. returned, I was flaked out on the couch, munching a peanut butter cracker, channel-grazing the afternoon TV. In their room, Kate and Jango were playing nurse with their Barbies and two white socks. I’d just managed to lay Grover down for a nap.

“Ahhh.” Mr. T. lifted the brim of his cap. “Looks like you’ve had an easy day.”

I bounced off that couch so fast I must have been a blur. Easy! Easy to change about forty dirty diapers!

“Just teasing.” He smiled, then asked, “Where’s the sitter?”

So I sat back and told him the story of my day with Grover. Feed, clean, change, play, feed, clean, change, play, change.

Mr. T. eyed my clothes. “Those your sleeping duds?”

I glanced down at my T-shirt, spotted with cereal from Grover’s breakfast.

“Go change,” he said. “I’ll take over.”

I headed to the shower and, minutes later, when
plop! crash! bang!
reached my ears, it sounded good to hear Mr. T’s
thump … thump … thump
stop at Grover’s room.

Before I went down to dinner, I opened my sock drawer and thumbed through the Dr. Spock book. Checking to make sure I hadn’t messed up. The cartoons made me
smile. Lots of get-into-everything babies and frazzle-haired moms.

But later I started wondering about the dads. Why weren’t they in the pictures? Shoot, when Grover threw his mashed potatoes at dinner, Mr. T. looked frazzled enough for any cartoon.