Spare Change (20 page)

Figuring Westerly to maybe
be Grandpa Charlie’s real first name, Ethan Allen took the elevator back to the
seventh floor and rang the bell again. Still no answer. With nowhere else to
go, he had little choice but to wait.

Olivia

A
t one point I believed I would spend the rest of my
life crying over Charlie; but Clara, bless her heart, has helped me to get over
it. At first I saw her kindness as meddling and wished she’d leave me alone. I
certainly to God am glad she didn’t.

At least I’ve got a life
now. Not the real happy sort of life I had with Charlie, but it’s a whole lot
better than it was after his death. I keep busy, but I still think about him
every day and
I can’t help but
wonder if he’s looking down on me.

 If he is, I certainly do
hope he’s not put out about me getting rid of all his personal belongings. I
doubt that he would be, Charlie’s simply not the sort. 

Sometimes I have dreams where
we’re back together again—they’re so real I wake up expecting him to be there,
lying alongside of me. Whenever that happens, I keep my eyes shut tight and
stay in bed. I keep hoping I’ll slide back into the dream; but of course I
never do. If ever I do, I’m going to ask Charlie how he feels about me going to
dances and parties.

Clara swears it’s what he
would want me to do… but me, I’m not so sure.

Uninvited Guest

W
hen Olivia and Fred McGinty, who on this particular
evening had escorted her to the movie theatre, returned, they found the boy and
his dog propped up against her apartment door—both of them sound asleep. “Stand
back,” Fred, who was forever trying to impress Olivia, said, “I’ll handle
this.” He kneeled down with his face on the same plane as the boy’s, “Wake up,
son,” he said and gave the lad a gentle shake.  

Ethan Allen, tuckered out
from a full night’s lack of sleep and hard to rouse under the best of
circumstances, tipped over onto the floor, still fast asleep. Dog however,
jumped up and started barking so furiously you’d wonder if his head might pop
off; the barking finally woke Ethan.  The first thing the boy saw was Fred
McGinty’s face—a face as round and happy looking as Santa Clause himself.
“Grandpa Doyle,” Ethan said, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes and remember
the speech he had planned.

“Doyle?” Fred McGinty
gasped. He stood up so fast he almost toppled over. “You think
I’m
Charlie Doyle?”

“You’re not?”

Fred, who was as
superstitious a man as ever lived, suddenly turned pale as paste. “What is
this?” he asked angrily, “some sort of sick joke?”

Ethan Allen clambered to his
feet. “Joke?” 

“How’d you get in here? Who
the hell are you?”

“I’m your grandson, Ethan
Allen Doyle.”

Olivia’s hand flew up to her
mouth. She drew in a gasp of air and then fainted dead away.     

Fred, still reeling from the
thought of the boy mistaking him for a dead man, caught Olivia half a heartbeat
before she would have landed face down on the hallway floor. “Are you okay?” he
asked, although her eyes were glazed over and her legs so rubbery they could
barely keep her upright. “Are you okay?” he asked again, but the answer was
obvious for she had the look of a woman who had seen a ghost He pried the key
from her hand, unlocked the door and helped her inside. “You need to sit down,”
he said gingerly guiding her to the sofa, “I’ll get you some water.”

Ethan Allen and his dog,
both of whom had been forgotten, followed them inside the apartment. “I suppose
I’ve come at a bad time,” he mumbled meekly, but made no attempt to leave. He
waited a few minutes then looked at Fred and said, “I’m sorry I surprised you,
Grandpa, but…”  

“Stop calling me that!” Fred
shouted. “I’m not your grandpa!  Charlie Doyle is…”

Olivia bolted upright, “That’s
enough, Fred! This boy’s come here to see his grandpa, which, as you well know,
is none of your concern!”

“Well, I think he ought—”

“Nobody cares what you
think! Just go home, I’ll handle this.”  Olivia, having made a miraculous
recovery, crisscrossed her arms over her chest and fixed her eyes in a hard set
glare, which ultimately caused Fred to stomp off in a huff. While the bang of
the door was still echoing across the room, she turned to the boy and in a
voice given over to sweetness, said, “Honey, that man wasn’t your grandpa, he
was just a neighbor.”

“Oh,” Ethan replied, his
expression more bewildered than ever.

Olivia gave a great sigh and
lowered herself back down onto the sofa.  “So,” she said, “You’re Ethan Allen
Doyle.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And, you’ve come to see
your grandpa?”

“Yes ma’am,” Ethan answered.
“Is he here?”

The boy had the same blue
eyes as Charlie, the same look of earnestness, the same way of tearing at
Olivia’s heart. Obviously he knew nothing of what had happened. “Well now…” she
stammered, the popcorn she’d eaten at the movie theatre was exploding all over
again; kernel after kernel bursting open, hammering buttery little holes in her
chest. “He’s not here,” she finally blurted out, “but, you and I are, and we’ve
got lots to talk about.” She jumped up and began plumping some sofa pillows
that weren’t the least bit mussed. “Of course, before we get to all of that,”
she said nervously, “we ought to have ourselves a cup of cocoa and something to
eat. You look like a boy who’s been travelling, and I’ll just bet your poor
little tummy is practically turned inside out from hunger.” Olivia headed into
the kitchen and motioned for him to follow. Moving about in a fidgety sort of
way, she flung open the refrigerator, “Let’s see now,” she rambled on, “I’ve
got boiled ham, cheddar cheese, tuna fish salad, cherry pie—any of those things
strike your fancy? I could warm up a bit of sweet potato casserole, how’s that
sound?”

Ethan Allen, feeling a bit
overwhelmed, said, “You got peanut butter?”

“Peanut butter?” Olivia once
again found herself wishing she and Charlie could exchange places. “Honey, I
don’t have any peanut butter. You could’ve asked for a dozen different things
and I’d have had them, but I don’t have peanut butter.” She began another
rundown of all the other things she did have.

Ethan watched as the woman
flitted from one side of the kitchen to the other, opening cupboard after
cupboard, fidgeting her hands, shuffling her feet, never settling in any one
spot. Every time he looked at her, she’d glance off in some other direction.
He’d decided on a ham sandwich, but she set three in front of him, along with a
helping of potato salad and two cup cakes. Without anybody even asking, she’d
given Dog a bowl of water and some broken up pieces of meatloaf. In Ethan’s
book, people didn’t go around doing stuff like that—unless they were up to
something. He eyed her suspiciously for a good long while; then he asked, “Are
you my grandma?”

“Me?” Olivia gasped. “Me?”
With the look of a woman who couldn’t fathom the carrying of another burden,
she lowered herself into the chair directly across from Ethan. “Because of my
being married to your grandpa, Charlie Doyle, I suppose I would legally be
considered your grandma, but only in the most formal sense. See, grandparents
and grandchildren have relationships that go way back in time—you and I, why
we’ve just met. We hardly know each other, and given such a circumstance, you
wouldn’t actually regard me the same as you would a blood relative grandma.”

“Oh. Okay then. I suppose I
could do with just having a grandpa.”

Olivia looked at the boy’s
blue eyes and wanted to cry. How many times can you lose somebody you love, she
wondered. Do they just keep coming back, forever and ever and ever? How long
did she have to pay for having twenty-one days of happiness? She gave a sigh so
deep it had the sound of something hauled up from the basement of her soul.
“Ethan Allen,” she moaned, “it truly breaks my heart to have to tell you this,
but your dear sweet grandpa passed on nine months ago. It happened in Miami
Beach, Florida, while we were still on our honeymoon.”

“Grandpa’s dead?”

“Yes, honey.  I would have
notified—”

“Aw, shit!”

“Shame on you, using such
language. I know this is a shock, but—”

“You don’t know the half of
it; I got no place else to stay.”

Olivia misunderstanding the
meaning of his statement, said, “You can stay here tonight, and tomorrow I’ll
call your mama to come pick you up.”

“You can’t call Mama, ‘less
you got a telephone that reaches up to heaven.”

“Excuse me?”

“Lady, my mama’s dead!”

“Well then, who brought you
here? Your daddy?” 

“Nobody brought me. I
hitched.”

“Well then, I’m sure your
daddy is quite worried about you.”

“No he ain’t. It breaks my
heart to have to tell you this,” Ethan Allen said, sarcastically mimicking
Olivia’s words, “but, my daddy’s dead too.” 

Olivia clutched her chest in
such a way you’d wonder if she was headed down the same pathway. “Who then,”
she gasped, “…is taking care of you?”

“Nobody,” he answered. “I
was figuring to stay with Grandpa, but if he’s dead, I suppose I gotta find
someplace else.”

“Maybe another relative?”
she asked hopefully.

Ethan Allen shook his head,
“There ain’t no other relatives.”

It seemed to Olivia some
days were simply too long and troublesome for their own good. When days like
that happened along, a person should give up and toddle off to bed, forget
about that day and start over again in the morning; which is precisely what she
decided to do. She folded a bath towel for the dog to sleep on and fixed the
boy a place on the sofa; then she poured herself a full glass of sherry and
carried it into the bedroom.

Long about midnight, the
hooting of a night owl set the dog to barking loud enough to wake the people in
downtown Wyattsville. Olivia, sound asleep by then, leaped from the bed in a
panic and went running to the living room. “Shush,” she shouted at the dog, in
a voice louder than the barking. “There’s no dogs allowed in this building! Don’t
you understand that—no dogs!” Olivia knew that having a pet was something the
residents of the Wyattsville Arms Apartment Building would not tolerate. Why,
just two months ago a man on the ninth floor had been sent packing because of
his cat—a cat that mewed in a barely audible voice and didn’t poop outside on
the lawn. She gave the boy’s shoulder a shake and pleaded for him to get up and
take control of the dog.   

Unfortunately, Ethan was not
one to be easily woken, so he cracked an eyelid then rolled over and went back
to sleep leaving Olivia to deal with the situation as she would. “Go back to
bed,” she said, pointing a finger at the folded towel. The dog didn’t budge,
just sat there grumbling like he had a bark stuck in his throat. “Go on,”
Olivia repeated trying to sound authoritative, but the dog, unimpressed, turned
in the opposite direction and trotted over to the window. “Not there,” Olivia
shouted, but before she could yank the dog back, he began barking again.  

After being bribed with two
slices of ham, three shortbread cookies, and a bowl of warm milk, the dog
finally curled up on the towel. Olivia waited for a full fifteen minutes to
make certain he was going to stay there; then she stumbled back to her own bed.
Of course, sleep was nigh on to impossible, so she lay there staring up at the
ceiling and picturing the eviction notice that was sure to be slid under her
door before morning.

Although certain she
wouldn’t catch a single wink, she did at some point doze off and by the time
she opened her eyes the sun was well into the sky. Pushing off a residue of
drowsiness, she pulled on a bathrobe and hurried into the living room. Both boy
and dog were gone. The blankets lay in crumpled heap at one end of the sofa,
the folded towel was still on the floor. She walked into the kitchen—the
counter was exactly as she’d left it the night before, no dirty dishes, no used
glasses. The boy had obviously gone off without a bite in his stomach, without
even a glass of milk to tide him over.

“Oh dear,” Olivia sighed,
knowing that
she
, of all people, should understand the feeling of being
alone and having no family to speak of. She thought back to the September
morning when she walked out of her parent’s house; she could still picture her
father standing on the front porch, arms akimbo.
If you go, you’re on your
own,
he’d hollered,
don’t come back here looking for help,
then
before she reached the end of the walkway, he’d turned back inside the house
and slammed the door behind him. Of course, she was seventeen years old at the
time, a grown woman capable of making her own way in life—this poor boy looked
to be eight or nine, maybe ten at the most. Olivia felt a lasso of guilt
knotting itself around her heart. She’d always considered herself a Christian
woman, yet last night she’d lain in bed wishing she’d never set eyes on either
the boy or his dog.  

With a sprig of regret
taking root inside of her, Olivia returned to the living room and began folding
the blankets. “He’s Charlie’s grandson,” she muttered to herself, “his
grandson! Whether or not, I’ve any love of children, I should have seen to the
lad having a place to go and some way to get there.” Long about the time Olivia
began believing Charlie’s ghost would be back to haunt her, the doorbell
chimed.