The Great Perhaps (32 page)

B
EFORE SCHOOL ON
T
HURSDAY,
T
HISBE IS EATING HER
cereal and staring out the kitchen window, at the sun, at the sky, at the world quietly beginning its day while she has to get ready to go to the worst place on earth: school. Across the table, her older sister is munching loudly, scanning the morning paper’s headlines for something to be mad about. This morning Thisbe is too tired to gloat about the results of the recent election. She stabs at the remaining golden puffs of starch getting soggy in the golden white bowl of milk, wondering what she is going to say if she happens to see Roxie today. Maybe Roxie will act like nothing is wrong. Maybe she will rush up to her in the hall and smile and tell her what her crazy mother made for dinner last night or go on about some silly idea for a song. Or maybe not. Maybe, with the rest of the school hurrying along, the bell for the next class echoing above their heads, she will rush right past Thisbe, acting like she doesn’t even know her. That would be the worst thing in the world, Thisbe decides. If she came up and said something mean, that would be okay.
If she acts like I don’t even exist, like she doesn’t even know me, well, that would be the worst thing ever, of all time
. As Thisbe considers this, she notices a flash of white slowly moving across the sunlit grass of the backyard. It is her neighbor’s cat, Snowball. Thisbe smiles suddenly, setting down her spoon, then hurries to the door with the cereal bowl full of graying milk in her hand, stepping outside as quietly as she can, while Amelia, still reading the paper, continues mumbling to herself. Squatting down on the back porch steps with the bowl, Thisbe makes a few soft kissy noises, clapping her hands against her thighs. The cat freezes where it stands, sniffing a wilted azalea bush. Thisbe gives a short little whistle, then snaps her fingers. Snowball squints its bright blue eyes, suspicious, but, smelling the delectable bowl of sugary milk, the cat creeps along the border of the backyard, tense, its tail raised, its pink nose twitching. Thisbe makes a few more kissy noises, though at this point it’s unnecessary. Snowball stalks through the grass, sniffing, until its mouth is gently lapping at the rim of the bowl, and Thisbe, so gently, so carefully, begins to run her fingers along the back of the cat’s soft head. Snowball does not seem bothered, now completely entranced by the bowl of milk. Thisbe softly caresses its pointed white ear.

Dear Heavenly Father
, Thisbe says silently, closing her eyes,
let the world be as nice to me today as this cat. Please do not let anyone utter a harsh word or give me a dirty look for being a spaz. Please do not let me drop anything while I am walking down the hallway. Please do not let certain people pretend that I do not exist. And please do not let anyone I love die anytime soon, at least until I am in my thirties. Through Christ, Our Lord, amen.

The cat, having finished the milk, its rough tongue flicking against the empty bowl, glances up at Thisbe as she scratches beneath its chin. Then it is off, just a quick flash of white fur disappearing behind a thornbush, and Thisbe can hear her sister shouting.

T
HISBE WALKS DOWN
the school hallway with her eyes almost completely closed. She is partly pretending she is a blind martyr, and partly trying to avoid seeing Roxie. As she is knocked about by the older boys and girls, excusing herself each time she bumps into somebody, she can almost feel Roxie somewhere among that mass of hurried, anxious bodies, watching her. She can almost sense the strange electric current traveling from the other girl’s eyes and mouth, her lips, careening down the hall to where Thisbe steps so clumsily, trying to avoid being seen. By third period, Thisbe realizes how dumb she looks, and as she hurries all the way across the building to her math class, it finally happens. Roxie, in a blue sweater, her blond hair looking styled and spiky, comes around the corner from the next hall, talking to some other sophomore, a girl with sharp features and gray bags beneath her heavily mascaraed blue eyes, just as Thisbe is rushing in the opposite direction. Every part of her body feels weak. Her breath falters, her heart betrays her, beating as loud as a plea. Thisbe almost stumbles, crashing into two older boys in front of her, as Roxie, definitely noticing her out of the corner of her eye, decides to pretend she does not, continuing to talk very excitedly to this new girl, this girl with the dark circles and makeup and slutty-looking blouse. Thisbe, fighting back a sob, feels Roxie’s shadow pass over her own; the entire world—of unnamable countries, of thousands of people, of millions of catastrophes, including all of the students at this lousy school—slows down for a single second as they pass one another, both of them silent, both of them pretending not to have seen the other’s stilted, awkwardly feigned nonchalance. These two bodies pass in such close proximit, elbows, maybe for a moment, coming within millimeters of each other, electrons, neutrons, protons, things immeasurably small finding one another for that solitary second, then, having made contact, somehow changing, the larger world growing silent now as they drift apart, one moving down D hall to the east, the other moving down D hall to the west. In that painful moment, Thisbe searches for something in the other girl’s eyes, some glimmer, some glow of recognition, but finds only stony greenness. What does not happen in those following seconds is the end: Thisbe does not collapse, she does not die of an asthma attack, she does not faint or stab herself in the heart with a No. 2 pencil. For as awful as the moment is, it is soon over, and Thisbe, placing one foot after the other, finds herself still alive, still breathing, sad, heartsick, despondent—yes—but stumbling on weak legs to her next class.

A
FTER SCHOOL,
Thisbe does not go to chorus practice. She explains to Mr. Grisham, in the hallway between sixth and seventh periods, that her grandfather is really sick. She uses the term “way sick,” as a matter of fact, and when the phrase comes out of her mouth, she smiles to herself, thinking she sounds exactly like her older sister. Mr. Grisham nods attentively, then, without any previous indication—no hand on the shoulder or further verbal cue—he throws a long, nervous arm around Thisbe’s neck and gives what is, surprisingly, a very gentle hug. “We’ll all be thinking of you,” he says and then releases her and strolls off to teach his music class, the awful echo of poorly fingered oboe notes already squawking from his room.
It is not a lie at all
, Thisbe tells herself.
We are going to see him.

W
HEN
T
HISBE OPENS
the front door of her house, she finds her older sister is already home, already a little impatient. Thisbe reminds herself that what she’s planned is almost impossible to do alone. The two girls chat about school for a moment, Thisbe puts her book bag on the kitchen table, even though her mother has asked her not to do this a hundred times. She grabs a glass of water and gulps it over the sink, something her older sister, Amelia, thinks is uncouth, then finishes it with a healthy, “Ahhhh,” and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Without another word, the two sisters, separated in age by almost four years, the older girl, a little taller, a little more savvy, refined, her makeup simple but thorough, in a dark sweater and jeans, the younger, her brown hair darker in a ponytail, in her gray coat and gray skirt from school, a smudge of something at the corner of her mouth, no makeup, her eyebrows in desperate need of tweezing, or so the older one thinks, together, silent, not so much different at all, the familial resemblance in the color of the hair, in the shape of the nose, slight and narrow, the thin mouth, the rounded eyes, the two girls exit their home before either one of their parents returns from work, afraid of having to explain where they are now headed. Together, they walk briskly down to Fifty-fifth Street, find a cab, and take it south, passing the dreary-looking shopping centers and run-down homes until some twenty minutes later they are there, ready to lie, to do a strange kind of misdeed. They sign both of their names on the register of the retirement home, taking the elevator to the third floor, walking demurely down the hall, or as close to it as they can. They find their grandfather watching television in the quiet confines of his room.

W
HAT HAPPENS NEXT
happens in near silence. Thisbe searches through her grandfather’s dresser for some clothes, Amelia, a little stronger, tries to help their grandfather out of bed. It is rough going at first, on her own. The old man’s purple, swollen feet and spindly little legs do not seem willing to bend. Their grandfather smiles at them kindly the whole time and does not ask for an explanation. To him, perhaps they are two other girls, twins, their nearly identical faces and dark hair, something from a dream or a memory. He is happy to see them, with their voices and dark eyelashes, with the softness of their hair and hands. He knows, somehow, that they have come to save him.

“I’m not so sure about this,” Amelia hisses over her shoulder. “I can’t get his legs to move.”

“We need to get his wheelchair.”

“Great. Where are we going to find that?”

Thisbe twitches her nose, surveying the room. “Go ask the nurse for one. Tell her we’re going to take him for a walk.”

“What if she says no?” Amelia asks.

“That’s why you’re here. That’s why I asked you to help. You’re good at being pushy. I’ll get him dressed.”

Amelia rolls her eyes and abandons her grandfather at the bed, placing his legs back beneath the starchy sheet. Thisbe has found a pair of large gray pants, a button-up sweater, and a blue stocking hat. Very gently, she begins to work the pants up her grandfather’s narrow legs, over his pajama bottoms, buckling them at his hipless waist, then she slips on a pair of dark socks. Leaning him against her equally thin frame, she works the sweater over his hospital gown. By the time Amelia returns with the wheelchair, its left wheel squeaking loudly as it rattles down the hall and into the room, Thisbe has their grandfather dressed. Yes, he looks like a madman, yes, he is totally disheveled, his gown tucked into his pants, the sweater buttoned up wrongly, everything looking enormous on his wilted body, but he hasn’t tried to stop them yet. He now sits leaning against Thisbe, his hazel eyes glowing.

“I found a bunch of wheelchairs at the end of the hall,” Amelia explains. “I don’t think anyone noticed.”

“Good. Help me get him into it.”

Together, they lift their grandfather from the bed to the wheelchair. When he is settled, he makes a little sound, like a sigh, and then, turning, he reaches up to place his papery-thin hand against Thisbe’s cheek. Thisbe smiles, fits the stocking cap over her grandfather’s head, then takes the two handles of the wheelchair in her hands. Before they cross the threshold into the tile hallway, Amelia, glancing down toward the nurses’ station, whispers, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea. I mean…I don’t know why we’re even doing this.”

Thisbe, undeterred by this last-minute hesitation, pushes the wheelchair into the harsh lights of the hall and answers, “Because we are.” Together, they walk behind their grandfather, the wheels of the chair squeaking with each full revolution, closer and closer to the octagon-shaped nurses’ station. “If they say anything, you have to talk,” Thisbe says. Amelia nods, sizing up the three nurses buzzing at their desk. Step by step, they move down the hall, the wheels giving a squeak every few seconds. They are passing the desk, the nurses laughing with each other about something. One of them, a heavyset black lady in a pink smock, gives Thisbe a suspicious look, which Thisbe, immediately, without having to think, returns with the most angelic-looking smile she can form with her lips, still pushing the wheelchair along. “How’s Mr. Casper today?” the heavyset nurse asks, and before Thisbe can stutter a half-formed response, Amelia has hit the security door button and says, “We’re just taking him for a walk around the block.” The glass security door opens and the two girls pass through, the sound of the elevator arriving bringing an end to that particularly uncomfortable conversation. When they hit the bottom floor, Amelia stumbles out of the elevator, then through the front doors to the street, where she hails a cab. Thisbe, smiling at the security guard as she passes, meets his question, “Taking Gramps for a walk?” with a single nod, before rushing her grandfather through the glass doors and finally outside. Already Amelia has gotten a cab: it’s waiting near the end of the block, its taillights flashing bright red as it idles. Amelia opens the back door and helps lift her grandfather into the backseat, as Thisbe climbs around the other side and keeps him upright, before buckling him in.

“Okay, so where are we going?” Amelia asks, but Thisbe just nods, taking her grandfather’s hand, making sure he is properly bundled up. The taxi driver, a young fellow in an orange and green dashiki, helps Amelia fold the wheelchair up, then he opens the trunk and places it inside. Amelia joins him in the front seat, before he puts the cab into drive and asks, “Where to?” in a distinctly African accent. Thisbe tells him their destination and the driver nods, enters something into his fare computer, and pulls away into traffic. From the backseat, staring out the window, Thisbe sees the autumn sky is cloudy, overcast, dismally gray. The sun, hidden behind a heavy cast of cumulus, does not offer much in the way of encouragement. As the cab winds its way north and east, Thisbe silently wonders if what she has done is the right thing. Beside her, her grandfather breathes heavily, glancing with wonder at the world flying by.

T
OGETHER, ON THE
paved path along the eastern edge of the great lake, the two girls push their grandfather along, the wheelchair moving a little uneasily against the November wind. The lakefront park, and its wide field of grass, green only a few weeks ago, now looks drab, the lake itself choppy with gray waves. Thisbe pulls the stocking cap down over her grandfather’s ears as they trudge along, past the yellowed stone fieldhouse, past the athletic field, past the end of the paved walkway. Thisbe has to turn their grandfather around backward, pulling him up the slight muddy embankment, past the spot where she and Roxie had ditched their bikes only a few weeks ago. Up and through the weedy prairie grass, once yellow and brown, now dark, nearly black, Thisbe pulls at the handles, stepping backward. Her older sister pushes from the front of the wheelchair, their grandfather silent, smiling at the unyielding margins of the cloudy sky, to the spot where she was certain she and this other teenage girl had somehow flown. She takes a rest for a moment, breathing deeply, the cold, cold November air burning her lungs, leaning against the sturdy frame of the wheelchair. Her older sister looks around, unimpressed, and asks, “Now what?” her eyebrows tilted above a face full of doubt. The field grass, though muddied, is still tall. It sways wildly back and forth with the great gusts of wind rushing along the lake. Thisbe itches her nose, then grabs her grandfather’s hand and leans in close to his fuzzy ear, whispering only a few words, which her older sister cannot hear, but very quickly their grandfather smiles wider, then closes his wrinkly, sunken eyes. Thisbe, kneeling beside him on the muddy ground, still grasping his tiny hand tightly, closes her eyes as well. Amelia, annoyed now, shaking her head to herself, knows it will be she who will be blamed for this, the sound of her father’s and mother’s voices already echoing in her brain. When the sun climbs out from behind a massive patchwork of clouds, Amelia has to cover her eyes with her hand to ward off the glare. The wind works its way through her hair and, turning, she searches for the familiar shapes of her sister and grandfather, which, just for the moment, seem to be somewhere they should not be, dozens of feet up in the air. When the sun disappears again, only a moment or two later, the wind startling itself into submission, Amelia lowers her hand, glancing back at her sister and grandfather, and finds them both on the ground, beaming.