Woman of Substance (7 page)

“Morning. You still coming to see me today?”

Jake heard his grandfather’s gravelly voice over top of labored breathing.

“Of course.”

“Good. I feel like company this morning.”

Jake glanced at his watch. “I’ll be there around eleven.”

“Wear your gloves. It’s cold out.”

“Will do.” Jake understood that it didn’t matter that he was thirty-five years old, to Frank he would always be a kid.

Robbie, disguised as Robin, found a parking place across the street from the home. The city’s street decorations of giant snowflakes fastened to the streetlights, wrenched against the fasteners, as if they were asking to be set free to float on the winter wind. While driving the short distance to the Care Manor, she’d argued with herself.
Just tell Frank that I’m researching people’s reaction to a woman of size. No, wait until he calls me on it? Am I using a dying man? Do I really want to be a comfort to him?
She hadn’t reached any firm conclusion when she tapped on the partially opened door and listened. She heard, “Come in. You’re on the outside.”

“Hi, Frank.” She glanced around the compact room.

Frank’s fragile, decaying body seemed marooned in the brown landscape of the recliner. His wedding band nestled into the skin folds on his finger. Robbie reached for his hand and held his palm in hers.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He attempted a whistle. “Are you all gussied up for me or something special?”

Robbie hung her coat on a hook on the wall. “You first, and then some place special.”

“I’m glad I’m first. You look better than you’ve ever looked.” He pursed his lips and once again attempted a wolf whistle of appreciation.

“Thank you.” She hesitated, her fear of exposure dampened down. “I’m going to my high school reunion and I want to look my best.” Each time she met Frank, she waited for him to call her on her disguise. She wondered if he just accepted her or if he wanted so much to be reminded of Mabel that he overlooked any disproportion in her appearance.

Frank gripped the arms of the lazy chair.

“No, stay where you are. I’ll sit on the bed,” she said.

“Look behind the door. I had the staff bring in a folding chair since sometimes you and Jake come around at the same time.”

Robbie moved aside the imitation pine garland festooned with red poinsettia bows that stretched from his window to his door, then unfolded the chair and placed it in front of Frank and sat down.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said.

“Didn’t sleep that well last night.” He scrubbed his thin hand across his forehead.

“Would you like to sit quietly or would you like tell me about your life with Mabel?” She concentrated on his face. She’d half expected his agreement to be ready and quick.

With a sigh, he leaned back. His hands moved along the arms of the chair, trying to settle. “You don’t want to hear about me. My story’s an old one.”

She took a few precious seconds weighing the pros and cons of his response. “I do. I want to know that there’s a chance for me to find the kind of love you and Mabel shared.”

His reaction was slow. “There’s always hope.”

Her hands couldn’t remain still and they bunched the polyester of her wide legged slacks, pleating the azure folds before smoothing out the creases. “If it’s not too much for you, I’d like to hear a bit. I’m going to my high school reunion where the majority of my classmates will be married with children and I don’t even have a boyfriend in the wings. I could use a little moral support.” She hadn’t realized that was what she was seeking until it was out in the open. Rolling onto one hip, she rested her arms on her belly and waited.

“When I met Mabel, we were older than most of the singles. She was happy as a secretary, playing the organ, and singing in a band part time. I had to chase her and convince her that she was the woman for me. She put up a fight.” He was looking at some faraway spot on the ceiling. “We got used to the idea it might be just the two of us no matter how many times we tried. But after we’d been married for five years, Mabel became nauseated in the mornings. We thought it might have been a stomach bug but the doctor told us otherwise. Mabel was beautiful while she carried our child. We didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, we were just so happy. Karen was born like she was meant to be, all smiles and rosy cheeked. Mabel stayed home and cared for Karen and me. She put both of us first. Karen and I went swimming, bike riding, ice-skating. Our Karen had the same independent streak as her mother. She didn’t want to sit in an office or teach kids, she wanted to explore the world. She became a flight attendant as they call them now. She saw a lot of the world. She loved her job, the travel, the excitement. Then one day she rang our front door with her suitcase in hand. She asked if she could have her old room back because she was pregnant. This was the time just before women could work late into their pregnancy. We were with her when Jake was born.” His eyes closed.

Robbie imagined a cozy scene of a mother and newborn supported by loving grandparents. The fantasy made easy by the slow, familiar words of a well-told story.

The groves around Frank’s mouth seemed to deepen. “Karen caught a flu, a simple flu, that somehow took her away from us before Jake’s first birthday.”

“Oh, Frank. I’m so sorry.” Tears pricked the back of her eyes.
This is where your curiosity brings you, Robbie.
She reached over and covered his hand with her hand.

He didn’t seem to hear or feel her. “A part of us died too, but we had Jake to care for.”

He paused, then withdrew a tissue from his sleeve. “Jake was a good boy. Never gave us much trouble. Smart. Always had his nose in a book or fingers on a computer keyboard.”

Robbie considered his comment. No doubt being raised by grandparents had something to do with his independence.

“That’s probably why he loves to travel a lot,” Frank said. “I think he got that from his mother. Mabel and I didn’t roam too far from home.”

“It probably has more to do with you and Mabel. You raised a confident man,” Robbie said.

Frank cleared his throat. “He took a lot of ribbing about Mabel’s size and our age.” Frank’s shoulders sagged. “Today, I see grandparents out and about with their grandkids, but thirty some years ago it was a different story.”

An odd sensation stirred in her heart when his voice filled with sadness and regret.

“We did what we could and hoped for the best.” His voice was almost a whisper.

“Jake’s an intelligent and well-traveled man. He’s probably resolved all of his childhood issues.” A nervous bravado crept into her voice.

Frank shifted in his chair. “If he hasn’t, it’s a bit late. He’s thirty-five and still no true love in his life.”

Robbie understood all about parents’ expectations and goals for their children. She was an only child, too. Even though her parents didn’t hint at grandbabies, she saw her mother slowing down when they passed children’s wear in the mall, all the while vehemently stating that she and her father were too young and busy to be grandparents like some of their friends.

“He’ll find someone. He’s good looking now and will be as he gets older because I can see a lot of you in him,” Robbie said. She knew Frank just wanted his grandson to be happy.

“Thanks. Mabel was glad when both Karen and Jake took after me physically but they were all her in spirit. He’ll most likely marry later, like Mabel and me, or maybe not at all, like his mom. Nowadays you don’t need the ring and paper to prove love.”

Robbie glanced at the clock. There was a dusty blue tinge around Frank’s mouth. He’d talked too much. “I’m sorry, Frank. You’re tired. I shouldn’t have asked you to talk so much.”

“I’ll close my eyes for a minute. Jake should be here soon.”

“Thanks for sharing your memories. You rest. I’ve got to go anyway. Take care. I’ll drop by again soon,” she whispered as she leaned in and kissed his forehead. There wasn’t a way to explain the closeness she felt for this special man. She heard a small snore escape his lips.

Robbie tried to swallow past the huge lump in her throat. Was research really worth all this? She was essentially betraying the trust of a dying man.

Chapter 6

Frank’s door swung into the room and Jake, with red cheeks, scarlet ears, and a bright green band-aid on his chin, stepped in. “Good Morning.”

Robbie jumped away from Frank’s chair, heart pounding, dry mouth, and a trickle of perspiration slipping out of her navel. She and Jake had been in the same room just the night before last. He’d been within inches of her. He couldn’t fail to recognize her, be fooled by her appearance now. But he seemed to have eyes for one person, the man in the chair.

Robbie stepped away from Frank and folded her chair. It was time for her to leave, but her heart slowed and her concerns seemed to dissolve in a room where Jake leaned into Frank and kissed his cheek.

Frank’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh, you made it.”

“I came as soon as I could, but I see I didn’t have to hurry. You have company.” Jake’s thoughts bounded and bumped over each other. Mentally he started to list the things he’d bungled rushing here—the most important, he’d brushed off Jean Clifton when she called while he rushed out the door. At least he’d agreed to drive her to wherever she needed to go this afternoon. He felt indebted to her. After all, she recommended him for his job and presented him with an opportunity as the main speaker for the fund raising event. Second, he had to cover his chin with a neon bandage, a leftover from his emergency supplies for children he met during his travels. At this moment none of it mattered. He desired time with the man who had raised him.

At least Frank hadn’t been alone. He filled his chest with air and mentally pounded himself on the back. Hiring this woman, Robin, no matter how strange she looked was the right thing.

Jake shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook and turned toward his grandfather. Frank seemed swallowed by the chair. For as long as Jake remembered, his grandfather had always had his own special chair in which he relaxed, read the paper, and mulled over problems. When Jake was young, disturbing his grandfather in his armchair was like approaching a king on a throne, even when he just called him to dinner.

Robin stood tentatively beside the closed door smoothing some filmy material over her hips. The material clung to her breasts, cantaloupes that would flood over his palm. How did you test the ripeness of melons? Tapping or smelling the place where the fruit had been attached to the vine?
No way. What’s he doing?
His hands were cupped as if he was testing their weight right this minute.
He shoved them under his armpits, as if they had been cold
.
His total focus was supposed to be on taking care of his grandfather. Stealing another look at Robin’s chest, he wondered if remembering the warmth of his grandmother’s hugs had reawakened an unconscious breast fixation.
No.
Stress, that’s it. Stress does many things to a man’s thoughts.

Robin moved toward her coat. Jake removed his hands from their hiding place and lifted her coat from the hook and held it open for her. When she turned her back on him, he breathed in a sweet ripeness. Shaking his head, he laid the coat along her shoulders. He’d been focusing on work and the problems associated with funding for too long. He needed to unwind. He would be with Jean later. Reminiscing would help him relax for a while.

Robin spun on the balls of her feet and she looked as if she could spread her arms and fly. The image brought a smile to his face. She watched him with a brown-eyed gaze for what felt like several seconds.

“Thank you.” She flipped her thick, black scarf over her shoulder. “See you, Frank, and thanks for the encouragement. Bye, Jake.”

Frank stroked his chin with his age-spotted hand while he nodded his head.

“What was that all about?” Jake asked.

His grandfather wriggled himself out of his chair. “Not much. She just got me thinking, that’s all. Are we going for a drive or what?”

Jake moved to his grandfather’s side, then put his arm around his shoulder. Grandfather felt like a Bushman child’s rope doll. They were made of thin rope under the colorful material used to fashion the doll’s dress and headscarf. He hadn’t understood how this type of doll could be any comfort, unlike the plush animals he had hugged as a child, when he was frightened, or lonely, or even happy.

“Glad you’re home, boy.” Frank gripped Jake’s hand.

“We’ll drive around and go for an early lunch somewhere.”

His grandfather’s familiar thin lips stretched into a full denture smile.

Jake’s breath caught and he coughed. He should have kept the whole day open. But Jean was responsible for his being here so he could work and be with his grandfather and so he couldn’t shrug her off entirely. “I hate to tell you but I’ve got another appointment at one-thirty.”

Frank’s smile faltered. “Don’t worry. I usually sleep in the afternoon anyway. There’s a scarf in the closet. Get it, will you?”

Jake slipped his hand from Frank’s shoulder and stretched his arm into the darkness of the closet and retrieved a red wool scarf. “I remember this scarf.”

Settling his glasses on his nose, Frank glanced at him and then away. “Mabel gave it to me to celebrate when the adoption finalized and you officially became ours. Can we go and visit her?”

“Absolutely.”

Sunday traffic was sparse and Jake drove into the cemetery parking lot several minutes later. He held onto Frank’s arm as they wandered to their destination.

Frank stopped at a headstone. “Remember Len. He died shoveling snow.” A little further on, Frank stopped again. “George didn’t last long after Emma died.” When they reached the familiar headstone, Frank bowed his head and ran his palm along the smooth, polished marble.

“I miss her arms around me,” Frank said.

“You were always there for each other.”

“We almost made it to our sixtieth anniversary.” Frank scattered pebbles with his feet.

“I remember that you always kissed each other before you left each other and when you returned.”

“Glad you learned something to take with you to your relationship.”

Frank seemed to have shrunk in just the past few days.

“Grandma was a caring and lovely woman. She always did what she could to make my life a happy place to be,” Jake said.

The trees, the equipment shed, and the frozen mound of earth, drew Jake’s attention. He scanned them rather than continue looking at the gray marble stone with his mother’s name or the identical marker with his grandmother’s date of birth, followed by a dash and the date she died. His grandfather’s name was chiseled into the marble with his birth date followed by a dash and a blank space that would be filled in. Jake should have been glad of Frank’s foresight but he wasn’t.

Frank leaned in and put his lips to the cold marble of his wife’s headstone and straightened. “Just wanted to see one more time where my remains will be. I’ll be with the two women I loved most in my whole life.” With his index finger, he poked at his glasses again. “You come back every now and again just to make sure they haven’t moved us.”

That did it. Struggling against the wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him, Jake put his arms around Frank and held on tight.

The prairie wind blew harder. Jake felt sure it would blow Frank over if he didn’t hold onto him.

Jake clamped his free hand over one ear. “Forgot how cold a November wind can be.”

Frank dragged a knitted hat from his pocket and handed it to Jake. “That Eastern weather’s making you soft. What’re you going to do without me?”

“I don’t want to find out for a long time. I’ve got to make up for lost years.”

Frank’s gloved hand squeezed Jake’s sleeve. “You know that isn’t going to happen.”

“At least we’ll be together one last Christmas.”

“We’ll see.”

A flock of sparrows flew across the sky and settled in the branches of the evergreen trees lining the roadway.

Jake cinched the seat belt across Frank’s waist. “Where would you like to have lunch?”

“All I really want is a milkshake. Old-fashioned, like me. Thick.” Frank smacked his pale lips.

“Any particular flavor?”

“Everybody knows chocolate is the only respectable milkshake.”

While the car idled to warm up the interior, Jake glanced at the clock on the dash. “We could get lunch to go and spin around the old neighborhood.”

The cold leather creaked when Frank settled. “Sounds good. Just turn up the heat in this sweetheart and I’ll be happy.”

They drove to a fast-food drive-in and ordered their lunch. The restaurant was on the same property where Frank had worked as a machinist for forty years.

“I came to this address through rain, snow, hail, or sunshine. Jobs were a lot like women back then. You got a good one and you stuck it out,” Frank said between slurps of his milkshake.

Jake ate his burger with one hand and drove with the other. They passed Central Collegiate, Thomson Elementary, rounded Wascana Lake, and Grace United Church.

When Jake parked in front of the Care Manor doors, Frank’s eyelids kept fluttering closed. “You’re tired,” Jake said.

“If I wasn’t proud, I’d ask you to carry me to my bedroom like a blushing bride,” Frank wheezed.

“Stay there. I’ll get a wheelchair.”

“No. Your arm is enough.”

The automatic doors swished open, and they plodded down the corridor. Frank touched the hand of a man in a wheelchair, nodded to another pushing his walker, but he straightened when a nurse came into view.

Once in Frank’s room, Jake closed the door. He led his grandfather to the bed and held his coat until Frank’s arms were out of the sleeves, then steadied him when he sat on the side of his bed. Jake was about to lift Frank’s feet onto the mattress.

“Stop. My boots. Can’t dirty the blanket,” Frank growled.

Jake was once again on his knees removing footwear. He swung Frank’s legs onto the bed, tucked the blanket under his arms, then passed him Mabel’s picture and turned out the light. “I’ll tell the staff that you’re back and ask them to check in on you.”

Frank lifted his fingers off the bed and waved. “Thanks, son.”

“You’re welcome.” His grandfather’s cheek was cool against his lips when he kissed him goodbye.

“I’ll come back later.”

“That would be nice.” Frank mumbled through sleep-relaxed lips.

The parking lot at Lumsden High School was full of new sports cars, SUVs, vans, and half-ton trucks. These were similar styles to the cars the students drove but without the dents and rust pocks. Robbie checked her reflection in the sun visor mirror. Her wig was in place. Her hand shook slightly when she touched up her lips then adjusted her glasses. She’d read that it took only small changes for people not to recognize someone familiar to them. She wanted her old friends and acquaintances to be aware of and accept the changes in her body. Her cell phone gave the familiar sound of a received text message from her parents: her father wrote ‘good luck’ and her mother sent ‘break a leg’. Robbie laughed. She had discussed this field research with her mother and her father. Her father in his professional doctor voice had said, “You be very careful. It’s easy to cloud your research and forget to maintain your critical stance toward others’ reactions to women of size.”

She held onto the door and heaved her body off the seat, stood, and locked the door. When she straightened her coat, she leaned her cheek into the collar where Jake had held it for her and felt comfort. She felt a smile slide across her mouth because knowing that Jake began accepting her for who she was both inside and outside the suit was an accomplishment. He just didn’t know it. In so very many ways it showed his depth of character and lifted him from nincompoop and just another pretty face. While she walked toward the welcome banner vibrating in the wind outside the high school gym she felt the old familiar sensations she had when she’d played these grounds before. As a kid, she’d stuck her tongue to the metal pole in the winter just over there at the elementary school. She remembered her long gangly junior high self as a silver ribbon high jumper, and finally as the senior who led the petition against smoking in the schoolyard. All of these memories made up who she was today. Her reflection in the plate glass door told her she looked different than she did so long ago. She shook her weighted arms loose at her sides and opened her mind to every possible experience in the next few hours.

Her first stop was the registration desk. The table had signs that indicated the homeroom teachers. Robbie headed straight for Mr. Roberts’ class. Before she gave the woman her name, she heard a screech and realized it came from her own mouth. She had left screeching behind in grade ten, hadn’t she? She spotted a familiar face. OMG, Nancy Harris had not changed. She stood next to the registration desk organizing the organizers. She still tossed her straight cut, shoulder-length blond hair for emphasis. Robbie beamed. Nancy’s body was as toned and tanned as it had been on the cheerleading team. “Nancy Harris. Wow, you look just the same.”

Nancy’s hand fluttered in front of her face. “Robbie?” Her former classmate’s eyes darted across her chest, down her belly, and back to her face.

“Hey, Hey, are you ready?” She clapped twice. “If you score one, we’ll score two.” Robbie sang and jumped just a little in the air. She was glad she’d come. “Yes, it’s me. Are the rest of the team here?”

“Yes, we’re almost all here,” Nancy replied as she patted her blond straight hair and ran her finger down the list. “We thought we’d perform again. As chair of the committee I was so excited when we received your reply, but . . .” 'The word hung in the air.

Robbie took a deep breath. “I can do some of the routines, but I don’t think I’d make the top of the pyramid this year,” she said.

“Meg, Steph, Kim, Kenda, Christie, and I are changing into our cheerleading costumes later,” Nancy said, while fixating on Robin’s thighs. “That is, if my ex-sister-in-law gets mine here on time. I just knew I shouldn’t have lent it. It’s irreplaceable.” Nancy stomped her high heel, then leaned closer to Robbie. “Did someone tell you to bring your outfit?”