It was a good six weeks before Grandmother Myra was released from the hospital. Just before that, Grandpa Prescott had the mechanical chair installed on the stairs. She had gotten to where she could stand and had begun to take steps. The hope was that she would be able to use the walker in perhaps six more weeks.
Grandpa had decided that it would be better if he told her before she left the hospital that he had moved me into my mother’s room. I was with him when he told her. She looked at me, but she didn’t have as bad a reaction to it as both of us had been anticipating. She just nodded, and he went on to talk about other small changes he had made in the house. Then he told her about the new car he had bought. It was an SUV with plenty of room for a folded wheelchair.
She didn’t look displeased when she saw it. She watched me carefully fold up her wheelchair and get it into the rear of the vehicle, while Grandpa and the nurse helped her into the rear seat. The nurse strapped her in, and then Grandpa and I got in, and we drove home. He talked most of the way, telling her about some people who had called. He didn’t think she was ready to greet visitors yet but promised he would let them know when she thought she was ready.
Arrangements had been made for a private-duty nurse to be at the house most of the day. Her therapy at home would occur five days a week in the afternoon. When we arrived at the house, I went around and unfolded the wheelchair. Then Grandpa and I got her into it, and he wheeled her while I went ahead to open the door. A wooden track had been built and attached to the stairway so she could easily be wheeled in and out.
Inside, Grandpa proudly showed her the mechanical chair. He even went up and down in it himself to demonstrate. I thought she was smiling, but it was still hard to interpret her expressions. The private-duty nurse was there to help get her situated once she was brought to her bedroom. I went into the kitchen and prepared lunch for her and brought it up. Grandpa Prescott took his lunch with her. I sat and had lunch with the nurse. It was decided that Grandmother Myra would get the day off from any therapy, assuming the trip from the hospital would be tiring enough. She didn’t seem all that tired to me. She was interested in everything Grandpa told her about the house and my preparations for beginning school.
We both thought the transition had gone well. When she expressed something she didn’t like now, she would make a very harsh, long, guttural sound. Because it was so disturbing, that alone made us both move quickly to please her. Her nurse took her vitals, and then she slept until it was time for dinner. Again, I brought the tray up to her. She looked over everything carefully and seemed to be pleased, even impressed. Grandpa Prescott praised everything, of course.
After dinner, the nurse washed and brushed her hair and got her ready for the night before leaving us. Grandpa Prescott stayed with her until she fell asleep and came down to watch some television before going to bed himself. I was with him for a while, and then I went upstairs, expecting only to go to my room to sleep, but I looked in on her and saw that she was sitting up, her eyes wide open. With her good hand, she beckoned to me. I listened for Grandpa Prescott and then entered the bedroom. She patted the bed, and I walked over and sat.
It was always going to be difficult to understand her, I thought, but she had made enough progress for me to figure out some of her words, especially when they were short sentences. I listened hard. I believed she asked, “What have you done?”
I knew she wasn’t talking about the house or my moving into the bedroom. I knew that Grandpa Prescott had told her about Mason and Claudine and how much he liked them. I was present when he told her some of it, but he told me that he had told her I had gone to their house for dinner. He said she was fine with it now. I wondered if he was mistaken.
“You mean making friends with our neighbors?”
She shook her head and repeated her question, but I did pick up the added words, “With them.”
All sorts of possibilities ran through my mind. I knew Grandpa Prescott wouldn’t want to tell her about my trip to Albany, but she seemed to know something more. It was always my belief that she could read thoughts and sense things going on. Perhaps it was my imagination, my fears, or perhaps she knew me better than I thought.
I shook my head again, and she closed her eyes and almost clearly managed the word “Albany.”
I stared with disbelief. Grandpa surely had lied to me. He had told her.
“Grandpa told you?”
She shook her head.
This was something she had obviously been waiting impatiently to know. I nodded and then began. I told her first about my mother revealing my father’s name and then how Claudine, Mason, and I had located him and confronted him. She listened intently, not wanting to miss a word. When I told her what I believed, she nodded.
The information seemed not so much to please her as to bring her some closure, to answer the same questions I had, perhaps. She closed her eyes, and then, when she opened them, I thought she had managed a good, full smile. She took my hand and held it.
We sat there like that for a while, neither of us trying to speak. Then she closed her eyes again and lowered her head to the pillow. I fixed her blanket and said good night. She moved her lips but didn’t open her eyes.
She wouldn’t be with us much longer, I thought. Whatever journey she had begun was coming to an end. She surely had many regrets, but when I left her that night, I thought she had found some comfort, some satisfaction. I was confident that her mind was full of her own memories, recalling her own youth, her parents, her difficulties, maybe the hope her marriage promised and my mother’s birth seemed to bring. All those disappointments dwindled until they were so tiny they couldn’t be resurrected.
The following day, while she had her therapy, I went for a walk and turned into the driveway to Mason and Claudine’s summerhouse. I went out back to the dock and untied the rowboat. I rowed smoothly and comfortably to our small island, took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my jeans, and pulled the boat onto the shore the way Mason always did.
Then I just sat there looking out at the lake, watching the boats and hearing the shouts and laughter. In many ways, I was born on this island. I felt myself move into my womanhood and my independence. For most of my life, I had felt I was unwanted. I was someone’s mistake. I had no reason to be here, but surely no one who could enjoy and understand the beauty in the world could possibly be unwanted.
We were needed.
We were needed because we understood how to bring happiness and how to bring love back to those who needed happiness and love.
I would return to my painting, to many more paintings, and through them, I would continue the long journey to discover who I was and who I was meant to be.