When I get to the garage after school, Harold’s not there again.
“His baby was born this morning!” Grandpa says. “Little girl.”
He sounds happy when he tells me, but when he thinks I’m not looking he squeezes his temples and rubs his fingers across his grooved forehead. Maybe he’s worried about running the garage without Harold for a few weeks, or maybe he’s thinking about my mom and when she was born. Or when I was born. I hope it’s just that he’s nervous about running the garage, because I can help with that. I know cars.
Or maybe I do hope he’s remembering my mom, even if it hurts and makes him rub his forehead, because then maybe he’ll change his mind and decide it’s not so hard to tell me something about her, like what her name was, and I can put it on my family tree.
“I brought the truck so we can drive over to the hospital and visit them before we go home,” he tells me.
“Fine,” I say, “but I’m not holding any baby.”
“Deal.” Grandpa chuckles and nods his head. “Up for an oil change?”
I toss my book bag and my baseball glove onto the wobbly stool and follow Grandpa to the 2013 Toyota Camry that’s already parked over the lifts and ready to be raised up. I pop the hood and open the oil tank so the airflow will help drain the oil from the bottom of the car, then close the hood.
Grandpa waits until I push the button that lifts the car above our heads, put on my work gloves, and set up the funnel and drip pan before he heads back to the next bay, where he’s replacing brake pads on a red Honda.
I crank the wrench to open the fuel pan under the car, and the old oil starts draining out fast. Changing oil might be my favorite because I like the idea of letting all the bad pour out and getting a fresh, smooth start right out of the unopened bottle.
While the old oil rushes out into the drip pan, I watch Grandpa working on the Honda. He’s sliding out the old brake pads and putting antisqueal gel on the new ones, and he seems to be good today and following the right steps and not looking like a deer we caught in the headlights.
When the old oil stops dripping, I get the new filter ready by smearing some clean oil around the gasket ring with my finger, then I install it. I close up the oil pan and lower the car back down. Then I pop the hood, pour the new, clean oil in, close it up, and I’m done. And it feels good.
The man pays Grandpa in cash and drives out his clean-oil, fresh-start Toyota Camry.
“A-plus work, Robbie,” Grandpa says. “Now come pump the brakes for me on this Honda.”
I climb in and have to slump way down to reach the pedals because I hate adjusting someone else’s driver’s seat. I pump the brakes with my right foot like Grandpa taught me, and I know the bad brake fluid is bleeding out from under the car and we’ll get to fill it up with brand-new, fresh-start brake fluid and the car will run good as new.
“What do you say?” Grandpa asks. “Go check on Harold?”
Even though I want to see Harold because a day at the garage without him feels a little weird, I don’t really want to go to any hospital or see any baby. I’d rather do another oil change or headlight replacement.
But I take off my work gloves anyway. “Yeah,” I say. “We better go check on him.”
The hospital smells too clean, and I feel like I’m messing it up just by walking in.
Grandpa talks to the nurses at the desk and we sit in the waiting room until Harold comes to get us. For some reason I’m feeling nervous to see Harold and Paul’s new baby because maybe she won’t like me or I’ll make her cry and won’t be able to get her to stop and she’ll spit up on my Nike Air Griffeys.
“Robbie! Charlie!” Harold’s hurrying down the hall and his brown hair is sticking up all over his head like it usually does and he’s smiling really big. I stick my fist out for a fist bump, but he pulls me in for a hug, and I’m not really a hugging kind of person but it’s OK because it’s Harold and he knows that, so he makes it quick. “Sorry,” he says, tapping the brim of my Dodgers hat. “I’ve just missed you and I’m so happy you’re here.”
Grandpa starts standing up slow, pressing down hard on his knees. “Let’s go see this body,” he says. But he means baby. And I’m glad Harold’s too busy being excited to notice Grandpa’s jumbled words.
Harold pats Grandpa’s arm. “OK, boss. Follow me.”
Harold walks with his arm around me and asks how school was and how things at the garage went today. I tell him about changing the oil of the 2013 Toyota Camry and that Alex Carter is still a jerk but I didn’t hit him today. He laughs and pats my shoulder and says, “Well now, that’s an improvement.”
Then we stop at this big window and inside I can see little tiny plastic cribs with the teeniest babies in them. They’re so small they don’t even look real, like they could all just be dolls. There’s one nurse who’s wearing all blue and she’s leaning over one of the babies, writing something down on a clipboard.
Then I see Paul sitting next to a plastic crib and holding one of the tiny babies. He has his long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the baby is wrapped in a pink blanket and wearing a little pink hat. “Want to go see her?” Harold asks.
I want to say no because the babies are way smaller than I thought, but before I know it Harold is slapping an identification sticker on me and squirting hand sanitizer in my palms and saying that he can’t wait for his daughter to meet me. Grandpa gets his sticker and sanitizer too, and we follow Harold in.
Paul stands up slowly and whispers, “Robinson, Charlie. So glad you guys are here.” Paul and Harold hug each other with one arm so they don’t crush the baby.
“Meet our little May,” Harold says, pulling the pink blanket back a little.
May is sleeping, and her face is kind of red and squishy and blotchy.
“You want to hold her?” Paul asks.
I shake my head no, but he says, “Oh, come on. Sit down.” And before I know it I’m sitting in the chair next to her plastic crib and her hot little body is pressed into mine. I make my arms into a strong, stiff cradle and I don’t even breathe or anything because I don’t want her to start crying. I jiggle my knee by accident and she kind of wakes up and I can feel her little body squirm in the blanket, but she doesn’t start crying because I kind of rock her back and forth.
“You’re a natural, Robbie,” Harold says.
And it feels pretty OK being a natural. So OK that I loosen up my arms a little bit and rock her kind of slow and she stays sleeping. And I’m feeling calm as cruise control.
I ask Grandpa if he wants to hold her and Harold says, “Of course he does!” He lifts the baby out of my arms and I stand up and let Grandpa have my seat.
May makes Grandpa look even older because she’s so fresh and new and Grandpa’s face is all worn and creased like an old-timer’s baseball glove. He’s looking down at May and whispering, “Hello, May. Hello.” And I’ve never heard Grandpa sounding so soft. “It’s a big world out here,” he whispers. “Your daddies are going to protect you.” When he looks up his eyes are all red and watery.
“It’s OK, Grandpa,” I say, and I pat his shoulder.
Then the baby starts crying and Harold says, “Uh-oh. Better give her back to the natural.” And before I know it I’m holding her again and she’s cooing and dribbling and looking up right at me.
“Good job, Robbie,” Paul whispers.
And when I’m looking at her, I can’t help thinking about how this little tiny May already has so many branches on her tree. She has Harold and Paul and two sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides who are all on their way to see her before she’s even two days old.
Harold walks us to the lobby of the hospital, and I reach out for a fist bump.
“Good job with the name,” I tell him. And I’m thinking how when she’s big enough I’ll teach her all about Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants and his twelve Gold Glove awards and how he’s in the Hall of Fame. And how maybe I’ll even call her Willie.