The whole walk to the garage after school I’m thinking about Alex and wondering if he’s going home to sit with his dad and what they talk about and why some people get cancer and others don’t and why some people can’t remember and others can.
“Robbie!” Harold’s walking out of the garage and wiping his hands on a towel, waving at me. “How was school? You staying away from trouble?”
I nod yes, and it’s true. I haven’t gotten in trouble since I slammed Alex to the lunchroom floor. And even thinking about that now makes me feel kind of bad after seeing him cry so hard and thinking about his dad who has to have a bed downstairs in the living room because he’s too weak to walk upstairs anymore.
Harold gives me a fist bump and puts his arm around my shoulder. “How’s May?” I ask. “I didn’t think you’d be back for a while.”
“She’s great,” he says. “Sleeping and pooping like a champ, so I figured I could come in and help out here while Paul holds down the poop fort at home today.”
“Ew, Harold.”
Harold was supposed to take a whole month off to take care of May, and it hasn’t even been a week since she was born. It makes me nervous that he’s here. I’m Grandpa’s right hand, so he should know that I’ve got everything under control.
“There’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee whose engine won’t turn over. I could use some help,” he says.
I nod OK.
The Jeep is parked in the first bay, and Grandpa is vacuuming out the backseat of a Toyota Avalon in the bay next to that.
“There she is,” Grandpa says when he sees me, and turns off the vacuum.
“Hi, Grandpa.”
“How was school?”
I want to tell him that it would be better if I knew more about my mom and could finish this family tree project already, but I just say, “Fine.”
“She’s going to help me with this Jeep,” Harold tells him.
Grandpa smiles and nods and starts the vacuum again.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Jeep Grand Cherokee’s connecting cables are corroded. I hold out my hand to Harold and say, “Scalpel.” That’s another one of our things, like the fist bumps. He puts a wire brush in my palm and helps me disconnect the cables from the battery. I have to lean in far to reach the battery, but I remember when I used to have to kneel on the bumper to reach. I’m big enough now that I don’t have to do that anymore. While I’m cleaning the end of the cable with the brush, Harold leans in with me and whispers. I can hardly hear him over Grandpa’s vacuum.
“Hey, how’s your grandpa been feeling?”
“Fine,” I say, and keep on scrubbing with the wire brush so when we connect it back to the battery the engine will turn over good as new.
“How’d that happen to his hands?”
“It was an accident.”
Harold takes hold of the cables and helps me connect them back to the battery. Then he starts to loosen the other side from the starter just to make sure they aren’t corroded there too.
I lean in farther and he leans in with me and right there under the hood he says, “Robbie, I know he’s having a hard time.” He pats my work glove with his work glove, and I grip the wire brush tight. I don’t know if it’s because it feels kind of safe under the hood of a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee or the hum of Grandpa’s vacuum makes him feel farther away, or if it’s because Harold’s voice is calm and real like Ms. Gloria’s is, but before I know it I’m telling him everything.
I’m telling him about Grandpa’s flannel shirt folded up with the pots, and about him wandering past our sugar maples. I’m telling him about his suitcase packed up like he might follow an old idea drifting around his head right out the door at any minute, and about the aloe plant I carried home from Dean and Walt’s country store to squeeze and rub into his palms at night.
Harold pats my work glove with his again and I’m trying to connect the cables back to the starter, but there are tears blurring up my eyes and I can’t. “Here,” he says, and takes the cables. “I got it. Let me help.” He connects them.
I want to tell him that I don’t need help. That I can connect cables back to a starter easy and that Grandpa and I are just fine on our own.
Even though the cables are connected and it’s time to try the engine, Harold doesn’t close the hood of the Jeep. We stay there bent over the engine and battery, the oil, and all the tubes and sparks that make everything work right, and Harold tells me that Derek’s mom called him and sounded worried after our failed boiling day.
At first I’m mad that she went sticking her nose in our business, but after telling everything to Harold I feel a little lighter somehow.
Grandpa turns off the vacuum and calls, “How’s that engine running now?” We stand up fast and Harold slams down the hood of the car.
“About to check it, Charlie,” he says and hands me the keys.
When I try the key, the engine turns over quick and easy. Good as new. And I wish there were some wire brush to clean out Grandpa’s corroded cables and reconnect them to his starter so he could ride out good as new too.
“A-plus, Robbie,” Grandpa says and pats my shoulder with his bandaged hand.
Before we leave, Harold slips a piece of paper into the fold of my baseball glove. “If you need anything, Robbie,” he says. “Anything.” His hair is wild and sticking up, and I think I can even see a few gray ones poking out in the front. “I’m here. Looking out for you.”
His brown eyes are glassy and tired, and I wonder if May ever lets him sleep and I know already I won’t call him. Harold’s got his family to take care of. And I have mine.
On the walk home I’m wishing my hair wasn’t so loose and touching my neck, and thinking that no more adults than Harold can find out about Grandpa’s memory.
I take the keys from Grandpa’s hand and slide the house key in the front door.
“Hang your flannel here, Grandpa,” I tell him when we get inside and point to the black hook by the door.
“I know that,” he gruffs. He unbuttons his flannel slowly, then takes off his boots.
“Tuna melts?” he asks. I nod yes and even though I’m pretending to get out my homework, I’m really watching him. Watching him walk to the kitchen and plug in the toaster oven, take out two English muffins and mayonnaise. Watching him get a fork from the drawer and a bowl to mix the tuna in.
Then I’m watching him look at the can of tuna fish. He picks at the can’s edge with his thumbnail. Then he tries to pry it off with the fork. Then he slams it hard against the counter. “Dammit!” he yells.
“Grandpa!” I rush to take the can from him.
“Goddammit!” he yells again. “I don’t need any help.”
My heart’s beating fast because it’s scary when Grandpa’s mad and he does need help but I don’t want to make him feel like crap by showing him how to open the tuna. He was the one who taught me how to crank the can opener around a can of tuna fish when I was little. It would feel weird and wrong to teach him how to use it now.
I open the drawer and take out the can opener. “It’s OK, Grandpa,” I say and hold out my other hand. “I’ll do it. I remember how you taught me. Just watch and make sure I do all the steps right.”
He nods, but I can tell he’s still mad because he’s huffing big breaths through his nose. I click the opener onto the edge and twist it around the can until the top peels off.
“Good,” he says. Then I empty the tuna fish into the bowl with a spoonful of mayonnaise.
Grandpa stirs it up while I toast the English muffins.
Before bed Grandpa unwraps the bandages from his hands and I snap another piece from the aloe plant and squeeze it on his palms.
And later that night when he’s sleeping I sneak in again to make sure he hasn’t packed up his suitcase to wander off, and to check on his hands. I pull back his wool blanket and as quiet and soft as I can I roll his big hand to face me. I rest my pinky finger soft in his big palm and there aren’t any blisters bigger than my nail.
He smells like wood and wool and aloe and his hands look better than they did yesterday. I pull the blanket back up and tiptoe back to my bed, then listen to his deep breaths as I fall asleep.