The Home
Home is where you hang your hat,” Grandpa said.
The day I’d feared and dreaded for most of sixth grade had finally come. Insurance had paid off the house. There was no more mortgage to keep track of or pay. I was staying with Mrs. B-B because, well, I didn’t have any place to go. And Grandpa was moving into the Home.
Grandpa hooked his blaze-orange hunting cap on the back of the door to Room 7 at the Downeast Best Rest. It was a two-room suite, not too bad. Someone would clean it, and someone else would make his meals. Those people would not be me. I felt a little happy about this, and also sad. It had been just Grandpa and me for long enough that I didn’t know how else to be.
At first I blamed Mrs. B-B for moving Grandpa into the Home. I was mad. But I remembered what she had said when Winky blamed me for Joe Viola’s downfall, how Winky did that because he was grieving and I was what she called safe harbor; he knew I would forgive him. It was the same with Grandpa moving. I was really sad and scared to see Grandpa move into the Home. I couldn’t be mad at him, but I could be mad at Mrs. B-B. I was a real jerk.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“Have a cookie,” she replied.
“Hobnobs!” said Grandpa. He seemed happy enough.
Then he headed off to the activities area, probably to the wood-burning station to make himself a new plaque.
Mrs. Blyth-Barrow and I went to the cafeteria and we each got a pudding. She got the banana pudding and I got the tapioca pudding. From our table in the dining room, I could see Grandpa in the activities area.
“This is a good place,” Mrs. B-B said to me. “And I’ll be right here, most days,” she said.
I looked at her. BALITHIA BLYTH-BARROW. She had on a nametag. So did I. Everybody at Downeast Best Rest wears a nametag, right out in the open. It’s nice. It’s like the opposite of a Brenda’s Book Cozy.
“I’ve quit teaching,” I thought I heard Mrs. B-B say. That couldn’t be right.
“What did you say?” I said.
“I’ve taken a part-time job here at Downeast Best Rest. Activities director.” She held up a hand as if to stop me. “No, no, I don’t need a fat salary,” she said, not that anybody asked. “You’d be surprised how much money I’ve socked away,” she told me, “gained largely during my brief but almost criminally profitable stint as a stockbroker.” She took a big bite of banana pudding.
I had complained about my teacher all year long, but now I felt a lonely hole somewhere around my stomach. This was maybe one thing too many. I started to tear up. Again! “Is Mr. Mee still librarian?” I managed to ask her.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m done teaching, but I’m still here, Josie.” She tugged a tissue from inside her shirt cuff and handed it across the table to me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Mrs. B-B put down her spoon and patted her tummy. Then she pushed her dish of banana pudding across the table. “I’m too full to finish,” she said.
And so I ate the very last bite, and it was delicious.
Later, I went and sat beside Grandpa in the activities area. He was, in fact, using a pointy tool to burn words onto a piece of wood. The smell of the wood burning was kind of comforting and nice. Like a crackling fire in a fireplace. It smelled like a holiday.
“Want to make one?” Grandpa asked. He elbowed me a little in the ribs. “You can never have too many motto plaques.”
I did not agree with that. Still, I poked through the basket of suggested sayings.
Home Is Where My Cat Is
Time Spent with a Cat Is Never Wasted
A Cat a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
“There sure are a lot of cat mottoes,” I said. That last one didn’t even make any sense.
Grandpa pointed at a lady helping over at the scrapbooking table. She was wearing a smock made out of fabric with cats printed all over it.
“That explains a lot,” I said to Grandpa. I pulled another slip of paper from the basket.
Love Is Spoken Here. Meow! Ick.
Home Is Where the Heart Is. I kept that one out. If that’s true, I thought, then I would have to live at the Downeast Best Rest too, and it is really no place for children, much as I enjoy pudding of all kinds. I pressed the motto on the table and smoothed out the creases. I kept smoothing it and smoothing it and smoothing it. I stopped when Grandpa put his hand over mine. His hand was freckled and dry and warm.
“Grandpa? I love you,” I said. I don’t know why it was so hard to say, but it was. I said it pretty fast.
Grandpa sat up ramrod straight and gave a snappy salute. Then he took both of my hands in both of his. “Ditto,” he said. His mouth worked around a little. “What I mean to say, is, Josie, is… love is… my heart is…” Still holding both my hands, he leaned and kissed my head. “I mean I love you too.”