Grandma

My mother wears an eye mask for most of the flight to Boston; she gets nervous on planes and usually just wants the journey to be over. At least she’s not worried about Bodi—she was one of the vets hired by the airline to come up with a plan to make it comfortable for pets to fly. Because of that, Bodi always travels for free.

My father and I play cards and watch a movie. After that, I roam up and down the aisles until a flight attendant suggests I take my seat. When I ask if I can go below to visit Bodi, she tells me passengers aren’t allowed in the cargo area. Then she gets all sappy and asks if I miss Bodi, if he’s “boy’s best friend” and all this other mushy stuff. I ask her for a little can of pineapple juice and go back to my seat.

It takes a while before Bodi’s crate comes off the plane. He relieves himself the second we get outside. We rent a car that smells much newer than ours back home and drive to Grandma’s.

Grandma still lives in the same house my mother grew up in, but now all Mom’s horse ribbons and Beatles posters are in the basement and her old bedroom is an exercise room. Whenever we visit, I sleep on a blow-up mattress next to the treadmill.

“Where is he? Where’s my boy?” Grandma hurries down the driveway and starts to hug me before I’m even out of the car.

Mom and Dad smile at each other; I guess grandparent love is a different thing than parent love. My parents seem glad to let someone else make a fuss over me for a while.

Grandma squeezes me like she hasn’t seen me in a century, even though it’s been only a year. When I spot a chocolate cake with shredded coconut waiting on the kitchen counter, I hug her back even harder.

Grandma has her hearing aids in today so we don’t have to scream like we usually do. She plays us a DVD of her bowling team’s highlights and shows us the “killer roll” that helped bring her team to the finals. When my mother asks if she wants to come with us to the Vineyard, Grandma says she’d love to but can’t disappoint her teammates. She lets me play with my uncle’s old crutches and tells stories of how my mother used to try to heal all the sick animals in the neighborhood. We smile and laugh when she takes out pictures of Mom and her brother when they were kids, even though we’ve seen them dozens of times before.

Unlike our house, where everyone takes care of themselves, here Grandma waits on us like we’re special company and I guess we are. She treats me the same way she did when I was little, offering to rub my feet. I let her, happy to be a little kid again, even if it’s just for a short time.

As I’m sitting on her lap—spilling out of the chair because I’m as tall as she is—I get an idea. “Grandma, will you read me a story?”

“I’d LOVE to,” she answers.

I run to my bag and get the summer reading book that was part of the deal to come here.

“Oh no,” Mom says. “You’re reading that one on your own.”

“No, I want to!” Grandma moves to the couch and puts on her reading glasses. “This looks like a good story.”

My parents’ glares can’t dim the huge grin on my face as I snuggle with my grandmother. Mom tries to get us to play Pictionary instead, but I ask Grandma to keep reading. Mom and Dad finally give up and go for a walk around the neighborhood with Bodi.

When Grandma winks at me, I’m not sure if it’s because she’s glad we’re visiting or because she knows she’s bailing me out of my work. As she reads, I use Margot’s technique and visualize the character. Is he feeling guilty? Nervous? I imagine the house he’s sitting in, with its blue rug and large clock on the wall. By the time my parents come back, Grandma and I have finished two chapters.

Our bodies are still on West Coast time, so my parents and I stay up after Grandma goes to bed and watch a movie.

With any luck, I can get Grandma to help write my report too.