Chapter 4

Charlie dreamed. Grandma pulled the quilt up under her chin and smiled. Animals. He was dreaming about all the animals he would tend to if he were a “peterinary,” as he called it. Charlie liked cats the most. It was their independence and self-reliance that attracted him. He envied them so and wished he could be more like them.

“Grandma,” when I grow up can I be a cat?” he had said,

“I don’t think so, little one. Kittens grow up to be cats. Little boys grow up to be men. You know that.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But it sure would be cool if I were a cat.”

“Isn’t it fun being a little boy?”

Wrinkles appeared across his forehead. She knew that meant he had to think a minute.

“Sometimes,” he said slowly. “Not always. I think it would be more fun to be a cat.”

“Draw me a picture of what you would look like if you were a cat.”

Charlie scrambled for a piece of paper and a pencil. An outline was sketched first then a series of gray shading in various parts of the picture. He worked his tongue over chapped lips when he came to the more difficult detail of the drawing.

He always spent more time on the eyes than on anything else, but the final rendering was always masterful and well beyond his years. What he couldn’t express through written words or understand by reading, he more than made up for with his extraordinary talent in drawing.

He stood up from his place on the floor and rushed over to the mirror. Staring at his reflection for a moment, he had pulled his eyelids in various angles until he found the right expression, paused, then stuck his tongue out at himself before he headed back to his place on the floor.

The house in Atlanta had a carpeted floor.

Grandma blinked, stretched, and looked at the planked wood flooring of the simple small room she occupied now. This floor would be much too hard and cold for little boys to sit on.

She tugged at the quilt again and gathered the neckline of her heavy flannel nightgown. Why would a room be so cold in the middle of the summer?

The doctors said it was old age, her constantly being cold. Maybe it was, or maybe being in an attic of a house that was older than herself was the reason. One excuse or another, it was still cold, and it was dark, even with the light of early morning.

The only natural light came from a small, oval glass window across the room from the heavy wooden door. She had seen windows like that before, as a little girl growing up in Savannah, and knew they were never meant to be opened. Although the window was pretty enough with its natural distortion, the occasional bubble around the edge, and the barest hint of pink, it wouldn’t allow enough light in to suit her.

She slipped a hand out from under the cover and pulled the cord on a bedside lamp. The single bulb hissed, sputtered, and dropped yellow light around her. Dark, figure-like shadows occupied the corners and clung to the walls where the light failed to touch.

Hung from the ceiling was a strand of wires that ended in another lone bulb swinging with an unseen air current. It was if someone had set it in motion to taunt her then moved on. There was no switch in here to turn on the overhead light. Like in many attics, the switch was probably outside the door.

She was in the attic with its many narrow steps that were hard to climb and even harder to climb down. Annie knew how difficult it was—there were so many steps—yet she insisted Grandma stay in this place. It was dark here. She hated dark places and the secrets that seemed to hide there. Her preference was for light, lots of it, but Annie knew that, too.

Unless Annie didn’t care. No, that wasn’t true. Her daughter-in-law worried more about everyone else’s well-being than her own. There was not a selfish, unkind bone in Annie’s body, not one. It was David, who was the problem.

The money had not been enough to live on, her house ramshackle, and there were times when an hour or more would go by without any recollection of what had occurred. She didn’t eat much and would eat less if need be, and the house kept the rain away for the most part, but as much as she tapped the side of her head and willed it to work right, things didn’t get any better. Her only child, David, insisted on a nursing home, but Annie would hear nothing of it.

“Have you ever been in one of those places?” Annie had asked David. “They reek of urine and who knows what else.”

“Are you suggesting she live here?” he asked incredulously.

“Where else? She needs someone to take care of her, to watch out for her.”

“We have too many people here as it is.”

“Your wife and your son make for too many people? David, if you want isolation, build an igloo in Iceland.”

“This is my home. I don’t want her here.”

“David, she’s your mother. Don’t do this to her, to me. I will not let your mother rot in a seedy nursing home like you insisted my mother do. No amount of your fancy talk will sway me this time.”

“Fine then. She’ll live here, in the guest bedroom. And you’ll take care of her. I don’t want to know anything about it or be bothered in any way.”

David and Annie didn’t know Grandma had heard the conversation. They were unaware Grandma knew David’s renege in coming to the island before he told anyone, or that Annie was about to get a letter that would change her life. They didn’t know a lot of things about her and what she could do with what was left of her mind.

But Charlie did. He was the only one who bothered to ask, and more important, Charlie understood and accepted her the way she was because he could work his mind around things, too. So Annie cooked and cleaned for her, and David tolerated an occupant in the guest room.

Grandma rolled over in the small, wood-frame bed and curled into a ball. She rubbed her feet together for warmth that was not forthcoming and worried about her forgetfulness. Sometimes days would go by and she didn’t even know it until later, until things got clear again. And the times when things got clear grew further and further apart. Forgetting was disturbing certainly, maybe even frightening to those who watched from the outside, but was it bad enough to warrant such hate from her son?

She was a burden to him, to them, and what better place for a burden than the attic.

The thoughts came to her then, quiet, like a whispered conversation in a faraway room. Her mind wrapped around them.

A packed box carted by the family from one location to the next, unopened, that’s what she was. One day the box would be rediscovered, and with the excitement of Christmas morning, it would be opened and met with disappointment at what was inside. They would wonder why they had carried the box around for so long. Wonder why they had taken her in.

No. She refused to believe that. Annie and Charlie were family, they loved her, as did David in his own way, and she loved them. She couldn’t help the way she was and tried to be more helpful, to be less of a problem, but sometimes her body refused to cooperate with her mind.

Awake, she sensed thoughts, feelings, but in her sleep, her mind played tricks on her. Pictures of things appeared from nowhere, with no warning, pictures she didn’t understand. Sometimes they scared her, and other times she just forgot.

That was no reason for them to think of her as an old box filled with useless things, was it? There were so many things to tell them, to share with them. If only they would give her a chance.

If only she could remember what those things were.

And then it came to her, something strong and growing stronger, something dark like the shadows that hovered in the corner of her room.

The thing told Grandma she didn’t belong.

She was an old box that needed discarding, a problem.

It hadn’t come from Charlie, of that she was sure. David? She closed her eyes and tried to see him, but he was too far to reach now. She turned her attention to Annie and saw a flicker of disjointed memories and conflicting emotions that passed almost as quickly as they had come. The thoughts had not come from Annie.

Grandma’s fists clenched into hard knots.

Where was it coming from? Here?

Yes.

There was something, someone in this house. Someone she didn’t know.

Grandma? His thoughts touched her mind, clear and unmistakable.

Charlie?

I’m scared.