2. The Next Morning

My phone vibrates on the end table next to the couch where I’m sleeping. As one of the unmarried grandchildren, I don’t pull enough rank for my own bedroom, or even a bed, so I’ve taken over the living room. I reach over and shut off the alarm and lay back against the cushions.

In the semi-darkness of the fall morning, I would be able to see the rest of the living room with the pictures of children and grandchildren scattered about, if I had my eyes open. But I shut them, preferring to stay bundled and warm underneath the old, woven cotton blankets as my body slowly comes out of its cover of sleep.

The kitchen floor creaks and I can hear muffled shuffling through the wall next to me. I was planning to get up before breakfast to run, so the only other person who could possible be awake this early in the morning is my grandfather. He is moving across the tile of the kitchen, sliding his slippered feet across the floor in the same lazy gait that I’ve inherited. Glasses and plates clink against each other as he empties the dishwasher, putting each into its place in the cupboard and unconsciously turning them so that the patterns all face the same direction.

As the sleep slips from me, unclouding my thoughts, I wonder if he slept well or fitfully or at all. I know that the previous night he had not been able to sleep and lay on his bed, probably staring at the ceiling and waiting for a call from the room next door, signaling him it was time to help his wife to the bathroom. They haven’t slept in the same room in years, not since the doctors took her leg to stop the spread of infection from a previous surgery. She slept in a specially designed bed that helped to lift her out and into her wheelchair. Either he never considered buying a full-size bed to accommodate both of them or she would not allow him to. Nagels do not abide change.

The lonely chatter of cereal poured into a single bowl rouses me from the couch. He’s at the kitchen table, no doubt seated in his usual place, facing the front window, where he can look out at the manicured lawn and watch the day begin. Normally, Grandma would sit to his left, her place always the same. They would eat together and he would clean up, while she gazed out of the window, an illustrated bird watcher’s book at her place. For days, and then years, they repeated this routine, drawing comfort from the schedule, always knowing what was to come and never being surprised.

The kitchen table is unchanging. Solid and heavy, it’s never moved to make room. There’s a crack down the middle, where leaves can be inserted to create space. But it’s stretched to the maximum, with one end in a corner and the other nearly abutting a row of cabinets. The Formica top has a dull shine and is always oddly cool to the touch. Countless hands have glided across its smooth surface, moving in unaware habits during conversation.

It’s not hunger that makes me decide to start my day, but rather a desire to see Grandpa. In a home full of relatives, we never get much time together. Those moments, I’ve realized, are precious and I don’t want to miss my chance.

“Good morning, Grandpa.”

Briefly, he looks for a moment surprised, stilted out of his routine with an unexpected voice. But then he remembers that, despite the quiet that envelops the house, he is not alone.

“Good morning.”

He is wearing matching pajamas – cotton bottoms with a button-down front. He looks more than a little like a movie character from the 1950s; I don’t know anyone else that wears actual pajamas nowadays.

“How’d you sleep? Were you able to?”

“Yes,” he says, “Thanks for asking. I actually fell asleep early last night. I think I was worrying about your grandma and all the arrangements the night before.”

The first two wakes had been held the day before. I am glad he’s talking about it. I had been afraid that he would retreat within himself, stay shut in his bedroom in the back of the house, closing down into a protective shell in order to cope – another trait that he’s passed on.

We begin talking, though neither of us is particularly good at leading the conversation for any sustained period of time. Both of us feel uncomfortable making small talk, especially in light of the bigger things that are going on. But I feel it’s my obligation, especially as a grandchild, to make sure he’s up-to-date on my life. I tell him about work and grad school, he talks about his weekly breakfast routine – a different type of cereal Monday to Thursday, poached eggs (Grandma’s favorite) on Fridays, pancakes on Saturdays and eggs again on Sunday.

We arrive at a break in the conversation, so I tell him about my girlfriend. She’s a special one, I say, not like anyone I’ve met before. I tell him I’m excited for them to meet, but I felt that it wasn’t the right time yet. When it was, I’d bring her out for his approval.

“If she’s anything like your Grandmother…”

At this, his voice falters. He tries to recover, but it’s too late. He breaks. Tears spill spill out as his face melts and I catch a glimpse of the man beneath the soldier’s mask he’s donned. The lines that crease his forehead deepen, his firm mouth quivers and shakes as if the foundation of his chin is being rocked by some internalized earthquake.

His hands are on the table. The skin on the back is smooth, the fingers are long and willowy – doctor’s hands. I have never noticed them before. If I had been asked to describe them, I would have said they were calloused and hard and heavy. They would have appeared strong and unshaken with thick wrists. He worked every day of his life since the sixth grade, first to pay for his education and then to pay for his family. His hands, I thought, should have been those of laborer – it would have been fitting.

Instead, they appear vulnerable as he places them on the table, then half-raises them to wipe his eyes, then pauses and sets them back again. They tremble along with the rest of him, his fingers appearing like cattails swaying and battered in the wind. Finally, he does raise one hand to his cheek, but as soon as skin touches tear, he buries his face into his hand.

I sit there, next to him, and watch. I’m unsure whether or not I should touch him – if I should take one of his hands in mine, or perhaps touch his arm. I don’t know if that would offer reassurance or shame. At the same time, I feel both guilty for not acting and know that my presence offers some consolation.

“Grandma, she…” I begin, but falter, not really knowing what I am going to say, “She’s at peace now, she’s happy and at peace. I know it.”

My words don’t help on their own; they are small and inadequate to capture what I really mean. But he knows what is behind them and that seems to offer comfort.

“You know, your grandma was ready. She told me about a week before she went into the hospital that last time that she’d had enough.”

I had heard that from my father, but I still didn’t know what to say, so I stayed silent. My lips opened to speak, but no words came out.

“I think,” he paused. “I think she knew.”

His face reset itself. He stopped crying, he stopped shaking. He put his hands palm down on the table, looked at me and smiled resolutely.

“She knew it was her time.”