Never Too Late - J.C. Laird (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📗

Never Too Late

 

 

He was sitting on the beach in baggy, dark blue swim trunks, well above the high tide mark, in a folding chair under a faded, red umbrella—one of those where the stand screws right into the sand. He seemed so old. Dad said Grandpa was a “Senior Citizen”. If he was, he must have been, like, the President of Senior Citizens; I kinda wondered how he managed to do everything by himself. He was pretty tall and wasn’t fat or anything, but sitting there in his chair it seemed gravity was pulling his skin down, everything was getting droopy and saggy. I noticed it happened a lot to old people. There was a small Styrofoam cooler sitting next to him in a red, Radio Flyer Wagon. I had one just like it at home in our garage in Michigan.

I was ten years old—almost eleven, I bragged to everybody—but had never really talked to Grandpa much until this year. He lived by himself in one of those condominiums in Florida, in a place called Gasparilla Island. He and Grandma used to live in New Mexico, but Grandpa had moved to Florida soon after Grandma died. Dad said Grandma had been sick for a long time before that happened. I was only a year old back then, so this was all news to me. I kind of remember us visiting him in Florida when I was younger, but it was a long way from Michigan and I don’t think we saw him much. But this year my parents rented their own condominium on Gasparilla for our vacation. I think they were worried about Grandpa.

My small bucket was half full with a bunch of sea shells. My cousins, Billy and Megan, were near the water’s edge, still hunting for special shells as the waves lapped at their ankles and legs. Aunt Sarah hovered nearby, dividing her attention between them and me. I had wandered farther away from the foaming surf towards Grandpa, wondering what he was gazing at out in the ocean. I looked over my shoulder a couple of times; maybe it was the fishing boat or the big cabin cruiser farther out. They didn’t seem special, at least not to me, anyway.

My Mother always said I was a precocious young lady, although I wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe it meant I was always curious, or something. Anyway, I decided to find out what was so interesting out in the water; I didn’t want to miss out on anything.

Grandpa turned his head and shifted his unfocused gaze from the water over to me as I approached. His dull, brown eyes cleared and he smiled warmly as I walked up; he looked at me expectantly as I stopped in front of him.

“Hi, Grandpa.” I stuck out my hand, Mom had taught me to be polite with grownups, and I didn’t think I had been around Grandpa long enough to just run up and give him a hug.

He took my hand and gave it two firm shakes before releasing it. “Why hello, Madeline, are you having fun at the beach today?”

“It’s Maddie, remember?” I had been visiting and talking with him every day for the past week. I figured maybe it was time to be friendlier with him. I mean, he was the only Grandpa I had left. I walked forward and threw my arms around his neck and squeezed. “How many times do I have to keep reminding you? Everybody calls me Maddie.”

His skin was hot and dry as he gave me a big hug back. He smelled faintly of coconut suntan lotion. “Okay, okay, I’ll remember,” he promised.

I stepped back and looked at him. Even when he was smiling, Grandpa looked sad. His saggy skin was deeply lined and his thin white hair looked like he hadn’t used a comb in days. “What are you looking at out in the ocean? I don’t see anything, except those two boats,” I said.

“I guess I was just daydreaming, Maddie. The ocean makes you do that, sometimes.” He squinted back out at the water, almost as if checking to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. His worn brown eyes turned back to me. “But you know, this part of the Atlantic Ocean is called—”

“The Gulf of Mexico,” I interrupted proudly. “We learned that in school back in Michigan.”

“And do you know the name of the place you’re at right now?” he asked.

I stuck out my still flat, pre-puberty chest smugly. “Yup, it’s Gasparilla Island in Florida. But Grandpa, we talked about this stuff two days ago. Did you forget?”

Grandpa chuckled, but it was a sad sound. “You’re a very smart girl, Maddie,” he mused absently. “When you get older, like me, some things you forget, some things you remember and some things … well … you’ll never forget.” He gazed back out at the rolling ocean, searching, the corners of his dry lips creeping up as something pleasant wound its way through the labyrinth of his memories.

A gentle breeze blew in from the ocean, ruffling Grandpa’s wispy white hair. He seemed to return his attention to the present. The folding chair creaked as he leaned over and lifted the lid of the Styrofoam cooler. “Would you like a cold water, Maddie?” he asked, holding out a plastic bottle.

“Sure would, Grandpa, I’m really—” I stopped as a shadow fell over me. It was Aunt Sarah.

“I’m sorry if Maddie is bothering you, John. She’s somewhat of an extrovert and can be a handful sometimes,” she said.

“No bother at all, Sarah. Maddie and I were just chatting about the ocean and things.”

“Well, we’re late for lunch and I have to get her and her cousins back home, so I’m going to have to pull her away.” She took me by the hand, smiling as she led me away. “Have a nice day, John,” she offered, looking back over her shoulder.

Grandpa waved to us, before returning his gaze to the ocean.

We were walking back up the beach, Billy and Megan trailing along behind, bickering over their seashells. They were only seven and eight, certainly not as mature as me. I was curious, but not about shells. “So, Aunt Sarah, how come Grandpa sits out here every day staring at the ocean? Is he looking for something or waiting for something?”

Aunt Sarah squeezed my hand. “Grandpa John is just very eccentric is all, which only means he does odd things sometimes. He sits out at the beach every day for some reason, at least he has the last two years I’ve been down here vacationing with your cousins. I don’t know why he does; maybe he just loves the ocean. You should ask your mom and dad, maybe they know.”

So I did. After dinner that night I asked Mom about it. Dad had gone into the living room to watch a baseball game—the Detroit Tigers were playing—and I was having Oreo cookies and milk for desert. “Hey, Mom, why does Grandpa sit at the beach every day and stare at the ocean?” I asked.

“Well, honey, Grandpa is getting old; he turned eighty-six in March. Like the physical ailments that the elderly have, their minds sometimes don’t work as well as they used to.”

I dunked my last Oreo cookie in my milk. “Like sometimes he forgets things? Stuff like that?”

“Yes, Maddie, that’s one reason why we’re vacationing here for two weeks. Your Dad and I are going to see about getting Grandpa into an assisted living home near here. He’s gotten pretty frail and his mind wanders a lot. It’s called dementia or Alzheimer’s; they’re illnesses that sometimes affect the old and gradually get worse as they age.”

I took a sip of my milk that now had a slight chocolaty taste and shook my head. “I don’t think Grandpa is going to like you moving him away from the beach.”

“I know, Hon, but it will be for his own good. We don’t want him falling down or wandering off and getting hurt.”

I finished my milk and strolled into the living room while Mom was doing the dishes. Dad was in his easy chair; a commercial was on the TV. “Dad, can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure, Maddie, Detroit’s losing 8-2, anyway. What’s up?”

“Mom says you might be putting Grandpa in an old folk’s home.”

Dad looked troubled. He ran a hand nervously through his thinning, black hair. “Yes, we’re looking into it; Gramps is getting pretty old and feeble.”

“I was wondering about some stuff,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Him and Grandma moved from Michigan to New Mexico after they got married. Right?”

“That’s true, Maddie; they liked the high desert climate, the people and culture. You know where New Mexico is?”

“Of course, Dad; it’s out west by Texas where the Alamo is. We learned that in school.” Not to be sidetracked, I plowed on. “But after they lived in New Mexico for a while, Grandma got sick for a long time. When she died, Grandpa moved here and bought one of these condos by the beach. Then he started sitting out by the ocean every day. Did I get all that stuff right?” I asked, my eyebrows raised.

“Yes, Maddie, that’s what happened.” Dad was frowning now.

“Grandpa and I have been talking a lot this week. But how come he moved by the ocean from the desert when he was never interested before? He never says.”

“Did Gramps ever tell you about his vacations in Arizona?” Dad asked.

“He just mentioned that he went to some place called Pinetop once in a while,” I answered.

Dad looked pretty serious, which made me nervous. “I think it had something to do with Pinetop, but he’s never talked about it,” he mused. “But they’re his memories to do with as he wishes, I guess.”

 

#

 

Maybe Mom was right about me being precocious. The next afternoon I sought out Grandpa at the beach and found him in his usual spot. I ran up to him and threw my arms around his neck and gave him a big hug. “Hi Grandpa, did you find what you were looking for in the ocean yet?”

He returned my hug and grinned as I stepped back, but his smile seemed lopsided, like he was hiding a grimace. Was he in pain, I wondered?

“No, honey, nobody there.”

That was a funny answer, I thought. Grandpa seemed to have aged even more overnight. His face was saggier, reminding me a little of our Basset Hound, Toby, back home. The loose skin of his body was paper white and the age spots—liver spots Mom called them—stood out darkly on the backs of his hands and arms. And his eyes looked funny. “Grandpa, have you been crying? Your eyes look all red and blurry.”

He wiped at them guiltily with the back of his hand and glanced away. “No, Maddie, I just got some sand in them, is all.”

Determined, I blundered on. “Was it beautiful in Pinetop, Arizona, Grandpa?”

That surprised him. He looked back at me, his eyes widening. “Why did you ask that?”

“Did you forget you told me you went there sometimes when you lived in New Mexico?”

His face softened, saddened. “Yes, I guess I did. Sometimes I forget things. But some things I’ll never forget.”

“Like what, Grandpa?” I asked.

His gaze shifted back to the ocean.

With all the intuitiveness that only the young possess, I asked, “The ocean and what you’ll never forget; did it have anything to do with Pinetop?” That intuition kept me quiet as the seconds dragged on and Grandpa continued to gaze out to sea.

“Her name was Maureen,” he finally whispered.

“Who?” I asked. He said it so low I wasn’t sure I heard right.

He turned back to me. “Her name was Maureen, and she lived in a big two-story cabin in Pinetop, Arizona.” Grandpa’s face and eyes were the