Chapter THIRTY
April guessed she’d been in the zone Keith Spinelli and his buddies talk about when they talk about sports. He was in the zone, man, one of them would say, as if some stupid athlete had walked on water. It used to bug her, listening to that crap as she took books out of her locker or sat in the lunchroom. Get a life, she’d think.
But now she would give just about anything to be listening to that drivel, to be watching Heather get all gaga over some stupid boy talking about the zone with Keith Spinelli, to be anywhere but the Salt Lake City Amtrak station.
The thing about being in the zone, April thought, is that you remember it all, but you don’t remember actually doing it until it’s all over: how she found her grandfather sitting on the sidewalk in front of the bus station, with people huddled around him while he held a blood-soaked handkerchief to his forehead and noisily refused all medical attention, practically wrestling the handkerchief away from him to make sure he wasn’t still bleeding, walking him back to the Amtrak station, her grandfather babbling away, making no sense, no sense at all. And here they were, sitting side by side on the plastic chairs, waiting for the train that April knew, with growing certainty, they could not get on.
The businessman was gone. The mother and her kids were still there, though. The woman, arms around her sleeping maniacs, gave April a sympathetic smile. April smiled back but then turned away. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, if she said a single word, she would never stop crying.
Her grandfather sat quietly, staring off into space. A zombie. She wanted him to talk to her, but she was afraid that he’d start jabbering, loudly, about nothing. Maybe he’d wake the kids; maybe the mother would feel compelled to offer advice again. Everyone, it seemed to April, felt it was their civic duty to tell a teenager how to live. And she noticed it was usually from the perspective of regret. As if messing up their own lives gave them the right to advise others on how to run theirs.
She decided that when she became an adult, she wasn’t going to try to solve world hunger or join some lying politician’s campaign or try to figure out how to make blacks and whites and Arabs and Jews—freaking men and women, for that matter—get along. No, she was going to do the world a favor and just mind her own damn business.
Kind of like the ticket guy. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask anything, when April returned with her grandfather. A sweet job, when you think about it. People ask for tickets, you give them their tickets. No questions. The train is either full, or not. Nothing to think about. No decisions to make.
You want to go where? Fine. That’ll be fifty dollars. Have a nice day.
She’d been too hard on the clerk, she decided. She’d been a smart-ass. The guy was just doing his job. Until he said, “Well, aren’t you something?” That, April thought, was unnecessary.
And yet—aren’t you something?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I am something, April thought now, sitting next to her near-comatose grandfather. I am clueless. I am an idiot. I am a moron. What else could I be, traveling across the country with someone I knew was losing it? A singer in a band? Who’s kidding who? My voice belongs at the top of my TITS list.
Her grandfather’s eyes were open but vacant. April wanted to wave her hands in front to see if he’d blink, but worried about drawing the attention of the mother. He was breathing heavily. The cut on his forehead was a scabby brownish red. He needed to brush his teeth.
She took the tickets out of her pocket. California Zephyr. “Don’t move, Grandpa,” she said. “Okay?”
The request was unnecessary. Her grandfather made no sign that he’d even heard her.
The clerk was reading the paper. April wondered if it was a different one or if he read the same news over and over until the end of his shift.
“I need to exchange tickets,” she said. “Please,” she added.
He lowered the paper and looked at her as if he hadn’t noticed her until that very moment. He then folded the newspaper noisily, the crinkling reminding April of boots against snow, walking home. “Well, the young traveler returns. How nice to see you again. You say you need to exchange these tickets?”
“Yes. I need to exchange them for tickets to Ohio.”
“Ohio?”
“Ohio.”
“Wow. Instead of desperately needing to go to California—Emeryville—you now desperately need to get to Ohio?” He blew out his cheeks. “Talk about your U-turns.”
“Can you please just exchange these tickets?”
“No, I can’t just exchange these tickets.”
“Why not?”
“It costs more to get to Ohio from here than it does to California. You do know where Ohio is, don’t you?”
April reminded herself that the guy was just doing his job.
“I grew up there.”
“You grew up there? So . . . you’re all grown up, is that it?”
One more comment, April thought. Just one more comment and I’m going to grab this guy’s collar, pull him close, and punch him in the face.
April pushed the tickets she had, along with her grandfather’s credit card, to the clerk.
“Can you just exchange these for tickets to Cleveland? Put the difference on this card.”
The clerk didn’t look at her.
“Please,” April said.
He swiped. Waited. Swiped again. He grunted as he squinted at the readout.
“Won’t take it,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Says ‘declined.’ ”
“Why?”
“My guess is you exceeded the limit. Lots of people think they can just keep charging and charging, until this happens.”
April felt a trickle of sweat slither down her right side. She’d never bothered asking her grandfather about limits. Never thought about it as she checked into hotels, paid for meals.
“Do you—or should I say your grandfather—have a different card?”
April felt hot. Her eyes stung. Why does everything out of this guy’s mouth have to be a dig? What had she done to him? It wasn’t her fault this loser was stuck in a loser job.
“Is there a problem here?”
Her grandfather’s eyes were clear and they were focused on the ticket clerk. He was standing straight. Apart from the scab and bruise on his forehead—which, April noticed, seemed to be getting bigger and bluer by the second—her grandfather seemed perfectly fine. In charge.
“No, Grandpa,” April said. “Please go back and sit down. I’m just—”
“What’s the problem?” her grandfather asked, still looking at the clerk. April noticed the slight rise in volume. The clerk had better not try any smart-ass response: her grandfather might turn into GI Joe again.
“I’m trying to exchange your tickets, but your credit card got rejected.”
“Exchange? What exchange?”
“The young lady wants to exchange the tickets for Ohio. I tried . . .”
April cringed as her grandfather turned to her. She tried to speak, but her throat went Sahara.
“You have the tickets to Seattle?” he asked April.
April nodded. She hoped the clerk wouldn’t correct her grandfather. “Grandpa, I think we need—”
“No way,” he said, his voice flat, final. “Who are you, Moses? Coming all this way but not going in, God be damned?”
April thought she heard the ticket seller gasp.
“No granddaughter of mine is going to be a quitter.”
“Grandpa, this isn’t about me. It’s about—”
“It’s about quitting, that’s what it’s about. And you’re not going to quit, you hear me? I will not allow it.”
April knew from his eyes that he wasn’t talking to her. She didn’t know which son, or maybe her mother, or which war buddy he was talking to, but it wasn’t her.
“Okay, Grandpa. Okay.”
He was talking nonstop all the way back to their seats. But at least he wasn’t screaming. The woman with the children was watching. April ignored her.
“Can’t go through life not doing what you know you should do. When I knew I’d be drafted, I knew I should enroll in officer school. But I didn’t. Didn’t think I had the stuff, even though I knew I did. So what happened? Froze my damn ass off in the trenches.”
His language was getting worse and the mother was smiling, but it was making April uncomfortable. She needed to distract him.
“Grandpa, why is it so important that all three be there?” she asked, uncertain herself as to where the question came from. “You told me—and sometimes when you don’t know you’re talking—that you want all to be there. Where? And who? Are you talking about my mom and Uncle Mike and Uncle Nick?”
He seemed not to understand the question. But then he nodded.
“Why is that so important, Grandpa?”
It was a long time before he answered.
“You’re not a kid anymore. You probably noticed that your mom and her brothers don’t keep in touch much. I always thought it was their own damn fault. But then I started thinking that maybe it was me. A misunderstanding. About what they think I did to their mother.”
“What did you do? Did you beat her?”
He looked at her.
“Did I beat her?”
April thought for sure she had made him angry enough for him to hit her. But he didn’t move. He just got very loud.
“I wouldn’t touch a hair on her head! I could never do anything to cause her pain. ’Course, that only ended up causing her more pain, because I didn’t have the guts to do what she asked me to do. But I couldn’t bear it. Either way, I couldn’t bear it.”
April didn’t know what he was talking about but figured she’d better keep quiet. People might start poking their noses into their business.
“Oh, some thought they knew what happened. Some even had the . . . the . . . balls to accuse me. To my face! It was beyond belief. Beyond even answering! How anyone, especially . . . could think I was capable . . . would even think of . . .”
She’d never seen him so angry. It took a while for him to breathe normally. When he spoke, his voice was low. He sounded exhausted.
“I just wanted to remind them of the fun we used to have. The vacations we took. Kind of remind them of things. That I wasn’t someone who could do what they thought I did.”
“What do they think you did, Grandpa?”
His eyes welled. “I just wanted one chance to tell them, all three of them together . . . face-to-face. Before I . . . couldn’t.”
“What did happen, Grandpa? What are you talking about?”
It was another long time before he answered.
“That’ll be for them to tell you.”
They sat. April glanced at the clock. 9:30. The train for San Francisco—freakin’ Emeryville—was supposed to leave at 11:54.
The next time she looked at the clock, it was 10:15.
Her grandfather started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
Her grandfather pointed at something outside the window.
“Those banana trees over there.”
April looked at where he was pointing. Just a couple of telephone poles and a streetlamp.
“Grandpa, those aren’t—”
“Why don’t you climb up and get me one. I could go for a banana right now.”
He went on about bananas for a while. April felt as though the room was gradually being sucked dry of oxygen. She wanted to run over to the woman, snuggle next to the maniacs.
Her grandfather gradually quieted. He closed his eyes.
April stood and moved as far away from him as possible without leaving the station and without losing sight of him.
She didn’t question her decision.
She took out her cell phone and dialed.