She spoke before he could manage.
“Other women I know who crochet make sweaters. Or hats. But that’s so complicated. You have to make things turn out in just this perfect shape. I learned how to do it, but then I decided I didn’t want to. I guess I’m lazy. Well . . . I’m not sure ‘lazy’ is the right word. I do it to have something to do with my hands, and it helps my arthritis to keep my fingers moving. But I just do it for the fun of it. If anything stops it from being fun, I guess I just start wondering why I’m doing it at all.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Stewie said.
“Good. I had a feeling we’d see eye to eye, you and me.”
They walked in silence for nearly a full loop around the second floor.
Then Louise said, “You know her mind is getting very bad, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. I do know that.”
“It’s a good thing she’s in a place like this, where people with professional training can look after her.”
“I get why she’s here,” Stewie said. “I’m not sure why you’re here. Your mind seems good and you walk really fast.”
“I sold my house,” she said, “because I just flat-out got tired of taking care of it. Taking care of everybody and everything. Raised five kids. Took care of two husbands when they got sick and old. All my life I took care of everybody else. Now it’s my turn. Now it’s time for other people to take care of me.”
“Wow,” Stewie said. “You’re really different from her. I wish she could look at the thing that way.”
“Yes indeed,” Louise said. “We are two very different people. Not really made for getting along, but we are getting along. Well enough, anyway. And it started last week when you came in wanting to talk to her over breakfast. I have a sneaking suspicion I have you to thank.”
“I just reminded her of something she forgot. How she didn’t like having a roommate last time she had one, but then she got to know the lady and really liked her a lot.”
“Well, it’s funny,” Louise said, “because I just know she forgot all that again a minute after you told her. But some little bit of something you said stuck. Maybe underneath the part of her brain that doesn’t hold on to things, the feeling of the thing stuck. Somehow you said just the right thing. You’re a magical boy. You know that?”
Stewie stopped dead in the hall. Louise kept going a few steps, and tugged on his arm without meaning to as their linked limbs pulled her to a halt.
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
“Because I believe it.”
“I’m not magic. I’m just a regular boy.”
“I’m not saying you’re not real like everybody else. I give you credit for being a real boy. But you wake something up in people. You remind them we can do better at getting along. You can be just a regular, real person and still be the magic somebody else needs in her life. We do it for each other all the time. It’s that everyday sort of magic. We’re all capable of it, I do believe, but still you don’t always see people living up to that potential.”
“I understood some of that,” Stewie said.
He expected her to break it down. Dissect it. Dumb it down for a kid listener.
Instead she just said, “Good.”
They walked again, more slowly this time.
“You remind me of my own grandson,” she said.
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Your grandson is thirty-three?”
“Yes, child, I have been on this earth for a few trips around the sun.”
“How can I remind you of a thirty-three-year-old?”
She chuckled, a hoarse sound in her throat. “You don’t. You remind me of him when he was your age. Like . . . thirteen?”
“Twelve,” Stewie said. “But thank you.”
“Just so you know, son, if you ever needed another adopted grandma, I’m adoptable myself.”
“That’s a nice thing to say.”
“It’s true.”
They walked more slowly for another trip around before she spoke again.
“Ever notice how she forgets everything and everyone . . . but not you? Her own children come here, and half the time she doesn’t know them. But she always calls you by your name.”
“I did notice that. But I don’t know why.”
“Don’t you? Seems clear to me.”
“Because I’m magical?”
“Maybe. Maybe that, too. I was thinking because she cares about you. Maybe more than you know.”
“I like your reason better,” he said.
They walked for a while longer, but did not talk again. To Stewie, it felt as though they didn’t need to talk more. As though everything that needed saying had already been comfortably said.
When they got back to the room, Betty was sitting on the bench in the hall out front. Louise walked right by her, but Stewie stopped.
Betty looked up at him, and offered a half smile, but it was strained and sad looking. So Stewie sat down beside her. He always tried to stay with people who looked sad, in case there was anything he should be doing to help.
“She’s at physical therapy,” he said.
“So I hear.”
“You okay?”
“Not really.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just sitting here wondering if I should even stay and visit. I drove over an hour to get here, and now I’m wondering if I should just give up and go home.”
“Why would you go home without visiting her?”
“You don’t know how it feels,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your own mother not even know you.”
“I don’t even know what it’s like to have a mother,” Stewie said.
Then they sat without talking for an uncomfortable space of time.
“Is that why Gerald hasn’t been coming out?” he asked. He shifted around on the hard wooden bench as he spoke, because it was uncomfortable. It made his sitting bones ache. “Because I haven’t seen Gerald for a while. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he comes out, but I just keep missing him.”
“No, you’re right. He doesn’t come out anymore. He told me there’s no point visiting a person who’s not there. He says it’s just a waste of time.”
“That’s wrong,” Stewie said, shaking his head hard.
He saw her consider him in his peripheral vision, turning her head to stare at him, her eyes narrowed.
“With all due respect,” she said, “I’m not sure you get to judge. Since you haven’t had the experience.”
“But she’s there,” Stewie said, “and that’s just a fact. It’s not something I’m judging. It’s just true.”
“You’re an opinionated little guy, aren’t you?”
“It’s not an opinion,” Stewie said, growing quite a bit more agitated. “It’s just the truth. You just look with your eyes and you’ll see. She’s there. You talk to her and she talks back. That’s being there. That’s all a person has to do to be there. You’re just upset because she doesn’t say the same things she would have said before. Instead of being so sure about exactly how you want her to be, why can’t you just be glad because she’s there? You know how happy I would be if my mother was there? Sometimes I think you and Gerald don’t get how lucky you are.”
Stewie was pretty sure she was about to tell him a thing or two. He thought he heard her open her mouth and begin a word. But he didn’t let her go there.
“I know a man,” he said. “A man who taught me that the reason people aren’t happy is because they have these ideas about what the world should be. And the world is never just what they think it ought to be. If the world has to be a certain way for you to be happy, then you’ll never be happy. Heck, I’m only twelve and even I know that. She’s not the same as she used to be, but she’s not gone. She’s your mother. If you could just be happy she’s here, then you could be happy.”
Stewie paused, wincing slightly, to hear her reaction. It had been blunt advice. He didn’t normally speak to grown-ups that way, and he knew there was a chance she would be offended.
For what felt like several minutes—but probably wasn’t—he didn’t get to find out much about her reaction.
Then she said, simply, “I’m not used to taking advice from a kid.”