I answered with more manners than good sense. “Oh, just whatever you’ve got.”
Aunt Kate barely had to budge to honor that, reaching to the counter for a cereal box I had not seen in time. Puffed rice, the closest thing to eating air. Swallowing on that fact, if not much else, I found a bowl in the cupboard as she directed and a milk bottle in the refrigerator and spied the sugar bowl and did what I could to turn the puffed stuff into a soup of milk and sugar. A parent would have jumped right on me for that, but she paid no attention.
Evidently the kind of person who did not have much to say in the morning—although that was not what it had sounded like from the stairwell—she kept on drinking coffee and going through the paper, occasionally letting out a high-pitched hum of interest or exasperation at some item, as I spooned down the puffed-up cereal. The scatterings of crust on what must have been Herman’s plate seemed like a fuller meal than mine.
Finally I saw no choice but to ask, polite or not. “Suppose I could have a piece of toast, please?”
That drew me a bit of a look, but I was pointed to where the bread was kept and warned about the setting on the toaster. “He likes it incinerated,” Aunt Kate made plain as she pushed off to answer the phone ringing in the living room.
“This is she.” I learned a new diction while attending to my toast. That voice of hers turned melodious even in talking on the phone, rising and falling with the conversation. “Yes. Yes. You’re very kind to call. That’s good to know.” Wouldn’t it be something if people sounded like that all the time, halfway to music? “I see. No, no, you needn’t bother, I can tell him.” Her tone sharpened. “She did? Oh, all right, if you insist.” Industriously buttering my toast, I about dropped the knife when I heard:
“Donny, come to the phone.”
? ? ?
LIKE THE FIRST time of handling the reins of a horse or the gearshift of a car, things only grown-ups touched previous to then, I can still feel that oblong plastic pink receiver as I tentatively brought it close to my mouth.
“Hello? This is . . . he.”
“I am Sister Carma Jean,” the voice sounding exactly like you would imagine a nun’s came as crisp as if it were in the room, instead of fifteen hundred miles away at Columbus Hospital. I was dazed, unsure, afraid of what I might hear next.
“Last thing when I was at her bedside, your grandmother wished me to tell you yourself”—echo of last wish in that; I clung harder to the receiver—“she has come through the operation as well as can be expected.”
I breathed again, some.
“Of course, there are complications with that kind of surgery,” the Sister of Charity spoke more softly now, “so her recuperation will take some time.” Complications. Those sounded bad, and right away I was scared again. “But we have her here in the pavilion,” the voice on the line barely came through to me, “where she is receiving the best of care. You mustn’t worry.” As if I could just make up my mind not to.
Aunt Kate hovered by the bay window pinching dead leaves off the potted plants while I strained to believe what was being recited by the holy sister in Great Falls. “She says to tell you,” the nun could be heard gamely testing out Gram’s words, “you are not to be red in the head about things, the summer will be over before you know it.”
“Can I—” My throat tight, I had trouble getting the sentence out, but was desperate to. “Can I please talk to her?”
“I’m sorry, but she’s resting now.” That sounded so protective I didn’t know whether it was good or bad. “Is there something you would like for me to tell her?”
I swear, Aunt Kate was putting together everything said, just from hearing my side of the conversation, as snoopy as if she were the third party on the line. Why couldn’t she go back in the kitchen, or better yet, off to the bathroom, so I could freely report something like I’m stuck in an attic, and Aunt Kitty who isn’t Kate Smith and Herman who isn’t Uncle Dutch turn out to be the kind of people who fight over the complexion of a piece of toast.
“I guess not,” I quavered, squeezing the phone. Then erased that in the next breath. “No, wait, there is, too. Tell her”—I could feel the look from across the room—“the dog bus worked out okay.” Mentally adding, But Manito Woc or however you say it is even a tougher proposition than either you or I ever imagined, Gram. So please get well really, really fast.
? ? ?
AS SOON AS I clunked the phone into its cradle, Aunt Kate squared around to me from patrolling the potted plants and trilled as if warming up her voice, “Wasn’t that good news. Mostly.”
“I guess.”
That word complications rang in my ears, and no doubt hers, as we faced each other’s company for an unknown length of time ahead.