Cold Feet

Elena Ender

My grandpa and I were in the middle of brunch when I got the call. It was my friend Annie who had been calling me nonstop for weeks about her breakup with Chad. I couldn’t go out for one afternoon without being bothered. And millennials are always made fun of for being on our phones, I didn’t want to add to that. So, I let it go to voicemail and turned my phone off. If there was a real emergency, I thought, my grandpa would also get a call. But, he left his phone at home. 

You know he still has a flip phone? My dad, you know David, he asked me to add some contacts into my grandpa’s phone, new doctors, neurologists, you know. It was so hard to do, it took forever, I’m not used to buttons anymore.

So, I had planned weeks ago to take my grandpa out for brunch. I’d offered to bring Carol, but she never usually wants to go out with us… wait, wanted. Sorry. She never wanted to go out with us, so I just picked up my grandpa. I knocked on the door, he answered, asking if I wanted to come inside and see Carol for a bit. I heard her calling out to him from the dining room, asking him to move around the plants out back. She said, “Somebody’s got to do it!” He was about to, but I told him I’d help him when we got back. There’s so many of those plants with individualized-for-each-succulent rocks. He really shouldn’t be doing much manual labor. Or any, for that matter. But I was hungry and didn’t feel like taking care of it yet. I double-checked if she wanted to come, and she put her very thin, short white-blond hair in a low ponytail, turned around to wipe up the already spotless counter, and refused. She had better things to do. So, we said goodbye and left.

We went to this hole-in-the-wall brunch place called Stem that I recommended. I got a hazelnut latte and this phenomenal avocado toast that had slices of blood orange on top on a fat slice of sourdough. My grandpa got a plain black coffee, obviously, and a waffle-egg-Portuguese sausage combination plate. He loved it; he said it was a close substitute for Spam. I could never get a taste for it, though. 

 I told him about school, life, friends, everything. And I asked him about his life. What’s new, how’s the bowling league, what Carol’s up to. He jumped into his go-to.

… 

Lauren, did you know how we met? he asked me. Oh, it’s a good story.

Well, I joined the army when I was 18, to get off the Big Island for a change. I’d get to travel, see some of the world for free. I did payroll in the Philippines for two years and was sent back to Hilo. I didn’t want to settle back down just yet, so I went to California. Golden, just like they said. I was dropped right into San Pedro. I didn’t know which way was up. 

I stayed in a hostel the first night, then I went to the employment service the next morning, bringing my bags, walking miles up so many hills. You been to San Pedro? It’s all hills. The lady asked, “Name?” “Jack,” I told her. “Well, Jack, can you type?” I used to be fast. The lady said, “Okay, we have jobs open at Douglas Aircraft.” I’d do payroll again. Simple, I love it. “When can you start?” Shoots, right now. But I had to go back out and walk up three more hills, big hills, another two miles out. I walked and started that day.

… 

He wanted to keep talking. I always like hearing the story. So, I suggested going to the Western Wednesday thing at the discount theater downtown. My grandpa loves all Westerns, but I’ve only ever liked one: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. So, since that was one of the few playing, we decided to go. We’d talk on the way.

… 

Jack’s daughter, Doreen: About time, don’t you think? She’d been dying for ages. I’m surprised that it took so long. I mean, sucking the funds forever. It’s ridiculous. I can’t believe she completely bled him dry, buying more floral plates and FitBits and Swiffer WetJets online. Mom saved and saved all her life. She was so responsible and considerate, planning for their retirement, but when she passed and Carol swooped in… bam! Everything went to hell. Not unlike Carol herself. Yikes, am I right?

… 

My dad got his call when Carol hit her Life Alert thing. But he was out in Phoenix presenting this psych-theory paper for his doctoral program. I know Carol’s kids were contacted and everything, but we just got radio silence until we had confirmation that she died. Wait, passed, or whatever.

They moved to all parts of the country, but I know at least two live nearby, but… yeah, I don’t know. It’s not really my place to say what was going on with them. 

… 

Carol’s daughter, Amy: I felt too distant for too long. I wish I had been involved in more of the end of Mom’s life. She taught me everything I know. I love her. She was everything to me. And you can tell everyone here I said that. As a matter of fact, please do. I only have good things to say about Mom; she was a saint.

… 

So, Auntie Doreen dropped work and went to the hospital. She made sure everything was taken care of. The heart attack happened and she was just kind of hanging on for a while, and Auntie Doreen told the doctors to fix her, heal her, make her better somehow. Auntie Doreen was there, fighting for Carol, which sounds great and everything, until you remember their whole relationship. They’d regift the same “Trimming the Fat: Extreme at-Home Workout” VHS tape to one another for Christmas every year since Carol married my grandpa. Carol said it was to get rid of Doreen’s baby weight from having my cousin Sharon, but Sharon was already late in elementary school when it was first gifted. And any time Doreen would call the house to talk to my grandpa, Carol would see her name on caller I.D. and pick up the phone and immediately hang it up. I never knew why.

But, I guess you could imagine that kind of dynamic being stuck in a hospital room together. 

… 

Doreen: And she would just go on and on about how Dad wasn’t helping her around the house, how he was pushing all of this work onto her. But she would just be convincing somebody from church or a neighbor or whoever to drive her to Home Depot and Joann’s, because she couldn’t drive herself, and bought a dozen cacti a week, and glued googly eyes on rocks, saying: “Well, somebody’s got to do it!” No! Nobody’s got to do any of it! 

I’ve been staying here for the past three days, and I’ll be here for another week, until Dad’s fine to move in with David before he can move into a retirement home. But, I’ve been finding those googly-eyed rocks everywhere. I was taking a shower and reaching for the soap, eyes closed, conditioner in my hair, streaming down my face, when I felt it in my hand. A rock with a seashell hat and plastic, dead eyes staring up at me. I screamed and threw it over the shower door and ended up breaking a perfume bottle. It still smells like dusty gardenias in there. But afterwards, I dumped the rock in the bathroom trash can, but then it was staring at me on the toilet—it never stops!

… 

Of course, Carol wasn’t responding to anything, just laying under one of those generic, medium-soft fabric blankets with her chin up and lips pursed like an old-timey dutchess. I feel like she knew what was going on and who was there. I guess that makes it that much worse that my grandpa and I didn’t get there in time.

… 

Amy: Jack shouldn’t get any bit of what Mom left behind. Neither should any of his family. 

… 

Doreen: We’re doing an estate sale, trying to get rid of all of this crap, but her kids, what’s-her-name, Emmy or Abby or something? We met her at Carol and Dad’s wedding ages ago, then she disappeared. And we haven’t heard from her until literally the second Carol died.

… 

It was quick, her passing.

… 

Amy: I reached out after I got the news of Mom’s passing, very late in the process of funeral planning, I may add.

… 

Doreen: She just showed up out of nowhere.

… 

We were out for five hours, tops. Brunch, the movie, and just driving around, talking about how he met the love of his life.

… 

I met some people in San Pedro right away. People would ask me how I got out to the mainland, so, oh-ho-ho, I would say, “I just took the bridge and drove here.” You wouldn’t believe it, how many of these haoles just took my word! Oh man, was it funny.
One girl though, one girl would hear the questions people asked, so mindless, and she laughed when I’d answer the way I did. She’d try to stay quiet, but she was busting a gut.
She worked at Douglas Aircraft with me, and after weeks of talking, she asked, “Would you like to come to my house for dinner?” Her whole family was there. I knew she was setting us up, making it all very easy for me. It was nice, because, you know, I talk like no problem, but I was too scared to just take her out.

… 

I’m kind of sorry that I hadn’t checked my phone, to be there to help. 

… 

Amy: The family insisted that the house Jack owned before he married Mom should be sold along with all of Mom’s stuff to pay off her credit card debt and maybe putting Jack up in a nursing home if there was anything left. 

… 

Doreen: She came to the house demanding we give her her share of the assets. Like, really?

… 

Amy: I mean, what’s his is hers, and what’s hers is ours. So, we should have some say in where everything is moved, where the money goes. 

… 

Doreen: And she just went off about how, “Mom meant so much to me, we were so close, she was my everything, and you’re just tearing my family apart.” Are you kidding? You weren’t there in the hospital watching her bitter face rot before your eyes. You don’t have any room to talk.

… 

Amy: And I’m not paying to put Jack up in some cushy, convalescent hotel.

… 

Doreen: We’ve been picking up the slack because you haven’t been here for years!

… 

But our afternoon out of that house was the first time he’d laughed in a long time.

… 

I went to her dinner, and boy, that grind. So good; I’d never had Italian food before. Lasagna, stacks of cheese and sauce. Everything homemade. It got me. And her family was so kind, so inviting. Boy, we had fun. I kept looking at her and she would look to me to see if I was having a good time.
After we said goodbye, I walked down the hill, then back up a hill, then back down another hill to get to my apartment. I unlocked the door and just couldn’t go back inside.
Shoots, I couldn’t not see her again.

… 

When we got back to his house, I remembered that I had to go in to move around those plants out back. We got inside and Carol wasn’t there. I went into the kitchen and saw her special arthritis mug with the two handles like a sippy cup broken on the ground: it only had one handle and the coffee was splashed across the tile floor.

… 

So, I turned back around and did the hills again. I was young. My legs were good. But it was still a trip. You know what? It started raining. Big, fat drops, my slippers flooded, sliding off me, dragging me down the hills. It was two hours later when I got back. I knocked on the door, and there she was. Her curled brown hair at her shoulders, clear, innocent face smiling, always smiling. The light from her house was shining behind her, shining like a halo. She laughed a little and walked up to me. I smiled, too. I was lolo. But I kissed her.
And that was that.

… 

There was so much panic shooting through my body. I checked my phone to see twelve voicemails from my dad and fifteen from Auntie Doreen. 

… 

David: EMTs picked up Carol after she passed out at home. 

Doreen: They think it was heart attack or a stroke. 

Doreen: It was a heart attack. 

David: Bring Grandpa back. 

David: Lauren, get to the hospital. 

Annie: Chad posted a photo of him and two girls and another guy. Do you think he’s on a double date? Like, already? Call me back.

David: Doreen needs you.

David: I’ll try to get a flight out as soon as possible, but I don’t think I’ll get there in time. 

Doreen: Lauren, pick up your phone.

David: Grandpa needs to be there. 

Doreen: Come on, pick up your phone, Carol’s dying here.

David: Pick up your phone.

… 

I didn’t finish listening to them all, but one of the messages said that Carol passed. I got another voicemail from a number I didn’t know. It turned out to be Carol’s daughter.

… 

Amy: Tell Jack to pack up all of Mom’s antique dolls so I can pick it up at the funeral. They’re staying in the family. I’m not taking no for an answer.

… 

I told my grandpa, “Carol was taken to the hospital. Doreen’s there. We have to go right now.”

… 

Hm? All right. 

… 

We got to the hospital. I went into the room with my grandpa to see her. She looked warmer than she did when she was alive.

My grandpa didn’t seem phased. This was just an echo from earlier, before he decided to settle for just anyone who would keep him company in his frailty. Carol was there for him, but too tired to really love him by the time he was hers. I know that she had been married a few times before, but I don’t know if she had really loved any of those men. I’m sure if she and my grandpa had met earlier, she would have loved him. I’m sure then he would have felt her death. 

But my grandpa’s love grew cold and chapped and pale in a hospital a long time ago. This was never the angel from San Pedro who laughed at his jokes and made him lasagna.

Nurses started moving stuff around to make room for the next patient. They were trained for instances like this, but I don’t think I could get used to it. They didn’t know her, so they probably assume this feeble, old, white lady was generous and gentle, not sour and jaded. They probably fear the ache on the faces of her family members when they discover her passing. They’ll go home to their families at the end of the day.

My grandpa and I left the room, sat on the vinyl chairs in the fluorescent light. The beige coffee table in front of us looked sturdy. I put my feet up on it, but felt like my posture was inappropriate for the occasion, so I put my feet back down on the white tile floor. My grandpa turned to me to ask:

… 

Did I tell you about how back when, San Pedro was known for having a big bar scene and pirates? These big, strong men would go out at night, drink, then the pirates would ask them if they needed jobs. The men would do whatever, not really paying attention, then they’d get swept away, kidnapped. Sometimes when they’d see the little bit of land, they’d take their chances and jump over. Forget about the distance. Think about the sharks.

… 

I searched for meaning in those words. I tried to connect some metaphor, the pirates and his marriage to Carol. Like he was trapped by her in a moment of weakness. Or he wanted to jump overboard to escape. It all felt like a stretch. But hey, maybe there is some wisdom in a man just wanting to remember his first wife, the grandma I never knew, but was told I’m just like.

I looked at his face, soft and optimistic, a young Islander trying to make the most of his travels. Maybe he just likes sharks.

About the Author

Elena Ender has loved every bit of editing, reading for, and helping create literary publications Tin House and Masters Review. She spends her time writing snarky fiction, listening to 2007 pop-punk, and driving around, pretending she’s a character in a Joan Didion novel.

Twitter & Instagram: @elena_ender