Chapter 15: The Car Around the Front

Grandma's house on Fairmount smelled of lemon polish and radiator dust.

Dennis met us at the door with a folder under his arm and a stranger behind him.

The stranger wore a gray suit and carried a rubber stamp in a leather case.

"He's a notary," Dennis said. "He came as soon as I called."

"On a Tuesday morning," I said. "Twenty minutes after Ma went confused."

"Jo, not now."

Grandma sat in her armchair in the front room with a blanket over her knees.

Her hair wasn't set. It was the first time in my life I had seen her with a flat Friday.

"Ma," Dad said, and crouched in front of her. "It's Frank."

She looked at him with wide, wet blue eyes.

"Is that you?" she said. "Did you bring the car around?"

My father's face went gray.

She was talking to my grandfather, and he had been dead for nineteen years.

"I'm Frank, Ma. Your son."

"Frank is at school," Grandma said. "Frank is only a boy."

I stood by the door with my arms crossed and watched her.

Monday afternoon she had cried at my mother's table, with her back straight, and every tear had been real.

This morning she was crying again, and her back was bent.

I couldn't have said why that bothered me.

"It came on overnight," Dennis said.

He had a catch in his voice that I had heard him use at the boat show.

"The doctor says it can happen fast, with the stress."

"Which doctor?"

"He's coming."

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