“This drink is for sipping.”
Nikky takes a sip, puts his glass down, and follows me into the spare room. He watches as I retrieve the big, old Growing Up scrapbook from behind the sewing machine table and set it on his unmade bed. He looks at the familiar bright yellow cover and begins flipping through the pages: old birthday cards, ribbons from elementary school sports days, class photos. Neither of his parents kept anything like this.
“Aw, Grandma. You’ve still got some of my old artwork from high school. These sketches are terrible.”
“I like them.” I unfurl the measuring tape. “Stand up.” Nikky stands against the wall and straightens his shoulders. I reach up, place an old sewing manual on top of his head to flatten his hair, and mark the wall with a pencil.
“You should see the stuff I’m doing now at art school. It’s so much better,” Nikky says as I measure a second time for accuracy.
“Goodness, you’re much taller.” I turn to the page in the scrapbook where long ago I’d drawn a growth chart with an old wooden ruler. I hand my grandson a ballpoint pen. “Write down six feet, two inches.”
“Whoah. Two more inches.” Nikky writes in the book, his numbers large and blocky alongside my own elegant cursive. “I think I’m done growing now, though.”
“Maybe.” I sit down on the bed beside him. “But we grow in other ways, yes?”
Nikky reaches abruptly into his pocket and pulls out his cellphone. The electronic blip.
“It’s her again. Jennifer. Should I get it?”
“Of course.” I stand. I close the door behind me to give Nikky his privacy.
I drop into my chair, suddenly exhausted. I roll up the measuring tape, place it on the table beside me, lean back, and close my eyes.
“Grandma.” Something is push-pulling at my shoulder. I feel submerged as though underwater and want to stay in the murky depths, but the shaking is insistent.
“Grandma.” I open my eyes and look at Nikky. His face is out of focus.
“What is it, dear?” I blink, shiver, and straighten my glasses. Nikky rests his young, strong hand on my shoulder. I touch it with my shaking one, feeling heat radiate from his body.
“I have to go.” Nikky straightens up. I look down and see his bag at his feet.
“Where, dear?”
“Back to Vancouver. My gir — Jennifer needs me.”
I struggle up from the chair. “Is she a nice girl, this Jennifer?”
“She’s amazing. Super talented.” Nikky hoists his bag onto his shoulder. “Everything.”
“No time for laundry? Dinner?” I clutch at his arm, already knowing the answers. Nikky sighs. I look into his eyes and let go.
My whole body shakes. I walk over to the sideboard and rest my hands on it. I need something to hold on to. I need more time to teach Nikky the things he needs to know. “Now you take care of your Jennifer.” When I say it out loud, the words sound more urgent than I expect.
Nikky looks startled. This is the right reaction, because I know he’s paying attention.
“When you’re young you can feel like you can do anything, and go in any direction,” I continue. “Your career is important, yes, but life is a much grander thing when we’re responsible for each other. I want you to be a gentleman. Promise me you’ll look after her.”
Nikky nods, solemn and thoughtful. We both know we’re talking about his father. How Nikky can be different.
“I promise, Grandma.”
“And next visit stay longer.”
“Yes.” Nikky nods, blinks rapidly, then turns to look out the window. I compose myself, too, though my words still linger in the air, exposed — old sentiments finally said. I open the wooden silverware box, retrieve a small, fat envelope, then pick up the bottle of Crème de Cacao. “Here,” I hand him both. “Take a cab to the bus station. I’ll call one now. There should be enough in there for the bus, ferry, and a little extra, too. And put this in your bag. For sipping.”
“And good days.” Nikky leans down and kisses me gently on the cheek.
“And good days,” I repeat.
I wait with Nikky at the lobby door. The cab arrives too quickly. I try to stop the shaking. And the tears. There’s still so much I need to teach him.
“Oh, Grandma, I’ll be back soon.” Nikky hugs me, shoulders his bag, and opens the door.
“Leaving already?” Charles appears on the sidewalk outside the condo, carrying a small bag of groceries. I watch as Charles and Nikky shake hands. I think I see him slip a twenty-dollar bill into Nikky’s palm like a proper grandfather. My ex-husband Tibor wasn’t much for goodbyes. Or hellos, either. Charles steps back as Nikky climbs into the cab. I wave as the cab speeds away. Tremors rattle my limbs. I turn down the hall before Charles can see my teary face, but I glance back as I round the corner. Charles is standing by the door, alone.
Back in my condo unit, I pause at the door of the spare room. I should tidy it up and get the bedding washed. But it still smells of Nikky. He left the scrapbook open to a page of small boat drawings. I miss him already. I close the spare room door, fish around in the liquor cabinet for some brandy, and sit down in my chair. Coronation Street is on TV, but I can’t concentrate. I reach for my glass of brandy and shuffle down the hall, holding on to the wall for support. I set my glass on the nightstand, crawl into bed with my clothes still on, and dab at my eyes with a tissue.
The morning light is suffused through thick layers of cloud. The charcoal grey matches my mood. My head aches. I don’t feel like walking, but I know Charles will be waiting. I put on my coat and go downstairs. Charles offers me his arm, but I shrug it away. He starts whistling, then stops, the tune lost to the wind. I clutch my umbrella. As we round the corner to the beach park I look up and sigh.
The third circle of stones is a vision of colour in the rain-darkened dirt. Charles and I walk towards it, gazing with curiosity at beach rocks painted primary-school blue. The rocks encircle a Tupperware spaghetti container full of crayon drawings, two Tonka trucks, and a tiny ceramic handprint labeled NOAH, AGE 5. I recognize the perfect rounded letters of a grade-one teacher. I think of what it was like to be a young parent and realize the boy’s mother and father wouldn’t have been able to lift stone after stone, place the memory of their son in the middle, leave it behind. Charles studies the child’s cheaply laminated photo, which will eventually fade in the sun and melt in the rain. Noah had big ears, messy, overlong hair, and a missing incisor. His skin looked orange in the way that school portraits make all children look like carrots.
I clear the catch in my throat with a gentle cough and sit down on the park bench. Dampness seeps through my coat and to my skin, chilling all the way to my bones. Charles seems nonplussed. Undignified with toys and bright, sloppy splotches of glitter glue, the circle appears as though made by NOAH, AGE 5. I think of the drawings and paintings that lined the halls of James Cook Elementary School from September to June. How their removal for cleaning at the end of the school year always felt like an incomprehensible loss.
“I give the Tonka trucks two months before someone steals them.” Charles bangs his cane on the cedar-chip path. He yanks on the brim of his cap, zips and re-zips his navy windbreaker. He has lost weight from our walks and his overlarge navy-blue slacks ride so low now they hang over the laces of his black leather running shoes. I watch an odd expression cross Charles’s face. For a fleeting moment I think he looks like an old, stubborn kid in school uniform. With white, thinning hair.