When I did go with Grandmother Emma to see Mama. I sat and told her about the books, too. Mrs. Feinberg remembered me, of course. She and Grandmother Emma went off to talk. I was sure it was all about Ian. Later, Mrs. Feinberg was even nicer to me. She told me to keep talking to Mama.
I didn't tell Mama about Ian. I imagined she was wondering where he was, but when he had visited her, he didn't really talk to her much anyway. I thought if she knew about him and what had happened, she would become so sad, she would never wake up. Grandmother Emma thought I was right.
"That was very smart of you, Jordan. You are growing wiser. I am sure you will be a fine young woman," she said.
Hearing such compliments from her surprised and delighted me. I couldn't wait to tell Ian about it. He might not care or think as highly of it as I did, but I had to tell someone. I did tell Daddy and he looked at me strangely, as if he thought it was odd I should care what his mother thought of me.
"You know," he said, leaning toward me while he sat in his wheelchair, "I can't watch you when you go swimming anymore. If something happened to you. I couldn't do a damn thing about it.'
He just blurted that out and I hadn't even talked about my going swimming at all.
"I'm not sure they'll even let you ride with me in a car, once I get one of those specially made cars for cripples like me," he added.
"She has no idea what you're talking about, Christopher. What point is there in your unloading your self-pity on a child anyway?" Grandmother Emma told him.
"Right, thanks for straightening me out. Mother," he said, and turned his chair' around to stare out the window.
"Don't let your father depress you,"
Grandmother Emma told me afterward. "All that has happened to him is his fault. He has no one to blame but himself."
"Mama, too?" I asked.
She looked like she wasn't going to answer, and then she said, "The two of them can blame only themselves."
Why was that? I wondered. Mama hadn't been driving. Why would she be at fault at all? I didn't ask Grandmother to explain.
Days continued to tick by so slo
wly for all of us that even Nancy remarked it seemed as if there were thirty hours in these days and not twenty-four. Finally, at the end of the first week in August. Daddy came home. Grandmother Emma purchased a special van for Felix to use to drive Daddy around. It had a lift that Daddy could wheel onto and when it was raised, wheel into the van. He didn't even have to leave his wheelchair if he didn't want to. She then had Mac and some of his workers build a special ramp for Daddy to use to get in and out of the house. That was as far as she would go to accommodate him and spoil what she called the classic look of the March Mansion.
I was playing outside, really imitating Ian and pretending to look for unique bugs and weeds, when Daddy was driven up in the van. I hurried to the front to watch the door open and the lift lower him in his wheelchair,
It was a beautiful August day, not too humid, and there was a very nice breeze. The sky seemed to be flawing from one horizon to the other in a constant light, almost Wedo-wood blue with puffs of clouds dabbed randomly about it, some looking like they weren't moving at all. I imagined the whole world, birds included, was holding its breath as Daddy's wheels rolled off the lift and onto our driveway.
He was dressed in one of his bright blue shortsleeve shirts and a pair of dark blue pants with his favorite boat shoes. He looked like he had just had his hair styled, too, and wore one of his pairs of designer sunglasses. Despite his unhappiness. I could set his pleasure in his homecoming. Felix came around and took the handles of his wheelchair to push him toward the ramp.
Mac and his workers were there to greet him.
Daddy's new nurse, Mrs. Clancy, had just arrived at the house that morning and, as Grandmother had told me, taken my original bedroom. She had short dull brown hair, brown eyes, and very thin lips. Although she was slim. I saw she had real small but ropelike muscles in her forearms. I didn't think Daddy would like her because she wasn't pretty, and I wondered if Grandmother Emma had hired her knowing he wouldn't.
Nancy came to the front entrance, too, and stood beside Grandmother Emma. They watched Mrs. Clancy quickly go down to greet Daddy. She had been introduced to him in the hospital and had met with his nurses and doctor there to get information about his condition.
He nodded at everyone, but he didn't say anything. I went to him and he started to reach for me and then stopped and shook his head.
"Just get me inside," he told Felix. He gestured at him and cried, "Meet CPS, Crippled Person Service."
No one laughed. Grandmother Emma shook her head and Nancy backed into the house.
"I'll take it," Mrs. Clancy told Felix, and practically pushed his hands off the wheelchair. "You want to start doing this yourself, Mr. March," she told Daddy as she brought the chair to the ramp. "It will be hard at first, but it gets easier as your upper body develops even more."
"Whoop-de-do," Daddy said. "I have something to look forward to after all."
I followed them up the ramp and into the house. I didn't think Daddy knew until that moment that he would be sleeping in the downstairs guest bedroom. He complained about that immediately because it had no view and was far smaller than either bedroom he had used upstairs.
"I've already had everything done to it to accommodate you, Christopher," Grandmother Emma told him, "and how would you manage the stairway?"
"You could have had a lift built, Mother.' "And ruin that classic balustrade?"