Crystal (Orphans 2)

"She says her mother wanted to stay with us longer so she could see you grow up in our family. It's what she believes, and it's what makes it sadder for her," he said. "I'm sorry that you've had such a hard beginning with us," he-added.

"How's Grandpa?" I asked.

Karl shook his head. "Fragile. I don't know how he is going to last alone. As sick as she was, Thelma's mother took good care of him," he said.

"What's going to happen to him?"

"As soon as I can, I'll start looking for a good adult residency for him. We can't take him in with us. We don't have the room," he added.

If I hadn't come to live with them, they would have the room, I thought. I felt just terrible about it. Would Grandpa resent me? Would Thelma?

"I could share my room with him," I suggested. "Of course you can't," Karl said. "Besides, we can't give him the attention he's going to need.

Thelma's not good at looking after sick folk. If I get a cold, she panics. Don't you get sick," he warned. 'Those damn shows put all sorts of ideas in her head about this illness and that. Mention a pain, and she'll give you an episode on Community Hospital that fits it. No, don't worry about Grandpa. I'll see to him,' Karl promised. "With his insurance and retirement pension, he can afford something decent."

That didn't make me feel any better about it, but I didn't say anything else. When we entered the house, I saw a glow coming from the television set, yet as we drew closer, I didn't hear anything.

"We're back," Karl called, and stopped in the doorway.

Thelma was sitting in her favorite chair, staring at the silent television screen, her face streaked with tears. She looked up at me, and her shoulders shook.

"Poor Grandma!' she said. "She wanted to have a grandchild so much, and just when she had one, she goes and dies. It's so unfair. It's like. . . like the electricity going off just at an important part in one of my programs!'

"I'm sorry," I said, certain that her mother's death meant more to her than a power outage. She was just upset. "She was very nice. I was hoping to get to know her a lot more."

"You poor dear, Now you have no

grandmother," she cried.

I didn't know whether or not I should run to her side and hug her. She turned from me and stared at the television screen.

"Do you want something to eat, Thelma?" Karl asked. He turned to me. "She hasn't eaten a thing all day!'

"I'll make you something, Mom."

She smiled through her tears. "Maybe just some tea and toast with a little jelly," she said. "And then come and sit beside me for a while."

Karl and I went to the kitchen and got her tea and toast together on a tray that I started to bring back to her.

"Do you think you'll be all right here?" he asked me before I returned to Thelma. "I have to stop at the office for a few minutes."

"Yes, we'll be fine!' I said.

He told Thelma what he was doing, but she didn't respond. She didn't turn from the silent screen until I brought the tray to her and set it up on the coffee table. I watched her nibble the toast and sip the tea, her eyes shifting with the movements of the actors on the surface of the picture tube. Keeping the sound off appeared to be her gesture of mourning.

"The funeral is the day after tomorrow," she said during the commercial. Her eyes still remained fixed on the screen, as if she was afraid that if she didn't keep looking at it she would fall apart. "Karl has everything arranged."

"Where's Grandpa?" I asked.

"He's home with some of their friends. People about their age. He's more comfortable at home," she continued. She nibbled some more of her toast and sipped her tea. "When you lose someone you love, you're better off being where everything is familiar, doing the things you're accustomed to doing. Grandma wouldn't want me to miss my show," she added when the program continued.

I stared at her, and then I looked at the set. The characters were obviously screaming at each other in an argument of some kind. What good was it watching with the sound off? Thelma shook her head as if she could hear the words anyway.

"Isn't it better if we just talk, Mom?" I asked softly.

"Talk? About what? Not about Grandma," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "I don't want to talk about her dying. She wasn't supposed to die," she said firmly, as if someone had rewritten a script. "She wanted to watch her granddaughter grow up. I told Karl we should adopt a child a long time ago. We shouldn't have waited to get you. Now look at what's happened. It doesn't fit," she said. "It all doesn't fit."

"We can't plan our lives like a soap opera is planned, Mom. We don't have that power." I wanted to add "yet," because I believed that someday science would crack all the mysteries of genetics and a great deal about our lives would be predetermined, but this wasn't the time to bring that up, I thought.