Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [92]
“Grandma told you about that?”
“I watched it from behind a museum post,” he says. “I watched your Uncle Stevie play in a band, and I took a volunteer job at the concession stand so I could watch your dad play high-school baseball.”
“Did you teach me to swim?”
He nods.
I’m remembering the time my grandmother took me to Santa Cruz when I was five. We met an old lifeguard, or so I thought. It was Harry.
“You were a natural,” he says.
“Holy shit.” I’m having another revelation. His face tightens. Harry doesn’t like cursing.
I continue: “You were the man in the rowboat.”
When Grandma used to take me to Stow Lake, she hired a man who worked at the boathouse to row us into the center. She’d ask me about my life. Harry would listen to the interview in silence.
He nods.
“You got Grandma pregnant before you shipped out. She didn’t know, or tell you, until you came back?”
“Your grandmother did what she had to do. She didn’t know if I’d make it back. She didn’t know if what we had was the real thing.”
I am speechless, but calm.
“She’s a fine woman.”
He’s so noble, old school. I can’t reconcile this man with the creative romantic who seduced Grandma on a first date with a secret note and a hidden library book.
“Did Grandma know you were watching us?”
He nods.
“I never went against her. I want you to know that. Your grandmother and I had a secret friendship, but it was only a friendship.” He pauses, and adds: “Mostly, just a friendship.”
“You had your own family?”
He shakes his head in the negative.
“It must have been so difficult.”
He looks down.
“I didn’t graduate from high school,” he says after a pause. “I worked in a concrete yard.”
“How is that relevant?” I ask, gently.
“We came from different backgrounds but your grandmother and I had something I can’t explain very well. I’m a different person with her than I am with anyone else. I think she’s a different person too.”
We fall silent.
“Did my grandfather . . . did Irving know?”
“If he did, he never said a word about it—not that Laney told me about. He was a good man. He treated her well. If you know Lane, you know she can’t live just one life. She needed to know there was something else out there.”
I take this in. He continues.
“I saved money and took trips and gallivanted some. I ran with the bulls in Spain, and I dove off cliffs in a Chilean rain forest, and other things. I sent your grandmother letters. I’m not much for writing or telling stories, but I tried—for her.”
He stops talking. He’s done.
“When she realized she was losing her memory, she decided to tell her story. She was going to tell me and then decided to tell the computer,” I say.
I see the first raw emotion on Harry’s face. His eyes are wet.
“She’s getting better. She’s remembering better, now that she’s away from the machine.”
“Did you know it was causing her a problem?”
“I don’t know anything about those foolish computers. I just know that in my day, we trusted our secrets to people.”
Now I see he’s looking in her direction. I follow his gaze. Grandma’s eyes are open. She’s looking ahead, and she is smiling.
“Harry,” she says.
“Laney.”
“I had a wonderful dream.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About what?”
“Your dream.”
“Come sit with me,” she says.
He walks over and sits by the side of the bed. He seems almost shy about it. She takes his hand.
“This is nice,” she says.
I watch them for a moment, finding I can barely speak for the tears.
From my pocket, I retrieve the paper I’d taken from Pete’s library. I unfold it and I walk to Harry.
“Does this mean anything to you?” I ask.
He shakes his head, then turns back to Lane.
I use Betty Lou’s cell phone to retrieve the messages from my own phone. There is one left by someone with a nervous, high-pitched voice.
“I’m sorry that I ran away on Halloween. I was afraid. Come visit me tomorrow on the basketball court. I have something I think you’re looking for. You know who this is. I’ll be waiting.”
I close the clamshell phone and put it back down. I lean over and kiss my grandmother on the forehead.
“Does she want the world