Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

4

Cut squares and nip off the corners, then chain pieces by picking up two squares at a time so they don’t shift out of alignment. Alternate the fabric that is on top (this pair light on top, that pair dark). The chain can be as long as you want.

* * *

Jack’s crescent mouth grew wider, a hideous phantasm of a smile. “Jack Pumpkinhead still works fine, honey,” he said with that voice, then strode into the front room and filled his hands with candy and seeds before opening the front door.

Before Marian could move, Alan was behind her, one arm around her waist, the other across her collarbone, his hand covering her mouth. “Don’t make a sound,” he said. “I don’t want to frighten the kids.” Then: “I sent a telegram to your hotel in Boston the day your company arrived there. That was five days before Dad died, almost a week before Aunt Boots called to give you the news. So don’t bother lying to me about how you didn’t know in time, okay?”

Outside, the children were going ooooh and aaaah at the sight of Jack as he distributed the treats. “Well, lookee what we got here,” said Jack. “Is that a witch I see?” Giggles and cackles. “And what’s this? Old Count Dracula come to sink his fangs?”

More giggles, excited whispering, the sound of wrapped candy softly plopping into paper bags as Jack lowered his voice and spoke to the children like a co-conspirator. “Come to the shortcut in the cemetery tonight and I’ll have more surprises for you and your folks— make sure you bring ’em along. We’re gonna have a bonfire and tell ghost stories. Remember to bring your pumpkins and your magic seeds.” A soft, spattering sound— pumpkin seeds being sprinkled into each waiting bag.

The children all shrieked with joy, savoring the delight on this night when it was okay to be scared, then bustled off the porch toward more shivers and shakes.

“How did that man make such a neat costume, Daddy?” “I don’t know but it sure was spooky, wasn’t it?” “Can we go to the bonfire later? Can we, huh?”

Jack Pumpkinhead closed the door, then turned to face Alan and Marian. His eyes, nose, and mouth glowed a deep, deep red now. A trickle of blood spilled over the jagged bottom of his mouth and spattered over the collar of Dad’s shirt. He stood there, branch-arms crossed in front of him, long twig-fingers pressed against his shoulders; the sentinel.

... A goblin lives in OUR house, in OUR house, in OUR house ...

Alan released Marian and she collapsed onto the couch, her heart hammering against her chest.

Alan adjusted his baseball cap once more, then knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. “There are some Eastern religions that believe a person’s final thought before dying stays in the spot where that person dies, just sort of hanging in the air, waiting for someone to claim it. But the thing is, that final thought contains everything that ever went through that person’s mind while they were alive, so whoever”— he looked at Jack and smiled— “or whatever claims that final thought has the power to bring that person back to life in some form.”

Jack gave a nod of his head.

“For years I’ve been asking myself if I was my own man or just the sum of my family’s parts,” said Alan. “Now I know.” He pointed at Jack.

“People die, Alan,” said Marian. “Maybe some of them don’t die pleasantly but they do die and there’s nothing we can do about it except let them go.” God, was this real?

Alan glared at her. “You’re goddamned right some of them don’t die pleasantly. Would you like to know about Dad’s last night on this earth?”

“I don’t see what that would accom—”

“The thing that’s always pissed me off at you, Sis, is that you passionately avoid anything even remotely unpleasant— and I’m well aware of how you can let people go, thank you very much.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Not fair?” He pulled away from her and began pacing the room. “Dad weighed ninety-one pounds when he bought it. He laid right there on the couch, in these pajamas, watching your tape over and over again, all the time hoping you’d show up to see him. He wanted to set things straight with you, wanted to let you know how much he loved you and how proud it made him that you were the first person in this family who didn’t have to wash the stink of blue collar labor off your hands at the end of the day. You were the one who was going to keep the family name alive long after the rest of us lived, died, and were buried in this fucking town!

“The man couldn’t even get up to pee he was so eaten alive. I had to help him. I took a cup and opened the fly of his pajamas and took…took him out down there and put him in the cup and...and it hurt him so much, I saw the pain in his face as he tried to force the piss out of his bladder, he tried so hard, and when it finally came out”— he looked down at the stained pajama crotch— “it was more blood than piss. Then he thanked me, for chrissakes! Told me what a good boy I’d been and asked me to tell Mom to buy a real good pumpkin so he could carve it up nice and scary for you. How the hell could I remind him that Mom’s been dead for four years?” He cast a pleading glance at Jack, who nodded, then gestured him Continue.

“So I went out and bought some pumpkins. He was bound and determined to build you a ‘real’ Jack Pumpkinhead for Hallowe’en. ‘This’ll show her how much I love her, how proud I am.’ Christ! You’d’ve thought he was finally getting to build his own Sagrada Familia, his own little masterpiece, like Mom’s unfinished quilt.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath to calm himself down, then started banging a fist against the side of his leg.

“He dragged out that old Oz collection that Mom used to read to you just so he’d make sure to get Jack’s face exactly right. I lost count of how many times he cut himself while carving. He stopped worrying about it after a while and let himself bleed into the pumpkin, all over the seeds...”

Marian thought about the third bowl of treats: Be sure to bring your magic seeds.

“...but he couldn’t finish,” continued Alan, “the effort got to be too much. He made me promise I’d finish building Jack for you. Then he just ...laid there. He was minutes away from dying and all he cared about was making you happy. He stared at the shadows and mumbled about Gaudi, coughed up a wad of something I don’t even want to think about, and died. No wailing, no wringing of the hands, no sackcloth and ashes. Just sickness and pain and sadness, memories of mopping up the vomit in the middle of the floor because he couldn’t get to the bathroom in time, or wiping his ass when he shit himself because he was too weak to get off the couch, or cleaning the blood from his face and nose after a violent coughing fit, all the time having to look in his eyes and see the regret and fear and loneliness in them— that’s how his existence culminated; in a series of sputtering little agonies to signal the end of a decent man’s life. And he never stopped hoping that you’d come see him.”

Marian felt the heat brewing in her eyes, reached up to wipe away the first of the tears, and swallowed back the rest as best she could. She would not give in, would not feel bad, would not show weakness. “I’m sorry it was so hard on you, but people die and there’s nothing—”

“— we can do about it except let go, yeah, yeah, yeah— you played that scene earlier, remember?”

The doorbell rang again: Trick or treat, smell my feet ...

Jack opened the door. The children gasped in awe.

“Well, lookee here. Is that a mummy before me? And Spider-Man— I take it that the Green Goblin and Doc Oc are otherwise engaged?— how good of you to come!”

The giggles again, the whispers and aaaahs.

“So,” said Alan, “what do you think?”

She was surprised at how steady her voice was. “I think that Aunt Boots told me you haven’t been sleeping well, and you know what happens when a person doesn’t get enough sleep? They start having waking dreams.”

“That’s my Marian, always the rational one. Okay, fine— if I’m having waking dreams, then explain Mr. Pumpkinhead over here.”

“Come to the shortcut in the cemetery tonight,” called Jack as he began closing the door, “and be sure to bring your pumpkins and your magic seeds.”

She didn’t have an answer. Alan was throwing too much at her too fast, she needed time to sort this out, she needed order and calm, needed .

“Alan, look, I ...” She had to buy some time. She was letting herself be drawn into his world of grief and dementia. How romantic and seductive it seemed when one was this close. “I couldn’t bring myself to come here any sooner. I couldn’t just sit around here waiting for Dad to die. I can’t stand anything like that, I never could. I need to be where everything is vibrant, healthy, alive...goddammit, I was too scared, I admit it, it’s just that...I didn’t know Dad wanted me here so much.” “Would it have made any difference?” A beat, a breath. “No.” Jack poked his head around the corner. “Good girl.”

Alan said, “Jack told me something about Mom. Did you know she always thought you didn’t love her? She told Dad she thought you were embarrassed to have her for a mother because she was just an ignorant factory gal.”

Marian felt something expand in her throat. “God, Alan, I never felt that way. I always thought she was a good— a fine woman. She almost never complained about things and always managed to come up with some extra money whenever we wanted something special. I don’t think I ever saw her buy a thing for herself. How could she believe I thought so...little of her?”

“You never told her.” His voice was empty.

Then Jack spoke. “The last time you kissed her, you were nineteen years old.”

Alan took her hand. “Remember how we used to make fun of her getting tired so quickly? It never crossed our minds that she might be sick. That’s why we were so shocked when she

died.”

Marian looked at Mom’s favorite chair and remembered the way Dad had cried when he’d found her there, dead. “She never said anything.”

“It wasn’t her way,” said Alan. “But we were her family. If we’d cared a little more, we would’ve known.”

Marian hugged herself. She could feel the affliction and loss trapped within this house; the loneliness...God, the loneliness.

“It becomes easier, once you accept it,” said Alan. “Love it. Embrace it as you would a child. Hold it against you. Let it suckle your breast like a baby would. Let it draw the life from you. Love the pain. Love the emptiness. Love the guilt and remorse, cherish the loneliness, love it all and it will make you strong. It’s what makes us whole.”

“No. I can’t— I won’t feel bad about not knowing. They could have said something to me, could have talked to me, asked me things. It’s not my fault.”

“I never said it was.”

Marian rubbed her eyes, then held her hands against them for a moment. “Alan, please, I don’t know what to...what to say or do...I don’t understand how—”

“—how this started?”

Marian pulled her hands away from her face as Jack answered the call of more trick-or-treaters. “Yes.”

“It started a long, long time ago, before either of us were ever born, I guess. But I suppose, for us— you and me— it started with Grandpa...”

* * *

It was three weeks after Alan’s ninth birthday, about seven-thirty in the evening. Marian and her brother were settled in front of the television to watch the next hair-raising episode of Batman. The Green Hornet and his trusty aid Kato were making a special guest appearance tonight, so both were barely able to contain their excitement, stuffing popcorn into their mouths by the plentiful handful.

The opening credits were just starting when there came a knock at the front door; it was a timid, almost inaudible knock. Alan and Marian looked at each other.

“I’ll bet it’s that goony paper boy coming to collect,” said Marian.

“He’ll go away if we don’t answer,” said Alan. “That always works.”

The knocking persisted just as they were being told it was another normal day in Gotham City as Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara were—

— Knocking again. Louder this time.

“Alan? Marian?” called Mom, “will one of you answer the door? I’m in the bathroom.”

When Alan looked at her and didn’t move, Marian angrily slammed down her popcorn and stomped over to the front door, really ready to chew that paper boy out. How could anyone come around when Batman was on? You did not knock on their front door on Batman nights, and you sure didn’t do it tonight of all nights, when the Green Hornet and Kato were going to be on! Whoever this was had better have a good reason, or Marian would...well...she’d sure do something, you could bet on that.

She had to fiddle with the deadbolt for a moment, and then with the stupid, stupid, stupid chain lock, but then it was off and dangling and the front door was wide open —

—and she was staring at Boris Karloff. She knew it wasn’t really Boris Karloff, but the man who stood on their front porch looked enough like him to make her shiver for a moment, wondering if she hadn’t woke up in the middle of a horror movie.

The man looked her up and down a couple of times, cleared his throat (it sounded like he really needed to hawk up a loogie), and spoke. “Would you be Marian?” “Yes sir.” “Your mom at home?” “Yes sir.”

“Would you mind gettin’ her for me?” His voice was like rusty nails being pulled out of old and warped wood. It gave Marian the creeps.

She turned to call and saw her Mom standing in the doorway to the kitchen, an expression on her face that told Marian not only did Mom know who this man was, but that he was a Big Deal. You Stuck Around for Big Deals. Marian’s mother wiped her hands on a small towel, but when she was done she didn’t put the towel over the back of a chair or lay it on the table; she just let it drop to the floor.

Marian walked over and picked it up, but Mom took no notice. By this time Alan was standing by the door, looking at Mr. Karloff.

He wore an old floppy brown hat, straight-legged grey pants, dusty boots, a collarless green shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He was carrying a small suitcase. Mom said nothing for what seemed the longest time, and Marian found herself becoming afraid of this man, who looked at them through the reddest eyes she had ever seen, and even from where Marion was standing, the smell of tobacco and iodine was overpowering. His skin was all scratched and stained, like a piece of old leather left out in the sun too long. Marian looked at Alan, then to Mom, who was breathing very slowly, the strange expression on her face suddenly gone, replaced by nothing at all. “Glad I found you at home,” said Mr. Karloff. “I worked day shift at the plant now,” said Marian’s mother. “Days, huh? I’ll bet that makes it nice for the kids here.”

“I always have time for them,” said her mother, which seemed to hurt Mr. Karloff in the doorway; his eyes started blinking rapidly and the hand which held the suitcase shook a little. Marian was just plain scared now. She looked more closely at Mr. K. and noticed that one of his eyes was half-closed, a deep cut on its lid, covered in iodine. “I been in the V.A. hospital,” he said. “I suppose you know that?” “I heard about it,” said her Mom, shaking.

From the living room Robin exclaim, “Holy hornet’s nest, Batman!” Piss off, Boy Wonder. “You look good,” said Mr. K. to Mom. “You look like hell.” And that’s when it happened.

Marian had never seen anything like it before. Mr. K. took a deep breath, turned as if he was going to leave, but then he seemed to spot something outside of the house that scared him. A lot. Enough to make him not want to go outside, and for the first time Marian realized that she wasn’t alone in feeling this way; maybe everybody once in a while looked out their front doors or windows and saw something that scared them, things that maybe even weren’t there most of the time but you saw them anyway. Maybe this old man could see something out there, maybe in a tree or behind a bush or a parked car or even in the shape of a cloud, but he saw it out there, he sure did, and he didn’t want to walk out the door to face it, so he let his suitcase slip out of his hand and drop to the floor, turned back around, and without looking at Marian’s mother started to speak.

His voice came out in low wheezes, fizzling in and out like whispers do. “I only got about twenty dollars to my name right now and I was just wonderin’ if...if you would mind terribly loaning me a couple of bucks. I ain’t had me a thing to eat since about noon yesterday and I’m a bit hungry. I can’t use this money for food ‘cause it’s got to go for a room of some kind. I wouldn’t be bothering you otherwise honest. If it ain’t too much trouble would you let me sleep on your sofa, just for tonight, until I can find me a room at the ‘Y’ or something? I haven’t been feeling too good lately and don’t got the energy to go stompin’ around town tonight looking for a place. I’d much appreciate if you’d lend me a hand for the night. Whatta you say?”

His last few words were so soft Marian could barely understand what he was saying, so she looked up at her mother but Mom was staring down at her feet like she did when she wished things weren’t happening, so Marian reached up and took her hand.

“Close the damn door and take your shoes off,” said her mother, turning away and wiping something off her face. “I’m just getting ready to fix us some hamburgers.” Marian wondered why Mom was telling Mr. K. that, because they’d just finished doing the supper dishes; they’d already had hamburgers.

Mr. K. was taking his boots off when Mom turned lack around.

“And I don’t want hear any of this shit about you getting a room at the ‘Y’ or anything like that. If you help out you can stay here as long as you like. Just don’t get in my way too much.” She turned back into the kitchen, then called over her shoulder: “And I don’t allow liquor in this house. Read me there?”

“I read you,” said Mr. K. He looked at Alan and Marian, tried to smile, raised an eyebrow, and released a breath that sounded like he’d been holding it for years. “So,” he said, “you two are Alan and Marian, huh?” “Yes sir,” they both replied. “Don’t you all be cablin’ me ‘sir’, that’s too formal.” “What should we call you?” said Alan. “I’d be your grandfather, boy. ‘Grampa’ will do just fine.”

The next few weeks were a great time for Marian and her brother. Grampa taught them how to play Poker, how to make meatloaf and homemade bread, told them stories about how he fought in the war, helped with the dishes, and even did a lot of extra work on the house for Dad. Eventually Mom allowed Grampa to buy some beer, but only in a six-pack and only once a week. This seemed to make Grampa happy because he and Dad could drink while they were playing cards and smoking cigarettes. Marian really liked her Grampa, and so did Alan, but neither of them understood why Mom wouldn’t talk to him more. When they finally asked her she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s of no concern to someone your age.”

Grampa began getting some kind of checks in the mail shortly after he came to stay, but he never spent any of the money on himself— aside from a six-pack and a couple packs of cigarettes; he always gave a lot to mom, then spent the rest on Marian and her brother. Clothes, records, a new board game, whatever they wanted. And he always had such wonderful stories t:) tell them.

Toward the end of his first summer with them the card game became less frequent and he took to watching television. His favorite show was Hee-Haw and, even though she and Alan hated it, Marian would watch it with everyone else. Grampa seemed to enjoy having company while he sang along— always off-key— to the country music songs.

By fall all he did was go shopping once a week. He couldn’t help Dad much with the house for some reason, and Mom wouldn’t let him cook because she said he needed his rest.

Every once in a while Grandma came over to see how he was doing. Marian knew that her grandparents had not been married for a long time, but never asked anyone how come, or why Mom seemed to be made at Grampa about something, or why Grampa was doing all these things for them.

Winter rolled in and Mom rented Grampa a hospital bed from the drug store. Grampa seemed happy when it arrived because, he said, the sofa was starting to get to his back. When the checks came he insisted on paying the rental fee for the bed, but because of that he couldn’t buy Marian and Alan anything. But they didn’t mind that at all.

It was the first of December when things started going sour. Marian hadn’t realized how sick Grampa was until then; he dropped several pounds in a short period of time and began spending more time in bed. He always kept apologizing to Marian and Alan because he didn’t feel well.

One afternoon Marian and Alan came home after doing a little Christmas shopping, loaded down with presents from a small curiosity shop two blocks away. Both Mom and Dad were working extra shifts for the overtime, so the only person home was Grampa. They came through the door, set down the presents, and were just heading up stairs to get the wrapping paper and tape they’d stashed earlier when Marian heard Grampa call her name. He was in the bathroom, which was just off the kitchen, so Marian came back down and stood by the closed door.

“What is it?” she said.

“Could you...?” His voice trailed off and a terrible sound came from him. The closest Marian had ever heard to that sound was from a small child down the block who once fell on the sidewalk in front of their house and scraped his knee badly; the child fell, rolled over, took in a sharp mouthful of air and held it until he was shaking from head to heel, his face turning red, his veins pounding in his head, but then he finally released the scream—

—but not before he let out one hideous little squeak! before the cries exploded. That little squeak was the sound that followed Grampa’s “Could you...?” “Grampa?” said Marian. No answer. She knocked on the door. “Grampa? Do you need some help with something?”

Squeak!

Marian pounded on the door with her fist. “Grampa! Grampa do you need—”

And from the other side of the door, so quietly she almost mistook it for the sound of her own breath leaving her throat and nose, Marian heard Grampa say one word: “...help.”

She tried to yank open the door but Grampa had used the little eye-hook on the other side, and try as she did, pulling with all of her strength, Marian could not get the door to open, so she ran over and pulled open the cutlery drawer and took out Mom’s biggest cutting knife and jammed it deep inside the crack beside the door and pulled it upward, then had to turn it around so that she was pushing it upward, instead, and somewhere she could hear Alan calling for her, asking what’s wrong sis what is it but she couldn’t answer him, she needed to hold her breath and answering him would mean she’d have to let her breath out and if she did that she’d never get the door opened and if she never got the door opened then Grampa might die, so she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and pushed up with knife as hard as she could, making sure to wiggle it from side to side as much as she could (a villain on The Green Hornet had done something like this once) and just when her arms were throbbing and her shoulders were screaming and she felt like she was going to pass out from being so dizzy, three things happened: she felt the hook wrench from the eye, heard the thwack! of the metal against the doorjamb, and released her breath it one massive puff; then she threw down the knife and threw open the bathroom door and saw that Grampa leaning against the sink, shaking, his face so red and sweaty Marian thought he might scream, but he never did, not once, not ever, because he was too busy gripping the sides of the sink, his wrinkly old arms looking like old sticks you used for kindling in the fireplace, and she realized that Grampa had been trying to sit down on the toilet when he got sick or felt the pain or whatever it was that happened to him, because the toilet seat was up and his pants were halfway down his legs but his underwear had gotten stuck and they had a big red stain spreading all over them and the more the blood spread the more Grampa shook and squeaked, and he pulled away one hand and said ... “...these damned underpants, I can’t never...ohgod...” and he tried to grab hold of them with one shuddering hand but he couldn’t reach them, it hurt him too much, but then Alan was there, on his knees next to Grampa, grabbing the ruined shorts and pulling them down so they could get him on the toilet, and they did, she and Alan, Marian holding him around the waist while Alan took hold of his legs and they eased him down onto the toilet seat and all the time Marian just wanted to cry for how much Grampa was hurting, but Alan was being the big cry baby, whining over and over Grampa I’m so sorry you’re so sick I love you I don’t want you to die, but then Grampa was on the toilet and breathing okay, his face wasn’t as red now, that was good, and Marian almost smiled when he looked up and winked at her.

“Got it that time, didn’t we?” he said. He reached out with an unsteady hand and grasped Marian’s arm.

“Thank you both very much,” he said. “Now go.” There was a hideous sound from below his waist as his ruined bowels exploded.

Marian grabbed Alan and went back out, closing the door behind them. They stood there for a moment listening for him in case he needed more help.

“You two can go about your Christmas wrappin’ business,” he said. “I’m almost eighty years old and I been in worse situations than this. I got me no intention of dying on a goddamned toilet seat. Now move along.” They were heading back upstairs for the paper and the tape when Alan squeezed her hand and said, “He’s so sad.” “He’s just sick,” replied Marian. “He’ll be better.” “I don’t want him to feel sad. I love him.” Marian looked at her brother and shook her head. “I love him, too. But I don’t think that’s enough to make him not sad anymore.” Alan looked heartbroken. “Not even a little?”

Marian shrugged. “Maybe a little. But what good’s that, what good is a little?”

A few days later Grampa insisted that he was well enough to go do his own Christmas shopping, and Marian’s mother made no attempt to stop him. When he came back with all the presents his check allowed him to afford he told everyone that he’d bought himself— of all

things— a 45 r.p.m. record of some Neil Diamond song.

“I never bought a record before, but they was playing’ this in the store where I was shopping and it was kinda pretty (which he pronounced ‘purdy’) so I bought it.” After dinner when Mom was doing the dishes he went into the front room and put the record on Mom’s old table-top hi-fi, then sat in the reading chair and listened to it. Marian stood in the doorway and watched Grampa as he closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair and seemed to...deflate like a balloon, sort-of, just a little bit.

She didn’t say anything because he looked tired, so she just stood there and listened to the record. It was a song called “Morningside” and it was about this old man who lived alone and had no friends and when he died no one cried, and then people went to collect his things and they found this table he’d been building for a long time, and it was a beautiful table, the most beautiful table any of them had ever seen, and when they were moving it, they turned it upside-down and saw that he’d written a message underneath it that said for my children.

It was the saddest and most awful depressing song Marian had ever heard; sadder even more than “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”

When the record was over the arm lifted up and swung back and set itself back down, the needle easing into the grooves with a brief clikkity-click before the song started again.

Grampa opened his eyes and rolled his head over and saw Marian standing there.

“That’s kinda pretty in a...in a way, ain’t it?” he asked, gesturing for her to climb up on his knee.

“Yes, it is,” she said. And that wasn’t a lie; it was pretty, but it was sad, too, and Marian didn’t understand how something could be so sweet and so depressing at the same time.

Later that night Grampa was lying in his bed in the middle room and asked Mom if he could have a while alone with Marian and Alan. Mom said sure and kissed him goodnight. It was the first time Marian could remember seeing her mother kiss Grampa.

After Mom went to bed Grampa told Alan to go get him a small a can of soda pop and some chips, he was going to tell them a special story. When they were all situated and sipping away, he began.

“I wasn’t too good to your mother when she was a little girl,” he said. “I was young and had all this Get Up and Go. I liked to drink me a mighty good time, I did...so I’s never around much. That’s probably why your Grandma and me never made it. I left her to take care of your mother all by herself. That was back during the Depression. Thing’s weren’t good for a woman with a kid and no husband then. County had to finally take your mother away and put her in a children’s home for a few years...until your Grandma could get enough money to give her a proper upbringing.

“Anyway...that ain’t got a lot to do with what I wanted to tell you, but I seen the way you two’ve been watching me and your mother, and I know you’re not stupid kids so you were probably wondering. I just thought you ought to know.” He reached down under the blankets and took out a bottle. It was like no other bottle Marian had ever seen. It was made out of stone, and stoppered with an old cork. She was about to ask what it was but then Grampa started talking again; and all the time, his finger kept stroking the bottle’s stone surface. “I got myself shot overseas during the war and it did something to the bones in my leg and the doctors, they had to insert all these pins and build me a new kneecap and calf-bone—it was awful. Thing is, when this happened, I only had ten months of service left. I was disabled bad enough that I couldn’t return to combat but not so bad that they’d give me an early discharge, so they sent me back home and assigned me guard duty at one of them camps they set up here in the states to hold all those Jap-Americans.

“I guarded the gate at the south end of the camp. It was a pretty big camp, kind of triangle-shaped, with watchtowers and searchlights and barbed wire, the whole shebang. There was this old Jap tailor being held there with his family and this guy, he started talking to me during my watch every night. This guy was working on a quilt, you see, and since a needle was considered a weapon he could only work on the thing while a guard watched him, and when he was done for the night he’d have to give the needle back. Well, I was the guy who pulled ‘Needle Patrol.’

“The old guy told me that this thing he was working on was a ‘memory quilt’ that he was making from all the pieces of his family’s history. I guess he’d been working on the thing section by section for most of his life. It’d been started by his great-great-great-great-grandfather. The tailor, he had part of the blanket his own mother had used to wrap him in when he was born, plus he had his son’s first sleeping gown, the tea-dress his daughter had worn when she was four, a piece of a velvet slipper worn by his wife the night she gave birth to their son....

“What he’d do, see, is he’d cut the material into a certain shape and then use stuff like paint or other pieces of cloth stuffed with cotton in order to make pictures or symbols on each of the patches. He’d start at one corner of the quilt with the first patch and tell me who it had belonged to, what they’d done for a living, where they’d lived, what they’d looked like, how many kids they’d had, the names of their kids and their kids’ kids, describe the house they had lived in, the countryside where the house’d been...it was really something. Made me feel good, listening to this old guy’s stories, ‘cause the guy trusted me enough to tell me these things, you see? Even though he was a prisoner of war and I was his guard, he told me these things.

“It also made me feel kind of sad, ‘cause I’d get to thinking about how most people don’t even know their great-grandma’s maiden name, let alone the story of her whole life. But this old Jap— ‘scuse me, I guess I really oughtn’t use that word, should I? Don’t show the proper respect for the man or his culture— but you gotta understand, back then, the Japs were the enemy, what with bombing Pearl Harbor and all....

“Where was I? Oh yeah—this old tailor, he knew the history of every last member of his family. He’d finish talking about the first patch, then he’d keep going, talking on about what all the paintings and symbols and shapes meant, and by the time he came round to the last completed patch in the quilt, he’d covered something like six hundred years of his family’s history. ‘Every patch have hundred-hundred stories.’ That’s what the old guy said.

“The idea was that the quilt represented all the memories of your life—not just your own, but them ones that was passed down to you from your ancestors, too. The deal was, at the end of your life, you were supposed to give the quilt to a younger member of your family and it’d be up to them to keeping adding to it; that way, the spirit never really died because there’d always be someone and something to remember that you’d existed, that your life’d meant something. This old tailor was really concerned about that. He said that a person died twice when others forget that they’d lived.

“‘Bout six months after I started Needle Patrol the old tailor came down with a bad case of hepatitis and had to be isolated from everyone else. While this guy was in the infirmary the camp got orders to transfer a hundred or so prisoners, and the old guy’s family was in the transfer group. I tried to stop it but nobody’d lift a finger to help—one sergeant even threatened to have me brought up on charges if I didn’t let it drop. In the meantime, the tailor developed a whole damn slew of secondary infections and kept getting worse, feverish and hallucinating, trying to get out of bed and babbling in his sleep. He lingered for about a week, then he died. As much as I disliked Japs at that time, I damn near cried when I heard the news.

“The day after the tailor died I was typing up all the guards’ weekly reports—you know, them hour-by-hour, night-by-night deals. Turned out that the three watchtower guards—and mind you, these towers was quite a distance from each other—but all three of them reported seeing this old tailor at the same time, at exactly 3:47 in the morning. And all three of them said he was carrying his quilt. I read that and got cold all over, so I called the infirmary to check on what time the tailor had died. He died at 3:47 in the morning, all right, but he died the night after the guards reported seeing him—up till then, he’d been in a coma for most of the week.

“I tried to track down his family but didn’t have any luck. It wouldn’t have mattered much, anyway, ‘cause the quilt come up missing.

“After the war ended and I was discharged, I decided to take your Grandma to New York. See, we’d gotten married about two weeks before I shipped out and we never got the chance to have a real honeymoon. So we went there and saw a couple of Broadway shows and went shopping and had a pretty good time. On our last day there, though, we started wandering around Manhattan, stopping at all these little shops. We came across this one antique store that had all this ‘Early Pioneer’ stuff displayed in its window. Your Grandma stopped to take a look at this big ol’ ottoman in the window and asked me if I thought there were people fool enough to pay six-hundred dollars for a footstool. I didn’t answer her. I let go of her hand and went running into that store, climbed over some tables and such to get in the window, and I tore this dusty old blanket off the back of a rocking chair.

“It was the quilt that Japanese tailor’d been working on in the camp. They only wanted forty dollars for it so you bet your butt I slapped down the cash. We took it back to our hotel room and spread it out on the bed—oh, it was such a beautiful thing. All the colors and pictures, the craftsmanship...I got teary-eyed all over again. But the thing that really got me was that, down in the right-hand corner of the quilt, there was this one patch that had these figures stitched into them. Four figures. Three of them was positioned way up high above the fourth one, and they formed a triangle. The fourth figure was down below, walking kind of all stooped over and carrying what you’d think was a bunch of clothes. I took one look and knew what it was—it was a picture of that tailor’s spirit carrying his quilt, walking around the camp for the last time, looking around for someone to pass his memories on to because he couldn’t find his family.”

By now he’d slipped the stone bottle back under the blankets. He lay on his side, looking at them, his bone-thin hands kneading the pillow. “That’s sort of what I’m trying to do here, you understand? I know that if I was to die real soon I wouldn’t have no finished tapestry to show...mine’s got all these holes in them. I wanna have a whole one, a finished one. I don’t much fancy wandering’ around all-blessed Night because God don’t like what I show Him. I want to fill in the holes I made.” He smiled. “I love you two kids. I truly do. And I love your mom and your Grandma and your dad, too. They’re all real fine people. I just want you all to ...I just wanted to tell you about that.”

“Grampa,” said Alan, softly. “Whatever happened to that man’s quilt?”

Grampa pointed to his top blanket. Marian and Alan looked at one another and shrugged, then Grampa started to pull down the blanket but didn’t have the energy to finish, so they did it for him.

Underneath the top blanket lay the quilt. Even though they could see only very little of it, both Alan and Marian knew it was probably the most beautiful thing they’d ever see.

“I wanna...I wanna be buried with this,” said Grampa. “I already told your dad that.” He

gestured for Marian to lean down close so her could kiss her good-night. “Hon, I need to be alone with your brother for a few minutes, okay?”

“... ‘kay.”

“Good girl. You run along to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.

Marian decided to sleep downstairs that night in case he woke up and needed something, so she went into the living room and laid down on the sofa.

She watched as Grampa gave Alan the stone bottle and explained something to him. Her brother looked so serious as he listened, more like an adult than a nine-year-old. Then she lifted her head and overheard Grampa say, “...wait here with me until your dad gets home...” but then she was too tired to keep her head up.

She woke up around two-thirty in the morning. Lifting her head, she saw her Dad’s work boots setting next to the door. She wondered if he’d had a good night at work. Maybe he could quit soon, like he wanted, and start his own building business. She hoped so. It bothered her that Dad was never home nights.

She heard Grampa tapping against the railing of his bed with something. She went to him.

“You got good ears, little girl. You’ll go far.” He tried to raise himself up but couldn’t.

“I gotta pee,” he said. Marian wanted to go wake Alan or Dad but Grampa wouldn’t hear of it. He finally laid down and pointed to his drinking glass. “Why don’t you empty that damn thing out and I’ll ...I’ll use it.” She did as he asked, carrying the glass into the kitchen and pouring its contents down the sink. When she came back in Grampa had his hands at his sides and was staring at the ceiling.

“Marian, I hate like hell to ask this, hon, but…well...I can’t seem to move my hands. Would you mind, uh...?” Marian already had him out and in the cup, so there was no need for him to finish. “You’re a good girl,” he said. “You make your mom rind dad real proud, you hear?” “Yes sir,” she said. His eyes then lit up, but only for a few moments. “How’s about puttin’...puttin’ my record on real low so’s we don’t wake the whole house? I’d kinda like to hear it.” Again Marian did as she was asked.

When she came back Grampa was desperately trying to empty his bladder but couldn’t get anything to come out. She wiped his forehead, then put her hand on Grampa’s abdomen, pushing down gently. After a few moments the pained expression on his face relaxed as the urine started to fill the cup. He soon finished and nodded his thanks. Marian took the cup into the bathroom to empty it. It was full of blood. She washed her hands afterward and then asked him if there was anything else he needed. “Could you maybe fix it so my record would play over a few times?”

She did, then kissed him good-night again, and went back to the darkness of the living room, where she sat on the sofa and listened for a while before falling asleep again, hoping that Grampa would feel better on the morningside.

When she woke up there was Mom, holding Grampa’s head in her lap, rocking back and forth, stroking his hair and crying. “Yes, that’s it...go to sleep, shh, that’s it, you rest now. You rest....”

Alan came over and hugged Marian. They stayed like that until Mom looked up and saw them and told them to come over and say good-bye to Grampa. Marian was suddenly afraid of the thing that mom was holding in her arms. It wasn’t Grampa. It didn’t even look like a human being.

She pulled away from her brother and saw that some of Grampa’s blood was still on her fingers.

It took her forever to get that hand clean.