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Be Here with Me

Mandie Hines

    “The war has been hard on our family. Unbearable.” Esther ran her shaking withered hands across the fold of her dress, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Of course, you know, it’s been hard on everyone.”
    “Grandma, that war ended a long time ago,” George said.
    “I dug through the trash bin the other night for my supper.” The wrinkles that lined her face formed rings around her deep-set eyes. She wouldn’t look at George. “Not a scrap in them bins. A rat couldn’t even find a crumb to nibble on.”
    “Your nails look nice. Did they paint them at the salon for you?” What did he know about nails? He just wanted to pull her from the imagined past.
    “I used to have this rubber dolly.” Her hands stretched out as if she held the doll. “She was the best present I ever got. I had her for years. I carried her everywhere. Her dress had to be mended more times than I can remember. She was even missing an eye. The paint rubbed off.” Esther’s faded gray eyes danced at the memory, and her hands fell to her lap.
    George took his grandma’s hand before she could retrace the seams of her skirt again. Somehow he thought it would ground her in the present. He waited until she met his eyes and then said, “I need to talk to you.”
    Undeterred, she continued, “The other day, when I was digging in the trash, you know, this younger girl comes up to me. She looked more ragged than my dolly. But this little girl eyed my dolly like it’s the most marvelous thing she’d ever seen.” Esther’s words stretched out in a slight German accent.
    George’s wooden chair scraped the linoleum floor as he pushed it back. As usual, it was pointless for him to come here. A nurse shuffled past the open door. Disinfectant pervaded the room.
    “I gave that little girl my dolly. You should have seen the state that girl was in. Her dress was tattered,” she closed her eyes, remembering, “with a big polka-dotted patch. Her hair was oily and knotted.” Esther’s eyes opened. “But I tell you, I gave her my dolly and suddenly that ratty old doll looked new. The little girl looked at me with the biggest green eyes I’d ever seen, her little mouth in the shape of an ‘O.’ But then she started crying. The tears cleared away the dirt on her face.”
    He tried to remember how long his grandma had been in this retirement home. It was a few months before he was deployed, the first time. Five years. Was it really that long already? He’d been visiting her every day for the last three months, and every day she said something different, and yet every day it felt the same.
    “Grandma, I need you. I need you to be here with me. Do you think you could do that?”
    George pulled a package from under his chair and plucked out a plastic bag of butterscotch candies. “I brought you your favorite.”
    At the sound of the bag ripping open, Esther looked up. Her eyes widened. “I love those candies. I haven’t had one since I was a little girl.”
    George fished a nugget out of the bag, unwrapped it, and placed it in her outstretched hand. He shook the rest into a candy dish next to her recliner to join the few remaining butterscotches from last week.
    Esther leaned back, closed her eyes, smiled, and sucked on the butterscotch. When she opened her eyes again, she was startled by the sight of George, but her voice was stern and unafraid. “Who let you in here?”
    “I’m George. I just gave you the butterscotch. Remember?”
    She took a few sucks on the forgotten candy. “You’re such a dear. Butterscotches are my favorite, you know.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “What did you say your name was, young man?” She sat up in her chair and leaned toward him.
    “George.”
    She moved the butterscotch from side to side in her mouth as if rolling his name over her tongue.
    After another minute she said, “Georgie. I love that name. I have a grandson named Georgie, you know. You’d like him. He’s only about yay-high.” Her hand indicated the height of the arm of her chair. “Real sweet boy. He’s a charmer. And boy is he smart. He’s going to do quite well for himself. I can tell, you know.”
    She sat back in her chair, and looked nowhere in particular. “It’s a real shame about his father, though. George Senior, my son. He died in the war. Sad.” Her lip quivered. “Sad.”
    “Dad didn’t die, Grandma. And I’m the one who fought in the war.”
    “Do you have another one of these candies?”
    “Sure, Grandma.” He unwrapped another lozenge and gave it to her. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about my time over there. During the war.”
    He didn’t think she even knew about the war. She remembered her war in Berlin when she was young. Most of what she told him about it now seemed made up. But she knew nothing about his war.
    Esther had returned to fussing with the fold of her dress.
    “I was hoping you might listen when I talk about this.” His hands were clasped as he hunched over his knees.
    Esther’s hand patted his arm. “You can tell me anything.”
    Surprised, George looked up, but Esther wasn’t looking at him. She was occupied with an errant thread from her skirt.
    His head hung back down. He couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to get this weight off his heart.
    “It’s Mary Ann,” he said, referring to his wife. He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the words that were hung up there. “She wants to have a baby.” The words came out paper thin, the pitch of his voice an octave higher.
    “Babies. I love babies. Did you bring one?” Esther scooted to the front of her chair and scanned the room, searching for a baby.
    An alarm sounded down the hall and he heard a swish of clothing rush in that direction.
    “No, Grandma. No baby.”
    “Oh.” She sat back and crossed her arms, her lower lip jutting out a smidge.
    George decided to start at a different part of his story. “When we were over there,” he returned to the war, “I killed someone.”
    Esther doesn’t react and he isn’t sure if she heard him.
    “I mean, of course I killed someone. It was a war. I’m a soldier. That’s part of what we have to do. But that’s not what I mean. I killed someone that I didn’t mean to.”
    His dry throat closed. He coughed, but it tightened up again. Springing to his feet, he moved to a tall dresser with a mirror over it. He poured himself a cup of water from a pink plastic pitcher.
    He took a swig, and then another. He didn’t return to his chair, but stayed where he was.
    He didn’t want to face his grandma for the next part. “They weren’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t supposed to be there. We checked. Only the targets were there. Only the...” He looked up and caught his own eyes in the mirror. He had two days of stubble, dark circles under his eyes, and a gray pallor. He was looking into the eyes of a stranger, which reflected the feeling he’d had since he’d come home.
    He turned his back to the mirror.
    “When we went in, after. There was this little girl.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but it only made the image sharper. “She wasn’t supposed to be there.” It came out like a plea.
    “She looked like she was sleeping. Like a discarded doll left on the floor.”
    “Dolly? Have you seen my dolly?”
    George’s stomach knotted and he felt light-headed. The contrast between his memory and his grandma’s confused state made him shudder. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have come.
    “That nasty little girl stole her from me, you know.”
    “Grandma.” He strode toward her. He just wanted to remember who he used to be. Who he was, before. Maybe if she could remember, then he could remember.
    He slumped into the wooden chair.
    “How can I have a baby with my wife when I know that little girl is dead because of me?” He bent over and rested his head on the arm of his grandma’s chair.
    “Georgie.”
    George stiffened.
    “Georgie.” She patted him on the back. “I remember when you were young. So filled with energy and mischief. But whenever I took you anywhere, you hugged every person we came across. You were so filled with love and kindness, and you had to make sure you shared that with everyone we saw. Whether they were willing or not. People, animals, it didn’t make no matter. They were getting a hug.”
    A half cough, half chuckle came from George as he sat up to look at his grandma.
    She swept her soft fingertips across his cheek. “Oh, how I’ve always loved you.”
    “Now how can you know that, when you can’t even remember that I bring you butterscotch candies every week?”
    She looked at the candy dish he was pointing to. “I don’t know nothing about them candies,” she said. “Besides, I hate butterscotch.”
    His laugh felt lighter than anything he’d felt in months. “Grandma—”
    “Just because I don’t remember, doesn’t mean I didn’t love you at that time. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you now. And I do love you.” Her voice rose and sharpened. “Now get the hell out of here. You know they don’t allow men in the ladies’ quarters after seven.”

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