Writing For G.O.T

Visiting Hours- Wheel Single-Spin #65-story

661 Words

Clive’s grandfather is 91, sitting in bed waiting for him. It’s a month since he’s been sick, and Clive was too busy to see him earlier; besides, Bergen, New Jersey is some distance from Quogue.

When Clive arrives, he finds the old man playing with his shriveled fingers, totally absorbed. Clive stands at the door and watches his grandfather, his white hair in tufts, most of it totally gone, his wrinkled skin folding over in in places.

His grandfather blinks and opens his eyes wide in obvious glee when he spots Clive at the door. Does he know Clive is wishing he’s a little boy again, sitting on his lap and listening to his war stories?

“You came!” his Grandfather remarks with delight.

Clive walks into the room and kisses him, then holds his hand just the same way as the times when he did while they walked on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. His grandfather squeezes Clive’s hand but his grip is loose. Clive crouches on the bedside chair, with Grandpa still holding his hand.

“How’s…Erica and everyone?”

Clive squirms, thinking of memories and other things that break his heart.

“Sending their love. Everyone’s okay, Grandpa.” But everyone is not okay. Can Grandpa see through him, as in the old days? Clive looks down at his hand still in Grandpa’s hand.

“You’re lucky, then,” says Grandpa. “Your aunt Cathy’s neighbor. They had a little boy. Remember? He didn’t make it.”

“I’m so sorry,” says Clive as he swallows a sob.

Clive’s little girl Erica didn’t make it either, but Grandpa doesn’t know about it. Aunt Cathy said on the phone they didn’t tell him. Clive can feel the skin on his forehead tingling, his blood rushing to his face, his heart aching with pain, a pain so familiar and so settled deep inside him ever since Erica got sick. This never-ending cycle of death, the sudden disappearance of people he loves, will it take his Grandpa next? He shudders at the thought.

“How’s your wife?” Grandpa’s voice sounds weak and shaky.

“She sends her love. She says, ‘get well quick, Grandpa!’ She couldn’t come today because she had to go to work.”

“I thought she had quit. She began teaching again?”

How could he be such an idiot! Grandpa knew Helen had stopped working to stay with Erica. “Yes, her new job is closer to the house. Helen’s mother is staying with us, for a while, at least. ” That last part is the truth. His mother-in-law is staying with them so Helen wouldn’t do anything stupid. He couldn’t tell Grandpa that Helen had gone off the edge due to grief.

“I think you’re worried about something, Clive. Is it about me?”

“You’ll be fine, Grandpa. This will pass.”

But Clive knows neither of them believes it. He knows as beautiful and poignant a life can be, we are all here with a time limit.

Grandpa begins to reminisce the day he took Clive to the square to listen to a symphony. He chuckles when he tells Clive the memory of it, that he had said the music at the end was about resurrection, and Clive had looked at him and asked, “What is resurrection?” and how Grandpa had a difficult time explaining that to a six-year-old.

But Clive, now, understands what resurrection is, together with the burden of sorrow and loss. Still, in the middle of all his grief, is a flicker of light, he thinks. It has penetrated to the center of his being, embedded in pain, some tiny thing similar to hope or a sliver of joy.

Someone gently raps at the door. A nurse is sticking her head through the door.

“Visiting hours are over.”

Clive will head back to Quogue, now …On the road home, he’ll remember Mahler’s Symphony, violins and violas, its glorious cello and bass melodies…Then he’ll stick the CD in the CD player.

Then, within a week, he’ll come back again.

Maybe!

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Prompt 3: Sad moments in life. What can you come up with? ~ Poetry STORY