God’s School 1800 words
“You ready?”
“Be right there.”
I spent the day getting ready to leave one life behind, and move on to another life ahead. I know there is no choice. My grandmother is too ill to look after us. She can hardly take care of herself. I have no other relatives and I’m not old enough, according to the people who are in charge of things like that, for me to stay here by myself.
They tell me Temple Hill is a good school. I will live there they say. There are rooms in this old school. It was once a nunnery, convent, something like that. They said even if it was a religious facility at one time, now it is no longer parochial, but private, public, I forget.
I always liked the word parochial, even though I didn’t really know what it meant. I had to look it up. “Narrow, insular, unsophisticated, provincial,” sounds like it will be fun. Sounds like I’ll fit right in, unsophisticated, insular. I like that.
I don’t know why my parents had to die. It seems so unfair, not just for me, they were just beginning to find a purpose, how to be happy again, or that is what it seemed like to me. My mother had gone back to school and got a degree. She was so excited about being a teacher. My father had just got a new job teaching English at this small college in our town. He always loved books and reading, so it was something like a gift from heaven for him. Everything as they kept saying was, “coming up roses.”
But as I have learned, things never seem to turn out like you think they will. They died in an accident when a storm came up. The car they told me, was picked up like a toy, and thrown out into a field. They were thrown from the car and didn’t survive. They died then. I was with Grandma when it happened. We were in the basement like they tell you, when a tornado alert is issued, sirens. She is kind of crippled, so it took us a long time to get down there. I didn’t think we were going to make it. The tornado missed the house though, so I guess it didn’t matter.
Some police guy came to the house after the storm left and told Grandma what had happened. She told me later, the next day. She said she could see no sense in waking me up.
I knew something was wrong though when I went down in the morning. She makes breakfast so it’s ready when I come down. She always makes oatmeal, no matter what else we have. Eggs and oatmeal, oatmeal, and pancakes, we always have oatmeal.
She usually is talky at breakfast, and likes to carry on like there is going to be a time out, silence, like we have at school during study hall.
We had a funeral. I didn’t go to the mortuary. Grandma said it would be better if I didn’t. She said I’d have plenty of time for that type of thing in my life. Starting now would do no good but give me bad memories. She said I should try and think of all the good things I did with my parents, write them down, so I wouldn’t forget. I understand what she is trying to do but I wanted to go, and didn’t want to go, both. I went to the cemetery afterwards with her. Just the two of us. We brought some flowers from her back garden.
Cemeteries are such a lonely place. All those people, gone. I noticed one thing, I had to think about. The old part, where you come in by the big iron gates, has these huge statues, Angels, and saints, all with flowers winding around them, and their names and dates of when they lived. Then when you get back where my Mom and Dad were, there are only these small flat stones set in the ground, surrounded by grass.
I asked grandma about how come that was, and she said it is easier to take care of the grounds. They can mow right over the top and don’t have to cut the grass like they do around the monuments, by hand. She said it was a more efficient, faster. Seemed like a strange thing to worry about when these people were there forever, had all the time of forever, and those that didn’t have to be there, were worried about taking care of it, being efficient. We didn’t stay long. Grandma said she felt sad being there, and she wasn’t feeling all that well. We took the cab back to the house that brought us there.
Grandma got sicker after that. She told me one night that people weren’t supposed to outlive their children. I realized I wouldn’t have to worry about that.
My parents, Bill, and Louise; sounds funny saying their names. Always just thought of them as Mom and Dad. There wasn’t a stone for them yet. Grandma said they’d have one with their names and dates like the rest of them, tradition she said.
They seemed to be just getting to know each other again, my parents, spending time together. For a while Dad was gone a lot. Mom said he was working, but I don’t think so. I saw him one time, or think I did, when I was taking the bus downtown. He was coming out of a hotel by the theater we saw Star Wars in.
Then things changed. He was there all the time. Sometimes too much. He was always wanting to know how I was doing at school or what I wanted to be when I got older. I had no idea. I could hardly get through math class and I hated science. All of it seemed to have nothing in common to what I was doing, just being me. I liked being outside, so I guess biology taught me a few things, but math seemed like useless unless you were going to be a professor or something, it wouldn’t have much use.
Grandma got me some of the brochures from the new school to look at. It looks old, the building, bricks, two story long box with a lot of big windows. I think she worries that I won’t like it there. She said she was sorry about me not being able to stay with her, but I understand. She has people coming here to help her with things she needs and now she’s going to a place where they can keep a better eye on her. She said I wouldn’t have to worry about money. She and this lawyer guy who’s been coming her got it all straightened out until I’m twenty-one, she says.
Twenty-one, seems like it’s so far off it can’t ever happen. But the school is supposed to be in a nice place in the country. The pictures have a lot of fall colored looking trees, ponds with ducks and lily pads, and this white fluffy snow that makes everything look like it’s a cake, with marshmallow frosting on it. The rooms look like my room here, small. Nice windows though, looking out on this field where they keep some sheep. It won’t be like here, but then it’s what I’ve got.
Grandma keeps telling me I’ll be fine. I’ll make new friends and pretty soon I won’t remember any of this. I don’t see how that can happen, but I’ll see. She says I can write and call when I can or need to. I don’t know what she meant by need to, but I will call. It’s strange to think she’s all I got really. I’m all she’s got. My Grandpa died a long time ago in the war. I don’t really remember which one anymore, there have been so many. She told me just recently, and she was real firm about it. More firm than usual, “Don’t go in the service. Wars do nothing but make money for some, at the expense of others.” I don’t really know what that means, but she was sure fixed on telling me.
The cab taking me to the train is outside. She’s calling from down by the door. “Come on now, can’t keep the man waiting.” I don’t really want to go all that much. I know it’s like a nice place and all, but I don’t know anyone. I don’t know anyone but Grandma here, but then I know here, that is the difference. I know new places are scary. We talked about it, adjusting and all, but still it is like going to a new world, where everyone are aliens, and everything looks different. Grandma says I’m young and will get used to new things quick.
“Coming.”
I look around the room, I hate to say goodbye, I’ll never see it again. It will be like when my parents went to town to get something and never came back. You’ve got this picture in your head, like the one Grandma keeps on the mantel above the fireplace, and now there is a big piece of it missing. I try and remember the picture, what was there, what we looked like smiling, but it gets harder every day. It’s kind of like the fog by the river, gets so thick after a time you can’t see the water. All you know is that it is still there, cause you can hear it, but it ain’t the same as seeing it.
I can see the cab down in the street. It’s not like one of those you see in the city, yellow. It’s black like the cars you see taking people to the cemetery. I’d better go before Grandma gets upset. She’s been getting more anxious of late, worries a lot about things she can’t do anything about. Kind of like me, I guess. Just have to follow the bread crumbs like in the story, and hope we find our way out of the woods.
I hug Grandma goodbye. We say we’ll see each other soon, but I don’t know. She looks lots older than just yesterday. I feel like I’m goin a million light years away, and don’t really feel there’s much chance of ever coming back.
I sit in the car, the man said I could sit up front if I wanted, so I did. Sitting in the back seemed too much like being in a movie where you are being shipped off to a prison, where you’ll have nothing to do but think about how things were, and how they got to be the way they were.
Thinking of Mom and Dad. I guess dying is kind of like going off to boarding school.
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
0 comments