7…Blessings

Sunday I run out to pick up some wraps for lunch. Henry still won't leave the building, despite my cajoling. I want to ask him if he would like to go home to the Rambler soon for a visit. What I don't know is if going home will traumatize him in some way since it was the place of the incident. I decide to save it for another time. Maybe it's just too soon.

Instead, as I join him at the table, I steel myself, take a deep breath and tell him that I might get a job. I am horrified to see that my words have brought about the very thing I want to avoid—his face is crestfallen.

"School?" is all he asks.

I've not told him about getting my diploma. I've not told anyone yet, except for what I blurted out yesterday at the Grace Church garden to Captain Gray and the other man whose name I never got.

"I've graduated with a degree in Japanese studies."

"What about your Masters'? A Doctorate? What about your Chinese studies? What about your minors? You can't have finished the credits for those, too." I never knew Henry paid that much attention to my credits. The funny thing is that I've never declared I wanted to get a Masters or a Doctorate; it was just assumed by everyone.

"If I feel like it, I'll get them later." I try for nonchalance.

"Ah di' wa ya ta ha ta de wi ah dih," Henry says. I'm getting good at translating for him, but this sentence takes me a moment before I can quite catch it.

Ahh…I didn't want you to have to deal with all this.

"What's more important than you!" I reply, forcefully. "I want to deal with all this!" I sweep my hands around the room. "What do you think I am, some silly random kid?"

Henry shakes his head, woefully. "No, you've never been that. You never put a foot out of place, never did one thing wrong or got in trouble, ever. Never complained when we picked up and moved somewhere else every few months. Always did what you were asked immediately. Kept everything inside."

"Would you rather I would've gotten in trouble, G?" My attempt at levity falls flat.

"It's not that, but you should be at school, or traveling for school. Be with friends your age, not here in your old grandfather's hospital room."

Bea's words from yesterday come back to me and I can't bear it. I get up from my chair and come around the table to kneel beside Henry's, grabbing both his hands. "It is an honor and a blessing it is to be able to take care of someone you love, even if you thought you had other plans."

He does not look convinced so I take another cue from Bea, laying it out for him, desperate for him to understand. "Did you and Grandmother ever feel like it was a burden taking me on when you were in your sixties and had already raised your son?"

He is aghast. "Of course not!"

"Why in the world would you think I am any different? You are my favorite person in the world. I will be here for you, like you and Grandmother were for me. I don't want to do anything else in the world, be anywhere else in the world." And I don't mean to say this now, not yet, but it spills out anyway. "Why would you not want to tell me, G? About you being sick now and two years ago about…"

I don't need to finish the sentence for Grandfather to know I meant not telling me that my grandmother was sick until the very end. I have so much more to say, but the burning in the back of my throat seems to have turned my words into vapor.

"We just wanted you to stay in school, your grandmother and me. You fit in so well there. You blossomed and made friends. At school you had a semblance of control of your environment, when you probably hadn't had it before with us moving around all the time and then before that when…" he trails off. He doesn't need to finish the sentence for me to know he's referring to my parents' death.

Even though it doesn't excuse the fact that my grandparents' illnesses were being kept from me, he is right about school to some degree. I think back to how I felt the moment Professor Gardner handed me that diploma in the airport and it shook me to my core to imagine not being in school where I knew what my duty was.

"You don't remember much from the time you first came to us, do you?" he asks.

I shake my head. "When you're able, you can tell me the story. I'm not seven anymore, you know."

"I know. And I want to tell be able to tell you all your stories." He looks so sad when he says this that my heart breaks anew.

How in the world did a little conversation about my getting a job turn so heavy? I gaze at my wonderful grandfather, love pouring out of both us.

I swallow hard, suddenly tired. "We'll talk more about that later. But for now…this can be fun, you know…my being here with you…if you just get over it and let it be what it is. Because I'm not going anywhere, you are so stuck with me, dude."

Granddad tries for a smile as I go sit back in my chair.

"So, G…speaking of stories…eat your wrap and I'm going to tell you a story of how I came to have a job interview on Wednesday. It involves Petal, a pretty church, a nice stranger, a sea captain, and…somehow, believe it or not…Grandmother."

The sorrow in his sweet eyes is replaced by a little glimmer of interest. Henry loves stories in the way a little kid does. He loves to tell them and he loves to listen. I look forward to when his language is strong enough for him to start telling his stories again.

I sit back in my chair, and I start, "After I left here, I did a little Walkabout yesterday…"

I wrap-up by telling him about emailing my resume to the captain last night with all the letters of recommendation that I already had from various Professors, including Gardner, Zhang-Lei, as well as the parents of the elementary school kids I taught languages to while at Stanford—one set of which are sort of famous Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. I relate what I know from web searches about how Scottish immigrants from Brooklyn started the early version of Falk Atlantic Investments as a small firm importing mostly Scottish and Irish goods. Their son, E. McMorgan Falk, now in his early sixties, took it over and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar privately-held shipping company that now does manufacturing and all kinds of other things.

"So, is it okay I won't be here Wednesday when you wake up?"

He waves this away, saying, "I guess I should be glad you're getting out! And you know I have a soft spot for scrappy Brooklyn immigrants." Henry describes his own parents that way. "I look forward to hearing all about it."

He actually seems pleased by this job possibility now. Maybe he took our little talk about my staying here with him in New York to heart. Of course, I left out how I was freaking out about our bills and that the envelope that fell out of my pocket was his rehab bill.

Baby steps.

"There is one thing I'm scared about—terrified, actually." The smile drops off his face, so I quickly add, "I have to leave soon to go meet Em back at the Rambler so she can help me choose an interview outfit."

I see Henry's sigh of relief before his eyes go wide with mock horror. He says something that, at first, I can't translate.

I look at him quizzically for a moment before it clicks. Ahhh…He's switched to Arabic.

"Allah yoofithook." May God be with you.

"I know, right?" I reply, nodding my head.