Like Stone

Symone Knox, “Remnants”

by Bonnie Simmons

The attic hadn’t been touched in years, and Maisel was apprehensive about being the first  to do so. She pulled the frayed rope and watched as the stairs appeared one-by-one from the darkness, like teeth from a gaping mouth stale with decade-old morning breath. The attic coughed up cobwebs. They came down all-around, covering the floor like faded party streamers. I’ll have to clean that up later. She rummaged around in her jacket pocket for a tissue and climbed the stairs, dusting the railing as she went. As Maisel had gotten older and gotten married, she hadn’t seen much of Grandpa Stone; but each time she made instant coffee or heard the sizzle of an old record she was reminded of how much she missed him. Maisel meant to visit for Christmas last year, but her husband wished to avoid the snow and the drive. Too late, now. She missed her grandfather, but she certainly didn’t miss this house. She scaled the wall and found the light switch, flooding the room with a vignette of yellow light. I should get a new lightbulb, too. Though it was a massive chore, Maisel was glad that she had volunteered to pack up his things.

 Her mother had broken the news last week. Maisel remembered sitting down to dinner with George and their daughter, Delilah, when she got the call. Maisel had exhaustedly excused herself from the table. She took a deep breath and tapped the glaring green ‘Accept’ button.

Mother said, “Are you alone?”

“Yeah, but I was just –”

“Doesn’t matter. This is important.”

Maisel stiffened with worry. George came up behind her and tried to smooth circles into her tense back. She shooed him away and he shuffled back to the kitchen.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, mom. What’s wrong?”

“It’s... It’s just that… You remember me saying that Grandpa Stone wasn’t doing so well lately? Chest pains, and all that?”

Maisel swallowed, eyelids falling shut with impending grief.

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence as her mother collected herself. It was an endless moment of static sniffing and the rattle of metallic hospital gear.

“H-he passed. Heart attack.”

Maisel always knew that she would get that call someday, but as is with all inevitabilities she thought she was well prepared until it happened. She felt that guilt and grief were a normal part of life until she was the one processing them.

 Mother wanted to clean up the house herself, but she was far too emotional, and the place was far too dusty. One misplaced cigarette butt, and the property would be up in flames. She was relieved when Maisel said that she would take care of it. Maisel pushed aside a box, kicked up some dust, and cleared a place for herself to sit. Grandpa used to say that he was a ‘collector.’ The problem was that he collected everything: clay plant pots, old bike tires, and even empty cream corn cans if the label was colorful enough. If he found something interesting he had to have it, and keep it forever: a quirk in his lifetime and a qualm in hers. She tossed her coat to the side and rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. Maisel began sorting.

 ***

She moved so mechanically, a machine among the mess. His mess. Why was she touching it?  She looked the same but stretched and worn. She was taller, with a bit of a belly, and her face had warped like the wood beneath her feet. Her sweet dimple puckered like a sunken knot in the rotted floorboards. Did she always look like this? he wondered. Maisel called him a few times a month. They would talk about the best way to roast a chicken and how the Mets were doing, and it was nice, but she hadn’t puttered around his house since she was a teenager with wild brown hair and sunburnt cheeks. Now her hair was smooth and chemical, her cheeks pale and uniform.

The last summer she visited Stone was the summer she met George. George. He was never a man, but he was always a boy--and an immature one at that. The couple used to cart Stone to diners before they hitched up and moved out West. Maisel wanted Stone to befriend George, and George wanted whatever would make his life easier. But Stone had good eyes (the doctors always said so!), and he wished his granddaughter had been blessed similarly so she, too, could see through the bullshit. He watched how George’s smile would get a little broader around the waitresses, how his eyes would twinkle and trail up their pinstripe skirts. “Isn’t he so polite, Grandpa?” she would ask, looking up at him with her love softened face. Stone would bite his tongue and nod as he cut away the gristle on his steak.

 ***

The light viciously snapped and flickered for a moment, startling Maisel. She nearly dropped a box of records. I better call the electrician. Maisel rifled through the records, blowing off sheets of dust to reveal faded blocky titles. She stopped on a well-worn Elvis record and smiled. Elvis reminded her of big pancake breakfasts and rides in Grandpa’s pickup truck with the windows down. She had forgotten the comfort that comes with fresh summer air. Maybe it was a condition of the ‘50s, but Grandpa Stone had a bad case of Elvis fever. He called Grandma ‘Mama,’ even after she passed--that hound dog. Maisel managed the obstacle course of the attic and slipped the record into its player. A scratchy, warm rendition of Suspicious Minds gorged the space. Maisel couldn’t help but shimmy a little and sing along. “We’re caught in a trap. I can’t walk out because I love you too much, ba-a-aby,” she crooned. There was a framed velvet and rhinestone painting of Elvis’s face above the pull-out couch in the living room downstairs. We could put that in our living room, she thought. No, George would never go for that. “We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds…” she continued. George enjoyed the canned summer breezes that came out of air-conditioners, and he thought that Elvis was overrated (ironically, he preferred the Beatles). Maisel was sobered by the realization that she was never going to see these the same way. She took the record off and slipped it back into its sleeve and back into its box. That song wasn’t his best, anyway.

Maisel’s phone pinged and, thinking that it was the shrill squeak of a rat or the sound of a ghost stepping on the wrong floorboard, she jumped at the sound. I have to calm down. Maisel was always a little jumpy these days. Despite being a skeptic, she was always scared of what could be hiding in the attic. Perhaps it was one too many horror films growing up, but she felt something was watching her. Maisel retrieved the phone from her pocket and swiped on a message from her husband. It was a grainy video of her pig-tailed daughter, an oversized backpack dangling from her shoulder as she waved from the school bus. She smiled and zoomed in on the video. Delilah looked similar to Maisel when she was her age. She was sure Grandpa Stone would have agreed. He had only seen her a few times, back when Delilah was spoon fed. They had sent him Delilah’s glossy school headshots, and crayon masterpieces she had crafted for him. I should have done more. Beneath the pixelated video clip was the text: Miss you. Call us later. 

Maisel sighed.  

She had been bed-bound after hanging up with her mother that night. It seemed impossible that she would never see her grandfather’s crinkled face, or hear his belly-laugh bounce off the papered walls. George had knocked on their bedroom door and slipped in.

“I put Delilah to bed.”

Maisel rolled over and faced the wall. The sky beyond their window was etched in the twilight. Stars had begun to pierce their way through. A light breeze rattled the bare trees. To Maisel, it just looked dark. George kicked off his slippers and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t have much to say.”

“Okay.”

He placed a tentative hand in her hair, and she shook it out. Exasperated, he got up and threw his hands in his trouser pockets.

“You said you’d forgive me.”

“I will, eventually.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. I can’t have your hands on me right now without remembering I wasn’t the last person you touched. So I don’t know when. But I will.”

George sighed. He must have been experiencing the same sort of gut-wrenching guilt that Maisel was. She felt sorry for him, to an extent.

“I’m gonna have to go to Rochester for the funeral.”

“I understand.”

“I might have to be there for a few days to help out. Mom’s not going to be able to clean that house out by herself.”

“I can come, if you want. I can help. Make it easier.”

She raked the covers over her shoulder and was silent. She wanted to go alone.

 ***

Maisel was always a strong girl. She’d fall off her bike and scrape herself constantly but she wouldn’t cry or mope. She’d get her own Band-Aid, slap it on, and ride down that rocky hill until she got it right. Stone hadn’t seen her cry since she was a baby. It was disturbing to see his granddaughter crumple to the floor and join the mess. She isn’t used to this pain. He overheard her say once that she “Wanted to be like Stone.” Stone wasn’t as affectionate as his wife, but he was more affectionate than his daughter. He wanted to know why she was crying. He wondered if he could finally punch George’s lights out. Stone wanted to reach out and wrap her in the hug only a grandfather can give. But he couldn’t do any of that. He was stuck, everywhere and nowhere. He was the dead air in the attic, the creak in the boards, the voice in the pipes. Stone had wondered if he was dead before; now, handless and helpless he knew. If this was death, it was kind to him. It brought Maisel back. Maybe this time she would stay.

***

Maisel had sorted through and boxed up the attic by night time. She heard the sound of her mother’s Dodge Magnum spraying gravel as it pulled up the driveway. Maisel used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe away any remaining mascara that had inked down her face. She hefted two boxes onto each other and looked around the attic. Even boxed it felt so full. Her mother called out to her from the doorway.

“Should I pop the trunk?”

“Yeah, and there are quite a few boxes. We’ll have to use mine, too.”

Her mother hummed an acknowledgement and fiddled with her keys.

“The realtor called,” she said. “There’s a nice couple with a dog looking for a place like this. Made a nice offer, too.”

“That’s good, mom.” Maisel handed her a box, and she shifted under the weight. “I got most of the packing done today. It should be empty soon.”

“I’ll bring the car up.” But Mother lingered, squinting at the drop-down stairs.

“What?”

She shrugged. “It’s just a little spooky, that’s all. I’ll pull the car up.”

Spooky, huh? Maisel had thought so, too, when she had first arrived. But up there, with all those boxes, it didn’t feel lonely. Despite the bite of winter, it had felt like the summer of ‘89. It had felt like Grandpa Stone. God, she missed him.

Maisel took one last look at the dust-covered foyer and turned toward the door. The groove of her boot got caught on a plank, and she stumbled, cursing under her breath. A red flannel had fallen from the box, splayed on the floorboards. She peered at the shirt. Did it fall, or did it leap? She balled it up and thrust it into her coat pocket before she could think too deeply about it.

Whether it was impulse or fate, Maisel wasn’t sure, but she grabbed the doorknob. It felt warm. She took a deep breath. The dust got to you. You’ve cracked.

“I don’t know if y-you’re up there,” she pointed up to Heaven, “or… up there…” she hesitantly motioned to the attic. “But we miss you, Grandpa. I miss you. I’m sorry I wasn’t around more. I’m as stubborn as when I was here last. I always try to outrun time before it can outrun me. But I never meant to leave you behind…”

Mother honked the horn and aggressively pointed at her silver wrist-watch.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Maisel shouted, startled.

She turned back to the attic. “But know that, wherever I am, you’re always with me. And I know we’ll both find our peace.”

The curtains half fluttered, the cobwebs shook. The whole house seemed to breathe. Maisel fished the key out of her pocket and, as she closed the door behind her, she could almost swear she heard the faint scratch of an old record singing down from the mouth of the attic.