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.Oliver felt like his smile was printed on his face.It was so important that Grandpa should believe he was only happy and excited to see him.The room could have belonged in a motel.Oliver had only been in a motel once when he was seven and Grandpa had taken him for a weekend to Orchard Beach outside Portland, but he remembered the plain furniture, the metal-framed window, the door opening into the bathroom and, most strongly of all, the feeling that it had no stories to tell.Nothing was left, or would ever remain, of the people who had stayed in it over the years.In this room there were two single beds, with two mid-brown dressers across from them, and two chairs with wooden arms tucked into corners.There was no one in the bed closest to the hallway door; it was made up with a faded patchwork quilt and a frog-green pillow case.Grandpa was in the bed by the window.It was brightened by the new red comforter Twyla and Oliver had picked out together.They had been able to tell on entering that Grandpa was asleep.His face was turned toward them, his skin a whitish gray stretched over his now painfully prominent bones.For the first time Oliver saw the impact of death’s reshaping hand, the shedding of the flesh, the stripping down to the skull.He recalled, with a clutch at his heart, Grandpa saying before they left for that trip to Orchard Beach, ‘He who travels light travels fastest.’ The thought crept into Oliver’s mind that he could understand why some of the relatives couldn’t bring themselves to visit their family member; it hurt too much.If you didn’t see it might not be happening; easier to think that death had already come.Oliver was horrified at the possibility that for the slightest moment he might have been thinking of himself and Grandpa.He would never, ever stop coming here.However much Grandpa changed on the outside, he would still be the same inside; even if the time came when he could no longer talk he would still be there breathing out love.Frank Andrews’ mouth slackened and a trickle of saliva slid down his chin.Reaching for a tissue on the bedside table Oliver wiped it away.‘I love you a trillion billion,’ he whispered.‘You’re the best grandpa there ever was in the entire universe, even if there are little green ones on Mars.’ The last part was the sort of joke he and Grandpa would laugh at; it had never taken much to make them laugh.Twyla was beckoning to him.She picked up one of the chairs and crossed with it to the bed.Oliver tiptoed forward with the other one.They sat without talking for about five minutes and then began a quiet conversation about nothing in particular – how nice the new red comforter looked, wondering if the other residents were enjoying the visiting dog, how kind Kev had sounded.Grandpa slept on.The light from the window showed up the bruises on his arms and hands.They were the result of the blood thinners he took, nothing to do with the Parkinson’s.They were called something that sounded like a spice, one that Mandy Armitage, Brian’s mother, put in her chili.Cumin, that was the name – of the spice, not the medicine.Oliver retrieved the name that floated toward him, first in big letters, then smaller ones that grew smudgy before disappearing into a mist.Somewhere inside it were himself and Grandpa walking hand in hand across a bridge.He couldn’t see, but he knew.Along with this awareness came the certainty that his parents and Grandma Olive were waiting on the other side in place of rainbow clouds and that soon he, Oliver, must turn and walk back on his own toward Sea Glass.His eyelids grew heavy.He hadn’t slept well the past two nights at the Cully Mansion or, for that matter, the past week.In the middle of last night he’d shot up in bed with his heart hammering.For a moment he had wondered where he was.The furniture stared back at him as if wondering what he was doing there and wishing he would go away.Alien shadows slithered and stretched, but it was the ones that crouched unseen in corners that bothered him the most.The fear gripped him that they were thinking slyly how much fun it would be to pop up for the purpose of making him yell out.The tall one alongside the open-curtained window, with the broad seat beneath, could have come from the high dresser, but it had a person-like look to it.What if those thin poky bits weren’t reflected tree branches, but transparent fingers itching to touch him? His breath had frozen at the thought that it could be the ghost of old Emily Cully and he’d huddled back under the musty-smelling covers, willing himself back to sleep.It was all right for Brian to say what fun it would be but what if the talk around Sea Glass wasn’t just hopeful made-up stuff, and she really and truly did haunt the Cully Mansion? Brian didn’t have to live, let alone sleep here.Voices woke him and he sat up to find himself in the chair in Grandpa’s room at Pleasant Meadows.What he heard was Twyla and Grandpa talking, but they stopped now and looked toward him.‘Good snooze?’ Grandpa asked quite clearly.There were times when his voice came out better than others.The skull-like look was gone and his face even had some normal color.Oliver beamed back at him.‘Was I asleep long?’‘About an hour.’ Twyla smiled at him.It was a relaxed smile.The lines that showed around her eyes when she was tired or particularly worried weren’t there anymore [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]