Tapa

            by Emma Ammirati

 

            Before Grandma’s car comes to a full stop my sister and I have already dashed out of  it.  I hear the wail of the train whistle as it pulls into the station.

             “Hurry! Hurry! Or else Tapa will see us!” I say.   

             We rush into the familiar candy- red phone booth, and pull the door shut.  After a few minutes, I cautiously open the door, and take a few steps towards the  flow of gray  and black suits descending the stairs from the  humming train.  No one’s face looks familiar so I turn away, but a pair of shiny black shoes catches my eye. I run quickly back towards the phone booth, trying not to trip over the pink princess dress I insisted on wearing, but its marshmallow puffiness slows me down.

             “He’s here!” I hiss to Katherine, as I tap hurriedly at the glass.

She scurries out, just as  Tapa appears from behind the departing train.  He strides towards us, and I can see his comb-like gray mustache, and his clear blue eyes framed by square, wire- rimmed spectacles.  We leap towards his open arms.  I feel the smooth cloth of his gray suit against my cheek, as I struggle to hug my entire grandpa with my stubby six-year old arms.

             “Where did you two come from?”  Tapa asks, feigning surprise.  I reach for his gigantic hand, and lead him to Grandma’s waiting car.

             That night, my sister and I each pick out a story for Tapa to read to us.  Sometimes, if he is in a really good mood, I can wheedle him to show me his “funny toe,” before he tucks us into our separate beds and sings us goodnight.  It is the  toe next to his pinky toe, and it has a speck of nail.  Seeing this tiny toe always makes me giggle because it is so silly to see this mini bean of a toe on my grandpa’s dinosaur feet.    As I get sleepy, he sings me the “Jack-o-Lantern song” that he used to sing  my mom to put her to sleep. When   I drift off to sleep, I see my grandpa’s smiling face full of love and care.  That tender image stays with me through my dreams, protecting me from the monsters. 

             I wake up the next morning to the sweet smell of the buttermilk pancakes that my grandma always makes for me.  I sit down at the kitchen table, and dig into its heavenly sweetness.  After I eat my fill, I say goodbye to Tapa before he goes to work.

             “Amelia Louise, she does as she please, as she sings in the trees,” he sings to me.  Leaving though the front door, he looks at me over his shoulder, and says,

             “Now, you promise to play Go Fish with me when I get home?”

              “Yes!” I say and, before he turns the corner, I shout, “I love you Tapa!”

              A few summers later, I am finally old enough to attend, Ravinia, an outdoor concert venue.  I am thrilled to go to a grown-up event: an orchestra concert.  Upon arrival, I quickly scan the pavilion, and realize that my sister and I are among the few children in the crowd.  Twenty minutes into the concert, I am already struggling to stay awake.  And five minutes after that, I am asleep on Tapa’s  padded shoulder.  Tapa delighted in taking us to concerts, because he hoped that if he took us to enough of them, we would appreciate classical music despite the pull of popular culture.

    My grandparents do not take us to Disneyland.  Instead, they  treat my sister and me  like adults.  We are taken to museums, plays and restaurants, where macaroni and cheese is not on the menu.  As my grandma would say, we are spoiled rotten, but not in the traditional way. 

            Five years later, I am spreading peanut butter and jam on two pieces of bread for  an  after school snack.

The phone rings.  My mom picks it up, and I overhear snippets of her conversation and watch as she paces back and forth.

 “Oh my god…yes. . .Okay, I’ll get a flight out there tomorrow. . .what’s the room number?. . I know, I know, he’s going to be fine. Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

             She hangs up the phone, and out of the corner of my eye I see that silent tears are streaming down her cheeks.  I rush over to where she is sitting.

             “Mom, what’s wrong?  What happened?  Who called?”

She gives me a long look that tells me something earth-shattering has happened.

             “That was Aunt Heidi.  Tapa fell off a ladder.  He’s in the hospital, in the intensive care unit.   I’m going to Chicago to help grandma.   Everything is going to be okay, honey, don’t worry,” she says in a forced tone, looking at my stricken face.

            “How did it happen?” I say, feeling  as if a large stone has lodged itself in my throat.

            “He wanted to clean the gutters, but when he got to the top he lost his balance, and Grandma, who was holding the ladder, did not have the strength to stop his fall.”

            My mom left with a one-way ticket to Chicago.  She told us she wasn’t sure when she would be return, but would call once a week to reassure me “he’s getting better.”  When I pass the phone to my dad, he tells her,

             “Make sure he gets physical therapy otherwise he will get blood clots—and make sure he gets a neurologist consult, not just the neurosurgeon—tell everyone to wash their hands before touching him or he will  get a hospital-borne infection.”

             All this time I am living in my own little bubble. A place where everything is going to be” just fine,” reinforced by my mom’s assurance that Tapa is going to be okay.  I can’t wait for my mom to come home after three weeks of only talking to her on the phone, because, even though I love my dad, not having a mom around for almost an entire month was a drag. 

            One afternoon my dad picks me up from school as usual, but, instead of the annoying questions he usually pours on me, (“How are your classes?  Do you like your teachers? What did you do today?”) he is completely silent until we roll into our driveway.

             “Emma. . .”

             “Yeah.”

             “ Mom’s not coming home tomorrow.    We are all going to Chicago and we’ll spend Thanksgiving there.”

             “Why?” I  ask.

            “Tapa is badly hurt, and I think you and Katherine should get a chance to visit him in the hospital.”   My bubble pops.   Tapa might die.  If we don’t fly out there, I might never get to say goodbye. 

             I get out of the car and slam the door behind me.  I rush to my room, and flop onto my bed.  I wish mom had told me.  Instead of saying everything was “fine,” every time she called.   Tears dribble down my chin.

            When I visit him do I just take a peek inside his room?   Or should I say something profound and meaningful that will comfort and show my love for him? 

I snuggle deeper and deeper into my yellow comforter.

When we arrive at  my grandparent’s house in Chicago,  I am practically knocked down by the force of my grandmother’s bear-like hug.  I give her a swift kiss, but cannot meet her eyes.  I am not sure what to say that would be of any comfort her.  The look my grandma gives me is ragged, fear and doubt etched on her face.

             “ Tapa is noble grandma.  He will get through this,” I blurt out.

She looks at me and a slow smile blooms on her face.

            “Thank you,” she says, handing me a fluffy yellow towel for the guest bathroom.

What I thought was an offhand reassuring comment, later became a traditional story my grandma would tell at every family gathering ( even if we’ve heard it hundreds of times).

             “Emma said Tapa was noble, and hearing she said that helped him get better,” she would say, with a beaming smile. If I am present during these stories I feel guilty that I did not say something a little more meaningful to grandma that day.

            When I visit Tapa in the hospital for the first time, I am frightened.   I will have to exchange the funny and lively memory I have of him for the reality that he might not even know my name, let alone recognize me as his grandchild. As we near his room, 3211, my steps get slower and slower.

             “Come on,” my mom urges. “He’ll be happy to see you.”

            “Can you go in first?” I whisper just outside the door.

             I don’t know what to say or how to act.  My shoes squeak on the linoleum floor as I slowly walk behind my mom into Tapa’s room.  His drained face rests against two dead-white pillows.  Clear plastic tubes snake out of his nose and arms, and steel- gray hair is disarrayed in a halo around his face.  His eyelids are lowered, but as I near the beige hospital bed, his eyes open and a weak smile spreads across his face.

I lean down to give him a reassuring smooch on the cheek.   The sandpaper roughness of his unshaven cheek rubs against mine.  He still has the grandfather smell of fresh bacon and old books, but it is almost covered up by the overpowering smell of fear.  Death.            

The room suddenly feels overpowering.  I want to knock down the fresh white walls.   Their artificial perfection mocks me.   “How can you be so clean, so perfect without a compassionate smudge? You will always stay the same clean white walls,” I scream at them in my mind.

            When I head towards the door, the world blurs around me, but as I look back, Tapa comes into focus, and I can see that this time his smile is unwavering.   Believe in me. I will get better, he tells me with his eyes. 

            Thanksgiving this year is different. It is not the usual boisterous event overflowing with family telling bad jokes, but making everyone laugh just the same. If we were at my grandparent’s house right now, grandma would be pulling the freshly roasted turkey out of the oven, and I would be making the salad dressing.   Now Grandma doesn’t cook anymore, not since the accident.  Now it’s frozen pizza and stale bread.  It isn’t just that I miss the cinnamon-sugar smell of her apple pies, I miss her happiness. Now her hugs are quick and absentminded.   She has also stopped reading books. She explains, “Every time I start to read, I see him fall.”  Instead of reading she has become obsessed with doing crossword puzzle after crossword puzzle, every hour of the day.

            My cousins, Elizabeth and Gracie, are watching “The Little Mermaid.”  They are young, but I know that they feel Tapa’s absence as severely as I do.  I hold my youngest cousin; baby Stephanie, in my arms.   She is adorable in a pink and fluffy sort of way, and her smile lets sunshine into my heart.  She gives me hope.  If a small infant whose brain isn’t fully developed can learn to speak, then surely a brain-damaged man like Tapa can as well.  He just needs to remember.  My glance slids to the doorway.   My mom comes bustling in, soaking wet from the sheets of rain falling outside.   I carry Stephanie over to her,

             “ Hey, mom, wanna hold Stephanie for a minute?”

            “Honey, I can’t.  I’m just picking up some food to bring grandma at the hospital, and I promised I wouldn’t be long. I’m sorry.”

             “ Just one minute. “ I beg,  knowing that if she did hold Stephanie even for a teeny bit, her crumpled expression would cease, at least for a while.

             “Okay, here can you hold my bag?” she said, and I take her bag, and she takes Stephanie.  Stephanie gurgles her approval at the transition, and her big blue eyes shine with glee.  I go into the kitchen, and put mashed potatoes, turkey, gravy, salad , and two slices of pumpkin pie into containers for my mom to take back to the hospital.  When I finish putting the provisions in a plastic grocery bag, I walk over to the living room where my mom is gently rocking Stephanie.  I watch as a smile lights her face  and a song jumps into my mind,

             “This little light mine I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shiiiine, let it shiiiine, let it shiiine”. 

            My surroundings come into focus, and I realize that I have just been singing out loud. A flush fills my cheeks, but, before I can leave the room, a wave of applause hits me.  I realize, by singing that little phrase, I have lifted everyone’s hopes. 

Mom and I go to Chicago to visit Tapa that summer. It has been seven months since the accident, and Tapa has improved dramatically.  He has spent two weeks in intensive care, three weeks in critical care, and six weeks in a rehabilitation hospital.  He has also been receiving regular physical therapy.  He is starting to talk again, and he is no longer in a wheel chair, and uses a cane when he walks.  Everyone is feeling optimistic. Hey. Maybe the doctor was wrong, right?  He said it would take Tapa seven to nine years to recover, but look at him. Not even a year has passed and it seems like he’s almost healed.

He is doing great until that terrible day that erases his progress like chalk from a chalkboard.  That day.

             9:00 A.M , and the third day of our visit.  Mom shakes me awake. I know something is wrong because she is unnaturally calm.

Barely above a whisper has she tells me,

 “Emma gets up?  Tapa’s had a seizure.  I need to go to the hospital with Grandma. Take care of your cousins.  Please.”

Hearing the fear in my mom’s voice,  I realize  that Tapa’s recovery is far from over.

             “What?!” I croak, but my mom is already running up the stairs to meet the paramedics.

I rub the sleep from my eyes, and blearily get out of bed.

             A few moments later my cousins, Elizabeth and Gracie, come into my room.  I rush towards them, and wrap my arms around them, knowing that no words can express the pain and fear we all feel.

             “We were eating breakfast when Tapa started shaking, and he rolled his eyes, and then your mom came into the dining room and told us to go downstairs,” the elder of the two, Elizabeth, tells me with a tremor in her voice.

             “Everything is going to be okay,” I tell them, but inside I feel doubt at my own words.

             After the seizure, Tapa spends six weeks in the hospital.  He has to start rehab all over again. At each visit,  I watch him gain weight because he can’t exercise. No longer is he the center of table conversation, but instead he sits at the head of the table with vacant eyes.  I know he desperately wants to communicate with us, and feels frustrated that he cannot even go to the bathroom without assistance.  I try to talk to him, and sometimes when I smile at him, he calculates that something is funny, and a forced laugh bursts from him. 

             Now, I’m in my senior year of high school. Tapa’s speech is almost normal now, although sometimes he stutters, and can’t always find the right words.  My mom talks to him once a week, and once in a while he will call her. Each day Tapa writes me an e-mail describing  his walks, his classes at the Senior Center, and the articles he reads in the newspaper.  When we go to visit, he asks me questions, and, although he sometimes calls me “Kate,” my aunt’s name, I know he recognizes me.    This past summer, when I visited colleges nearby, he became interested, and asked me questions about my visits.  I think back to all those lullabies and good night kisses he used to give me.  Maybe one day I can lean on his shoulder again.