st0ries.com

By Carl Deuker

Alec’s grandpa proves to be his best friend. But what happens when a best friend gets hurt and everything turns hopeless?

Kids at school think I’m a nerd. That’s because I don’t like basketball or football, but I do like chess and math. At home it’s just about the same, though nobody calls me names. My dad and my mom and my older brother Jake are always riding bikes or running half-marathons or rowing boats, and they’re always trying to get me to go. “Come on, Alec. Give it a try.” When I tell them no, they shake their heads, and I know what they’re thinking: nerd.

That’s why Grandpa is so important to me. He saved me.

Every summer my grandparents rent a cabin up in the Cascades. I’ve got a big family, so whenever we go, cousins and aunts and uncles are sure to be there. Hiking, fishing, swimming–day after day.

For years I was forced to go along. Everybody thought it was fun climbing up rocks and down into gulleys with mosquitoes biting you and sweat burning your eyes. They couldn’t believe I didn’t think it was fun, no matter how often I told them.

Then Grandpa put his foot down. “Alec doesn’t like going, so stop making him,” he said, staring at my dad the same way my dad sometimes stares at me.

 

The next morning when everybody left for Falls Creek, Grandpa and I stayed behind at the cabin. Grandpa took a chessboard down from the closet. “You know how to play?”

While they hiked, he showed me different openings and gambits and defenses. Then, when vacation ended, Grandpa and I played online. Neither of us wrote much; just what our moves were and something like, I’ve got you now. When I won my first chess tournament, I was so excited that I e-mailed him before I even told my mom and dad.

Then everything changed. Everything.

We live in Seattle, where it rains all winter long. Grandpa lives in California, where it’s warm all the time. Here’s what happened.

My Uncle Jack talked Grandpa into a bike ride up in the mountains above Menlo Park. Grandpa was slow, so Uncle Jack pushed ahead until he reached a little store in Woodside, where he stopped and waited. After 10 minutes, he headed back. He found Grandpa unconscious in a ditch. Nobody knows what happened. All anybody knows for sure is that Grandpa hit his head hard on the concrete.

My dad flew down that night. He stayed a few weeks. One afternoon, when I came back from school, Dad was home.

“Is Grandpa O.K.?” I said.

He shook his bead. “Alec, he suffered serious brain damage. He thinks and acts more like a child than a grown-up.”

“But he can get better, can’t he?” I said.

He frowned. “It would take a miracle.”

My dad had given up on Grandpa, but I hadn’t, because I’d read about people who were sick or born wrong, but somebody believed in them, and they got better. I’d be that person for Grandpa.

That summer Grandpa and Grandma rented the cabin in the Cascades same as always. Before we drove up, my mom pulled me aside. “He’s still your grandpa, and he still loves you,” she said. “But you’ll have to find a new way to be his grandson.”

Three hours later we were in the mountains.

When Grandpa had looked at me in the past, his blue eyes had a twinkle in them, as if we two were enjoying a secret joke. Which we were in a way–the joke being that we both knew that our chess games in the cozy main room of the cabin were a thousand times better than the hikes everyone else took. But now his eyes were just blue and his smile was just a smile.

“And who are you?” he asked as he shook my hand.

“I’m Alec,” I said, and I wanted to cry.

At dinner, Grandma treated Grandpa as if he were 5 years old. When he ate all his meat and none of his carrots, she wagged her finger at him. “No dessert until you eat your vegetables.” After dinner, the adults talked about Iraq. “It was real sunny today,” Grandpa put in, but they just ignored him.

The next morning everybody was up early for a hike to Cooper Lake. When Grandpa went to the closet to get his boots, I pushed the closet door shut. “No, Grandpa. You and I stay here and play chess. Remember?” Grandpa stared at me. “Remember?” I repeated.

My father’s voice came from behind me. “Grandpa can’t play chess anymore, Alec.”

“I can play chess,” Grandpa said, his voice firm and strong.

I wheeled around and faced my dad. “See?”

Once everyone had left, I set up the chessboard. Grandpa picked up the rook and stared at it. “That’s a rook,” I said. “It moves horizontally or vertically.” I picked up a bishop. “And bishops go diagonally. Don’t worry. It’ll all come back to you.”

We played. He moved the pawns O.K., but he kept messing up with the knights and the bishops. When he made a mistake, I explained the rule to him slowly. “I see,” Grandpa said, but he kept making the same mistakes again and again. Finally he stood up and went onto the porch. I followed.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

“Out hiking.”

“Why aren’t we hiking?”

“We don’t hike, Grandpa. You and me–we play chess. Remember?”

He just sat in one of the chairs on the porch, his back to me.

Grandma was in the kitchen listening to talk shows on the radio. I could smell something cooking in the oven. I went to her. “What’s for dinner?” I said.

“Go fishing with him, Alec,” she said, switching the radio off. “There’s a pool of calm water off the river about a hundred yards down the path. There are poles in the closet. I’ll get them for you.”

“I don’t know how to fish,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter. Throw the line into the water and sit with him. It’d be good for both of you.”

“He can play chess,” I said. “He can.”

“Do you love your Grandpa, Alec?” she said.

“Yes,” I said angrily. “You know I do.”

“Go fishing with him.”

But I didn’t. And I didn’t the next day, or the day after that. I kept thinking of the stories I’d read about people working through hard times. It had never been easy for any of them, but they hadn’t quit. If I could get Grandpa to remember how to play chess, I was sure everything else would come back to him. But on Saturday, after I’d set up the board, he shook his head. “I don’t like chess.”

“Sure you do,” I said. “It’s your favorite game.”

“No, I don’t. I hate it,” he said, and his big hand flew across the board sending the pieces flying. Then he stomped outside and sat alone on the porch.

Grandma came out, saw what had happened and helped me pick up the pieces. One knight was missing. “It’s got to be here,” I said, getting down on my hands and knees to look under the sofa.

“Don’t worry about it, Alec,” Grandma said.

“I’ve got to find it,” I said. “I’ve got to.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, and she went back into the kitchen.

I looked for that knight for about five minutes, fighting back tears all that time. Finally I stood and went into the kitchen. “Where are the fishing poles, Grandma?”

Grandpa and I were sitting on a riverbank boulder in the hot summer sun. Below us, fish darted about in the clear water. Grandpa opened his tackle box, stuck some salmon eggs on the end of his hook and threw the hook into the water. I did the same. Then we sat there. For 20 minutes. Nothing.

“We’re not catching any fish,” Grandpa said at last.

“No, Grandpa, we’re not.”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“What, Grandpa?”

Instead of answering, he stood and peeled off his shirt, then his pants. He was standing in his underwear. A second later he jumped into the little pool.

He looked up at me from the water. “Don’t you know how to swim?”

“I know how to swim,” I said.

He waved me toward him. I pulled off my shirt and my pants until I was in my underwear, standing on the boulder. Then I jumped in. I couldn’t believe how cold the water was, but in a few minutes I got used it. Grandpa pointed to some fish. “Let’s catch them,” he said. So we swam underwater and tried to grab the little fish with our hands.

We were in the water for about 30 minutes. Then, without saying a word, Grandpa got out. I followed. We sat in our underwear on the rock, the warm sun drying us. “I love the wind,” Grandpa said at last. “I do, too.”

“I love the sun and I love the clouds and I love the water.” “So do I.”

“You know what else?”

“No, Grandpa. What?”

“I love my wife and my sons and my daughters and my grandchildren. That’s what else.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. He noticed:

“Do you love everyone?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He rubbed the top of my head. “Good.” He paused. “You’re Alec, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, Grandpa, I’m Alec.”

Grandpa stood and started to dress. I hadn’t wanted to come, but now I hated to leave.

“Grandpa,” I said softly as I pulled on my pants. “Let’s make this our secret place. Let’s come here every day and go fishing and swimming but not tell anyone about it.”

“Our secret place,” he said. “No one else.”

“That’s right,” I said. “No one else.”

“Just you and me,” he said.

“Just you and me,” I answered.

He thought for a while. “O.K.,” he said at last. Then he stuck his hand out and I shook it, and the world seemed perfect. The miracle had happened just like I’d hoped. Only it hadn’t happened to Grandpa, it had happened to me. I was with him, and he was with me. That was all that had ever mattered; it was all that would ever matter.

This short story, based on similar events that actually happened to a friend’s grandfather, began as an English class paper by 16-year-old Marian Deuker.