“Hello … Grandma?”
I knock at her open door even though I’m already inside her room. She doesn’t look up at me. I just saw her standing up a minute ago taking pills from the prescription bottles on her dresser top. Little red and blue ones. I know she can hear me.
She’s the one I need to talk to. I’ve spent all afternoon brainstorming various solutions to all the problems of the world. They’re ready to be heard. I don’t bother telling Toni about them because she’s made it clear that I’m weird for going on about the problems of animals and forests and homeless people when there’s nothing I can do about it.
From this perspective just inside Grandma’s doorway I can see into Toni’s room. She’s been working on a massive artistic concoction for hours, a two foot tall striped house made with rolled strands of colored Play-doh. Toni didn’t bother to invite me to see her art. So Grandma and I won’t bother her with our ideas about saving nature from development and taking war away from the planet.
“Hi Grandma,” I say louder this time, moving towards her bed where I can sit and face her. Her soft gray hairdo looks puffy. Her body posture stays concave. You’d think she’d fallen asleep in her chair but at closer look, she’s actually awake and scowling at her lap with open eyes.
“You’re not busy.”
Grandma hugs her arms around her body, completely cloistered. While I wait for her to say something, I flick bits of lint off of her bedspread. Her lips stay pressed together in a furrow.
Yanking the wad of bubble gum out of my mouth, I roll it between my palms until it forms a perfectly round ball. Chewing the dirty wad a second time is a stale blueberry mistake.
Grandma’s Birds of the City calendar swings as the central heat switches on, blowing air up from the floor vent. Pigeons, it says in big green letters.
“I was thinking about something really neat today. Did you ever see a dead pigeon? I haven’t.”
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