Chapter Ten
Enough.
A single word, but one that represented a decision. Scott McKenzie had finally had enough of that endless, debilitating cycle of life, death, life, death.
Making a decision is often easier than following through with it, especially when it comes to breaking well-worn habits.
When he opened his eyes—again—under the heavy quilt in his grandparents’ house, he knew that if he had truly had enough, he was going to have to do the most difficult thing a human being can do.
Change.
Change his mindset, change his attitude, change his habits.
After so many trips through this moment, he was used to waking up feeling weak and unsure of his balance. He sat up carefully, acclimating to his surroundings. He folded the quilt and put it on the back of the couch.
He heard the toilet flush and turned to see Earl coming out of the bathroom.
“Gramps? I know this is bad timing, but can I ask you a favor?”
Earl sat down in his favorite chair and said, “Of course.”
“I think it would be easy for us to sit around and mope about losing Gran, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what she would want for any of us. I’m going to call my VA rep today and see if I can get a physical therapist assigned to me. That will help. But, I’m wondering if maybe tomorrow, we can go down to the basement and start working on a few projects that will help me?”
Earl’s watery blue eyes considered Scott for several long moments. Finally, he nodded. “You’re right, of course. If she was here, she would be kicking me in the butt and asking why I was just sitting around.” He turned his head and stared at a picture of the two of them taken decades earlier. “I never thought I’d have to live without her, but here we are. First thing tomorrow, we can head down to the basement and see what we can come up with.”
Cheryl had emerged from the kitchen and listened in. She crossed over to Scott and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Scotty.”
And I have a hunch I’m going to need every bit of that love and support to turn things around.
“I love you, too. Right at this moment, I’m glad Gran taught you how to cook. I’m hungry.”
SCOTT SLEPT LONG AND deep that night. He woke up late and wandered into the empty living room. For the first time in more than a dozen lifetimes, he took the time to drink in his surroundings. The house was not large, but it was homey. Signs of Cora’s presence were everywhere. Doilies she had made covered most flat surfaces. Inexpensive paintings of vases with flowers or sunsets hung in the living room. Shelves in the kitchen were filled with jars of her canned peaches, pickles, and apple butter.
To everyone else, you died yesterday, Gran. For me, you’ve been gone a long time. I still miss you.
The basement door was open and Scott could hear Earl scuffling around. The occasional mild cuss word floated up the stairs.
Scott shouted down, “Permission to come aboard, captain?”
“Come ahead, soldier.”
Scott made his way down the stairs, but it wasn’t easy. There was no handrail and his balance was still tentative.
Earl glanced up at him. “That’s my first project.” He held up a length of steel pipe. “I’m building us a set of handholds going up and down those damn stairs. It’s only by the grace of God I haven’t killed myself yet.”
“Good idea, Gramps. Let me help you.”
They worked on the project mostly in silence for quite some time. While they were absorbed in their work, Earl began to tell Scott stories.
“Did I ever tell you about my first date with your Gran? It didn’t go so well.”
Scott smiled and shook his head. I don’t think you’ve ever told me anything about when you two were young. You’ve always seemed old to me. Hard to imagine you in the old days.
Earl told Scott a story about a disastrous date where things went from bad—him spilling a coke all over her pretty new dress—to worse—running out of gas on a lonely country highway and having to walk almost three miles to get her home.
“And there was still a second date, huh?”
“Cora was a forgiving woman. Plus, she had the ability to look inside people and see them for who they were. She was that way with your father, too. She warned your mother, but it was too late at that point. Your mother was in love.”
What’s gotten into you? Cheryl slip a truth serum into your oatmeal this morning?
“I don’t remember much of anything about Mom and Dad. Just the fights, really.”
“We never knew anything about those. If we had, I suppose we would have come and got you and your mother and brought you here. We didn’t find out until it was too late.”
“I knew that I should have told you, but I was scared of what would happen.”
“It wasn’t your job to tell us. It was our job to know. It’s the biggest regret of our lives.”
By the time Cheryl got home from school that afternoon, they had hand grips built to make the stairs easier for both of them, and had cleared out one corner of the basement. That was where they were going to build Scott’s rehabilitation center.
Over the next few weeks, it took shape. They were even able to use all the odds and ends that Earl had been keeping “just in case” for decades.
The work of building things was therapy for Scott in different ways. He got to know Earl more as a human being, instead of just as his grandfather. Plus, even before he got to start the physical therapy, the work helped him with his fine motor control and balance.
He faced a dilemma each day as he watched Earl work. He knew that every day, the cancer inside him was growing. But, he also knew that getting him to go to the doctor and discovering it earlier had only heightened his suffering and in the end, prolonged his life for a few weeks.
He made the decision to not say anything, but it tore at him.
Once they had built that everything Earl had sketched out, Scott spent a few hours every day in the basement, going through the exercises his physical therapist had given him and listening to Earl tell him stories about what life had been like in the period between the two World Wars.
Earl had been a little too young to fight in WWI, and too old to fight in WWII. He had enlisted anyway, and had spent four years working in the motor pool at Fort Lewis, Washington. Four years was enough time to be away from the girl he loved, so after his honorable discharge, he returned home.
While Earl told stories and worked on other projects, Scott sweated. Six months after he woke up in this life, he was in better shape than he had been since the fateful day he had gone on patrol in Vietnam.
Emotionally, he was doing better, although he wouldn’t have said he was cured of what ailed him. Unexpected noises still made him jump and break out in a sweat. The nightmares and crying out in the night still happened, but the intervals between them grew farther apart.
He realized that in each life, he had awakened with a fresh start. Each time he had opened his eyes back in his grandparents’ home, he didn’t have the physical craving of an addiction to drugs or alcohol. It was the emotional pain inside him that had driven him to seek them out and become addicted again and again. This life, he vowed to stay away from both.
His first goal was to get in good enough shape that he could still apply at the academy and pursue the dream of becoming a police officer.
In June, he watched Cheryl graduate from high school for the twentieth time.
I think I deserve a medal for listening to all these speeches once, let alone this many damn times.