12
His grandfather had spent the last years of his life in a nursing home called Hidden Terrace, not far from Tean’s parents’ house in South Jordan.
It was an older place, a rambling, single-story construction that had been built when land in Utah was cheap, with no thought for maximizing the building’s footprint or, for that matter, following any sort of plan.
It had clearly been built in stages, with additions leapfrogging off each other in random directions, and inside, it smelled like trash that needed to be taken out.
The room itself was all right, though—a studio-style space, almost an apartment, with an attached bathroom.
Tean had visited once after his grandfather had moved in.
It had been a short visit. His grandfather hadn’t been expecting him, and he’d answered the door in khakis that were too loose for him now and the Mormon garment top.
Tean had gotten a glimpse of the room, everything still in boxes, and his grandfather had said, I was taking a nap. And then he’d slammed the door.
He hadn’t been well. He’d been uncomfortable. He’d been tired. He’d been in a new place, and he hadn’t wanted to be there—wouldn’t have been there, in fact, if his children hadn’t forced him to be.
The door was open this time, and as Tean approached, he heard music playing—the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, “How Great Thou Art.” He paused in the doorway.
The room looked surprisingly similar to how Tean remembered it: cardboard boxes stacked against one wall, sagging now because they hadn’t been meant for long-term storage, and more cardboard boxes lining a set of shelves.
The floor itself was clear, probably because that was a requirement by the nursing home, but there were boxes on the small loveseat.
The only place to sit was an armchair whose headrest was matted and shiny.
Tean’s father was sitting there, leaning over a box as he picked through the contents.
He must have heard Tean because he looked up and smiled. “Hey.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were working on this today.”
“I really appreciate you coming. Got a lot to do.”
Tean nodded, but he found himself asking anyway, “Did the nursing home say we needed to clear everything out? Because I could take a look at the contract. I’m sure we’re allowed more than a few days.”
“No, no. They’re fine. Janet’s been a big help. And we’ll get this done in no time.”
Tean caught himself opening his mouth and tried to stop.
This was the same man who had always—for as long as Tean had known him—put things off until they had to be done, and then, when they couldn’t be put off anymore, scrambled to do everything against a rushing deadline.
Not just ordinary things, like a letter from the city about the lawn needing to be mowed, or the past due bills that accumulated on the kitchen table.
His dad had tried—twice, actually—to start a landscaping business.
That was a thing in Utah. Everybody had a landscaping business.
And somehow, they all seemed to make money.
But when you didn’t show up for appointments, when you didn’t get your own lawn mowed in time, let alone the lawns you were being paid to mow, when you didn’t return phone calls because there was always something else to do, like watching TV—well, it had a way of catching up to you.
And Tean remembered both times being dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn—once, on a school day—and taken to the storage unit his dad had rented for his equipment, and working frantically to clean it out before the manager of the storage facility put a new lock on the door and auctioned off the stuff.
We’ll be done in a couple of hours. But they’d worked past dark.
“Are we loading up the boxes?” Tean said. “Do you have a truck?”
The answer was no. Of course he didn’t have a truck.
But his dad said, “Sit down. Take your coat off. Take a look at this—have you ever seen one of these?”
It was a heavy metal object—cast iron, Tean wanted to say—with five hooks coming off it.
“This is a five-strand rope maker,” his dad said. “Bet you didn’t know your grandfather made his own rope.”
“Was he making it in the nursing home? Why did he still have that?”
“This is a piece of family history. They don’t make them like this anymore.”
Let it go. It doesn’t matter. It’s his father, and he’s dealing with it in his own way.
But then Tean’s dad said, “Your grandfather could do anything. Anything. He was the smartest man I ever met.”
The smartest man had once hit Tean so hard on the ear—for mouthing off, which in this case, meant Tean had corrected him when he’d identified a Eurasian collared dove as a mourning dove—that Tean hadn’t been able to hear anything out of that ear for the rest of the day.
“Brought himself up from nothing, too,” his dad was saying. “They didn’t make kids go to school back in his day, but he wanted to learn. He had to earn his own money to ride the bus. And if he didn’t have enough money, he got up at five in the morning and walked.”
“And he walked in the snow,” Tean said. “Both ways.”
His dad raised his head. His expression was unreadable. After a moment, he said, “I want you to have his wedding ring.”
“No, thank you.”
“He would have wanted you to have it.”
Tean almost laughed, but he managed not to.
“Dad, I know this is difficult. And I’m not trying to rush you.
But I don’t even know what we’re doing. Are we going through all these boxes right now?
Because that’s a big project, and unless it’s something we need to do today, I’m supposed to be at work. ”
“Oh, come on. It’ll only take a couple of hours, and then we’ll get lunch.”
“It’s going to take a lot more than a couple of hours. And where’s Amos? Where are the rest of them?”
“Amos is running errands. Seth is out trying to find more boxes. Your sisters are at home, watching the kids. And Tim and Corom had to work.”
“I had to work, Dad.”
“But that’s different. They’ve got families to provide for.”
Somewhere down the hall, a machine began to beep. The noise was high-pitched and urgent, and it went on and on.
“I’m going to help you tape up these boxes,” Tean said. “And then I’ll help you load them in my truck. And I’ll drive them over to your apartment. But I don’t have time to sit here and go through each one with you.”
“Tean, if you need to get back to work, go ahead. I’ll be fine here by myself. It’ll all get done.”
No, Tean almost said—and it sounded like a scream inside his head. It won’t.
That machine was still beeping.
And then it wasn’t.
Tean grabbed the roll of packing tape, crossed the room to the wall of boxes, and took the first one down.
“Not that one,” his dad said. “I haven’t looked through that one yet.
“Dad, we don’t have time to look at all of them right now.”
“I’ll be quick.”
And because the alternative was losing his temper with a man who was recently bereaved, Tean handed the box to his father.
As his father unfolded the cardboard flaps and the smell of musty paper floated out, Tean grabbed the box with the rope maker and taped it shut.
He set it near the door, starting a new pile.
And grabbed the next one on the coffee table. This held a wedge of oxidized metal.
“That’s a hog splitter,” Tean’s dad said. “I bet you didn’t know he had that.”
I bet, Tean thought.
“Look at this picture—that’s his whole class, twelve kids. You can tell he was a troublemaker.”
Tean glanced up long enough, he hoped, to be credible.
The yellowing picture was in black and white, and a line of dour-faced adolescents stared back at him.
The building behind them was a plank structure with a sagging porch—the school apparently—and Tean had no idea which one was his grandfather, let alone which one was supposed to be the troublemaker.
Tean managed to tape up another box before his dad said, “That’s your great-grandfather’s wedding ring. Put it on. In his time, they couldn’t afford gold, so they had to use whatever they could get. I bet this is silver.”
Tean couldn’t bring himself to respond—much less try on the ring.
Instead, to buy himself time, he took out his phone.
He’d meant to pretend to scroll and read, just until the issue of the ring got dropped, but then, instead, he opened his messages.
He hadn’t updated Amy yesterday, and now was as good a time as any.
Sorry we forgot to touch base yesterday, Tean wrote. Things got busy.
A text from Amy came through: Any luck?
Maybe. I don’t know.
What did you find in his house?
Tean took longer than he needed to as he composed the reply, mostly because it gave him something to do besides, quote, look at this. He wrote, I’m not sure. There’s evidence of some paraphilia.
Like what? Amy asked.
He may have had some voyeuristic tendencies. He may also have been sexually interested in his mother.
No response came back.
His dad made a strange noise—a huff that wasn’t quite a laugh.
It sounded like something designed to make Tean engage, so instead, Tean switched to his thread of messages with Jem and wrote, How’s everything going?
Terrible, came the response. Scipio said he’d help me with my vows if we played fetch, but then he came inside and slept.
And then another message came through from Jem: Just had an idea. What if we said our vows naked? Would that help?
“Oh, come on,” Tean’s dad said.
It wasn’t quite anger. But the part of Tean that had grown up in a constant state of high alert, attuned to the emotional weather of the household, always sensitive to the possibility that he had been discovered, and that someone knew, and that this time, the anger was directed at him—that part of him sent a wave of hot prickles down his chest.
He focused on responding to Jem’s text. Help with what?
Getting us horned up for wedding sex, Jem wrote back. Are we going on a honeymoon?
And then: Do you know how many chicken nuggets Scipio and I could buy with honeymoon money?