Brian stares balefully. “That not a present. Where his eyebrows?”
Sumac tries to distract her with the candy necklace.
Brian scowls but puts it around her neck. “Where is they?” she asks again.
“They got burned off in the fire,” Sumac whispers in her ear, because it’s a family rule that there are no stupid questions.
PopCorn sniffs at Aspen. “Is that nail polish remover I smell?”
She nods. “We superglued our index fingers to our thumbs as an experiment.”
“An experiment in what, frustration?”
“To figure out how much humans rely on opposable thumbs,” said MaxiMum, coming into the hall. “Hello, Iain.”
“Welcome, welcome,” cries CardaMom, hurrying downstairs wearing Oak on her shoulders. “PapaDum,” she calls toward the Mess, “stop chopping onions, they’re here.”
The grandfather looks from one face to the next, and suddenly Sumac is glad the three eldest kids are still away at camp, because compared with Faro, Yukon, the Lotterys are looking like a crowd already.
“Could you do with a rest, Iain?” asks CardaMom, bouncing on the spot to keep Oak happy.
The visitor doesn’t say anything, just clears his throat in a wet, rattly way.
“A drink?”
“Hi, Iain.” Here comes PapaDum, drying his hands on a cloth. There’s a pause, and then he asks, “Who’s hungry?”
“Slate is,” says Aspen, pulling her rat out of her hoodie pocket.
The old man squints. “Is that what it looks like?”
“Meet Slate Frisby. Technically he’s an odd-eyed hooded American blue dumbo satin.” Aspen balances him on her palm and kisses his nose. “Frisby for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and Slate because he’s gray except for his white tummy, see?”
The grandfather recoils from the tiny paws.
“Put him away,” says MaxiMum.
Aspen stuffs Slate in her pocket. “Och, noo, I nearly forgot, I’ve got tricks to show ye,” she says in what Sumac realizes is a really bad imitation of the grandfather’s Scottish accent. Aspen clutches one hand in the other and clambers through the loop, but too fast, so she topples over and smacks her face on the banisters.
Typical, thinks Sumac, gritting her teeth.
A few minutes later, when Aspen’s got a bag of frozen peas pressed to her cheek, they all go into the Mess.
Brian’s helping PapaDum make guacamole and spattering it all over herself as she brings the masher down: “Mush, mash, smush …”
“Dinner in ten,” says PapaDum.
“I’m leading the tour,” Aspen insists, in her own accent again. She scurries ahead. “Look, this is our Gym-Jo, it’s a gym and a dojo for aikido all in one,” she tells the grandfather. “Sumac sleeps in here” — flinging the door open and not bothering to shut it — “and this is the Mud Room” — a havoc of rubber boots, scooters, Rollerblades, Hula-Hoops, and skipping ropes — “and the Can-Do for if you need to pee, do you need to pee by any chance?”
MaxiMum looks at her without saying anything, which shuts Aspen up.
“These baby gates are tricky,” says CardaMom, edging ahead of the visitor, “you have to press this bit down while you pull the whole thing up. Oh, and mind the treadmill desk,” she says as they reach the second floor, dipping her knees so Oak’s face doesn’t hit the feather mobile. “It takes up half the landing, but it’s so good for hearts and lungs.”
Sumac studies the grandfather’s long denim legs from behind. Surely if he tried running on their treadmill, they’d snap like dead branches?
“Another bathroom here, Iain,” says MaxiMum, tapping the door marked The Roman Bath in carved-looking lettering. They can hear PopCorn having a cold shower, but not singing Broadway songs the way he usually does. “This next one’s our Theater, and this turquoise room is Brian and Oak’s — our little ones.”
Aspen’s shaking her bag of peas like a maraca now.
“Then we sleep just in here” — CardaMom does that wave of a finger between her and MaxiMum that means the moms are the we — “and PopCorn and PapaDum in that room over there.”
“Who?” The word comes out of the old man suddenly, like the hoot of an owl.
“PopCorn, your son, remember?” says Sumac very clearly. She wonders if the grandfather’s confused again. Maybe there was some smoke in his head that the doctor couldn’t see?
“My son’s Reginald,” the grandfather corrects her.
“Sorry, silly parent nicknames,” CardaMom says in a rush, “but they’ve stuck.”
Reginald sounds a lot sillier than PopCorn, in Sumac’s opinion.
“Mm, we’d had way too much tequila the night we picked them,” says MaxiMum.
The old man’s lizard eyes flick over the Lotterys as he pulls his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.
“Ah, yeah,” says CardaMom. Which is her way of saying no. She fiddles with her long gray-black braid, retying the end.
“No smoky,” chants Brian.
“Not in the house, but in the yard is fine,” says MaxiMum. “I have one a day myself.”
Sumac will never understand why someone as good at self-control as MaxiMum can’t give up that horrible habit completely.
The old man puts his cigarettes back in his pocket. Then, in CardaMom’s direction: “Any chance of a cup of tea?”
“Sure, Iain. And dinner won’t be long. Will we just show you the rest of the house first?”
“Had my dinner on the plane.”
“I’ll put the kettle on for tea,” says MaxiMum, heading downstairs.
“Let’s just stash your bags, then.” CardaMom leads the way up to the third floor, past the big kids’ rooms.
Aspen goes into the Loud Lounge muttering something about finding her Slinky and forgets to come back.
Up to the attic. “We’ve got you in Spare Oom just for tonight,” says CardaMom, “but we’ll work out something better for you in the morning.”
Spare Oom is a bit spidery, but — Sumac thinks — not half as bad as the creepy Overspill down in the basement, which the Lotterys only use when they’ve accidentally said yes to too many visitors.
They leave the grandfather there to settle in.
“Doesn’t have much to say, does he?” Aspen joins them on the stairs, wearing her Slinky around her neck like an Elizabethan ruff.
“He’s probably exhausted, and a bit shy,” says CardaMom under her breath.
* * *
The visitor doesn’t come down to breakfast the next morning. PapaDum brings a tray up to the attic.
They’re having eggs fried in holes in bread. Sumac moves the little toast lid over her moon so it goes from full, to crescent, to dark. The Lotterys are arguing about whether propping your knees on the table (Aspen) is as bad as taking chewed food out of your mouth to look at (Brian).
The four parents need to have another Dull Conversation after breakfast, apparently. MaxiMum challenges the kids to spend the time coming up with a list of table manners, “so we don’t appall your grandfather too much.”
“On the Trampoline,” suggests Aspen.
“I’ll get nauseous if I have to bounce and write at the same time,” says Sumac.
So she takes down the manners neatly in the Tree Fort, with Brian practicing Downward Dog, while Aspen repeatedly climbs up the ladder and out the window, dangles from the rope, and drops onto the grass. Sumac writes:
No books/screens/earbuds at meals
No insulting the cooking
No whining or squabbling
No eating like dogs
No hoarding, gobbling, overstuffing, or making yourself puke from overeating
No dangling food (higher than chin level)
No flicking/throwing/stealing
No facing backward, lying down, or eating upside down
No wiping hands on clothes (yours/anyone else’s)
No burping/farting on purpose
When the three kids have gotten
bored and started talking about tapeworms instead, CardaMom knocks on the ladder. She passes Oak to them like a parcel through the window so she can take their list and see what they’ve come up with. “Feeding time at the zoo,” she murmurs.
“Is it not a good list?” asks Sumac, a bit offended.
“It’s great, in a stomach-turning way,” says CardaMom. “You’ve included every possible disgusting behavior.”
“Not every,” calls Aspen from the swinging rope. “I can think of way disgustinger things to do at meals, like —”
“Spare us,” interrupts CardaMom.
On the rug that covers the Tree Fort’s splintery floor, Oak lays his face on his foot, watching dust motes in a beam of sunlight.
“It’s just that it’s all put rather negatively. What about some recommendations?”
“Like, instead of no eating like dogs,” says Aspen, “what about eat like human beings?”
“Which ones, though?” Sumac wants to know.
“Great point.” CardaMom nods. “Polite in France is rude in Japan.”
“What I meant was, obviously, don’t stick your face right into your bowl, Aspen,” says Sumac.
“Nobody minds when Diamond does it” comes Aspen’s voice from outside, panting a little.
“Different rules for different species: agreed?” says CardaMom. “What else could we put more positively?”
“Burp and fart … accidentally,” suggests Aspen, and Brian joins in the sniggering.
“Let’s just leave that one out,” murmurs CardaMom.
Sumac goes into Camelottery to cool down a bit. She needs PopCorn so they can finally start properly on being Mesopotamians. (She tried to give him a quiz on nouns on the airplane while the grandfather was snoring, but he only scored three out of twenty.) On the Where Board by the front door, opposite PopCorn’s name she reads Dinia w. Claa, and she gets quite excited because that must be a secret message for her in Sumerian … but finally she figures out it’s just “Clinic with Dad” in his atrocious handwriting.
Up in the Bookery at the top of the house, Sumac looks up pictures of Mesopotamian sculptures. A friend of a cousin of PapaDum’s from Ukraine who stayed a week with the Lotterys painted the ceiling to say thank you. (Her friend Isabella’s so scared of the mural, she won’t go into the Bookery.) It makes you think you’re right inside a book, like an illustration coming to life, with the pages being fanned open by a pair of giant hands.
The door of Spare Oom is shut, so Sumac can’t see if it looks any different now the grandfather’s sleeping there.
One floor down, in the Loud Lounge, PapaDum and MaxiMum are frowning at a laptop while Aspen and CardaMom teach Brian to Hula-Hoop. Brian tries spinning her hoop around her tiny waist, but it only goes around one and a half times before it drops.
“We’ve been learning mensa,” Aspen tells Sumac over her shoulder.
PapaDum lets out a snort.
“Dementia, which is the brain problem your grandfather may have,” CardaMom corrects her. “Mensa’s the opposite: a club for people with too many brains, like a few poseurs I knew in law school.”
“The 3 Rs: Stay Relaxed, Reassuring, Respectful,” PapaDum reads off the screen.
Sumac goes over to see. At the top it says Learning Unit 1.1. Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias: Caring for Your Loved One.
But this old man isn’t their loved one. Sumac doesn’t suppose he’s anyone’s loved one, not anymore, since PopCorn’s mom has been dead for more than thirty years. Unless he has some best friends back in Faro?
Brian tries to spin the hoop again, moving in a huge circle, but she’s too slow, so it drops.
“Can you recap the video for Sumac?” MaxiMum asks Aspen.
Who always goes slightly cross-eyed when she’s trying to remember things. “These kids were crying, boohoo, because their mensa — their dementiaed granny couldn’t remember their names anymore blah blah blah, but then they did a scrapbook with her, The End.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” protests CardaMom.
“Hey, at least I was listening!”
“Dementia sounds like the dementors in Harry Potter,” says Sumac. Poor guy and all that, but this fourth grandfather has only just learned their names; they barely know him, so she doesn’t see that they have much reason to be boohooing.
CardaMom offers Oak a Hula-Hoop on his left side. (Oak’s physiotherapist is always nagging them to work his left arm and leg so they’ll get as strong as his right ones.) “Well, one thing we could take from the video is that Iain will probably be more interested in talking about the past than the present.”
But that’s true of all oldies, thinks Sumac. Or even middlies: the parents are always going on about the wild times they had back in the day, meaning the end of the last century.
“I’m practicing all my best tricks for him, because they had acrobats back in ye olden times,” says Aspen, knotting her hands behind her and climbing through them.
“You going to show your grandfather your tricks, Oaky-doke?” PapaDum asks.
“Watch my trick.” Brian grimaces with effort, but her hoop plummets almost at once. She kicks it across the room, her mouth trembling.
“Want to try Teacup again?” says Aspen, throwing her a cat’s cradle string.
“Look, I do Teacup,” Brian tells Sumac, her fingers knotted together with the wool.
“And Owl Eyes, nearly,” says Aspen, “except they’re a bit squinty.”
PapaDum reads aloud, “The home should ideally be small, modern, and all on one level. The environment should be structured and predictable.”
CardaMom snorts. “That’s like all that stuff about babyproofing in the parenting books, and we chucked those out the window the day Sic was born.”
“Which window?” Aspen asks, excited. “A high one? The Artic?” Slate’s pointy face appears in the neck of her pajamas.
“Chucked, metaphorically,” says MaxiMum. She taps the screen. “He slash she will require a lifestyle of routine and calm. Does that sound like Camelottery?”
Fair point, thinks Sumac. The only routine here is, wake up and decide what you want to learn.
“This is the bit that worries me,” mutters PapaDum.
“Mm,” says MaxiMum, nodding.
Sumac goes over to see what they’re reading. If you have always had a difficult or lacking relationship with the impaired relative, it says, such a move could be inadvisable in the extreme. “Does that mean if the grandfather’s drunk?”
“What?”
“Ah yes, impaired, like impaired driving,” says MaxiMum with a grin. “No, it means that the dementia, if that’s what it is, is muddling his thinking — like drink can, I suppose.”
“Basically, it seems he’s starting to lose his marbles,” says PapaDum.
Aspen does one of her inappropriate mad laughs.
“I hadded marbles,” says Brian sorrowfully.
“PapaDum doesn’t mean those little glass balls,” says Sumac. He should remember that Brian’s too young for metaphors.
“We putted them away for Oak not eating,” says Brian.
“The grandfather’s brains are like that, like your marbles,” CardaMom tells her, “not actual marbles.”
“What does inadvisable mean?” Sumac asks.
“This website would advise against PopCorn bringing his dad here,” says MaxiMum, “because they’ve never got on very well.”
CardaMom blows a raspberry. “This website lacks imagination. I think it’s going to be just what Iain and PopCorn need: very healing.”
PapaDum rolls his eyes.
“Besides, what else are we supposed to do? It’s an emergency.”
“Wah wah wah wah,” Brian wails like an ambulance.
Oak, chewing his sleeve, says something that sounds like wah wah, so they all clap.
“What I want to know,” says Aspen, balancing her rat on her tangled hair like a toupee, “is what are we going to call him?”
“
Excellent question,” says MaxiMum.
“Egg salad,” says Brian, putting them right. She’s convinced that’s how you say excellent, because eggs are her favorite; she once ate five boiled ones without throwing up.
“Granddad? Grandpa?” suggests CardaMom.
Neither of those sound remotely right.
“Iain?” says PapaDum.
“No way,” moans Aspen, balancing her hoop vertically on her head and edging from side to side.
Brian makes a gigantic circle with her tiny butt, spinning the hoop twice before it drops with a clatter.
“Gramps?” says CardaMom.
Sumac shakes her head.
“Grumps, more like!” Pleased with this new word, Aspen does a double fist pump.
PapaDum starts a tug-of-war with Oak over the Hula-Hoop, which makes Oak laugh so much he loses his grip and topples sideways, planting his face on the mat.
* * *
Up in the Artic — their art space in the attic — Sumac’s working on something brilliant for Grumps. (She can’t help calling him that now — just in her head, obviously, not to his face.) If dementia makes people want to talk about the past all the time, but he’s too shy to start, this should help. Then Sumac will be the first of the Lotterys that he’ll warm up to during his visit, like the girl in the Narnia book — which one? — who charms the old Marsh-wiggle out of being gloomy.
So Sumac’s gone through all the little faded photos in the folder labeled Faro, Yukon, 1965–1983, picked out the ones that show PopCorn and his parents, and laid them out on the pool table. Now she’s scanning them to make a slideshow. His dead mom has a nice dimpled face, with tight curls all over her head. There’s one of her in a bikini on a rock — maybe sunbathing, because there’s no water nearby. And a funny one in yellow trousers and a headscarf, holding an ugly, bawling baby on her lap. Most babies are cuter than the adults they grow up to be, but with PopCorn it was clearly the opposite. Sumac uses the Ken Burns effect to zoom in slowly. Then she decides that Grumps would probably rather see his wife’s pretty face than Baby PopCorn’s purple one, so she changes the effect so it moves in on the mom instead. There aren’t very many pictures, so Sumac makes each one last six seconds. In the old days it seems like you took a couple of pictures of your kid, then put the camera away for months until he’d grown a bit.