“I can multitask.”
Frank laughed.
Then he became quiet.
“There’s something I didn’t let Eliam tell you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
I waited.
“There’s something I didn’t let Eliam tell you.”
Frank added, “My grandson gave me a birthday card three months ago.”
I looked toward Eliam.
Frank continued.
“I told him I’d forgotten my glasses. I took that card home, Sandy.” He paused. “And I put it in a drawer because I couldn’t read what that little boy had written to me.”
“My grandson gave me a birthday card three months ago.”
Frank told me Marian had always helped.
Forms. Instructions. Birthday cards.
After she died, he developed workarounds.
Then his grandson handed him that dinosaur card.
“I got tired of needing somebody between me and the words,” he said.
After she died, he developed workarounds.
***
The next morning, Frank invited me to the learning center.
He was already sitting at a table when I arrived, dinosaur lunchbox beside him.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said.
“You were thinking about it.”
“Absolutely.”
“You were thinking about it.”
Eliam sat nearby.
Frank pulled a card from his folder.
The dinosaur on the front wore a party hat.
I reached automatically.
Frank covered it with his hand.
“Don’t.”
Frank pulled a card from his folder.
I stopped.
“That’s sort of the point.”
He opened it.
His grandson’s handwriting covered half the inside.
Frank began reading.
Slowly.
Sometimes he stopped.
Frank began reading.
