22.

Grandma Pencil had hands like a farmer’s. That’s what Murray said, and his tone made it clear that he wasn’t fond of farmers or their hands. But to McKenna, as a child, Grandma’s hands were beautiful.

The backs of them were soft, speckled with brown circles that McKenna called “polka dots.” Her fingers were thick like the roots of a plant yanked from the soil. Her palms and fingerpads were so calloused that they clicked on the table, a sound that drove Murray crazy.

There was no explanation for why the backs of Grandma’s hands were like fresh cookies and the fronts were like stale ones. She certainly hadn’t done any hard labor—not in a long time, if ever. Her husband, while he was alive, “discouraged” her from having a job (Misty’s word). Grandma’s life after the march had been a long series of formal education, childrearing, mental breakdowns, and meddling.

McKenna didn’t know any of these things at the time. She liked Grandma’s hands because they were warm like Misty’s. The hands communicated to her. Her own mother and father barely touched her. Grandma Pencil routinely placed a palm on McK-enna’s head, stroked McKenna’s cheek, and held McKenna’s hands when they danced.

Grandma Pencil was a vibrant woman, if slightly off-balance. She was tall—same height as Murray—and lean. Her face looked like a monkey’s, with a wide mouth and big, expressive eyes. She wasn’t pretty, not like her youngest granddaughter. Wrinkles had carved a frown into her cheeks. Her ungainly arms never could find a comfortable resting position, so they were constantly crossing and uncrossing over her chest. Her thumbs fidgeted with her back pockets. Her fingers tugged at her dry, copper-colored hair.

She was nothing like the grandmothers of McKenna and Toby’s schoolmates. Theirs were withered Q-tips—bespectacled, white-haired, storybook grannies with walkers and palsied hands. They teetered into the classroom and stared at the cupboards wearing queer, faraway smiles.

Saint Monica’s hosted a “Bring Your Grandparents to School Day” when McKenna and Toby were in fourth grade. The nuns, a feisty bunch themselves, took to Grandma Pencil immediately. She behaved more like a thirty-year-old man than a senior citizen: she sat with her legs apart, elbows propped on her thighs; she chewed gum with intensity; she wore Wranglers. Like the other grandparents, Grandma Pencil wore faraway looks, but rather than making you depressed, hers made you want to crack them open and climb inside. That gaze—her eyes (blue and crystalline like Audrey’s) twinkled in such a way that you knew she was thinking of something profound, or else recalling some moment so black and mysterious that you wanted to see everything she was seeing, even if it might kill you.

She was also a liar. Her eyes and mouth, without a doubt, lied. She never awarded a single silver train for finishing two hot dogs. She’d never been on a death march. Death marches were for POWs, not for the children and wives of private citizens. Probably her mind and soul lied, too. To herself.

She’d lived in a jungle, all right, which is where she absorbed all the compelling chimpanzee and bat details that she would later use to give nightmares to her gullible grandchildren. The truth was she was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1935. When she was four years old, her father took a job as a maintenance superintendent for a mining operation in the Philippines. The family relocated and lived happily for two years. Then the Japanese invaded. She and her mother and sisters were placed in a civilian internment camp in Los Baños. Her father was captured as a POW and sent to do forced labor. His family never received communications from him, never knew if he would die on any given day. So okay, her life was no picnic.

I’ve probably given you the impression that Grandma Pencil was some kind of ogre. If not, I’ve failed.

However, the truth is she wasn’t an ogre—not as a child, anyway, and not while McKenna and Toby were in elementary school. Sure, she lied about the death march, but who doesn’t lie now and then?

Visualize a face staring straight ahead, wearing a blank look. Expressionless.

Now position a light directly below the chin, shining upward: that face will appear ghastly, frightening.

Now reposition the light so it shines down from the top of the forehead: the person looks sad.

Same face—the only change is how the face is shown.

That’s what Grandma did. She moved the light when she thought it might do some good.

She truly cared about the twins. Her heart was very nearly in the right place; it just happened to be in her stomach.

And this makes sense. The internment camp instilled in Grandma Pencil a deep, debilitating terror of hunger, which lead to a profound understanding of the way our souls and sanities are bound to our appetites. For Grandma Pencil, love, trust, and security were all attached to food. Food represented the potential to fill, in some way, the gaping emptiness of the self.

She was stern and grumpy with Murray, but that attitude wasn’t her fault, no more than a cornered raccoon can be faulted for swiping at your eyes. With the twins and with baby Audrey, Grandma was a load of fun. She picked up the considerable slack left by Misty’s malaise and Murray’s self-centered belief that he could hammer, solder, sand, and jerry-rig a happy life.

Grandma laughed with a whistly “Hoo hoo hoo hoo.” The “hoos” were so clearly enunciated that they sounded phony. Her laugh annoyed Misty and Murray. McKenna and Toby loved it. The twins did everything they could to hear that laugh. Toby did pratfalls off the couch. McKenna did impressions (the mailman yelling at Snoodles to “Keep away, Mister Pesky!”; Bob Hope saying, “This is what I get for fifty dollars?”). McKenna sang the “A-B-C Song” using all “oo” sounds: “Oo boo soo doo oo oof joo, ooch oo joo koo ool oom oon oo poo, coo oor oos, too oo voo, doo-booyoo oox, woo oond zoo. Noo oo noo moo oo boo soos. Nooxt toom woont yoo soong wooth moo?” The twins danced with Snoodles, lifting him by the front paws and jiggling him until great ropes of drool swung from his mouth. They tickled Audrey. They tackled Audrey. They tackled each other. Grandma laughed. Grandma played records. She showed the twins the cha-cha and the fox trot. She helped them build a fort out of couch cushions. When the air was unbreathable from the stench of burning paper or formaldehyde, Grandma took the kids into the backyard, where McKenna and Toby kicked the basketball, and Audrey crawled in diapers across the grass.

That’s where Grandma first saw Audrey eat something that wasn’t a food item. Audrey was eighteen months old.

“No, no, no,” Grandma said, sticking her finger into Audrey’s mouth to dislodge as much soil as she could. “I ate dirt, and no granddaughter of mine will do that again. Not while I breathe.”

“She likes it,” Toby said. He ran up to see the action. “She’s crazy. I’ve seen her eat dirt before. Is she crazy?”

“Never call a girl crazy,” Grandma told him. Her tone was sharp.

Later that night, the twins lay in their beds.

“Don’t ever call a girl crazy,” Toby said for the tenth time, his voice mocking. “Never, never, never. Stupid Grandma.”

“She’s not stupid. She’s just old.”

“Dad thinks she’s stupid.”

“But Audrey isn’t crazy. She’s a baby. All babies are crazy.”

This is how it went.

Grandma told Murray and Misty about the dirt-eating. Misty took Audrey to the pediatrician. McKenna and Toby tagged along.

“It’s not uncommon,” Doctor Burger said.

He had checked Audrey—had seen that she was able to make eye contact and that her pupils dilated properly; had poked the otoscope into her ears; had pressed his fingers into her belly and found her organs to be well-situated and unswollen; had found that she could clap and could hold two objects at once; had checked her stumps for proper circulation (this was before the Dr Pepper cans). When the exam was finished, Doctor Burger pronounced his double-negative judgment: “It’s not uncommon.”

He probably would have left it at that and scuttled his bulky, white-coated body out the door—obliqueness and terseness were his trademarks—if Misty hadn’t still looked so worried. Or was it sad? Spaced-out from the pills? Take your pick.

Her expression touched Doctor Burger; it made him uncomfortable. Standing in the center of the examination room, he lifted his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose, and squinted. Then he took off his glasses, folded them, and pinched them between his fingers at his side. As if hearing a voice no one else could hear, he nodded. Then he sat on his stool and cleared his throat. He put the glasses back onto his face. He sucked in a profound breath in preparation for giving Misty more information.

Doctor Burger hated giving more information. Or else he liked to give the impression that he hated giving more information.

We should assume the best about Doctor Burger. We should assume he was only being codgerly, that deep down he loved every one of his patients. We should assume nice things about dead people. Reserve your scorn for the living, if you please.

“There’s nothing harmful about eating dirt,” he said, “despite what common sense might tell you.” His neck wattle thrummed above his tight collar. McKenna imagined popping it with a safety pin, air whistling through the hole like a leaking balloon. “Like I said, many babies go through this phase. Dirt, sand, soap, paint chips, and so on. Keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t choke, don’t let her eat any cleaning products.” He handed Misty a roll of puke-green stickers of round faces drawn to resemble the famous Have a Nice Day Happy Face. Except these faces weren’t happy. They grimaced, Xs for eyes, and stuck out their tongues. “Slap one of these on every poisonous item in the house.”

Doctor Burger made his way to the door. He opened it, broadcasting a pleasant, official smile to Misty. He gave Audrey one last sidelong glance. The door closed.