The Winner's Game(35)

“C’mon, kids!” Dad shouts from Grandma’s bedroom. “Everyone come help. The coast is clear. There’s nothing bad in here.”

“No nude books?” replies Ann with a giggle.

I poke my head through the master bedroom door and beg them to let me go outside with my new toy so I can find the wealth that must surely be waiting for me.

I’m going to be rich!

“After the work is done,” Mom says.

“How about I share my treasure with you if you let me go?”

Dad laughs. “How about you give me everything you dig out of the dirt unless you dig in and help us here first?”

It’s not even worth arguing; with both parents taking the same side, there is no getting out of it now. I set down the metal detector and head to the closet to help Bree box up clothes. “What if Grandma Grace needs these when she gets out of the hospital?” I ask.

Everyone goes quiet for a few seconds, like I said something wrong.

“We’re not getting rid of them,” Mom explains. “Just boxing them up for now so they’re out of the way while we paint. Don’t worry, Grandma’s things are safe. If she comes back home, everything will be right where she left it.”

“So you’re not selling this place?” asks Ann.

“Not right away, no. It wouldn’t be right. We don’t want to do anything until we see how things go with Grandma.”

Bree yanks a blouse from its hanger. “But…she’s probably not coming home…is she?”

Mom is kneeling beside a box of papers she pulled from underneath the bed. She leans back to rest on her heels. “No, sweetie. Probably not. As sad as that is to think about, just keep in mind that the sickness she has…well, it’s painful. It’s hard on her physically and mentally. So we may be sad to see her go, but it will probably be a blessing for her. Plus, she’s lived a good long life, so I’m sure she feels like it’s time.”

Bree nods that she understands.

I nod too.

But Ann? She looks mad. “So it’s OK for her to die because she lived a long time?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mom says, backpedaling.

“It’s what you said. ‘She’s lived a good long life.’ Well, what if you haven’t lived a long life? Does that mean it’s not OK to die?”

Mom sits back on her heels again, and then drops all the way to a sitting position on the floor. “Ann,” she whispers in a voice that says she might start crying, “please don’t twist this around. I truly didn’t mean it that way. In fact, we shouldn’t measure lives by their length. There’s nothing that says eighty years is better than fifty years is better than fifteen. It’s how we live that counts. Yes, Grandma Grace has lived a long time, but it was how she lived each day that made her life special. Made it ‘good.’” She hesitates, then says, “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful with my words.”

“So you’ll be OK if I die young?” It’s an awful question, and the room goes deathly quiet.

“Like hell we will,” replies Dad before Mom can respond. “And that’s not going to happen, Ann. You’re going to be fine. You hear me?”

Ann is still waiting for Mom to say something.

Now the tears begin to trickle down Mom’s face. “If you were to die young, I’d be so proud of the life you’ve lived. And I would come to accept that your time was done, that you did what you came here to do. But would I be OK? No, Ann. Losing you would be the worst day of my life. You know that, right? And though lives can’t be properly measured in years, I promise, I would do anything for you to be able to live a long, long life.” She stops to wipe her sleeve on her face. “Have I ever told you about the train engineer who realized the tracks were broken?”

“No.”

Mom tries to smile, but she’s not very successful. “I don’t remember where I read this, but there was once a man—a train engineer—who was stationed at a fork in the tracks. The electric switch was broken, so he needed to be there to make sure the trains stayed to the right, because the tracks to the left were under repair. If a train went to the left, it would immediately run off the tracks and crash. So the engineer was waiting, and he hears a train whistle blow. The noon train was coming around the bend at full speed. As he should, he pulls on the lever to manually switch the exchange to the right, toward a narrow train bridge. However, as he pulled the lever, he looked up and saw that his own little boy was crossing the bridge to bring him his lunch. At the rate the train was coming, it couldn’t stop in time, nor could his son get off the bridge in time to avoid being hit, so he knew if he kept holding on to the lever and sent the train to the right, his son would die. If he let go of the lever and sent the train to the left, all of the people on the train would die.”