Page 43 of Touch in the Dark

She slaps my hand. “I do this all the time and have never once fallen. Stop coddling me.”

“Just let me get it, it’s dangerous, you shouldn’t be climbing up like that. What if you fell? If there are things you can’t reach, tell me, I’ll move them down lower.”

She pokes her tongue out at me, grabs what she needs and steps down onto the floor. She then proceeds to fold up the step stool and push it into a little space between the cupboards and the fridge, all while I stare at her incredulously.

“Close your mouth, Nicky, you might swallow a fly.”

I shake my head at her. “Why do you need…” I pick up the box. “Star shaped cookie cutters? You’re baking cookies?” I try not to pull a face. I’ve had Doris’s cookies a number of times and to put it bluntly, I thought I needed to go to a dentist straight after.

“Yes, well. No. I know my cookies are terrible, Nicky.”

“You know they’re terrible?” I ask, my eyes probably comically wide. “Why did you keep making them for me?”

“Why did you keep eating them?” she sing songs, shuffling past me and putting the box into a bag on the counter behind her. “I never ate them, so I didn’t realise how vile they were,” her laugh tinkles as she walks out of the room.

I spin around to the empty doorway. She’s headed for the front door. “Where are you going?”

“To give the cutters to Ida. She’s going to bake some for me, to take to the party Jordan is having for Christmas. Because for years I’ve not realised how crappy mine taste because we raised you to be too polite for your own good,” she purses her lips at me.

“That’s in three weeks,” I follow her out into the hall.

“Yes, but Ida is going to stay with her daughter-in-law tomorrow for a couple of weeks and then I’ll be at my retreat until the day before Christmas eve, so there isn’t time in between to get them to her. Nicky, why are you following me?”

I have no idea. I stand in the doorway to her apartment and watch as she heads to the apartment next door. She chats with the woman for a moment, their laughter ringing out along the hallway, then she says she has to get back to her grandson. Ida pops her head out of the door and waves to me. I wave back, then slink into the apartment. I head back to the kitchen and set the tea kettle on to boil.

“What brings you here today sweetheart, not that I’m not pleased to see you of course,” she comes over and pats my cheek. “Oh, Camomile for me, please.”

“I just had a meeting a few blocks away.”

“Oh, that’s nice, what is the meeting for?”

I tell her and she laughs and proceeds to recite a tale of how I ran out of pre-school in my underpants and the teachers had to chase me across the lawn.

“It isn’t out of the realms of possibilities that I will be running across the grass in my undies now,” I tell her, and she laughs harder.

We spend the afternoon together, talking about the Christmas plans. Doris orders me not to dare spend silly amounts of money on her. Then tells me about her retreat for three days where she will be having spas and yoga, seated mind you, and generally just relaxing. Doris never runs out of things to say, so I have no clue why I go and do something completely nuts and open my mouth.

“Doris, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she fluffs the pillow behind her and smiles at me.

“It’s about… my father.”

Her happy face closes off in an instant.

“Just hear me out, okay?” I hold up a hand.

“I don’t like to think about him, let alone talk about him.”

“I know you don’t. And I don’t want to upset you.”

“So why bring him up?” she gets out of her seat. She’s spritely for an eighty-year-old. Gathering up the cups she starts to head for the kitchen, but I get out of my seat and block the way. I carefully take the cups out of her hands and set them back on the coffee table. She starts wringing hers together, her eyes fixed on them.

“In no way do I want to ever upset you, Gram,” I tip my head down a little until she looks up at me. “But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, about who he is, and… I need somewhere to start. I came to you first because I respect you and I love you. Same with mom. And I don’t want to do anything behind your back. But I can find out the information myself if I really need to.”

“He was a stain on her life, Nicholas.”

I am getting the formal name, things are going downhill and fast.

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