Blown Away by Shane Gericke Page A

She saw through it but never let on. Her girlfriends thought his lessons were sweet and wanted to hear what he came up with each week.
    She returned with a soup spoon and carton of French vanilla ice cream. She pulled a card chair to the table, kicked off her shoes, engaged her rich imagination, and began.
    â€œWhat shall we play today?” Emily asked, carefully studying Mama’s narrow face. A bit more drawn than yesterday. Insomnia? Bedsores? Back spasms from the merciless tag team of bed and wheelchair? She’d talk to the charge nurse, see what she thought. Then arrange for the hairstylist to visit. Emily tripled the woman’s usual fee to do them both in Mama’s nursing home room. Their shared hour of snipping and curlers let them both escape to their giggly days at the bathroom sink of the family bungalow. “Operation? Do you want to play Operation?”
    Blink-blink.
    â€œNo, huh? How about I Spy?”
    Blink-blink.
    â€œClue?”
    Blink-blink.
    â€œTimebomb?”
    Blink.
    â€œMaybe next time,” Emily said, grinning. As physical games were behind Mama forever, she was pleased to see her play along with the dark humor. “Monopoly?”
    Long pause.
    Blink…
    Yes…
    Emily found herself blinking tears as she rolled in the warm memory. She loved games, having learned in diapers the addictive joy of bouncing dice and shuffling cards. Not from brothers or sisters, as she was an only child, but from her parents. Every Saturday night they crowded around the wobbly game table to argue about rules, form alliances, plot strategies, and eat French vanilla. She adored the ritual. When Mama asked how she wanted to celebrate her tenth birthday—Pony ride? Bowling? Pizza?—she’d squealed, “Game party!” She pecked out the invitations on the family typewriter, colored them with her Crayolas—the cool sixty-four pack with built-in sharpener—pasted on construction-paper cakes and candles, and delivered them at school the next day. Three dozen classmates arrived two Saturdays later and spent her birthday playing Operation, Monopoly, Duck Duck Goose, Boggle, Clue, Chutes and Ladders, I Spy, and Timebomb. But the magic of game playing came to a horrifying end just ten years later.
    â€œEmily?” the caller had said.
    â€œSpeaking,” Emily shouted over the high-volume Black Sabbath, impatient to go out. She was finishing her junior year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and friends were taking her out for her twentieth birthday.
    â€œIt’s Goldie Abrams. Your parents’ next-door neighbor.”
    â€œOh right!” Emily said, kicking the dorm room door shut. Mrs. Abrams had been her favorite neighbor when she was growing up. At the Sweet Sixteen party Emily’s parents threw, the regally dressed woman had told the wide-eyed teen that “since you’re a woman now, call me Goldie instead of Mrs. Abrams.” Emily had always cherished that. “How are you, Goldie?”
    â€œCan you come home? Right now?”
    Emily clutched the phone, eyes widening. “Why?”
    â€œThey…there’s been an accident. Your folks. Police are here. You need to come home.”
    Emily made the two-hour drive in eighty-six minutes, abandoning her thirdhand Mustang at a fire hydrant. Goldie intercepted her. “Your father so missed you being home for this milestone birthday,” she said, “that he rounded up the neighbors for an impromptu party.” Mama would take home movies so when Emily came home for the summer, she could see everyone eating, waving, and singing “Happy Birthday!” They hung streamers in the family room, strolled to the corner store for extra film and French vanilla ice cream. They invited the Polish owner to stop by after closing—he agreed happily—then headed back. A pickup truck jumped the curb right in front of the bungalow, drove over them, and took off. “I heard