Chapter 5 - The Cup Goes With Him
I was seven and I don't remember falling asleep. I remember the elephant's ear against my cheek and Grandpa's hand on the edge of my blanket, heavy and warm like he was trying to hold me to the bed without waking me.
That morning he had come late for my birthday with the purple bag. I could still hear the crinkle of the tissue paper when I reached inside. Now the room had gone quiet again. The light through my curtains was white and flat on my bedspread. My juice cup was right there by my pillow where Mom always left it, yellow-orange through the plastic with the white lid and the straw sticking up.
I didn't open my eyes all the way. I was too tired for that. Being tired felt like sinking in warm bathwater. I could hear Grandpa breathing close to me, slow, and then the soft click of something. I thought he was taking a picture of me holding Ellie. He'd done that at Christmas, said smile, honey, and Mom had laughed at my missing tooth.
He didn't say smile this time. His jacket made a soft swish when he leaned in. I felt him shift the blanket, not pulling it off me, just clearing a space around the cup so nothing else was in the way.
I peeked through my lashes. He had his old phone out, the one with the cracked corner on the case, and he held it steady over the bed. Click. He checked the screen. Click again, lower this time so the cup and me and Ellie were all in it. His thumb shook a little. He wiped the screen on his blue shirt and took one more.
"That's it," he whispered. It wasn't to me. It was to himself.
He set the phone face-down on the nightstand and reached into his jacket pocket. I heard plastic. When I opened my eyes a slit again, he had one of those little travel bottles, the kind he kept in his car for water, clear with a gray cap. He unscrewed it with careful fingers. His knuckles were red at the joints.
He picked up my juice cup with both hands like it might spill. The straw tipped and he caught it before it rolled. For a second he just looked at how much was left. Half, maybe less. He glanced at my face to make sure I was still out. I let my breathing stay slow. I liked him watching me like that. It felt safe.
He poured. The juice made a thin glugging sound going into the bottle. The smell hit me, sweet orange with something bitter under it, like medicine. My stomach turned a little. He stopped halfway, swirled what was left in the cup, then poured the rest. He held the bottle up to the window light. Yellow-orange. He capped it tight and then tightened it again.
Then he did something I didn't understand until years later.
He took the empty cup to my bathroom sink. I heard the faucet, short and quiet. He rinsed it, shook it out, then filled it halfway with water from the tap. He put the lid back on, pushed the same straw through, and set it right back in the dent on my bedspread where it had been, same angle, same spot by my pillow. From my pillow it almost looked the same, just paler.
He pulled a little notebook from his back pocket, the kind with the spiral on top he used for gas mileage. He tore out a page and wrote with his short pencil, pressing hard. I heard the lead scratch. He folded the paper around the travel bottle and slipped a rubber band off his wrist to hold it.
I moved then. Ellie's trunk brushed my nose and I made a small sound. Grandpa froze with his hand in midair.
"Maya?" he breathed.
I didn't answer. I pulled Ellie tighter under my chin and rolled a little toward him. His hand settled on my back, big and steady, and he waited. My breathing evened out again. I wasn't pretending, not really. The sleep was right there pulling me under.
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"Sleep, baby girl," he said, so low I felt it more than heard it.
He slipped the bottle into the inside pocket of his tan jacket and zipped it shut. He picked up his phone, picked up the purple bag with the leftover tissue sticking out, and stood there a minute looking at the watered cup on my bed like he wanted to take that too but couldn't. Then he backed toward the door, quiet in his brown shoes, and left it there.
