Chapter 9 - I Told Miles His Grandfather's Name
That Saturday morning Miles came to the dining table before we called him. He sat in his usual chair, the one with the blue and navy striped polo from the other night now replaced by a gray t-shirt, and he didn't reach for the cereal box. He just sat with his hands flat on the dark wood where the plate with broccoli had been. The light coming through the blinds was pale and even, not that warm low glow from the dinner. Graham looked at me across the table and gave a small nod. We had agreed last night, after Letty left and after my aunt's call, that we wouldn't let him carry it another day.
Graham pulled out the chair next to Miles and sat sideways so his knees almost touched his. I sat on Miles's other side, close enough that my shoulder brushed his. The house was quiet. Downstairs, the basement door was closed but not locked, and I could hear the faint hum of Robert's white noise machine through the floor vent. I’d made coffee but left it on the counter.
"Miles," Graham said, "Mom and Dad want to talk with you about the man downstairs."
Miles kept his hands on the table. He looked at Graham, then at me. His eyes moved slow, the way they had at dinner.
"I heard you talking last night," he said. "You said you were scared."
My chest tightened. For three months I had thought if I was quiet enough taking the tray down after he was in bed, if I timed Letty's visits through the side entrance, he wouldn't notice. I had made him the keeper of something he didn't have words for.
"You're right, we were talking a lot," I said. "And you shouldn't have had to overhear that. The man downstairs is my dad. His name is Robert. He's your grandfather."
Miles blinked. "You said your dad didn't live here."
"I know I did," I said. "That wasn't honest. He has been living in the basement apartment for a few months. He's sick. His brain is getting sick and he gets confused and he needs extra help during the day and at night. That's why Letty comes to help, and why I bring him food."
Graham put his hand lightly on Miles's forearm. "He's not a stranger, buddy. He's family. But he's pretty ill, so he needs a lot of care. Mom was trying to take care of him by herself, and that was too much to do alone and in secret."
Miles looked back at me. That was when he asked it, the question that had cracked the whole dinner open.
"Why does he call you Sarah?" he said. "Down there everybody calls you Sarah."
It was the same calm, matter-of-fact tone he'd used that night. I felt Graham's eyes on me, but he didn't jump in to answer for me.
I swallowed and kept my voice even. "Sarah is my first name," I told Miles. "My full name is Sarah Vivian Mercer. When I was little, everyone in my family called me Sarah. When I grew older and left home, I started using my middle name, Vivian. It's the name I use at work and with Dad. Your dad has always known me as Vivian. But my dad, your grandfather, he has only ever known me as Sarah. Because his memory is sick, he doesn't remember that I changed it. To him I am still Sarah."
Miles frowned a little, thinking it through the way a seven-year-old does, literally. "So you have two names?"
"Kind of," I said. "One name my dad gave me when I was born, and one I chose as an adult. Both are me."
He nodded, filing that away. "Does that mean I have to call you Sarah down there?"
"No," I said quickly. "You call me Mom. Always. And you call him Grandpa Robert, if you want. We haven't been good about that, letting you know who is in the house."
Graham leaned forward. "That's going to change. We made a new rule, Miles, and we need you to help us keep it. First, we are always honest about who is in the house. No more secrets about who lives here. If Grandpa Robert is here, you will know. Second, the basement is his apartment right now. We all knock before we go down, and we go down together. Not by yourself. Okay?"
Miles looked at the closed light-colored door behind Graham, then back at the table. "Can I see him? For real? Not just food?"
I felt tears come before I could stop them, but I didn't let them spill the way I had that night at dinner. I breathed.
"Yes," I said. "We can go down together after breakfast. He might be sleepy, and he might not understand a lot, but you can say hi. And you can ask us any questions, anytime. You don't have to keep it quiet anymore."
Miles reached for my hand then, his small fingers closing around mine. The tension in his shoulders dropped a fraction. He wasn't smiling, but his face wasn't holding that serious, watchful stillness anymore.
"Okay," he said. "I didn't like not telling Dad."
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"I know," Graham said. "That's not your job. It's ours to tell each other the truth."
We sat there a minute longer at the dark wood table, the three of us, with the glassware from last night washed and put away and the coffee getting cold in the kitchen. Downstairs the white noise hummed on, even and ordinary.
