Monkey Wrench

“Please, please, let her be all right,” Susannah prayed. “Granny Rose? Can you hear me?”

A full minute passed—it felt like a week, at least—before Rose’s eyes flickered. A hint of color began to bloom in her cheeks, and she opened her eyes. “Suzie?”

“Thank heavens!”

Gradually Rose’s eyes focused, and she blinked. “What happened?”

“You fainted, I think. I was only gone for a minute or two, and when I came back, you—”

“I remember now. I blacked out. I was reaching for a casserole dish in that cupboard, and I—I—” Consternation filled Rose’s expression, and she clutched weakly at Susannah’s hand.

“Don’t talk,” Susannah commanded, holding tight. “Just rest quietly for a moment. Then I’ll call the paramedics.”

“Is Joe still here?”

“No, he just left. I’m here now.”

Rose frowned weakly. “You should go on your trip, Suzie.”

“Nonsense,” Susannah said. “The Caribbean will always be there.”

“But Roger—”

“Roger won’t mind. He knows how important you are to me, Granny Rose. He’ll want me to stay here as long as I’m needed. I want to be sure you’re going to be okay.”

“But you’re too busy—”

“Hush.” Susannah hugged her grandmother. “I’m never too busy to take care of you, Granny Rose.”

* * *

JOE POINTED his rattletrap truck down the street and headed for his own home, just a couple of blocks away. Snow swirled across his windshield, but he knew his way around Tyler as well as a native, so the trip wasn’t treacherous.

Joe Santori liked Tyler, Wisconsin. After growing up in Chicago and attending trade school and, later, engineering courses there, he’d been lured from the city by a job offer from the Ingalls Farm and Machinery Company at a time when he’d needed a change.

He’d never thought of himself as a small-town kind of guy. Despite years of hounding by his wife, Marie, who had wanted to raise their family somewhere other than the streets of a big city, Joe had resisted leaving the Windy City. But when Marie died of ovarian cancer, Joe decided to make the change she had always wanted.

He’d applied for the position with Ingalls Farm and Machinery before he was even sure he wanted to leave Chicago behind. But things had worked out well indeed, and Joe was glad he’d brought Gina to the rolling hills of Wisconsin.

For Joe, the culture shock had been tremendous at first. Wisconsin people didn’t lock their back doors, and they sometimes left their cars running while they dashed into the pharmacy to get a prescription filled. It had taken him a while to relax and get over his big-city paranoia.

But his daughter blended into the small-town milieu very easily. Perhaps because she was a motherless child, Gina had been an instant hit in the neighborhood, a darling of families up and down the street. At the age of six, she had learned to run out to the sidewalk after breakfast to find playmates to ride tricycles with until noon. Now nearly fifteen, Gina led the busy life of a teenager, complete with track-team practice, Ski Club, pickup games of street hockey and baseball—and her dreaded piano lessons, the only concession to femininity Gina would allow.

Joe’s only regret had to do with his wife, Marie. She would have loved the town, and he often wished he’d brought her to Tyler before her illness. He took consolation in the idea that she was watching from above and approved his choice of towns in which to raise Gina.

Joe pulled his truck into the driveway alongside the tall Victorian house on Church Street, just four blocks from the town square. He noticed the kitchen light was on, so he walked across the snow-dusted driveway and let himself in the back door, stomping slush from his boots and shaking the snow from his parka.

“No way, Gramps,” Gina was saying into the telephone. “You couldn’t pay me to be a cheerleader! It’s so stupid cheering for a bunch of stupid boys when I could be playing ball myself. Besides, I hate to wear skirts.”

Fourteen-year-old Gina lay flat on her back on the kitchen linoleum, her sneakered feet propped on the counter above, looking just as tomboyish as ever in her torn jeans and rumpled baseball shirt. She’d pinned the phone to her ear with her shoulder, leaving both hands free to braid her ponytail into a tight plait while she talked. When Gina spotted her father entering the house, she waggled her foot at him without breaking off her phone conversation.

“Forget it, Gramps,” she said into the receiver. “You can’t convince me it would be fun. I don’t care if Mom was the captain of the squad in her school. It’s demeaning to women. My piano teacher said so.”

Joe opened the refrigerator and took out a quart of chocolate milk. For some reason, he wanted to enjoy the taste of Rose Atkins’s hot cocoa all over again—and cold chocolate milk would have to do. He poured the last three inches into a jelly glass decorated with cartoon characters and listened to Gina’s conversation with her grandfather in Brooklyn.

He was glad Marie’s parents kept in touch with their granddaughter, despite the miles that separated them. Every summer, Gina traveled east to be with her grandparents, and Joe tried to invite Marie’s family as well as his own mother to visit as often as possible. Gina needed an extended family to keep her grounded, he felt.

Gina sighed dramatically. “Yeah, okay, Gramps. I love you, too. I gotta go, all right? Give my love to Nana. Bye.”

Without moving from the floor, she tossed the receiver to Joe, who hung it up. “Holy smoke,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands as if holding back tremendous suffering. “When are they going to realize I’m not going to be just like Mom was? Now it’s cheerleading!”

Joe grinned, leaning against the counter to drink his milk. “Your mom looked good in that short skirt. It didn’t demean her as far as I could see.”

“What do you know?” Gina asked witheringly. “You’re a guy. A little old, maybe, but still a guy.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Oh, Dad, you know what I mean.”

“Sure. What’s for dinner?”

Gina blinked up at him from the floor. Sometimes she showed signs of her mother’s innate ability to play dumb when the situation warranted. She said, “I thought it was your night to cook. Weren’t you going to bring home a pizza?”

Joe blanched. “I hate pizza.”

“I never knew an Italian guy who hated normal Italian food the way you do,” she groused. “Can’t you like anything that’s easy to make?”

“You were going to fix omelets tonight,” Joe shot back. “Those are easy.”

“We’re out of eggs.”

“Open a can of soup, then.”

Gina sat up, objecting. “Dad, I need a high-carbohydrate meal tonight! We’re playing a big scrimmage game tomorrow against Bonneville!”

The basketball team, Joe remembered. He had trouble keeping up with Gina’s athletic endeavors sometimes. “Okay, okay, I’ll make the ultimate sacrifice tonight. How about macaroni and cheese?”

“Great,” she said with satisfaction, climbing to her feet and clearly believing she had manipulated her father into preparing their dinner. Joe knew his daughter hated cooking, but he was determined to see that she was competent in the kitchen at the very least. She said, “I’ll keep you company while you make it. Where have you been, anyway? I expected you home half an hour ago.”

Joe thought of Susannah Atkins at once. He turned around and put his empty glass in the sink, trying to keep his expression hidden from Gina in case it revealed his thoughts.

Keeping a casual tone, he said, “I met a celebrity today.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Susannah Atkins. Of ‘Oh, Susannah!”’

Joe felt Gina glance at him. She said, “Is she pretty?”