What Would Walt Do?

“How’s it going today, Walt?” I ask, taking a seat in the plaid armchair next to his, as I do every Sunday afternoon.

“I’m bored to pieces to tell you the truth,” he replies, still looking at the television.

“Well, it sounds like I got here just in time.”

“Are you here to visit me?” he asks, finally turning his head towards me.

“Of course,” I say. “Who else would I come to see?”

“Aren’t you supposed to make your rounds to all the old folks in here? Isn’t that what a good volunteer would do?”

“You’re my favorite,” I shrug. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” he says, a grin spreading across his face.

“I know you said you’re bored, so I’m hoping that means that you’ve got time to offer some words of wisdom. I’m in the middle of a total crisis and I really need to talk to someone about it. I get the feeling that maybe you’re the man for the job.”

He straightens up in his chair, and raises his eyebrow. I’ve got his full attention now.

“You’ve come to the right place. Hit me.” he says.

“Ok, but before I tell you, you have to promise you won’t tell anyone about this. I mean it – I could get in big trouble.”

“Oh please, I’m a vault,” he replies. “My lips are sealed.”

“So, college finals are this week, and I have this friend, Rachel, who is totally failing her world history class.”

“Your big crisis is a friend failing a class?” he asks, starting to glance back to the television.

“It’s backstory, Walt. I’m ramping up to the problem, so just stick with me.”

“Alright fine, just know that my attention span isn’t what it used to be. Go on.”

“I’ll try to speed it up. So, as I’m sure you remember, I work at the university as a tutor,” I continue.

He nods like he does, but the distant look in his eyes tells me he’s coming up empty. I internally cringe at my poor choice of words but keep it moving, hoping that neither one of us gets stuck on it for too long.

“So, Rachel came to me last week in full-blown hysterics. I mean, crying, hyperventilating, the whole thing. She said if she doesn’t ace her world history final, she’ll fail the course. And if she fails the course, she’ll lose her scholarship. And if she loses her scholarship, she’ll have to drop out of college. She can’t afford tuition on her own, and her parents are barely getting by themselves, so she can’t fall back on them.”

“This sounds more like a crisis for Rachel, not you.”

“I’m getting there, I promise. When she came to me, I offered to have one of our history tutors help her, but she said it was too late. She works 2 jobs while going to school full-time, and she’s totally lost in the class. There isn’t time between now and the final for her study enough to get an A.”

“Well, that would explain the failing grade,” Walt mutters.

“Right,” I nod. “So, when she was freaking out, I may have accidentally let it slip that some of us tutors have access to certain final exams…”

“She asked you to give her the final for her world history class?” Walt asks.

“Bingo.”

“And did you?” he leans forward.

“I didn’t know what else to do!” I exclaim. “I know how hard she worked to get into college, and she was going to totally screw up her future all because of a pointless history class. She wants to be an accountant, not a historian.”

“So, your crisis is a guilty conscience?”

“Well, there’s that, yes. But the bigger problem is that my boss found out that someone accessed the finals file cabinet without properly signing in and out, and he’s pissed. He’s threatening to go to the dean. He even mentioned expulsion,” I groan, dropping my head in hands.

“Ah, I see. You’ve got yourself into a bit of a pickle, huh?”

“To put it lightly. I would get in huge trouble if anyone found out. The only people who know are Rachel, and now you, and I trust both of you to keep my secret. But I don’t know what to do. I could really use some advice, Walt.”

“You know, this reminds me of a situation my granddaughter found herself in many years ago...” he starts.

My heart drops to my stomach at the mention of his granddaughter.

It’s a startling thing, hearing my grandpa refer to my existence for the first time in months. To have him start telling me a story about one of my own memories without an ounce of recognition that I am sitting across from him, looking in his eyes.

--

Grandpa Walt has been in the nursing home for about a year. My parents decided it was time to make the move when his confusion started to make him a danger to himself. They insisted it was the safest option for him, and I know they were right, but it broke me to think of him in a new place, surrounded by strangers. Although at that time, everyone seemed to be a stranger to him.

I started visiting him weekly after he moved in, hoping that seeing my face regularly would somehow help him hold it in his grasp. There were times during those first few visits where I could tell he knew my face but couldn’t quite place it, like he was trying to grab onto a rope that kept getting tugged just out of his reach. Those visits nearly shattered the both of us, but I kept coming.

A few months ago, I walked in for my weekly visit, and he thought I was a volunteer. The staff said a big group of high school volunteers came in the day before to sit and talk with the elderly. It must have been fresh in his mind, so he assumed I was another one, just there to earn my community service hours. It took me off guard when he introduced himself to me, but I did my best to go along with it, wanting to spare him any added stress or confusion.

It was strange at first, talking to him as if it were our first time meeting and telling him about my life as if he hadn’t been a main character. But it was also the first time in a long time that he seemed truly relaxed. That conversation reminded me of the ones we had before - our easy rapport restored once he was free of the stress of trying to understand why he couldn’t remember his own granddaughter.

I kept coming, week after week. Sometimes, he would remember me as the volunteer from the week before. Other times, he would introduce himself and we’d start entirely anew. Either way, we would spend hours chatting, doing crossword puzzles or watching movies. It was a fresh start at a relationship that I thought I’d lost forever.

--

Today is the first time he’s mentioned having a granddaughter. I want to jump up and throw my arms around him and remind him that I’m her, I’m his granddaughter. But I don’t. I sit quietly in my armchair and listen as he tells me about the time his granddaughter got caught cheating in middle school.

I nod along, stunned, as he fires off every detail of an inconsequential event from nearly 10 years earlier. He explains how she came to him in tears, shaking like a leaf. How the shame of plagiarizing part of her essay seemed to overtake her entire body. How he wrapped her in a big hug and told her that it was ok to make mistakes, as long as you took them as an opportunity to learn. And that after she rewrote her essay, he took her out for a hot fudge sundae. My chest grows heavy and a lump forms in my throat as he recounts one of my fondest memories with him. How can it be that he can reach back in time and grab this fully realized memory but can’t grab ahold of who is sitting in front of him?

--

“So, what do you think I should do? What would you tell your granddaughter to do if she was in this situation?” I ask when he’s done, my breath catching on the last question.

“I would probably tell her that mistakes happen. You did what you thought was best in the moment, but we are a deeply flawed species. Sometimes we make the right call, and a whole lot of the time, we make the wrong one. But it’s how you react to that mistake that shows your character,” he reaches across his chair, offering a gentle pat on the top of my hand.

“So, you think I should turn myself in?” I ask.

“Well, now I didn’t say that. I’d also tell her that if she's clever enough to get away with it – and you seem like a clever girl – lie low, kid. No reason to get kicked out of college because you’ve got too big a heart.”

“Thanks, Walt,” I say laughing. “I’m sure your granddaughter would appreciate the advice.”

“I hope you’re right,” he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, lost for a moment in a place I wish I could see.

“Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I feel a lot better,” I say, breaking the silence.

“Next time you come in, let me know what you decided to do. I’ll be waiting on the edge of my seat.”

I nod. I’ll be here next week, like always, but I’m sure he won’t remember this conversation. Not that it matters anyway. There is no friend named Rachel failing world history. I’m not a math tutor and I certainly didn’t steal a final exam.

--

Throughout my childhood, my grandpa was my ultimate confidant. For as long as I can remember, I turned to him with any problem or secret. When I plagiarized the essay in middle school, there was no question that I would go to him before my parents. His stoic, yet gentle nature created a safe space for me to retreat into when things got hard. He met every situation with reason, never judgement. And no matter how dire things felt, he could make me laugh, our twin senses of humor like a secret language only we could understand.

When I started playing the part of volunteer or whoever else he needed me to be at our visits, I selfishly wanted to find a way to remind myself that he was still my grandpa. The conversations we had during our visits were nice, but they were surface level. I wanted to bask in the warmth of his undivided attention and feel the tenderness of his concern again.

I thought that if I could just get him talking to me like he used to, when I was little and facing what felt like a world-shattering crisis, maybe I could feel like I had my grandpa again.

So, I started coming up with little lies ahead of our visits. I would take the problems of my friends or secrets of characters on television shows and keep them in my back pocket for my next visit. Now, when I come to see him, I share one of the stolen secrets or problems with him as if it's happening in my life and ask for his advice. Sometimes, he responds with long, winding speech about what he would have done back in his day. Sometimes he offers nothing but a pat on the hand and a calming silence.

No matter what kind of response he gives, I feel the same sense of calm and comfort that I felt with him as a little girl, propped up on his knee and turning to him for the world’s answers. Though the secrets I’m sharing may be not be real, it doesn’t take away from the truth of this feeling. And I hope that these visits, despite him not knowing who I really am, fill him with the sense of purpose and importance that he deserves.

--

I stand up to leave, willing my tears to stay put until I get to my car. I lean over and touch my grandpa's shoulder.

“Well, I better get going. See you next time, Walt.”

“Can’t wait,” he replies. “I’ll be counting down the minutes, kid.”