The Very Young and the Very Old

     When we pulled up to Papa's assisted-living complex in Florida, he was waiting outside in his maroon Jazzy electric scooter. It was just after Thanksgiving, and Simon and I were visiting one last time before flying back to Idaho.
     Papa is Simon's grandpa, the father of Simon's mom (not to be confused with Popi, who is Simon's dad).
     As we got out of the car, Papa was talking to an older woman resident of the same apartment complex who I initially mistook for his wife, Great-Grammy.  She had the same hairstyle as Great-Grammy, but when I got closer I saw she wearing eyeliner and lipstick.  Her face was flushed with health.  Her age spots sort of reminded me of freckles.
     "There are a lot of single women here," Papa had confided to Simon and me during a visit the day before.  "And most of them don't want to be single," he had added meaningfully.  "But what are you gonna do?" And he had shrugged.
     Papa was happy to see Simon and I, but most happy to see Clara.  He wanted to take her for a spin on the Jazzy. I'm told he nestles iPod speakers into the scooter's seat and drives it up and down the halls of his apartment complex blaring big band and Debussy.
     Clara looked at him with deep suspicion. I attempted to sit her on Papa's lap. Papa's had bad knees since high school, long before he got married and had Simon's mom.  World War II didn't help matters.  Now his knees splay stiffly out to the sides of his Jazzy's chair. In an attempt to make more lap to sit on, Clara hooked her little ankles around his knees and pulled them closer together.  She grimaced with effort.  I'm certain having his knees wrenched together could not have been comfortable for Papa, either.
     The Jazzy made a low whining sound as they drove down the sidewalk.  Looking somewhat put-upon, Clara glowered darkly out from under her bangs and held onto the sides.
     We--Simon, Simon's family and I-- followed them under the shade of palm trees until we came to the nearby building where Great-Grammy lives.  Papa makes the short trip between his apartment building and hers every day. On the first floor, he attempted to execute an elaborate, eight-point turn before backing into the elevator.  Simon's mom rolled her eyes in the way of daughters who have spent a lifetime dealing with a parent's idiosyncrasies.
     When the elevator doors opened on Great-Grammy's floor, we saw her sitting in a wheelchair at the corner of a hallway.  There was another lady resident sitting with her, and also a man.  Great-Grammy's white hair was cut short and combed straight.  It looked soft as cornsilk and was styled sort of like a flapper's.
     "Hello, Dear," said Papa, expertly driving the Jazzy up to Great-Grammy's chair.
     Great-Grammy nodded slowly at him.
     We wheeled Great-Grammy into a little room away from the hubbub of residents and their aides and found chairs that we arranged around her.
     "Mom, do you know who I am? What's my name?" Simon's mom asked, placing her hand on Great-Grammy's arm.
     "Oh, yes, yes," Great-Grammy murmured, blinking her dark eyes with deliberation.
     "What's my name?" Simon's mom asked again.
     "Mmmm-hmmmm," said Great-Grammy.
     "She doesn't know me," said Simon's mom to me.  Still, she told Great-Grammy her name and then pointed out Simon and Clara. Great-Grammy smiled down at Clara, who wore blue jeans with butterflies on the back pockets and a hot-pink shirt.  Looking at her, Great-Grammy even shrugged her shoulders a little like she used to do when she found something delightful. Clara flitted around Papa's Jazzy, eyeing the joystick that made it go.
     "Dad, put on your brake," Simon's mom instructed.
     "I'm fine, I'm not even touching it," said Papa, intractable.
     "Just put it on!"
     Papa made a show of swelling up a little, like a rooster, but then abruptly changed his mind and put the brake on.  Simon's mom had told us the day before that, much to everyone's horror, he had recently rearranged the furniture in his apartment.  Apparently he had relocated the eight-foot-tall curio cabinet in the corner of his living room using the Jazzy's footrest like the bottom slat of a forklift.
     We all sat watching Clara play with a deck of cards from a Carnival Cruise.  After a bit, Great-Grammy shut her eyes. Papa rested his elbows on the arms of the Jazzy.  His jowls and his drooping lower lip--my favorite feature of his--made his whole head seem to hang more than usual.  And perhaps he was a little tired.
     "Come here, Honey, come sit on my lap," he said to Clara.  She had made her way to my lap, and was hanging onto my knees, sighing with boredom.  She shot Papa Jack a look of pure coquetry and then tilted her curly blond head up and away.  The classic spurn.
      In the folding chair next to me, Simon's dad had dozed off, face resting on upturned palm.
     "Wake up!" Simon's mom said.
      Without lifting his head, Simon's dad briefly opened his eyes a fraction. "Leave me alone! I can nap if I want to!"
     Great-Grammy's breathing was soft as she slept.
     Clara seemed exhausted but restless. She kept eyeing some therapeutic toys stored in plastic bins high on a shelf.  Finally she ran from the room.
     There were toys in this place, but she couldn't reach them.  There were people here, but they sat in chairs and didn't talk.  And if they did, it was slow and filled with wonder, like a baby awaking from a dream.
     She raced down the hallway and pushed through a door that led to a screened-in porch.  She pushed against the porch's screen.
     "Mommy! This! Out!"
     "We're going back outside in just a minute. I promise," I told her.
      When I brought her back to the room where Great-Grammy sat, everyone was getting ready to go.  Simon leaned forward and took Great-Grammy's hand and murmured to her, trying to find a way past the tangled mass of broken brain circuitry that concealed her heart.
     Papa went cruising off down the hall, following closely behind two older nursing staff, their white hair puffed out like halos.  I had the odd sense he was chasing them, but then he turned the scooter around at the end of the hall and stared contemplatively through a doorway for a moment.
     Outside, two of the wheels on Papa's scooter went over the edge of the curb. He muttered deprecations against the sidewalk and the scooter. Simon's dad had to muscle it back over the curb.
     Simon walked ahead, staring intently down the sidewalk, his shoulders stiff.  Silent. Clara raced down the sidewalk in front of us.  She wanted to run around and around the complex, looking at tall trees with no branches, just bunches of leaves at the top, listening to the bright songs of strange, beautiful birds.
      We heard the whine of Papa's Jazzy approaching behind us.
     "They got signs up.  Don't feed the wild animals," he muttered.  "They mean the women."
      He pulled abreast of Simon and adjusted the scooter's speed so they could go along together, two men side-by-side.