Page 16 of 72 Hours of You

I crawl toward Bubbe’s room. Her room is the best for spying. There are lots of tubes and machines that make big noises that nobody likes when you hide behind even though they are the best places to hide.

The biggest machine—the one that makes Bubbe breathe—sounds like a dragon snoring, loud and rumbly. If you put your hand on the machine (which nobody likes you to do either) you can feel the dragon rumbles.

I am going to go feel the machine now. Because I am brave. So much braver than Jules who doesn’t even like to come into Bubbe’s room anymore. But that’s why she’s a baby and I’m a big kid.

I crawl into the room, sneaky and low. I want to plug my nose because of the nose-burning smell that stinks like Daddy’s mouthwash, but I keep going.

“Bubbeleh?”

I freeze. I’m caught.

“Is that you? Where is my little shayna maidel?”

Shayna maidel. Good girl. Pretty girl. That’s me.

“Here I am.” I pop up next to her bed. Bubbe’s face is extra wrinkly now. Like she was sitting at the bottom of our pool for too long. A Bubbe raisin. I reach out and touch her little face folds. They’re soft like a bunch of shirts in a pile. Mommy always says not to poke Bubbe’s face but Bubbe likes when I do. She told me so. Mommy doesn’t know everything.

“Gertie,” she says. And she smiles big at me. “Oh, Gertie, I knew you weren’t gone.”

I am not Gertie. I am Sydney. But sometimes Bubbe calls me Gertie. Mommy says she gets confused and thinks I am her sister. Her sister died at camp a Long Time Ago. It wasn’t the good camp that I go to that does lots of gymnastics and has snacks two whole times a day. Because Bubbe says a lot of people died at her camp. Mommy doesn’t like when she talks about camp. She says, “Not in front of the kinder!” which means Jules and I are not allowed to hear. They forget how good I am at spying. I hear everything.

I crawl into bed next to Bubbe. She doesn’t smell so good anymore, but she still feels good. Her boobies are way bigger and squishier than Mommy’s which means they make good pillows. I am very careful of the wires and tubes.

Bubbe puts her arms around me. “Sydney,” she says and I am Sydney again.

“Your smells are not very good today, Bubbe,” I say. But I keep my head on her chest. She laughs a rattly, shaking laugh that makes my head wobble. I smile. Bubbe always thinks I am funny even when I’m not trying. She doesn’t laugh as hard at Jules’s jokes. Probably because Jules’s jokes come from a dumb joke book she got at the Scholastic Book Fair and my jokes come from my real actual brain.

“It is almost the end, Sydney,” Bubbe says.

“The end of what?” I ask. Maybe this is a riddle.

“The end of me,” Bubbe says.

“Oh,” I say. “You’re going to die.”

“Yes,” Bubbe says. But she doesn’t cry. Mommy is the one who cries all the time now. Daddy rubs her back, not Bubbe’s.

“What will happen to you?” I ask.

Harper Grace said Bubbe will go to heaven and she will get to eat ice cream all day and I said that Jewish people don’t believe in heaven and my bubbe doesn’t even like ice cream anyway. She likes macaroons and pretzels that are too crunchy. But then Harper Grace just stuck her tongue out at me and told me maybe I was going to hell, then. I told her lucky for me we don’t believe in hell either. She took her unicorn BFF bracelet back from me after that.

“I will be gone,” Bubbe says. “Soon.”

“How soon?” I ask.

Mommy always asks the doctors and the doctors always say, “Only God knows,” which is not even a time at all.

Bubbe looks in the mirror over her big dresser and then back at me. “I only have a few minutes left.” Her eyes look bright again. Like they did Before. Bubbe is all the way here.

“Should I get Mommy?” I say.

Bubbe says no. “I want to spend these last few minutes with you, Sydney. With you.”

Her eyes fill up and then her eyes go away again.

“There were so many clocks. Everywhere you looked. Never on the guards. Never. Always us. So many clocks. Groups of them. Clusters. Everywhere. Every day. Clocks.” My stomach gets tight and snappy like my Rainbow Loom bands when I pull on them too hard. She touches my cheek. “Gertie.”

I want to slide out of the bed now. I don’t like the way Bubbe’s face is. But she holds on to me. Too tight.