Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,21
is sick. Alzheimer’s. It sucks. My mom called and said Grams didn’t recognize her today. Called her Bess, who was Grams’s sister. Mom cried when she was telling me about it. And she’s not a crier.” His hand clenches into a fist on his knee, and I notice his fingers are ink-splattered again.
“That’s… Jesus. I’m sorry.” I can’t imagine losing Granddad like that, little by little, bit by bit. “Are you and your grams close?”
“Yeah. She babysat my sister and me when we were little, while my parents were at work.” He swallows. “She was diagnosed last year, so it’s not unexpected, I guess. But it’s hard. Especially on my mom. At first she’d forget little things, you know? Her keys or whatnot. I think she hid it from us for a while. Didn’t want to lose her independence. But now? Now she’ll have the same conversations over and over. She can remember stuff that happened thirty, forty years ago, no problem, but not what happened yesterday. When I went home a couple weekends ago, she played it like she knew who I was, but I don’t think she did. At least not at first.”
“That must be hard.” I go to touch his forearm, just a friendly gesture of sympathy, but I chicken out and let my hand fall on my own knee instead.
Connor nods. “My great-granddad had it too. It scares the shit out of me, thinking my mom could inherit that. Or me. I’ve always had a good memory. I even won this contest back in high school for reciting poetry. I can’t imagine reaching for words and not having them there.”
I fiddle with my ring, which has a little gold hedgehog on it. Claire gave it to me for my birthday. Thinking of Claire gives me courage. “That’s a writer’s worst nightmare, not being able to find the words for things. Not being able to communicate.”
“You know ‘Dirge Without Music’?” He waits for me to nod, and I do. It’s one of my favorite Millay poems. He taps a spot on his chest right above his heart. “I got a tattoo with a couple lines from it when I was home over winter break. When I saw how Grams had started going downhill. I was so mad.”
I recite the first line, showing off a little. Connor doesn’t seem to mind. He joins in. I only know the first stanza, so I trail off and listen as he recites the rest. It might seem crazy pretentious coming from someone else, but hearing him recite this poem—knowing what it means to him—it feels intimate.
“I love that poem,” I say when he’s finished.
“Me too.” He gives a self-deprecating smile. “Obviously, I guess.”
I smile back, gesturing at the tattoo on his forearm. “Can I see?”
“Sure.” He flips his arm over, revealing some lines from Langston Hughes. I reach out, tracing my fingers lightly over the words, over his smooth, brown skin, a little surprised by my own boldness. “How many tattoos do you have?”
“Six so far.” He points to Dorothea’s poem on his bicep, then the Millay lines over his heart, and then tugs up his shirt to reveal words printed on his lower abdomen.
Jesus, he is cut. He actually has that vee that disappears into the waistband of his boxers, which I have previously only seen on TV. The vee, I mean, not his boxers. His boxers are blue plaid. Why I am thinking about his boxers?
I drag my eyes back up to his without reading the lines from the poem. All I can think about is tracing that ink with my fingers. “Nice,” I murmur.
He smiles a little, like he knows that I am admiring more than the tattoo.
He lets his shirt fall. “And two on my back. How about you?”
“Me what?” My brain is fuzzy, and it has nothing to do with the vodka.
“Any tattoos?” His pretty, tawny eyes scan me from head to toe, and I am suddenly conscious of how much of my own skin is showing. I’m hardly modest; I’m used to being in my swimsuit all the time. But now every uncovered inch of me feels different. Flushed and—waiting. Wanting.
I remember his question and shake my head. Granddad would have a fit if I got a tattoo. But Connor’s in college. He’s at least eighteen, maybe nineteen. He doesn’t need his parents’ permission for things anymore.
“Maybe someday. I don’t know what I’d get though. Or where I’d put it.”
Connor looks at me—like, really takes