Up The Corner Stair (PART 1)
Up The Corner Stairs (PART 1)
Journey One: In The Shadow of Grandfather
“Up the corner stairs,” Grandfather used to say, leaning from the large winged chair that sat in the center of his study, “Up the corner stairs and out onto the rooftop garden, the Tic-Toc Man waits. Lonely am I in my old age, missing my clockwork friend.” And then, fearing he had said too much, would snap his mouth shut.
Tic Tok Man! The Rooftop Garden! How my brother and I held onto these little sayings of the old man, these little half-stories that he handed out like an inheritance, measured and incomplete. Over breakfast he might speak of fairies and during a chess game in the park he would talk about the tribe of Sasquatch he had once led into battle against a distant, storm-like enemy.
And every time, when he was done speaking, he would snap his mouth shut and pretend he had said nothing. His mind was ever sharp and we knew, Colin and I, that he had not forgotten what he spoke but was reluctant to do so again.
You can trust that Colin and I went looking for the corner stairs. We circled every room of grandfather’s tiny, city apartment – tapping on walls for secret panels, counting the floors of the building to discover if there was a secret garden some floors above his home.
And when he died, his last breaths a long, strung out song in the language of the dying and mad, we all felt he had taken the half-stories of his little world with him. We had not counted on the box of maps of strange kingdoms or the ritual book for our grandfather’s crowning as king.
How many families discover, upon a loved ones death, their secret lives? Here with our grandfather – wiry, white haired, brown eyed – we discovered not a secret life, but a secret fantasy that could swallow us whole.
***
“Darra,” Colin’s voice was tired and ragged over the phone and I looked at the bedside clock to inform myself of the time. 3:00am. Colin had come back to the city last night, opting to stay at our grandfather’s apartment. A freelance graphic designer by trade he had chosen to collect our grandfather’s drawings and fragments into a gift for the family. “Can you come over?”
“Now?” I turned in my bed, laying one hand where Stephen had so recently lay. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Are you alone?” Collins’ voice cracked on the line and I moved to my dresser.
“I am.” An early morning run to rendezvous with my brother did not require the finest of clothes and so I opted for a sweatshirt I’ve had since university.
“But you weren’t earlier…” I could feel the judgment in my brother’s voice. Collecting a purse I made my way toward the front door.
“He went home, Colin.” My keys hung from a cat shaped hook by the door and I collected them a bit more forcefully than I should have. Colin never did approve.
“To his wife? The so-called soon-to-be ex, right?” I consider hanging up but I am already in the hallway. “You think by now he – or you! – would have made up his mind.”
“I can turn around and go back home. I’m not even in my car. What do you want, Colin?” I asked tersely, anticipating one of our usual fights on this topic. The longer than usual pause made me wonder if the phone had dropped the call and just as I was about to dial him back I heard a sharp, hot intake of breath from my brother.
“It’s grandfather’s apartment. I was – just the maps and the papers. I’ve found so much more, you know. I was sleeping and thought I heard something breathing in the dark and decided to come out to the living room.”
“Ok.”
“I…I don’t really have an easy way of saying it. I found the corner stairs.” He paused and I had no words.
“I’m sure they were never there before.” He concluded.