Grandmother woke me at 1 a.m. “Eliot, the house is on fire,” she said, looking all around wild-eyed, one hand clutching at the frayed lace collar of her nightgown as if flames might engulf us at any moment. She braced herself against her walker, steadying all but her withered cheeks and sagging arms, which wobbled as she bobbed her head about the room looking for a way out.

“Everything’s fine,” I reassured her as I sat up on a cot near her bedside and took her by an arm, hoping to calm her – but mostly hoping to go back to sleep.

She reared back and pulled her arm away. “You think I lived this long and don’t know a house fire when I see one?” she asked with curt certitude, shrinking from apparent danger. Grandmother was ninety-five, and increasingly given to untethered bouts. I’d agreed to stay with her a couple nights a week, so my mother and her bother, Uncle Jack, might get some rest. Their rooms were just down the hall.

“We have to get out of here now,” she said, making meek fists of her wrinkled and gnarled hands.

I tucked one hand under her armpit and grasped her elbow gently in the other, leading her passed Uncle Jack’s and Ma’s rooms and through the kitchen to the living room, hoping she’d forget the flames. But she reached out toward the front door as we entered the room and tugged me forward. “Don’t just stand there, child, open the door for me,” she said, her voice as gruff as I’d ever heard it.

I opened the door, and she led the way out, though I succeeded in coaxing her to sit on the front stoop a few minutes. I promised her something to eat if she’d promise to stay put.

“Eliot, the house is burning down, and all you think about is food?” she grumbled. “You got keys to that car over there?” she asked, pointing at my flamingo-colored Triumph Spitfire – a two-seater with a very low profile and even lower ground clearance. “We’ve got to escape these flames,” she said.

“Grandmother, you couldn’t possibly fit in my car, it’s a bit of a squeeze even for me. Let’s just walk a bit,” I said. “The fire can’t reach us out in the street.”

“Eliot, we’ll never make it,” she said. “All this smoke will overwhelm us sure enough before we get out there. Honey, I’m trying to save our lives, and all you got is sass for me.” Grandmother was halfway to standing before I grasped her arm, steadying her, hoping she’d stay down – but she had more strength to pull me up than I had to restrain her.

So I opened a door for her, ready to ease her into the bucket seat of my Spitfire when she abruptly plopped herself down nimble as a teenager.

How would I ever get her out again, I worried backing out of the drive, revving the engine as headlights bounced in arcs across the garage door. Her easy chair at home had an electric lift to assist her in standing – but this Spitfire model had no “ejector seat” option. How would I ever explain it to ma and Uncle Jack? Well, I could handle them. The old lady wouldn’t take no for answer, I’d say, and of course, both of them knew well their mother’s brusque demeanor long before I came into the world. But the very idea of Grandmother glamming around town in my Spitfire would be about as welcome news for them as finding out I had helped her wipe herself one morning. Am I supposed to let the old lady worry herself to death? No, I wouldn’t be responsible for that.

Once we were out on the busy streets amid the blur of traffic lights, neon signs and automobile headlamps, Grandmother forgot about the flames. She stared out the window about as dazed as someone experiencing their first hallucinogen. Mesmerized and calmed, she smiled at the lights and lifted her hand, reaching out meekly to try to touch them, clenching her fingers when she thought she could snatch light in her hand. She laughed, I laughed along – at the all too illusory nature of lights, real and imagined.

I circled back. Ma and Uncle Jack stood in nightclothes out on the front porch, craning their necks, looking up and down the block for us, but surely hadn’t stepped a foot off the porch. One or the other must have gotten up in the middle of the night and noticed our absence. As I roared up the drive in the Spitfire, both gave me their best WTF jaw-dropping look.

“She thought the house was on fire,” I mouthed to them as I got out, circling a finger round my ear to indicate her state of mind.

“Well, how did you ever get her in that car?” Ma asked, running toward us. “Oh, Eliot do be careful, you’re going to hurt her,” she chided as I pulled Grandmother’s legs out one at a time and planted her feet on the drive.

“Why didn’t you wake us?” Uncle Jack cursed. “I’d have told her what’s what.”

“Don’t you start with me,” Grandmother dressed him down as I tucked hands underneath her arms and pulled her up to a standing position, aided by her rising anger at the two busybodies. “You two just go on about your business and leave him be. This boy listens to his grandmother.”

Grandmother faded quickly after that night. There were no more bouts or arguments, just empty stares as she lingered between this world and the next. Who’s to say what light(s) she saw on her way out?

– John Haymaker