Painless by S. A. Harazin Page A

elevating my legs. I was practically standing on my head.
    That ambulance ride was great.
    I didn’t have to stay in the hospital. My blood pressure had dropped dangerously low from the nitroglycerin, and I fainted. No big deal, but Grandpa started keeping his bottle of nitroglycerin inside his shirt pocket where he could get to it quickly, and it was safe from me.
    One day Grandpa said, “You’re changing. You’re becoming a man.”
    To me that meant I was closer to dying, and I was only ten years old. The next morning when I got up, I said hello to myself in the mirror and listened to my voice. I didn’t sound like a man, and I smiled at myself.
    Not long after, Grandpa went to the hospital and never came back except in my thoughts and sometimes in my dreams. He has his arms folded across his chest and he’s saying to me, “Where’s my nitroglycerin?”
    It’s evening, and I get my laptop. I go into Nana’s room and sit in the recliner.
    Nana reaches for her bottle of pain pills.
    “You took a pill after dinner,” I say. I pick up the bottle and read the label. “You are supposed to take one every four hours.”
    “I’m hurting,” she says. She looks so small when she leans forward in her bed and slumps her shoulders. “I’m worn out.”
    I don’t know what to do. “I think a pain pill takes a while to work.” I don’t know. I have never taken a pain pill in my whole life. I take off the cap and then twist it back on so it’s child-proof. “I’ll tell you when it’s time.” I set the bottle on the table.
    “I’m losing my mind,” she says. “If something happens to me…don’t let the paramedics…doctors do anything,” she says, out of breath. “Understand?”
    I look away. “I know.” I can’t take this. I email Joe.
    Need a new sitter immediately. Maybe a nurse.
    Joe calls and I tell him what happened with the sitter. Then I tell him we went to the DMV and cemetery.
    “You’ve been sending me the same email every evening,” he says.
    “It has the important parts,” I say. “Me flunking a driver’s test isn’t important to anybody but me.”
    “You’re wrong, David,” he says.

Chapter 12
    It’s Sunday afternoon, and I didn’t go swimming because it’s raining. I’m in the kitchen with Luna. She’s wearing casual pants and a shirt because she went to church.
    Nana and I don’t go to church. You never know what Nana might say or do.
    Last time we went, Nana said loudly that the sermon was making her sleepy, and her butt was numb. The people in front of us turned, looked at her, and shushed her. Some kids laughed. I felt sad and remembered how I was laughed at when I was a little boy dressed in goggles and a helmet.
    I hear a crash. Luna and I jump up from the table and rush upstairs to Nana’s room. She’s pulling out a dresser drawer. It hits the floor with a bang. Three other dresser drawers are turned upside down, and the contents are piled up like garbage. The sitter’s in the chair by the bed. A family album is lying open on the floor to the pictures of my dad’s high-school graduation. He gave a speech that night, and Nana probably cried with happiness.
    “What’s going on?” I ask.
    “I’m cleaning out the drawers.”
    “You don’t have to do that,” I say.
    “She wants to do it by herself,” the sitter says. “She doesn’t want help.”
    I wouldn’t want anybody going through my stuff either.
    Now Nana’s crawling around on the floor. This could get embarrassing.
    “What are you doing?” I ask Nana.
    “I lost my glasses.”
    I look around, see them on the floor, and give them to her. Luna and I help her up and back to her bed.
    She puts on the glasses. “These are not my glasses.”
    I take the glasses, walk around the room, and then give them back to her. Nana’s having one of her bad days. She has a lot of them. They’re going to get worse.
    Nana blinks. “I told you these are not my glasses,” she says in a mean voice.
    I want to